CRAAASHHH...

I know that my nose is big, but this dew drop was overestimating it! It of course had to fall! I smiled, taking in the fresh air and not able to take in the entire panaroma around me. Mountains always inspire awe in me – row after row of sheer majesty, tinged in colours from dull brown to quiescent blue to wild green – all wearing gauzy veils of fluffy clouds and engulfing mist… mysterious, elusive, tanalising – like ladders that dare you to climb up them, all the way to the sky and back!

I closed my eyes involuntarily and laughed with sheer joy. My mom turned and smiled at me, and as I was looking at her, I heard the driver curse – and immediately got a lungful of musty seat cover as I fell on the front seat.

The jeep seemed to have a mind of its own – branches reached out to it from all sides, trying to hold it back, but only managed to give it a few scratches; my eyes refused to shut, their gaze refused to budge from the sight of green and brown vegetation roughly pushed aside by the jeep; the wind wuthered in my ears, blowing faster and faster; the tyres screeched over every twig and pebble on the forest floor, and each individual part of the jeep cracked and squeaked and cackled with joy as it broke loose of all shackles; and the birds flew shrieking out of the bushes as the jeep ran past.

Over all this, I could hear my heart beat painfully loudly; blood seemed to be wanting to ooze from every pore in my body; like a prelude, my eyes watered painfully because I could not shut them in spite of the rushing wind, my nose forgot to breathe, my hands clenching the door handle ceased to have any feeling, my throat dried up completely and my tongue fastened on the roof of my mouth.

My mind was flung into a swirling confusion of images – picture postcards of various stages of my life came and lined themselves up. My grandpa’s death, my first talk after I stopped stammering, my dog Lizzy’s death, the day I left Bombay, my field site in Kodaikanal… and then came an emptiness of thought that left me watching the progress of the jeep with a kind of horrid fascination, leaning forward on my seat.

I turned to look at mom.

Creak, creaakkk, whoooshshh..

Damn I really need to get this fan fixed.