Last year we were standing under the star-ridden skies in Northampton. My in-laws were visiting and we had concluded a day in Blenheim by trundling to the Racecourse on a crisp and clear but chilly night. It was July 4. Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes. Guido Fawkes, the prop-up man who had failed to blow up the British Parliament on Nov 5th in the year 1605. The failure of that plot meant that the country celebrates it – the Gunpowder Plot – annually with bonfire and fireworks, mulled wine and hot chocolate, under starry skies.
The passage of time. Today we are sitting and watching Stranger Things, an American sci-fi show in America. I have developed frozen shoulders as a result of the show because I am thrilled and creeped out. We are hooked, okay? We watch it late into the night and I cannot wait to catch up with it the next day. A strange fever.
On a complete aside, I was out for a run on a windy cold evening and watched the waters of the Hudson transform into a sheet of molten silver from a distance. As I neared it, and Adi joined me later on, we were mesmerised by the silhouette of a solitary duck emerge with a big fish in its beak and scoff it within a second, just like we would a plate of scones. We watched it slowly drift away across the waters into the lavender-grey sky.
There are many squirrels out there in the park still. A lot of babes with their tiny bodies and sprightly personalities. The chill in the air seems to have made their tails bushier like they own their personalised coats of sable. One particular boy was busy in his alcove on a trunk. He watched us but he was not that bothered. There was the business of chomping which he did with great precision. About 40 chomps in a minute. Then he stretched his tubby body across the bark, hung off it with those tiny hind legs, and continued devouring his nut like a little yogi.
On another aside, this weekend’s instalment of my pre-birthday gift is a throw soft as butter, silver with undertones of beige showing through. Needless to say, I am thrilled. It is the build-up that makes it count. Here’s to November!
ARUNDHATI BASU 
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