When a new restaurant in Chandigarh evoked déjà vu  

A couple of months back, I had lunch at a newly opened restaurant called Qisa in Sector 17, Chandigarh. As I entered, a sense of déjà vu swept over me. The place felt uncannily familiar. Curious, I asked the manager for the address. He replied: SCO No. 61, Sector 17-A. I was stunned. This was the very location where I had served as an executive engineer in the office of the chief engineer, Beas Construction Board, from January 1984 to February 1988. And more astonishingly I used to have my lunch almost at the spot where I was sitting now, as this was where my office table used to be. At that time, we were working on a project on a dam on River Beas at Pandoh in Himachal Pradesh.

As I left the restaurant, I felt deeply moved. Time had folded in on itself, allowing me to revisit a chapter of service and memory. Just as that lunch had rekindled a personal past.

 PS Tulsi, Chandigarh