Mamma Mia!

Impulse.

That could be the only explanation to what happened. The encoded whispers of the wind, the snarl of the restless Bullet engine, trucks whipping up dust devils, entangled plugged earphone - the world is now on mute. Birds fly with the sun on their wings.  The clouds look resolved into lumps, like sub-standard mattress stuffing. Church towers stand still like statues, a brown skinned girl in uniform stretches her arm, asking for a lift. Her smile had an innocent dimple. I pull over. She sits across, hands to herself, school bag in between. I continue. Stray lambs bleat with bells, Lawyers in black and labourers in stripped shirts discuss politics, over a steaming kulad chai. Nirmala High School. I turn the bike key anti-clock wise. The grateful smile said it all. As I continue, I look through the rear view mirror. Her size shrinks to a dot. The reflection is now overlapped by the gigantic mountains. I was near. But I was far. Nearer, would probably be more appropriate.

“Watch my Curves”, the rectangular banner reads. I swerve through the winding hair pin to feel the rush. The semi-circular tunnel ahead gobbles me and throws me out. The wind speaks to me, cryptic, yet soothing. I am on my own. 15 kms ahead the milestone reads. The meadows wore the mountains like a sideway cap. The dragon engine puffed out the incomplete combustion. Every milestone, it rebelled harder. The muscular clouds welcome me. For the next one hour, I tamed the accelerator and clutch. They seemed to enjoy the buttered whisk of air as much as me. Soon miniscule ivory droplets met my shoulder like a game of Tetris.  Slanting silver ropes slammed into my helmet, hitting it like gunfire. The edge of the mountains, streaked with moss, had grown soft, and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild overgrown atmosphere was full of blurry buzzing with the scurry of small lives. I noticed a chameleon rubbing itself against the stone. These were things I had not noticed or felt for a long period of time.  In short, I finally had nothing really to do and nowhere to go. I had tasted freedom.

A road sign indicated the disapproval of taking bikes ahead. As I walked the narrow road ahead, the colours seemed muted. The rain had chased them away. The deep grey blanket of clouds followed me over the mountains as I left behind the struggles and the worries as I escaped into this wonderland which made me feel like I was on top of the world. Let’s face it, I’ve been assaulted, hit by a car, thrown out the house by family, dumped by the love of my life, pick-pocketed, threatened and made to stick a cigarette in my butt during high school ragging. But right now, all of this just din’t matter. It was just me and the universe, eyes locked.

 The sleepy city looked peaceful from this height. Every problem looked like a baby ant under the microscope. There was so much to life than I thought there is. As I sat there with my ear phones plugged in with my favourite Ranbir Kapoor Starrer Rockstar , the view just blew my sense of proportion, dragged into realms that I had never been before, understand my life was anything but small, anything but meaningless and most importantly mine and only mine. The valley below urged me to fall like a closing elevator , how I wish I could freeze that moment and carry it with me through every minute of my life. And the winds whispered again – Don’t judge, don’t stop, Just keep moving – One moment to another.