November is always a busy month - too many conferences and the attendant need to prepare so many lectures, talks and papers, including rehearsing ones students. There was a phase in my life when I would have welcomed the travel. Now it is just more work.

But the last IAC conference in Allahabad touched a cord - not so much for the conference itself, which was exactly like all other conferences, but for the visit to Anand Bhavan. Nehru's family really lived in the style of rich English gentlemen and both their palatial mansions reflected the luxuriousness of the era. The garden was fabulous. Back then they had the same furniture, electric irons, libraries and cutlery which all of us use only now.

The initial wonder at their lifestyle slowly merged into sheer awe over the glorious freedom struggle - an excellent audiovisual tour was exceptionally evocative, dredging out the submerged memories of history textbooks read long ago. It was like living through history and being a part of it. All my colleagues from other colleges who accompanied me felt the same pull that I did - a marvelous shared experience.

This peek into our past made my first visit to Allahabad quite memorable.