He used to announce his presence with a sort of a whistle. And to every parent in the neighbourhood, that was like a medieval battles conch, announcing the commencement of war !

But those days are passe. The modern times that we live in of course have balloons that fly you ! Hot Air balloons they are called. The only heat in the balloons that i am used to is the one coming from my own breath !

There is one memory thought, that is evergreen. It was kindergarten. My class teacher brought a set of balloons to class, and set a raving cat amongst feisty pigeons. A fight ensued over a particular balloon of bright red colour.

And she separeted us saying , ever so sweetly, ‘its not the colour of the balloon that gets you higher. Its whats inside’ ! And was i floored !

I didn’t make much of it back then. But that conversation stayed. And many years later, made much sense. Of course. Of course ! That was a profound statement.

And then, the MBA happened.

On a hot summer day, after a listlessly ‘hot’ case study discussion punctuated with ‘it depends’, the prof remarked,

‘Gas will get you only so far. You need something else to get any further…like some colour ‘ !

I stared at him. And thought of my Kindergarten teacher. Life seemed to have come full circle !

This post concludes the three post series titled ‘On The Tree’ !