The Journey

True to the promise of the darkening clouds, drops of rain came lashing down from the heaven in torrents cleansing the atmosphere, making the rain starved blades of grass in the lawns of Oberoi do a rain-dance in glee. I could even hear the music they were dancing to from my first-floor window overlooking the lawns, though their invisible DJ was trying his best to keep the music low enough to stop it from reaching the unworthy ears of man. Initially my reaction was one of utter bewilderment at the cheekiness of these lowly subjects of the plant kingdom. Then suddenly an unruly gust of rain came in through the window and managed to wet my glasses thoroughly. In the following confusion and in my earnestness to wipe my glasses dry, I forgot all about the grass and their cheek. Later, when I had ensured that my glasses again offered a crystal clear view of what lay before me and I had regained my poise, I unwittingly became more compassionate and even empathetic to the little fun those green midgets were having. I made my way to the window to witness the party.

The rain had apparently stopped. So had the music. It was time to go. I picked up my bag and came downstairs. As I stepped out into the driveway, minuscule droplets of water began to hit my face. I had failed to notice this faint drizzle. With the celerity characteristic of a gentleman who absolutely despises getting wet, I took out my umbrella, unfolded it and positioned it above my stature at the optimum angle that would ensure the least part of my body would be ravaged by the army of droplets each a quarter of a millimetre wide.

As I passed the darkened area of the pavement just after the gate of Mittal Towers, a new concoction of a variety of smells hit my nose hard. It was not just the familiar stench of human urine that I encountered everyday. It was mixed probably with the smell of rotting humus and the smell of water-infused dry sewage and God knows what. While these complex organic molecules were violently hitting the receptor cells of my olfactory gland, sending a complex jumble of signals to my brain, another part of my brain sent some specific signals to my right ulnar nerve, which led me to pinch my nose hard enough to prevent the organic army from invading my nostrils.

Further down the pavement, there was a sea of water two metres wide stretching from the kerb into the road over which were running dozens of semi-amphibious vehicles creating an amazing pattern of progressing waves which was uncannily similar to a diagram I had seen in a children's science book years ago explaining supersonic motion. I looked up in awe at the Concordes moving past me and wondered whether I would soon hear a sonic boom. I was soon blessed with one, even though the motion which resulted in it was grossly sub-sonic. It was a collision between an autorickshaw which took a sharp swerve to the left in order to get onto M G Road before the signal went red and a bike which came straight down the left lane and banged it in the middle of its left side. The meter had a serious jolt and it was now precariously hanging from the position it once stood fixed in. The real sonic boom followed. I realised that though this was an autorickshaw, the real power behind its wheel was human. And at that moment, when droplets of water clouded my lenses, I had an Impressionist revelation of the true nature of an autorickshaw. Though, I understood, it hardly resembled the original hackneyed vehicle it derived its name from it lived up to the spirit of the original Japanese words jin (human), riki (force) and sha (vehicle) which were combined to form the word rickshaw.

As I walked further down Dickenson Road, the water by the kerb became darker and more mysterious. The waves were dancing to fewer cars and of course their party lights towering high above the footpath had become few and far between. I made my way gingerly along the dark, recently paved pavement, fearing at every step that my foot might find its way into an abyss which remained due to the oversight of the Land Army or some mass of fresh gooey concrete still waiting to mature into its final hardness. After this particularly arduous adventure, I realised that I had reached the moon. The beautiful craters on the road were almost surreal and instantly I felt transported to the white celestial body waxing towards the full moon four days away. As I turned off Dickenson Road into Gangadhara Chetty Road skirting past a beautiful water-filled crater adorning almost half of the road, almost imagining that the Apollo Lunar Module would land into it any time, a rude brute from terra firma rushing down from behind me gave me a start and the crater no longer remained the Mare Tranquilis that it was. A gentleman's trousers were thoroughly drenched by l'eau boueuse and my only instinct was to reach chez moi as fast as I could. Men of the gentler kind, I told myself, don't move about in the attire of labourers at construction sites. The march of the Light Brigade came to a halt as I reached the door of 29, G. C. Road, wet and ruffled. I unlocked the door and the place strangely felt like home. My finger went to the switchboard.

And then there was light.