Cloudburst

When I say I was clutching on to dear life in the last week, I really was. My family and I went on a trip in Uttarakhand, initially planning to visit (and packing for) the shrines of Kedarnath and Badrinath. Unexpected extended heavy monsoons in North India literally rained on our parade. We congregated at Delhi airport, flew to Dehradun and drove to Haridwar in high spirits, meeting other families from our community on the same journey. In three days, most of these families (including us) would end up in Mussoorie. The ride uphill from Haridwar to Kedarnath was scenic, stunning hills and valleys greeted us Konkan coast folks. But the rains and according to our driver, the road widening which made the hillside fragile and unstable, meant a constant risk of landslides. We literally saw rocks slide down on to the road in front of us, multiple times. We were caught in traffic line-ups as JCBs worked tirelessly to clear the road of landslide debris. At one point, our driver took the risk of driving through, seconds before the rocks fell. My mother got a headache from just craning her head up the entire time in anticipation. Finally, after re-routing due to the Kedarnath road being closed, we were stuck in the Badrinath route when a government police vehicle came by to announce “all routes to Badrinath are closed until the 5th of September” i.e., two days before we were to fly back. 

What did we do then? If this was just me, or me and my friends, I would have panicked. I do not enjoy plans being derailed, and definitely not when I am stuck in the middle of hills that are breaking down. However, I was with my parents. So I sort of..let go? My sister and I curled up in the backseats, with our sweaters and little caps on, and closed our eyes pretending the problems don’t exist. Soon enough, we had stopped at a hotel midway downhill, where my parents decided to go to Rishikesh instead. As I had signed up for a yoga teacher training a while ago, that I hadn’t gotten the time to complete, this enticed me. Rishikesh is considered the yoga training capital, and indeed every lamppost and wall had posters of a yoga training school on it. One benefit of ending up in Rishikesh was that it helped me make up my mind that I am definitely not going there for a potential on-site training in the future. Why? It is cramped, polluted, and as much as I adore cows, there is way too much cow-related stuff going on in the roads for my civic sense (spoilt after two years in Singapore) to tolerate. We did spend a wonderful evening watching the Ganga Aarti at Triveni Ghat, surrounded by Indians and foreigners clapping along with religious fervor. Due to the rains, the Ganga was overflowing, and the Aarti was conducted many steps above the usual spot. I don’t claim to know much about religion or spirituality, for sure. However, there was something beautiful about praying to a river that has existed for millennia before me, before anything remotely related to me even came into being. We felt ultra-special because the small bowl of flowers and a diya-lamp that we sent afloat remained lit, for as long as we could see, even as all the others had burnt out or toppled over. Maybe, the trip wasn’t a total bust after all. 

I would have loved to just stay in my room and sleep through the week. My sister has named me Kumbhakaran, the demon from the Ramayana who sleeps for six months straight and then eats for six months straight. I had actually used that logic myself, stating how poor my sleep is when I am in Singapore that I need to catch-up in India. I didn’t dwell on the eating part, for good measure. But no, my father - the most energetic of us all, decided to shift us all north again to Mussoorie. Mussoorie and Dehra, now where had I heard these nouns for the first time? That’s right, in a Ruskin Bond short story from my school textbooks. I just discovered it was called “Frogs in the Fountain”, although all I could remember was something about koftas and marigolds. Maybe I am a Kumbhakaran. Anyway, we ended up in Mussoorie, exploring the touristy spots of Mall road and Landour, taking so many pictures that I could hear my phone camera whimper. On Saturday, we stopped by at Cambridge Book Depot, a spot where Mr. Bond apparently signed books on Saturdays. The shop owner in impeccable English informed us that, no, the 91-year old author does not walk up the steep climb to the middle of Mall Road to sign books, although there were some pre-signed copies that we could purchase. I did, of course, and on rifling through the first few pages, I was immediately reminded of my younger self who loved reading and would spend her afternoons at the public library. That is when I knew I wanted to write one day, just like I did today.