"Space , rolling and revolving between him and his native heath, possessed and wielded the powers we generally ascribe to time. From hour to hour it worked changes in him, like to those wrought by time, yet in a way even more striking. Space like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state. Yes it can even, in the twinkling of an eye make something like a vagabond of the pedant and Philistine. Time, we say, is Lethe; but change of air is a similar draught, and if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly.." from Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Every December, saving the last two years, I almost made a ritual to travel somewhere out of the town. Each year it had to be different place, if it was Nepal some year, it would be waynad other year. Usually we used to book the hotels/ resorts in advance, but as the fate would have, surprises always would wait for me and my fellow traveller(s). To be honest, most of the times, the place was a last-minute choice. Evidently that did not give us enough option to plan meticulously but as an after-thought I think it was kind of intentional. I think we liked it that way, keeping some chances to be surprised. This did pose the risk of facing some trying situations but I guess that added the sense of adventure. I will try to relive some of those moments, the incredulous moments that pushed us to wit's end.
Waynad is a small and relatively underdeveloped hill-station which one year became our holiday destination. Sujoy booked a hotel, which seemed to fit our bill, though we did not know what to expect but Sujoy assured that it is a good and hospitable lodge with three-star rating and quite close to the town's centre. Also it is not easy to get booking for three persons at the eleventh hour. Anyhow, the bus dropped us there quite early in the morning, I think it was 4 AM. Though it was X-mas eve, it did not have any effect on the place, which had a large Christian population. We could not find a single person awake to ask about the direction. Himadri was kind of cool, he suggested that we wait on the road till the road-side tea-staller wakes up since it was just a matter of 2 hours before it becomes 6 AM. I had a different priority, I have been sitting in the bus for almost 8 hours and I badly needed a bed. So Himadri's suggestion was dropped, instead we started walking. Luckily it did not take too long before we discovered the board of the lodge. We were pleasantly surprised that the gate was not locked. It was a 3-storied, quite plain-looking building which was supposedly our hotel for next few days. We found the lobby [if I may use that word] and the counter with two sleeping bodies. Himadri targeted one body and after his vigorous attempts the body started talking, but it was not intelligible to either of us. Well the poor fellow did not know any other language other than Malayalam. Sujoy's language skill, specially in Malayalam was better than two of us [for some reason which I cannot share] and we thought we would put it to better use. Sujoy actually spoke first in Hindi and then in English but finally got the print-out of the email from his bag. It worked. Printed words have much more effect than spoken words, especially if you do not share the accent. But of course there are exceptions [which we were not].
When we got the room finally, the sun was almost out. But it was nice, the room had a TV [with remote] and the bathroom had a working geyser. The tea-stall was just opposite to the hotel and hotel boy was more than happy to bring the morning-tea from the stall.
After few hours of rest, when I got out of the hotel, Himadri and Sujoy already found out the local tourism office as well as the map and places to see. 'Well done! Boys.", I thought they needed some back-patting. Himadri, on the threshold of getting to add "Dr." in front of his name, didn't find it encouraging to be addressed as "boys".
In the meantime Sujoy was negotiating with a taxi-driver and his beaming face told me that negotiation was on its last leg. Before finalizing, we discussed among ourselves and unanimously agreed that it was a good deal. The taxi will take us around for the full day and show us all the must-see spots. We were relieved; relieved definitely because the driver understands and can communicate in English. But more satisfying is that we got a guide without any extra expense and our entire day is planned including lunch-stop!
The first point that he was taking us to was a set of pre-historic caves. The part that he did not tell us earlier is, we needed to walk one and half a kilometer before reaching the cave because the car cannot reach there. Moreover it is uphill road for the entire stretch, not to mention the steep walk/climb one has to take for the last quarter kilometer. Himadri commented, "Sujoy, what will happen to this old man!, Will he be able to come back?"
Sujoy was subtle, "Don't worry, Soumenda trekked in Himalaya. Didn't you, Soumenda?"
I decided to remain dignified by not answering to them.
The caves were really beautiful. One gets the feeling that time is stuck here for thousands of years. I decided to spend some time inside the caves. Himadri and Sujoy felt without climbing to the top of the rocks, their journey won't complete. So they went on to climb further. After twenty minutes, I got out of the cave thinking that they must have come down by then. Not seeing either of them, I asked one kid sitting there, "Did you see those two who came with me?". Without flinching, he said, "your friends went down some time back". How could they? I was bewildered. But I was hungry and waiting is the last thing you would do when you are hungry. So I started walking back to the place where the car was parked. After another 15 minutes, I started feeling a bit iffy. Where exactly the car was parked? It can't be so far, downhill walking takes less time, typically. But as far as I could see, there is no sign of the car, neither the place where all the cars were parked, nor a hint of a human form and I must have walked one and half a kilometer. Well, I must have lost the way but how do I get back to car? May be if I could reach Sujoy over the cell, I would find a way. I was looking for a phone booth [I don't like carrying my cell when I am on vacation]. But in that 'land of God', phone booth is not a ubiquitous thing. I lost few more minutes walking; hunger and midday sun of Kerala was becoming unbearable. I badly needed to talk to someone. Luckily I found a hut [or something like that] and there were people inside. I tried to ask them which way to go to waynad but realized my language is alien to them. What about 'Phone'? They recognized the word 'phone' but didn't help much. There was no such thing nearby. I started walking again, trying to imagine worse thing that could happen at that moment, like I become so sick that I could not walk any more; like I lost my wallet and it was already dark! But I had my wallet and it had enough money to get me a cab, if there is such thing available and I am not sick at all, feeling a bit exhausted but that's not a problem.
Soon I started feeling better. I started noticing that the road is quite smooth and winding and both the sides had lots of trees. I also saw farm-houses and there were X-mas decorations at the gates. "Some house must have a phone", I thought. Walked to a house and and explained that I am lost and I need help to make a call. "No problem". The young man speaks English! He offered me water, took me inside the house and showed the phone.
Wow! I am getting back the control of the situation! But the exhilaration was short-lived. Sujoy's phone is unreachable! But I am indomitable, I started talking to the young man, about local economics, politics, social structure. Man, I felt as if I am talking after ages! Anyway, I thanked him and started walking back towards the cave, thinking if Sujoy and Himadri are searching for me , they probably would look for me near the cave. I was walking slowly, kind of preparing myself that the episode may not end so soon.
And then, I heard some familiar voice; it was Himadri's voice and he was inside the car. He casually asked if I liked my stroll, as the car stopped near me. I almost burst! How could they be so irresponsible to climb down without waiting for me?? "Climbing down?" Actually they came down from the top just a few minutes back and since they did not see me, they thought I would be waiting in the car but when they reached the car, they did not see me there. The driver suggested that he would go to the cave and bring me back but the driver could not find me there and came back.. Well, I lost it there, can't be sure if the boy was the culprit or my extra-sensitive comprehension skill that made me run all these time. I remembered that I was hungry and so were others.
The driver took us to a kerala meal's hotel and we finally had the lunch at 3:30 PM. Boy! the food was so tasty.
