Tolerant Travelogue of a Lone Traveller

While there has been a lot of debate going on India’s tolerance, I might have come to a realization that irrespective of Bharat’s tolerance status, I certainly am an intolerant species. It goes back to when the golden rule of “Man is a Social animal” was being formulated, that my small intestines would have played a trick on me forcing me to take a nature’s break. That bereaved me of the concept of “social” from the golden rule and tolerance would only be contrary to this sad formation thereon.

I always had these doubts but ever since moving back to India, I’ve been subjected to various degrees of intolerance which for many is considered just normal. While the concept of forming a queue is still catching up, I wonder how is it possible for a person standing behind me in any queue anywhere in India to physically lean on me from back without him being homosexual. (I actually made it a point to check a few times and found all of them to be straight). To top it, this person also makes it a point to conveniently slide in his motorbike in the tightest of the space available between my car and the one in front of me. Did I miss the memo that it was a crime to leave any breathing space between the cars in front of you? This person also considers his birth right to happily sleep blissfully leaning on my shoulders in a bus or a train. While my shoulders might be available to a beautiful sleep-deprived damsel in distress, but I’m almost growing tired of this man who seems to be following me everywhere in various shapes and forms.

Without getting overwhelmed by this fellow countryman, steering the monologue to my traveling soul, I started on this long sought loner trip to explore the scenic interiors of Kerela. Had fantasized a lot about traveling alone and when the opportune time arose, I couldn’t resist the temptation. The propitious day started with a message in the wee hours of the morning informing me that my taxi to the train station had been cancelled, just an hour before my scheduled departure, due to some agitated disturbance near the station since the previous night. I tried booking a few other taxi services/autos at this last minute, but all in vain. With no public transport available at 4 a.m. in the morning, it was almost certain that I’ll miss the train with the whole booked trip going for a toss. I nonetheless decided to take a stroll towards the secluded main road to try my luck, though I wasn’t too hopeful to get any transport at that ungodly hour. After standing there for a few minutes, cursing the damn taxis, I noticed a car speeding up and I hesitantly gestured for a hitch hike. To my surprise, the car stopped with a jerk. And then the jerk got out. He almost readily offered me a ride to more than half my distance towards the station. Once in the car, the safety concern almost immediately came to mind and I tried engaging him in a conversation to judge how dangerous this driver actually was and what the heck was he doing on a deserted stretch of road at this hour. He too turned out to be a man of only a few words like me and I decided not to irk him with any further probing. While I kept wondering whether he was a salaried driver for someone or an owner of that car, we reached my part destination. I tried to offer him some money for his timely kindness but he politely refused with a statement – “Man is the one who helps another man in need. You would have done the same”. With that he left me there wondering whether I really would have done the same and stopped my car for a stranger in the dark. Was I too quick to judge him and all others whom I meet along my way?

The perplex continued since I was now in the middle of nowhere and still far off from the station. A lone auto soon after on the deserted road looked like a relief but I immediately retracted my extended hand on seeing some passengers already inside it. To my surprise, it still stopped and the passengers and the driver offered me the ride to the station, where it was going.

Was this all some contrived plan from divinity to teach me a forgotten lesson in humility?

The short journey continued without trouble and I was able to catch the scheduled train to start my loner trip against all odds.

Reached Aluva at 5 a.m. thenext morning and decided to give the taxi a miss and soak in the local flavour by roughing it out in the public transport with the locals. The 3 hour chilly bus ride from Aluva to Adimali would have been icier, had it not been for all the cordiality extended to a different-looking non-lungi clad outsider ‘me’, by not only the fellow passengers but also the over-friendly conductor. I reached the laid back village surroundings of Adimali at these early hours and my hotel room was not even close to being ready, with even the reservation clerk on his way to the office yet. The accompanied restaurant thought it to be their moral responsibility to feed me some complimentary breakfast while I waited. Destiny was hell-bent to give me a crash course in humility. To my utter surprise and pleasure, the breakfast comprised only of pure non-vegetarian dishes along with local staple food. While relishing fish curry and appam at 8 in the morning, I was soon to find out in the course of the next few days that meat eating is the most acceptable way of living in this part of the country.

The next few days were spent soaking in the virgin beauty of Munnar and adjoining areas when a sudden splurge of an adventurous streak one afternoon made me stray away from the mainstream onto a desolate hill on the outskirts. The steep climb looked too tempting for an avid trekker in me and I couldn’t resist the temptation to conquer this seemingly isolated hill. The upward trek was breath-taking (literally) and in the next two hours of the climb it was evident that the uncalculated risk without the mountain gear could become deadly. Me writing the count of this is evidence enough to prove that it wasn’t fatal and I could eventually reach the top of this mountain in a little more than four hours to enjoy the conquest. By this time, it was almost getting dark and it was just wise to climb down which I anticipated to be around half the time to around two odd hours. I soon realized that all the downward ways looked almost similar and after straying around for an hour or so I was unmistakably lost.

I picked up a random downward direction based on my gut feel and started the descent which became a flat trek soon giving me the jittery feeling of going around in circles. Darkness atop a secluded and rocky hill in an unknown place could take a toll on any faint heart. Last thing I needed at that point of being famished, lost, terrified and alone was panic. Hope and dream of descending back to base and sipping some hot chocolate amidst the warm hotel bed is what kept me going. After wandering for a few hours (could have been seemingly long minutes), it was almost evident that I was going deeper into the forest as opposed to coming out of it, or at least I would like to believe so in absence of any navigation.

Almost on the verge of losing any hope of getting out of this wilderness is when I spotted this scruffy hillbilly wandering aimlessly in the wild of the night. Conditioned by my biases, the first feeling was of disgust. But again, was I too soon to judge? Running out of options, I decided to take my chances to ask for help. On doing that, the warmth of this person seemed so synthetic and it amazed me to the core. We did not speak any common languages; nevertheless, this guy continued to shower me with his earnest gestures and agreed to take me down the hill to a safe haven. Minutes on the way, we reached his dilapidated shack and he offered me to come inside. Without asking, he could sense my condition and almost quickly prepared a hot chowder kind of thing for me to gulp. I was in no obvious condition to heed to mom’s age old advice of not to have anything to eat from any strangers. (Plus isn’t that advice only applicable to kids). Thankfully, all the grub did to me was to help me regain back the strength. The stranger did not eat/drink the semi-solid-liquidly stuff he had offered me bringing me to the assumption he probably was running short of it. On a normal day, I would have gone suspicious of it, but not today.

After the meals round, he ushered me out to the task at hand of bringing me down to safety. The guy was really fast and I was only so glad to follow him down, assuming he understood me right and was actually getting me off the hill. It was as if time flew and it was soon that I actually started seeing the highway and civilization lights beneath.

Guess it was time to say thanks to my new friend and tell him not to bother coming down any further since I could manage from there. But wait a minute. Where is he? Where did he go? I thought he was virtually ahead of me, well in sight;almost all of the times during the whole of my descent. Tried looking around in all directions to find a trace of him, but all in vain. I meandered around in the expanse to get any whiff of him but there was absolutely no sight of him. Waited around for some time, all bewildered and dazed on this manifestation before I finally started to move down with a joyously heavy heart. It’s a mystery to me to-date on where did my saviour disappear as soon as I had the goal in sight. And to think of it I did not even get to know his name lest thank him for putting me out of my torment.

If nothing more grandiose, at least the eventful loner trip (along with liberating me out of the slumber of routine prescribed vacations) taught me a much needed lesson in tolerance and generosity and rekindled my atheistically coloured beliefs in the powers beyond my understanding.