Freedom

A commonly-expressed thought crossed my mind early this past weekend. Freedom is inside, they say. I pondered over it for a while and thought I agreed. And then I took a morning flight to Bangalore.

I landed on time, the city greeted me with delightful weather, I had a Sub while I waited for Karan to pick me, and tried not to think about the excitement that I was experiencing about the weekend a day earlier.

Over the past months, I had had several conversations with Ruhi and Karan about how I should visit them in Bangalore. But I could not make up my mind until this July, which is when I finally booked my tickets for this extended I Day weekend.

I admit that even though I called it my Bangalore Trip, it wasn’t exactly so because I spent a little less than 24 hours in the city. It was actually a road trip that started a couple of thousand kilometres away from home. Road trip to Wayanad, Kerala.

There was a lot of back and forth while planning. The distance and monsoons were deterring factors, but the fact that neither Karan nor (obviously) me had seen the place earlier was motivation enough to head out to the beauty that the place is. Ruhi could not join us because we took too long to confirm, so it was just the two of us, with GPS navigation and some good music all the way to Kerala!

To begin with, it took two hours to just get out of Bangalore. Apparently the traffic wasn’t too much because it was a Saturday morning. I take Karan’s word for that. Then we moved through Mysore and Bandipur towards Kalpetta, the capital of Wayanad. While some patches of the jungle and Kalpetta itself had horrible roads, the rest of the journey was smooth and a lot of fun. There was also a patch somewhere in the middle where on both sides of the road there are marigold fields. Bright orange marigolds! I made Karan stop the car for a bit because I could certainly not get enough of the orange. It’s my favourite colour these days. The air too was filled with wonderful fragrance. Orgasmic? Is that how things get described often? Yes, that was the feeling.

We made another short stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I may repeat this point multiple times, but I can’t get to describing how clean and cool the air was. We really did not feel like moving from there.

As you might know, I subscribe to a lot of popular stuff, including certain Bollywood moments. Thus, the connect that I felt while songs like hairat hai from Anjaana Anjaani and dil dhadakne do from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara played is hard to illustrate. Those were my moments of ultimate free spiritedness! I was conscious of the wind in my hair. I did not care a damn about how my hair would look later. Felt good. That’s all that mattered.

We spotted some elephants while in Bandipur, the green was irresistible, and my excitement knew no bounds. With that we saw a beautiful sunset somewhere close to Sulthan Bathery. Then began the bad roads in the dark, and a nightmare we were not expecting.

Neither of us had an inkling of just how popular Wayanad is. So we did not know that the place has a LOT of hotels. And ALL those hotels were occupied for the weekend. We went up and down Kalpetta twice over looking for a place for close to three hours. At one fully occupied home stay a guy called some friend of his whose home stay had place. The guy got us to follow his bike to the place. Within a few minutes he went off the main road, and kept heading straight into the darkness. He was about 100-150 metres ahead of us when he took a right turn. But when we got to the point we saw a dead end and a cross. It was a cemetery. My heart, which was beginning to get worked up because of the nothingness that we were driving into, seriously leaped into my mouth. It was literally a ‘cemetery on a hill’. I got Karan to turn the car around. But our luck, the left rear tyre got stuck. I would have had a coronary if it had taken a second longer to get out of the place! Of course, later it was funny and mister had a big laugh about it. I do not get easily scared, but this was just extraordinarily creepy!

After much ado we did find a place to stay.

The morning was serene; we had some dossai, and headed out to Pookot Lake. The drive was decent, especially through Vythiri. The lake being a typical tourist spot was a disappointment. I don’t think we spent more than ten minutes there. It really wasn't worth it.

A couple of minutes away from the lake was a little trail that was appealing. We parked the car and started climbing up. While I continued walking, Karan got a chance to play with his camera. With each step that I took I felt a wave of the unexplained go through me. I could hear myself breathe, my mind was as clear as the air, and the very sense of being in hills, tea estates, and clouds was satiating.

I climbed further up and found a small rock to park myself on. It was me and a vulture sounding a sound that wasn’t noise in that atmosphere.

After a while we felt we should move. As Karan walked towards the car, I struggled to get my feet moving. I don’t know how I lost control of them, but they were reluctant. But we did leave, this time heading towards the Banasura Dam. The drive to the Dam was about an hour long. The roads were good and the view even more beautiful! The music at that point fit with the emotions that I was experiencing then. That overwhelming nature of nature took over me. That was freedom. The tears felt like they did the leftover cleansing. I think it got Karan a little concerned, but it certainly was nothing to worry about.

The happiness continued during the little trek to the dam, and increased as I sprawled on the road up there. I knew the few pictures I was taking were ordinary, and I could not care less about those either. It was 1-0-0% relaxation. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Neither of us wanted to leave that place because next stop was Bangalore. We had not had enough. But I guess that’s the best feeling to leave a place with, isn’t it? Wanting more.

The drive back was as much fun. We sang, laughed, this time interacted with other cars moving with us, and reached Bangalore only at night, tired, in time for a pizza for dinner.

We browsed through some school photographs, talked about the times that were and the years that have passed. 15 years of knowing each other. The love, the respect, and the understanding remain intact even though we see each other only once in a couple of years.

The next day was Ruhi’s. So I said good-bye to Karan and moved to Ruhi’s car. At her place I also met Rohini. It was good to see her! One of the few faces that I like from Pune. Oh, the dosas she made for breakfast for perfectly delicious. I ate till I could eat no more, and then Ruhi and I stepped out to shop for some Mysore silk for Ma. Saree and Mysore Pak packed, we headed to Aroy for some Thai lunch. We did not realise how time flew by. We were still in our grown-up conversations and yumm corn & spinach when my Meru arrived. I did not want to leave.

I still do not want to leave the experience behind. I am sentimental about this one. It goes without saying that it earned a space closer to my heart. Ruhi and Karan made it perfect. The times when perfect is an elusive word.