Just a Dream.

The moon was high over the lake. Vishal and I sat nervously over the edge of the cliff, 300 feet above.
It wasn't your typical cliff, more like a grassy lip on the side of a big mountain.
"Do you think they'll find us here?" I hug my knees to my chest.
"I can hear them... Shh" Vishal hisses.

A tense minute later, the crunch of twigs. Someone's above us, beating at the bushes to see clearer.
The crunching stops.
Vishal touches my arm to alert me.

I suck in my breath till my spleen hurts. I think I'm going to be sick.

They come at us every night. Every night we abandon our shelter, our home, and run and hide in the wild on this mountain. I have no idea who they are. I have been running from them since as far back as I remember.
We're supposed to run. We all are.

It is said that they come from that wrecked mansion on top of the hill that no one goes to.

Vishal says we'll go there tonight. When they've stopped wandering. And hunting. We'll go there tonight.

The crunching starts again. It gets distant. And then suddenly I can't hear it anymore. I heave and gasp with relief, as oxygen floods my lungs. Vishal smiles. It's time to go.

We clamber up through the bramble, trying to be as silent as possible. On flatter ground now, it suddenly made sense to run.

I looked at Vishal, and I knew he was thinking the same thing.
Spines erect, we bolted.

We ran through the high grasses without knowing what's on the other side. We ran till we were out of breath. We ran till we had the irrepressible urge to giggle.

I spotted the mansion up ahead, its top sailing over the grasses. The excitement was mounting. The adrenaline killing me. I turned to Vishal.

I turned to Vishal. Who was not there.

Panic.

My instincts urged me to drop to the ground before anything else. In the dark of the night, my torso hit the rough ground with a soft thud.

They took him. Oh my god they took my friend. I'm so angry inside. So scared.

So curious. Anger makes me brave.

I crawl on towards the mansion. My nails filling with mud as I drag myself forward without a sound.

I can hear my own rough breathing. What is this hell? How does it end?

The mansion is so close I can see its rough stone walls, solid and eternal.
Just as suddenly, there was no ground under me. I fell into a room lit by a sharp tubelight.
I hit the ground, ribs first.

Excruciating pain. My eyes scan the room, struggling to focus. A man sits on a table, picking at a glass bowl, filling it with mud, using a hammer to lightly assist the balance of the bowl.

"Run!!" I scream. "Run quickly! They're coming!"

He doesn't even move. He can't hear me! Why can't he hear me? Why doesn't he run?

A thought strikes me.
Wait. Am I inside the mansion?

I scan the room a second time. There's a fireplace-like opening.

I scuttle over and peek inside. It's a very narrow flight of steps. But there's light at the end. I think I can make it. There's no headroom. I have to lie down and scramble up.

I'm scared. What if they're waiting for me at the other end? I could be walking right into a trap.

I get nearer to the light and peek out slowly.

It's shocking. It's so shocking. What is this?
There's nobody at the other end waiting to kill me. No blades, no sharp lights, no blood or raw flesh.

It seems I've climbed up into the plush living room of a king. Its a large room. There are plush cushions here and there. The curtain drapes are gold and unending. I sweep my gaze swiftly across the long room.

And then I see him. He's sitting with his back to me, wearing a bedroom gown. He's old. He doesn't notice me.
But I'm scared of him. I don't want him to turn around.

He starts to turn to look at me. Fear strikes deep, and I turn in the other direction and run before he sees me. Or I him.

I run out of the long oak doors, down many hallways, past many empty rooms. I run till I see a wooden staircase with a gold plate pointing up to the library.

I pause. Unsure. I slowly climb up the steps and peep into the large room.
Half the room is exposed to a large courtyard.

It's daylight? Morning? When did that happen? I feel faint.

What is going on?

There's a table, dimly lit by the morning light, next to the bookshelves.

Two women sit at that table, eating, making pleasant conversation. I feel safer knowing it's day. I inch closer to them.

I know one of them. It's Protyasha.
What is she doing here?

Nothing fits. Nothing fits. Who is that other woman? I think I've seen her!

I can't control myself anymore.
I run to the table and sit, my eyes full of questions. Relief, too. But questions.

Protyasha cheerily hugs me. And then the other woman hugs me.

"Vishal wasn't well, they said. He was missing home."
"What?!"

I hear a car back up into the courtyard. I turn towards the courtyard. A door opens, and Vishal is carried out on a stretcher.

I can't watch anymore. What did they do to him?
Suddenly the man from that first underground room enters the library. He proceeds to clear away the plates.

My head is aching. Protyasha says he's the butler. How can he be the butler? Where are the killers? Who was that man in the dressing gown? What is this place?

