The Trek

The evening sunset relieved the tiredness creeping into me. The thought of the trek was very pleasant when friends called, but had turned into a physical horror as the day passed. It was the scenery that had kept me going. Green and brown was splashed with a randomness that presented many stories to a creative mind. All the modern arts in exhibitions had only one thing in common with this natural canvas – the absolute randomness. The paintings claim intelligence where probably none exists, while here though, the nature does not even register your admiration. Ha!

It truly is a royalty unlike any – Nature.

I was talking of the sunset. It was no special Kodak moment or any such thing. On second thoughts, it was not any different to the one I could see in the city had I cared. Yet, the day was ending and with it the trek for the day. Never imagined that the body would grow this old and keep it a secret. The mind was enjoying the franchise of money and modern comforts and the body kept growing old… silently.

I still was the first to have reached the peak. I was ahead of the others by at least 100 meters. It just did not feel heroic to allow the others know of your frailty.

It would take a few minutes for the others to catch up and so I closed my eyes. In an attempt to relax my body, I tried the slow breathing of the age-old yoga. It seemed to help and call it old practice I had just begun and was already experiencing the air rush through my body massaging the lung walls beautifully. A sound vibrated in the deepest corner of my mind slowly submerging all other noises within its fold.

He was sitting there – far ahead of us all. We were lost in admiration for his energy. He had been the quickest of all and we were the regulars. The scenery had been a kaleidoscope of amazing beauty along with ordinary earth. The river running by some where to our left was music to ears that kept the sun away from our minds. We were almost to the top of the hill. It had gotten tougher and darker. The clouds above had suddenly materialized and it did nothing to entertain our tiring bodies. Many a rocks jagged out at sharp angles and it was amazing to see him sitting atop one such tall rock with such ease and calm.

We were 50m from him now and the clouds opened up. It was the beginning of a very weird evening, one that got etched in our memory forever.

The rain. Yes it must have started when I was relaxing, trying to regain my strength. The rain was hard. It came in sheets of water. Between a few trees it did actually look like the low budget movies were rain was simulated just by pouring water from buckets. Our group had still not reached me. It was weird… I had been resting for what now seemed a long time and the others had still not arrived? Probably they had taken shelter from the rain. And I remembered… yes, it was raining. It should have been chill and piercing what with my clothes completely gone wet, and yet I had a pleasant feeling, a feeling that obscured the rain to the background of my mind.

He was sitting oblivious to the downpour. He did not seem to have seen us either. The rain was getting heavy and we started to run towards him. It was funny. We had a shelter to our left where there was a natural cave like formation thickly fronted by trees and we still ran towards him. Not one, not two but all of us. One would have thought that one person could have gone and fetched him while the rest run towards the shelter. But no. Each and every one of us as ran towards him. Coming to think of it now, we actually looked like a band of military men moving in sync with each other. His calm meditative pose in the rain somehow attracted all of us and we ran. Might sound mystical or illogical… but the day was such.

It was a melody - Melancholic melody that drove the chillness away from me. A sweet voice was singing a mournful song and it dragged my heart with all the strength of a giant. I could but not restrain my feet that started running and I knew it was towards the music. For me the rain was all gone and I was sweating from the fire in the sadness that whispered in my ears. I ran and ran until there was no more land and took flight in the wings of the tune. She had to be a tender delicate girl, a gifted girl but caught in some unknown agony.

Try as we may we could not fathom his stupidity. In the pouring rain he suddenly stood up and ran, like a gazelle chased by a lion. We tried to keep pace but we were people touching forties. Two of us still managed to keep him in sight. The terrain was difficult and it was dark. How he managed the speed was a puzzle. The chase went on for 10 minutes before we hit the river that had strolled along our trek path. The water did not slow him down; instead he seemed to glide over it. We suddenly stopped and yelled at the top of our voices. And the sound only drowned in the thundering roar of the falls towards which he ran. With bated eyes we saw him leap into the air and down he went the falls. We edged to the top of falls and we saw… nothing. The clouds were thick and the falls seemed almost bottomless.

All of us gathered and decided to wait the night out, there was just nothing that could have been done in those dark slippery conditions.

The morning came and with it we started a painfully long and deep search for him. The sun rose above our heads and then slowly down the horizon too with we finding not a glimpse. We had given it all up and with heavy hearts and tired body, we returned home. The formalities were carried on and a week had gone by with none of us able to get out of the shock. All seemed lost…

It was the seventh morning from the fateful day and we got a call. It was he and he was speaking in a hurry. He seemed excited, actually more like “frenetic”. Even as we tried to recover from the shock of hearing his voice and understand the emotions that played through our minds, he had finished the call. He was getting married and we were invited. One could not begin to imagine the state of our minds. A thousand questions knocked and reverberated inside and it seemed we would get the answer no earlier than the day of his marriage.

With eager curiosity, we reached the temple that was far away from the city and again were surprised to find not another soul around there. We shared confused stares and decided to wait. Five more minutes went by before he came walking from behind the temple. He had his right arm held as if it was on another’s shoulder. His eyes twinkled with a bright light and his lips twitched. And… we heard a mournful humming. We as one seemed to hear it and lost ourselves in it when again we were rudely brought to earth as we saw him fade into nothingness. His knowing smile and eyes lingered a little before he was completely lost to wind. And just as one of us tried to reach into where he stood, he jerked his hand and we saw the air shimmer. Did we say a girl’s image in the shimmer too?

No one could confirm it, but could neither deny it.

It’s been a year, we still hear the music… all of us who were on that trek… but none understand that day any the better.