Bombay to Pune…

Had a crazy last week at work…in all the madness around me, I managed to find a little peace…it was in the form of a drive from Bombay to our Pune office in the early morning…it was such a wonderful feeling that I simply had to note it down in the car itself, lest I lose the sensation…here is how it was…

April 25th…
Driving to Pune…so so pretty…
its beautifully cloudy…each cloud open to a zillion interpretations…but today I’m not gonna play that game…they are simply what they are…clouds…
the hills are so dreamy…huge…in a distance but their curves are so gentle…like if I touch them, they’ll give in to me…and all that brown and dark grey is mixed with so much green…in so many shades…from eye hurting neon to a sublime bright lime to a delicious olive to a soothing chutney to the mild bland sap green…to the wilder kinda indescribable shades…so weird how the only way to describe one thing is to qualify it by another…why do we do that?
And the trees…oh the trees…so many types…one day, I shall be able to confidently look at a tree and state it’s name…place of origin…how its different from another…its peculiarity…the birds that live on it…the colour of its flowers…the details on its leaves…some day…am looking for a book on Indian trees, if anyone has any suggestions…
And amidst all this grandeur, to be one little person is humbling…to see the road stretched out before me and distances getting swallowed, as I get closer to my destination…To see the white dashes of the road curve and dance before my eyes and to watch them disappear under the wheels…
And the tunnels on this route are hardly your conventional types…they’re huge…with lights and numbers etc…not the dingy types we used to go through as young kids…where you turned on the car headlights and made scary sounds and faces and screamed only to be yelled at by pa…oh and I just found out that if you put your hands up and make a wish while you’re in a tunnel, it will come true…damn…so many wish-opportunities wasted…secretly, I made one the next few tunnels : ) sucker for such stupidity!
Oh I love the hills and these were hardly hills…I’m thinking of the hills in the north of India and it always makes me feel like I’m half way to heaven…the most exhilarating sensation is that of going up hill in a car…going in circles till you get dizzy...and feeling the smell of pine in your hair…the taste of cold air in your mouth…tears in your eyes from looking at all the green…just a wild feeling…and then to look out of your window and down and to see the village you passed, look so tiny…gives me a thrill…I feel so small and yet so much like all the other little elements…like I belong…
And then I look up to see the birds…I have always wanted to fly…to feel the air gliding under my arms…to swoop and plunge and climb…in and out of mist and clouds…just me and a few other random birds…to see my shadow on the ground as I fly…to feel that light…to feel nothing beneath your feet…to close your eyes and not have a worry…to see the world from a larger perspective and not be a part of the details…what a feeling…
From a distance the hills look so scalable…the trees so touchable…the earth so soft…there are so many constructions coming up but I choose to block them out…the billboards just like dashes of un natural colour…their metal reflecting off the light and shining in my eyes… the little pieces of glass on the road, making it shimmer like water…the car’s whooshing sound as it breaks through the wind…
R’s mirror bangles reflecting on the top and sides of the car…had me fascinated…so sharp and prominent and yet so transitory…completely dependant on the light to bring it to life…

We all need something…someone…to make us come alive…this is mine…