Nostalgia ride and time travel

(How we can time travel in flashbacks and nostalgia)

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Often in life, we travel to different places for different reasons. Sometimes we want to explore, sometimes we want to forget ourselves, and sometimes we just want to relax. Recently, I got to experience one special type of travel where I got to time travel my own life in flashbacks.

A few days back, I mistakenly took a different bus while on my way home. But since I wasn’t much in a hurry and had planned to walk in the evening anyway, I decided to get off at a different station from where I could walk back home.

So, I got off at a station where I had spent more than 10 years of my life — my entire childhood. And yet, it had been more than 10 years since I had last walked around there. The place looked totally different at first. With its huge buildings and crowded streets, it was a far cry from the open pasture where I had grown up. The huge contrast was a swift reminder of how much things had changed around me. A strange feeling kicked in, almost like that of being left behind.

But then, as I saw a playground where I used to play inter-school cricket, it suddenly unlocked my own memory box. I realized how I hadn’t touched a cricket bat in god knows how long. It was a timely reflection of how much I had also changed over the years. So, I thought to myself — “If…