Once upon a time, in the Sahyadris (Chapter 1/3 : Drizzle)


Chapter 1 - Drizzle

  

The autumn leaves remind of time,

That folds with wrinkles and some crease,

But with these years come riches too -

For what is life but memories…


I read the papers – they say, the monsoons are on time, promising a healthy Kharif harvest. Far away, in a land devoid of n’orwesters, my restless mind needs but one fallen, ochre leaf to bring to life a verdant tree.

I smile. On a less hectic, languorous Friday, working from home, there is time to amble in the gardens of your mind. The best part about this garden is you can pick and choose whatever you desire – no one stops you, time and space show no boundaries. And there is no dearth of flowers. Or of weeds. There is breathing space to smell the roses. And there is sunshine, both inside and out, to be dazzled by the glow of the amaltas blooms.

I wander in this garden, and find myself lost in the Sahyadris – amidst the wonders of the Western Ghats, the pilgrimage of the pregnant clouds, and the magic of the monsoons…

I go back to the first chapter in this freshly curated omnibus called ‘Dervish Days in Monsoon Mumbai.’ Yes, it always starts with Mumbai – an ugly, cosmopolitan concrete maze that teaches restive souls to seek. How else will you find? Silver trays make for poor explorers.

It was the last month of summer, and the last week of my internship. An internship, where I spent every other dusk on the Powai lakeside inside IIT, just watching the ripples of the water, shimmering with sandstone colours of the setting sun. (And occasionally waiting for the much talked about resident crocodile to surface). I would find an uncanny resemblance with the waterbirds – the egrets and herons standing still, motionless, staring at the waters rippling with a breezy dusky wind, their minds emptied of either aspirations or apprehensions.

 There were tantalising signs of the monsoons, the marigold skies being slightly teased and challenged by the vanguard clouds. With the anticipation of a paddy farmer – or an economist who predicted a 5 basis point increase in GDP thanks to a bountiful monsoon – I would rub my hands in glee. The summer was outrageously hot, the rains were scarce the year earlier, and the city’s tank storages were all plummeting rapidly. Yet, unlike other summers, that year, I had one immersive internship. You see, I had immersed myself in the natural bounties in the city – from cycling in the World’s largest urban park – the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, to exploring Buddhist caves hidden in the hillsides, to hiking on the ruddy hills of the country’s lowest lying hill-station, Matheran - I had suddenly rediscovered the joys of reconnecting with nature. And when you rekindle that dying ember, your source code gets evidently reset. Man, after all, evolved as a wandering beast – his DNA was configured to be a nomad in Nature. Once you get to that stage, you will find a deeper and more profound sense of peace in the falling rains, the whistling winds and the swaying trees.

Waiting for the monsoons that year therefore, became more romantic - waiting without expectations for the rains to arrive. There was joy in the wait itself in the dusky sun. There was joy in being a heron. I would watch the tufts of clouds and recollect a story I read in my childhood. Where the hero, Najab, crosses the Rann of Kutch, smuggles his tobacco leaves, and later elopes with his love, Fatima from across the border. When he returns to India, his mother wonders what to make of his son’s actions. When it rains for the first time in years, breaking the drought and giving much-needed signs to the questions asked.

Alas, the rains never arrived until I left (Of course, I hadn’t eloped with Fatima!)

Yet, I distinctively recollect my last evening. A parsimonious drizzle in late evening as I was trundling back to my apartment to pack my bags. Nothing else - no rains of redemption, no showers of salvation. Just a few minutes’ sprinkle that whipped up a brief petrichor, and dried up faster than it drenched.


Perhaps, it was a show just to keep the faith alive. Perhaps, it too was a sign – that it was not yet time: that I had to wait to reap the harvest I desired. Perhaps it was a tendril of time from the future, asking to return. For what would really satiate me was no single evening of rain-washed freshness, but a season, many a season of monsoon winds that would terraform the world in the surrounding Ghats. And with them, the mind of a passer-by, a wanderer, a poet and raconteur whose compendium of memories would be all too vacant without a rich chapter dedicated to the Sahyadris…

(to be contd.)


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