EPILOGUE: Uttarakhand Diary
Have you ever felt that eruption of a crush? As if someone has just squeezed your heart and all the blood has reached your head! You start floating around in space even though you are standing right there on the ground. It is nothing but an anticipatory chemical surge. You got to blame the chemical dopamine. So what? I say! It feels real and it is – we can define real later on!
The bus for Rishikesh had started moving when there were voices heard, someone was yelling from outside. The conductor asked the driver to stop for a minute. Two women came into the bus and seated themselves and the bus started off again with a lurch - the dusty landscape soon giving way to narrow, congested roads.
She was now sitting in the bus with her mother. She would have been around twenty five or so, well endowed and taller than her mother; as she sat there she wiped the sweat beads off her dusky forehead with her dupatta!
Princess is what her mother called her (the translation from Hindi). It was during the stopover at a temple - a large white one that I faintly remember was related to some goddess that I came face to face with Princess (P in short).
The mobile phone is one device, one marvelous invention of mankind! Leading companies fight over market share and mobile memory share. All its advantages of mobility and tons of ridiculous features and then some! However it can sometimes be a real pain, if you ask me.
As we were walking down to the temple her mobile rang and after that she continued speaking forever... Later the guide kept explaining something on the efficacy of Rudraksh - a dry herb and P kept speaking on the mobile. I kept looking at her once in a while - she realized my gaze at one point, that didn’t deter me – she was quite beautiful!
It was inside Choti-waale - a unique hotel at Ramjhulaa (Rishikesh) that I first spoke to her. Actually she spoke to me!
"Have you missed the bus?” she asked me suggesting that we had not seen the guide again as promised.
"I hope I haven’t", I quipped.
We waited for sometime after which we actually started walking towards the spot where the other visitors were.
"So you are from Haridwar?", I asked her keeping the conversation going.
"Yeah, you?"
Bangalore I said and then she started to speak on her mother's sister's husband being a software engineer in Bangalore, and her wide eyed wonder when I said I wasn’t exactly employed and was running a small startup. She wouldn’t believe as if in the Mecca of jobs - Bangalore it was impossible for me to be an entrepreneur! Is this common for all girls?
We continued speaking once in a while when we would get a chance. She smiled when she spoke, and I'd admire her in my mind. Her mother was a woman of few words and just smiled and nodded once in a while.
We had lost the way and we crossed the river Ganges at the Ramjhula bridge and as we chatted along we got an auto and reached the spot where the return bus to Haridwar would be. In the bus we hardly spoke as I was sitting in the end and they were sitting in the front. When we went to the final temple we met for the last time. They went in one direction and I went in another.
I could hardly sleep that night and then the alarm woke me up at 3:15 AM! And that’s the end - if I meet her again I may not even recognize her - the little fallacies and joys of life!!
The dopamine overdose washed out as we in the bus started climbing the hilly terrain on the way to Badrinath. The breathtaking views erased every last residue of memory of the beautiful damsel!
That should explain why dopamine attacks are alternately termed as Maya in Indian spirituality and literature! Humans (men) are tuned that way to be on the lookout. And as long as they don’t cause any damage, no harm!
Have you ever felt that eruption of a crush? As if someone has just squeezed your heart and all the blood has reached your head! You start floating around in space even though you are standing right there on the ground. It is nothing but an anticipatory chemical surge. You got to blame the chemical dopamine. So what? I say! It feels real and it is – we can define real later on!
The bus for Rishikesh had started moving when there were voices heard, someone was yelling from outside. The conductor asked the driver to stop for a minute. Two women came into the bus and seated themselves and the bus started off again with a lurch - the dusty landscape soon giving way to narrow, congested roads.
She was now sitting in the bus with her mother. She would have been around twenty five or so, well endowed and taller than her mother; as she sat there she wiped the sweat beads off her dusky forehead with her dupatta!
Princess is what her mother called her (the translation from Hindi). It was during the stopover at a temple - a large white one that I faintly remember was related to some goddess that I came face to face with Princess (P in short).
The mobile phone is one device, one marvelous invention of mankind! Leading companies fight over market share and mobile memory share. All its advantages of mobility and tons of ridiculous features and then some! However it can sometimes be a real pain, if you ask me.
As we were walking down to the temple her mobile rang and after that she continued speaking forever... Later the guide kept explaining something on the efficacy of Rudraksh - a dry herb and P kept speaking on the mobile. I kept looking at her once in a while - she realized my gaze at one point, that didn’t deter me – she was quite beautiful!
It was inside Choti-waale - a unique hotel at Ramjhulaa (Rishikesh) that I first spoke to her. Actually she spoke to me!
"Have you missed the bus?” she asked me suggesting that we had not seen the guide again as promised.
"I hope I haven’t", I quipped.
We waited for sometime after which we actually started walking towards the spot where the other visitors were.
"So you are from Haridwar?", I asked her keeping the conversation going.
"Yeah, you?"
Bangalore I said and then she started to speak on her mother's sister's husband being a software engineer in Bangalore, and her wide eyed wonder when I said I wasn’t exactly employed and was running a small startup. She wouldn’t believe as if in the Mecca of jobs - Bangalore it was impossible for me to be an entrepreneur! Is this common for all girls?
We continued speaking once in a while when we would get a chance. She smiled when she spoke, and I'd admire her in my mind. Her mother was a woman of few words and just smiled and nodded once in a while.
We had lost the way and we crossed the river Ganges at the Ramjhula bridge and as we chatted along we got an auto and reached the spot where the return bus to Haridwar would be. In the bus we hardly spoke as I was sitting in the end and they were sitting in the front. When we went to the final temple we met for the last time. They went in one direction and I went in another.
I could hardly sleep that night and then the alarm woke me up at 3:15 AM! And that’s the end - if I meet her again I may not even recognize her - the little fallacies and joys of life!!
The dopamine overdose washed out as we in the bus started climbing the hilly terrain on the way to Badrinath. The breathtaking views erased every last residue of memory of the beautiful damsel!
That should explain why dopamine attacks are alternately termed as Maya in Indian spirituality and literature! Humans (men) are tuned that way to be on the lookout. And as long as they don’t cause any damage, no harm!
beautiful narration!
ReplyDeleteThanks Samrat!!
ReplyDelete