So I wet my pants twice in a single day today. That normally does not happen in the city. It's happened here, though. Twice. In one day.

I hadn't played table-tennis in a long, long while. In addition to forgetting how a TT bat (or is that a racquet) feels in the hand, I had also forgotten how dormant muscles react under sudden stress. Mine, apparently, react with a lingering pain that accompanies every single movement of my left and right eyelids. And then there's the sweat. Coming from the air-conditioned confines of the city, I did not know that sweating could feel so good. After about thirty minutes of running around (ending up playing lawn tennis instead of the 'table' variety - few shots landed on the table anyway) I was drenched, soaked and - for the young men who like their words big - bedraggled. It felt good. Very good, indeed. When I wringed out the sweat from my shirt, I felt like I had climbed Mount Everest, got down, and climbed it again. On foot. And I wet my pants. With the sweat. So there!

The only time I have seen so much grass in the concrete jungle is in immaculately maintained lawns. Everytime I have seen it, it is accompanied by a rather courteous notice - 'Please do not walk on grass'. And I have never walked on grass. So I don't know what dew feels like. I have seen it in pictures. So I don't know how much of it really exists on a grass carpet. I had to find out. And I did. By walking on the lawns, which had no notice board. I was wondering whether I should go ask the security if we were permitted to walk on the grass. I thought they'd laugh at a question as silly as that, that idea was promptly dropped.

About three steps into the plush thick green carpet, and my feet were drenched, soaked, and - once again, for those who love their language jargonised - thoroughly bedraggled. Then I decided to wet my pants. By sitting in the grass. Three minutes into the bliss, an unlikely villain reared his ugly head. The grass poked in a variety of places not used to being poked. Insects hovered around menacingly, some, doubtless, poisonous. Playing with life was not the idea here, and I had to make a run back to the safe air-conditioned insectless confines of the computer centre.

Makes me think about how sadly out of touch we are with nature - the plants, trees, grass, wind, earth and stars. How little we know of them. How little we care. I am not - and I repeat, not - environmentally conscious. I don't think I am environmentally destructive either. I am just plain apathetic. It shames me to say that I really don't care if a thousand trees are being felled for that new stylish mall. I feel a momentary tinge of sadness, but nothing compelling enough to make me sit up and do something about it.

Something, of course, should be done. Otherwise the kids - when they come, that is - won't know how the stars in the night sky shimmer. Or how grass loaded with dew feels when you sit on it. Or how sweat dripping from your shirt feels when you wring it with all your remaining might. They won't have the chance to wet their pants the way I did today. For all you know, they might just go down the conventional road of 'trouser-wetting'. And how bad a thing will that be? Think about it. And plant a tree.