coke float and limericks

I woke up well before the crack of today’s dawn. An arranged pickup car with a driver arrived at my doorstep.

“Vannakkam madame”

“Hello sir”

I didn’t bother looking at his face. It was 4:45 am and I was fidgety about not knowing the language and venturing into the suburbs of the town where I work. I noted the car plate number. With no one to tell it to, I shoved it into a whatsapp chat group that was once resided by seven people. All of them left, I liked visiting cemeteries and graveyards. I stayed. Kept revisiting the hollow vacant boulevards of the chat window.

I am on the way when I shift my glance from my left to straight out of the car through the windshield.

It’s a boulevard – coconut trees line the road. I think of the innumerable road trips I’ve done with my family. Across what was once a whole Uttar Pradesh which did not disintegrate into Uttaranchal and whatnot. I think of sticking my tongue out of the passenger seat window after eating Litchis. Nothing less than two kilograms I settled for. And i had them sitting inside the car on the freshly upholstered seats of my father’s first car.

It was the millennium year. Mela had released. And we were driving through Dehradun. Of course we didn’t stop in Dehradun. Papa never had a thing for tourist spots or regular hours. Wee hours and nondescript towns were his thing. Probably still are, given the unaccounted kilometres that I see on his wheel’s metre each time I go home.

We drove to and around all the lovely places, wrapping four villages some times two towns in a day. Stayed in government guest houses and seldom ate out. Fruits were our thing. They’re still mine.

I think of all those travels and I think of who I told them last of. A Telugu boy. And I think of how we had collectively sat in the rented Zoom car and lamented the loss of trees on long stretches of roads. He spoke fondly about the two hundred kilometre drive from his home town to the nearest mega city his family would take almost every fortnight. And I remember noticing a glint in his eye as he narrated to me stories long and short and abruptly cut about the travels that were undertaken. We drove from Lonavala to Bombay that morning.

I think of the road we drove on and the roadside food we ate. Boiled corns. He told me about an aunt who had cancer but she survived. He also told me how his family was related to some big politician or actor, but he didn’t bother and I don’t remember much of it.

I also recall our rides on scooters. In Goa. Last year. Again palm trees lined the road. I remember seeing the road in the movie Guzaarish. We were tired and exasperated but I remember we performed everything as a unit. Eating, peeing, drinking water – one at a time, while one watched the other’s back.

I return back to this drive in Coimbatore-Pollachi road as the driver pulls over and shows me a ship-shaped building. A marine training centre and college. I think of my first ship ride. I was three and all I remember is that I fainted in the ship and my father had rushed to get my bottle of milk to feed me.

I guess I will call papa today and tell him that I rode on a hot air balloon. He will be happy, but then he will pass the phone on to Maa or he’all hang up one minute into the conversation. We lack in words. We don’t communicate. We like peering out of the window and worrying about the electricity bill.

[january 11, 2017, kovai]