I grew up in the city of Calcutta in the 90s and have spun many wonderful memories of that time. In our little neighborhood, everyone was part of a great big family who laughed out loud, celebrated the ups and faced the downs of life together. I loved that feeling of closeness and imagined life everywhere to be like that. And since I came from a big family, we had relatives spread all over the city and visited each other all the time. These visits were surprise visits as most of us did not have the telephone in our homes and that doubled the fun!

   While I really loved growing up in a city where life was easy and fun, I missed the vast expanse of the sky that fascinated me when I would visit the country side or go to our ancestral house in  Jamshedpur, a beautiful town about 170 miles from Calcutta. Going up to the terrace in our house in Calcutta did not allow for a lot of the big blue sky to be seen as skyscrapers, the heralds of development, seemed to be always under construction all around. Neighborhoods like ours with small houses were getting squished amidst the glitz that had slowly started engulfing the unembellished.

   And so on visits to the vast open country side or during our train rides to Jamshedpur, I remember just gazing at the sky, mesmerized. For a child my age, the sky held endless possibilities and dreams and I would sometimes imagine how it would be to live in a place which had unobstructed views of the big blue blanket above us. Life in my adopted country for the past ten years has allowed for that to happen and I am still as fascinated  today as I used to be when I was just a kid.  I take endless pictures of the sky whenever I can and looking at the big blue expanse, that at times lights up in dazzling colors, fills my heart with happiness and calms my distraught soul.