Last I wandered

It was a misty February morning. I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping and the splashes of water on wood – complete fiction stuff. With my eyes half open, I saw through a small window which opened into vast green fields. There was a layer of fog 3 feet from ground.. a perfect straight line of the same.. ran along as far as my vision went. As I looked, I felt a smooth swing of a large but slow wave. It took me a few moments to shift my feelings from fear heady to reality! Oh My God!! I was on a boat.

By now my eyes were on the verge of popping out. And then it set in – Ofcourse I was on one! It was the backwaters of Alleppey in Kerela.  I got off the bed and onto the wooden boat floor, caught hold of a jacket, slipped into my flip-flops and was about to walk out when I saw a bamboo wall art. It was a beautiful art piece made of bamboo peels. What disturbed me was the fact that it wasn’t aligned and it wasn’t artistically tilted either. I straightened it, gave it one last glance from a distance and walked out of the narrow and screechy doorway.

A young enthusiastic Keralite greeted me in an accent that I had started understanding now that I was in this state for 1 week. He genuinely seemed thrilled to see me. “Sir went out for a walk” he said. “How long has he been gone?” I asked. “Mmmm 30 minutes ma’am” he said looking at the old clock. I was stupefied when I followed his sight to the clock.. it was 6 am!! I hadn’t been up at that hour in the last few years! I stepped further out to the deck, there was a bunch of mini bananas that were left out in the open in the night. This I knew coz they had been bitten into, almost clawed into. I was told it was to be blamed on a large eagle or some such bird. I walked down the stairs onto the marshy looking grass. It was a weird stillness, almost as if I had stood stiff for the first time. This is was boats do to you. Taking a minute to firmly balance my feet I started to walk. It was a narrow trail with water on my right and paddy fields to the left. The ground was full of a million hues of green ranging from almost yellow to almost black and there wasn’t an inch of soil to be seen. In each step, I heard leaves pressing into water and felt cushion. There were so many branches that came in my way that it felt no one had ever walked in here. There were birds and leaves all around.

I looked behind to see how far I had walked away from the boat and I stopped in awe. The sun was coming up. Each second passing by made a picture perfect frame with silhouettes of birds and fishermen and trees against the giant, magnificent sun. It was one of the most beautiful sights of my life. It was modest and extravagant at the same time. I said nothing and conveyed such awe that no other form or creature or phenomena was capable of. It seemed like an hour had gone by since I was awake and no one had called onto me. There was an utterly undisturbed peace, just when I heard faint bells. All this felt surreal. I walked on towards the sound. The waterbody had started narrowing and I could see the other shore. Women were out tending to their daily chores. There were one small boat outside each house. The water seemed like their road while the cars were the boats. I kept to the trail and walked past pits and curves and nests and frogs. I walked up until I reached my destination… the source of the bells’ sound. It was a Shiva temple.. with one priest clad in white. I stepped a foot in and then I stopped. I went back to the trail and sat under a tree on concrete steps outside a house.

Quietly gazing at the water. The sun was out and there were shadows in the ripples of water. I threw in a stone as far as I could.. and it created perfectly symmetrical concentric ripples all around. I did this for a while and then everyone around started to bustle with activity. And then I walked back  to the boat. Walking past all the plants and mosquitoes; past all the curves and pits.

When I reached back I saw there were many other boats around which I never noticed earlier. Stepping onto the boat, I felt the soft waves yet again. It had been a lovely long morning while technically I had just been gone for 40 minutes. My husband was back too and had this blissfully tranquil expressions. I didn’t bother walking to the mirror but his smile said I had the same look. Then young enthusiastic Keralite, whose name was Mahesh informed us that we were heading back. He lifted the anchor and off we sailed. Past all the ferries carrying school children and the boats carrying fishermen and the eagles and the fishes. As we ate our breakfast out there on that deck, I saw another similar wall art. This one was tilted too. I did not try to straighten it. It seemed just fine.

I felt stillness! And a thought of that morning stills me even today.

The wanderer in me is on an empty stomach ever since would guzzle down any next chance she gets.