Road-Song

Last week we drove from Kolkata to Bhubaneshwar – my parents drove, i.e., while I watched the way from the backseat. Sometimes I think that’s my role in life- the backseat – always passive, never taking a direction, just allowing myself to be carried away or drifted with the tide – but let’s leave that aside for now. We started at the crack of dawn- at around 5.20am. It was a wet day, the sky was gloomy and my parents who were taking turns to drive found it rather inconvenient. As for me- I enjoyed the show. Speeding across deserted streets that would be choked in traffic snarls in a few hours’ time, watching the old metropolis waking up to another day, we made it from one end to the other of the city in unbelievable time – half an hour, to be precise. There was the great sacred river with yellow lights twinkling on its banks as a light drizzle grazed its surface. And then finding the Bombay road – National Highway 6, then 60 – long straight roads flanked by green paddy fields, frequently encountering diversions as men worked to repair the ravages of Nature – there were whole bridges washed away, broken roads- remnants of the previous week’s devastating floods. Sometimes we met the railway line, but it disappeared soon afterwards. At one point, the weather changed so that it was almost unbearable to tolerate the heat as the sunbeams penetrated the glass windows of the car. And then again the clouds gathered. Somewhere about an hour from Cuttack, on a lonely road, a single gigantic cloud mass hung overhead in the sky, almost touching the grass lining the road. When it started to rain, the world turned white, and my father was forced to park on one side and wait. So we waited, and I wanted to get out of the car and into the rain, but you don’t get to do everything you want to do in life.

What else to say? Results tomorrow, and I am terrified. I don’t even remember now how the exams went. Will get back here if I stay alive.