When I woke up this morning, the temperatures outside (the real feel of it that is) read -25°C. I could hear the wind howling outside as I went about my workout in the rooftop gym, watching bony trees toss their heads around. Yet it looks so charming outside. The soft sun lighting up the park, touching upon grey wrinkled barks and casting long shadows into the afternoon, the shimmering blue waters of the Hudson that are clearly visible every winter… it could almost lull you into thinking of it as a beautiful spring day. Almost. Till you look down and notice the man at the bus stop cowering in his jacket and balaclava, battered by rushes of winds. Then you wonder, should you head out for a long walk by the river? The winds are exceptionally strong after all. Yesterday evening on my walk past the river, on the way to the grocery store, they shoved me all along till I reached home.
It has been some time now that a new year has arrived, yet it is a struggle to slip into the routine of January. There are degrees of reluctance at my end. I hate letting go of the year that has been quite so easily. I do wonder about the kind of ends and beginnings you all have had. Has it been a mix of the good, the middling and the not so good? The arrival of another year does tend to make one reflective.
I have a fistful to reflect about, having arrived home from our travels in the second week of this month. There have been some new experiences and repeats of others in the meanwhile. Paris, Strasbourg, Colmar, Delhi, Calcutta…along with a first-time experience of flying the Etihad Apartment. I will go about them all at my usual unhurried pace, but before starting with my travel posts, I wanted to drop in and say, hello my lovelies.
ARUNDHATI BASU 
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