Then the doctor walks in. He's not in his dressing gown anymore. I feel giddy.
There are so many people around me now. I think they've just woken up.

I want light. I want to look at light. I look at the Courtyard. I hope Vishal is ohkay.

Then I see it.
I see the sign. Or part of it.

'--me for schizophrenia'

Pain. So much pain.

"It's alright, Amri." A soothing voice.

I turn to the woman next to Protyasha.

Mamma.

Why I love rain.

Because it washes everything away. Dust, filth, pollutants, SPM, negativity.

Because the green never looks so fluorescent.

Because before the lightening crashes, the swirling energy of 'all hell about to break loose' makes it look like the atmosphere is holding its breath.

Because in quenching the parched earth, its coming signifies fulfilled hopes and wishes.

Because of the smell of the earth.

Because when it begins to rain, EVERYTHING exposed is in disarray for a moment, showing how nature is still all powerful.

Because it's a whiff of a breath of mountain freshness.

Because of the way Delhi's sandstone monuments, the wisely planned Islamic greens and the gray colour of the sky just form an amazing colour palette.

Because there is no traffic on the roads and I can race with the wind.

Because it's romantic. It's always been romantic. To be rain kissed. I've never been rain kissed. Have you?

Because there is a certain kind of music I only play when it rains.

Because I like the wind in my hair.

Because my parents never stopped me dancing in the rain as a child.

Because of the way the water trickles down from the edges of window chhajjas.

Because a sudden change in the energy of the atmosphere charges me up and wipes my own slate clean, regardless of how the day went, giving me the courage to not give a fuck.

Because when you let go, when you forget your problems, your inhibitions, your fears, your clothes, your hair, your kajal, and step out to be one with nature as the heavens pour and rejoice, you are truly, truly... liberated.

Moment

Even a person lacking the most basic exposure to the philosophies of life and the world would have heard, paused and pondered about 'living life in the moment.'

To shut your mind off, and put all your senses, full blast, into absorbing everything around you in the greatest possible detail, along with what you feel as a reaction, without the influence of what can be or what could have been, is a superhuman task.

The saddest part of it all, infact is that the more we grow up, mature, age, the more we lose this remarkable ability, having been tempered by life's ups and downs to regret, fear and procrastinate.

The truth, although, is very simple.

It's the moments that we do manage to 'live in' that we hold within us forever.

Cut to May 2004.

A little-known, rocky, raging, typical Himalayan river, the Tons. I'm in a raft with my Dad, my sister, my brother and the rafting camp coordinator, Nalin Uncle.

The setting: Virgin pine forests around us, the roaring blue Tons, the atmosphere thunderously holding its monsoony breath as we go screaming past rapid after rapid, body surfing in the calm stretches of the river, the still-innocent 13 year old me scared of crocs biting my behind, underwater.

As we approach the next stretch of rapids, with my stomach in my mouth because they're getting tougher and tougher, I see my 5 year old brother holding on to the rope ring line in the front of the raft.

We go blasting down the next stretch, and he squeals with the thrill as his legs go flying in the air, hands still holding onto the line for dear life.

I smile.

There's a song in my head.

'Chale jaise hawayein' from the movie Main hoon na.  We'd bought the cassette (yes, those) right before heading outta home and had been singing along with all the songs as we'd driven up to the rafting camp in this little heaven, a small place called Mori, 2 days ago.

Suddenly, more rapids.

Crazy rapids.

My brother sticks his paddle into the river, it jams between 2 rocks and snags underwater.

My brother:

"Oh! Usne pakda!"

Nalin uncle and Dad roar with laughter at his childish fear of 'things lurking underwater'.

Screaming and bouncing, we cross the last rapid, into the calm stretch flowing into our camp.

The river diverges and I break into a song as our raft approaches meadows and I see mom waving at us from in front of our tent.

"Chalein jaise hawayein sanan sanan"

My sister joins me and we take one last jump in the river, the cool monsoon wind in our faces, hell be damned.

..........

I surface.

From my moment. It's a secret place in my head that makes me happy no matter what I do, or where I am.

Just like millions of other moments locked away in the recesses of my memory, accessible to me and only me at my own will.

Untampered, unviolated, vials of happiness.

I think I'm incapable of generating the same, of even comparable intensity, anymore. Maturity has taken its toll. I'm human after all.

I'm lucky. Extremely so.

Because mostly, as we perceive it, the world is a hostile place.

But there're still some things that are sacred.

Some instances at which you say,

"This, I keep."

And those, I kept.

Thus, I’ve lived.