I grew up rolling and strolling with a handful of little wonders. One of them was the fireflies, the winged beetles that light up the dark lanes of the city suburb where I grew up. It was more of a village far away from the city's electricity distribution network and reach of city lights. I have fresh memories of rolling and playing on the grass-covered streets, watching random flights of fireflies on moonlight nights. Excitement would touch heights when you wake up in the middle of the night to find one or two inside the house, killing the darkness with their random luminescence. For some time, transparent polythene bags stuffed with caught fireflies used to be our torch lights. But we decided to give up the enjoyment of stuffing them in polythene bags after we realised we were making them suffer a lot. It was probably after an elderly man sprinkled wired the thought in our minds, "Just imagine how your mother will feel if someone stuffs you in a polythene packet like that!"
Many years later, in high school, I learned the secrets of these seemingly innocent, flying glow lights. Sitting in science class one day, I realised that 'the glowing wonder' was a 'conspicuous crepuscular use of bioluminescence to attract mates or prey'. However, this knowledge never diminished the sense of wonder about fireflies I have been nourishing from my childhood.
On my hometown visits, I try to find any traces of that ' darkness softened by moonlight and random firefly glows'. After three decades, the city has expanded its tentacles, gobbling the suburb I grew up in. Those dark grass-covered lanes have become parts of the busy city lanes. The growing concrete jungle has killed all the bushes that used to house my little wonders. The halogen bulbs that flood the streets now a day has gone the last mile to disarm them from their means of existence, 'the conspicuous crepuscular use of bioluminescence to attract mates or prey'. My imagination comes back with only two options, either they got crushed under the iron wheels of the construction machinery, or they have opted to vacate their homes, looking for places that still house that soft darkness of moonlight nights far away from my city lights. I can feel the emptiness grow bigger and bigger with the thought of the lost wonders.
The list of wonders is short, but it's growing, and my kid is the last addition. She crept into our lives half a year back and excited us. I am sequencing my thoughts and words to depict this wonder that has killed all possible reasons for silence and emptiness.
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