I can never remember the way stories begin.
I’ll remember the middle and the end of a novel but ask me what was its first
line and I wouldn’t be able to tell you. That’s why I could amuse myself for
hours, playing the game of ‘guess the beginning’.
As my bus trundled along to Nagpur, I gazed
out of the window, wishing the landscape held some clue to the beginning of
Kakfa on the Shore. I was pretty certain it began with something the boy named
Crow said. But what was that something?
I had the seat all to myself – the biggest
blessing I could have asked for. Perhaps, no one wanted to sit next to a young
girl travelling all on her own. Chances were, it would have caused them more
discomfort than it would have caused me. Whatever the reason, I was glad to be
left alone. When you live in a city like Mumbai, you start to hold personal
space as truly sacred.
Unlike Kafka, I hadn’t run away from home.
I was merely following a whim that had possessed me as I held my graduation
certificate in my hands. A whim to take all the money I’d earned thus far
through my freelance writing and do a road trip across India – or wherever I
pleased. Of course, I couldn’t drive or ride any vehicle; so my definition of
‘road trip’ was a series of bus rides.
I’d graduated in biology. Whenever I
encountered that word, I had a vivid image of me plunging my hands into dense,
wet soil, fragrant the way only soil can be. Everything has a fragrance. The
dust swept up by my bus smelt of heat, sand and relentless labour. The wind
smelt sweeter – carrying with it the aromas of frying potatoes, blooming
frangipani and the smoke of incense sticks.
At home, I’d had to lie to get permission
for this trip. I told them my best friend would be accompanying me. I didn’t
feel guilty about it. I wanted to do this - before I got sucked into the
inescapable monotony of adulthood. I needed this one last adventure.
We paused at a fairly large bus depot for
new passengers to board the bus and I seized the opportunity to relieve myself
at the little washroom that depots were wont to have. “Two minutes,” I told the
bus driver and sprinted across the pebbly path. It wasn’t as dirty as I had
feared. By the time I returned, the entire bus was gazing in the general
direction of the washroom, awaiting my return. Mildly embarrassed, I mumbled my
thanks to the driver and quickly made my way back to the seat. It was still
unoccupied. What a stroke of luck.
I don’t know when exactly I dozed off but
when I came to, the bus was nearly empty. “Madam, we’ve reached!” the ticket collector
called out. Hurriedly collecting my rucksack from the overhead compartment, I
jumped off the bus. It was six in the evening. Something wasn’t right. The
signs at the depot were all in Kannada – not Marathi. Hesitantly, I approached
what looked like a help desk. “Which place is this?” I asked, imagining how
ridiculous my question sounded. “Gokarna,” the spectacled man in a khaki
uniform replied, with a marked Kannadiga accent. I stared at him
uncomprehendingly. Gokarna? That was a beach town in Karnataka. I had boarded a
bus for Nagpur, the orange county of Maharashtra. Here, there were no orange
vendors. I felt a comical sense of disappointment. A mental calculation told me
that both Gokarna and Nagpur were around 12 hours away from Mumbai. Was it
possible that I had boarded the wrong bus? ‘What else could it be?’ I wondered
aloud. Just to be certain, I posed the same question to two other persons and
received the same answer – Gokarna.
What the heck, I thought. It wasn’t like I
had a planned itinerary anyway. I whatsapped my step-sister to tell her I was
all right (she’d relay my message to the rest of the family) and took off for
the sea. By the time I reached the beach, the sun had already retired for the
day. Not that I minded. Darkness was comforting. It was a full moon night and
the waves were quite boisterous. I had to be careful not get my jeans wet.
There was no one else on my stretch of the beach. Solitude was really favouring
me today. I found a rock to perch on, and dipped my toes into the sand. It was
still warm. This part of India embraces heat like a long-lost friend in the
sultry month of May. I thought it was a good time to travel though. I didn’t
have to worry about getting caught in a downpour or lugging around woollens to
shield myself from the cold. All I had to worry about were beads of sweat and a
healthy tan – neither of which required any extra travel gear.
The waves lapped at my feet in a rhythmic
pattern that soothed my nerves ruffled by the mix-up with my bus. I guess that’s
what we all do – try to find our rhythm in life. And for two people to stay
together happily, the pace of their rhythms must match, more or less.
When I spied a trio of shifty men
approaching me from a few metres away, I knew it was my cue to leave. My thin
steel watch (I had my odd touches of feminity) told me that it was almost 10
PM. No hotel would allow me to check in at this time of the night. I walked as
fast as my feet would consent, making my way back to the bus depot. At 11 PM, I
boarded the last bus to Bangalore. I was the last passenger to get in as well.
Read part II here
Read part II here
