On the road to Goa, that goes past Karnala, and other places with names. Mountains moved in the sky, dwarfing and crushing the ones made of rock. The air was crisp.
The ‘thumb’ a cliff in the karnala sanctuary passed by, to my left. It’s like a finger, pointing upwards, as if to say ‘hey, look!’
What, what? Nothing. Just above the western horizon though, rafts of sunlight punched through the rents in the banks of clouds, limning the vast sky ranges. There were green fields and dark rich earth, upon crazy helter-skelter slopes. The road tried to follow with sudden loops and impulsive turns that can be dangerous when you’re greedily trying to take in as much of the countryside as possible.
I took a turn (@##$%^^ that was close) and passed into fairyland. The sun was behind a diaphanous veil of cloud, and an ethereal, gossamer light fell gently upon a suitably fantastical landscape. Even the shadows were less substantial, more ghostly than usual.
It wanted a few minutes for six ‘o’ clock. But maybe this was the true meaning of twilight.
Then I crossed a bridge when I came to it. It took me over a river that took a great lazy curve underneath, turgid with the new rains. There were also neat little plots of ploughed land on its banks, under the bridge. So what happens to the crops when the river overflows?
There is a fruit and vegetable market with a thick, dark grove of trees as a backdrop, right after the bridge. The surrounding farmlands and orchards supply it, I think. They are neat little shops, nothing more than thatch on a couple of thin poles and a rough wooden bench. They appear to belong. There is a long row of them. I bought a Rajapuri, at twenty rupees a kilo. The young woman weighed one. One kilo. How convenient. Nature must know how these things work. Now, this market. Middlemen, we all know, take a bite out of the profits before these things reach the city. There are some varieties of fruits indescribably delicious, that never reach the cities. The middlemen take the truly superior specimens of these fruit and eat them or export them to wealthy societies in underground bunkers. Beware of the middlemen.
I took a turn off the road, to the right (I hate the north side of the road. Always.). I found a villager walking, going where I do not care. I gave him a lift, and asked him where the road went. Dadarpheni, or was that kheni. In other words, nowhere notable. We drove a little way down an eye poppingly beautiful and fairly unfrequented path. It went through a quaint little level crossing and then an endless village, becoming squishy, slimy. The village was mind numbingly squalid. It did not seem to be particularly wealthy. It was certainly not picturesque. Why should such a promising road lead to such a dreary place? Then I remembered. It is the journey, not the destination.
I returned to the highway and turned back towards Mumbai, the great stinking cesspool of fervid and stale dreams.
I stopped for a coffee at a place that is so deviant as to serve a rice roti. It’s marathi, you see. Very bad coffee. But they have nice tissue paper. Soft and absorbent, perfect for cleaning helmet visors.
I’m not sure if the following happened:
The road crossed the level crossing and continued on to become slushy, squishy as it passed through a depressingly squalid village.
“I will get off here,” said my pillion.
“Okay,” I said. “Any chance of some tea?”
“Go back to the main road,” he said, a little brusquely, I thought. Considering that I had just given him a lift.
I got off the bike. I put it on its side stand. The man took a careful look at me. Then he said, clearly enunciating the words and also pointing in the right direction: “the main road.”
“It’s alright,” I said.
The man continued to look at me intently. Then he apparently decided to panic. “You must go before the darkness,” he hissed.
He was rather tense. I couldn’t see why, and this made him even more edgy. He put a hand on my shoulder and pushed. He meant this more as an aid to comprehension than as a threat. I stepped away from him, going backwards. “Hey,” I said. And then I said, “hey!”
The man took a long, exasperated look at me, his teeth showing in a rictus of frustration.
Then he turned around and walked rapidly away, merging into the indistinct shapes of the buildings in the village.
I stood there, leaning on the old bike, listening to the bird song. And the crickets. And the wind. The great thunder of a passing train. And then nothing.
I listened more carefully. It was not that I heard nothing. There was nothing to be heard. It’s what you hear when there’s nothing around to make any noise.
Then the light went. Completely, suddenly. The darkness pushed against my staring eyes.
But at last, I began to see again. But it was just my imagination, trying to scare me. “Look,” it said, pointing,. “A dark indistinct shape, floating noiselessly towards you.”
“And there, did you see that? Something on the ground, crawling. It’s standing up now, I think.”
I closed my eyes, and groped my way towards the bike. I touched something hairy at about shoulder level. I stepped back, deliberately. And waited for my heart to stop jumping around in my rib cage. Actually, it was a leafy branch of a tree, of which there were many hereabout, you idiot.
I groped some more. Now where could my bike have gone. I could have sworn that it was within arm’s reach, the last I saw.
My left shin touched something hard and hot. The exhaust pipe of a Bullet after a long and hard ride. I hugged the old bike. The helmet was where I’d left it hanging from a rear view mirror. I started her up. The headlight shone on the hedge of short trees that lined the path. I turned the bike around, trying not to think of the faces. The faces! Staring through the gaps in the trees. Just standing there, not at all bothered that they did not have bodies to stand on. The FACES. Mummy!
I shifted into first gear. Second gear. Third gear. Fourth gear. I wished there was a fifth gear*. The narrow country road, which twisted and turned through corners blinded by the trees growing along its edge, was good for third gear at best. At many places, the shoulders of the road fell away into deep hollows and a gulch or two that passed under tiny bridges on the narrow path. A slight mistake could launch me into the air. And then I would become another face, staring dementedly from the darkness.
But now, I slowed down. Then I stopped, keeping the engine running. I opened the throttle a couple of times. The bike roared. Then I opened it up all the way and turned the headlight deliberately into the surrounding darkness. The faces! White, staring in the light.
The Bullet’s thunder, however, was destroying the eerie silence. The air vibrated. The faces were beginning to melt in the white heat of its light. They crumbled, disintegrated and disappeared.
I stopped the engine. There was the dead silence again. But soon the crickets started up. A train was approaching, with its giant wheezing. The stars silhouetted the trees, and lit the quiet and dark fields with their neat furrows.
Not hurrying, I moved on down the road. I hit the highway 2 kilometres on. A teashop at the turn off to the country road. There were a few customers. I was glad to see them, for here was the solution to the mystery of the faces, and it was simple, as these things usually are. They had left their bodies at the tea shop.
* The bike was a Bullet Electra, the year was 2004.