A Walk

The journey began on a wet and gloomy day like this. The rain had stopped for a while and there was a fresh, washed look to the world around me. Looking out of my window I saw a misty mass of clouds cover a part of the imposing hill beyond. It was time to go for a walk.

I wonder if any of you have taken a walk after a spell of rain. In Shillong, a gloomy afternoon is perfect for a stroll because the colours that are displayed are beyond description and can only be experienced and not related. I took the small path leading from my house to the main road. I decided to keep to the metalled road because of the mud. And the mud in Shillong is stcky and stubborn and of red loam. I slowly ascended the hill to the main road connecting the main street of Mawiong to the highway. I took the opposite direction turning away from the small shops and houses that lined the road. Most of them were closed but a few had a small 40 W bulb on the front porch. It almost seemed as if they were trying to revolt against the gloom by spreading a flash or twinkle through the fog. A yellow light of revolt through the enveloping grandeur around.

My favourite path is the one that I used to take as a child. It goes up the hill in front of my house though a small narrow path that is almost hidden below the undergrowth between imposing colums of wet pine bark with dots of black pine cones on the wet grass. I also had a favourite tree. It had a very large root that surfaced near the base and then curved into the soil as if running for the warmth and comfort of its real home. This root was my seat. It was wet but on a wet day, in a rather wet matter of fact way, it was really quite all right to sit on wet ground. It was actually great to venture out after the rains and many other creatures of the wild seem to think so too. There were almost always quite a few dragon flies and crickets. And of course the sparrows that shake out of the many cracks and crevices and street dogs that run around, as if on tip-toe on the wet road, looking for food.

It might surprise you to know that the best thing I liked about sitting on that root were the gentle drops, now and then, of rain that slipped off the leaves and struck me on the face and head. Anyway, mine was a walk and I did not want to sit. I'd get late for tea. So I walked on till I came out into the open. This was the road on the summit. From here, I could see the vast undulating hills of green and the white university building and here and there a lone house, far off and yet just right for the landscape. I walked on and came to a point where there was a flight of steps that led back down, to a Shiva temple surrounded by a heavy canopy of pine. I descended the steps and sat on a low wall on the side of the temple. And I listened. It had stopped raining but there were the sounds of an approaching evening. There was
the sound of drops of rain still falling off the leaves. And the crickets seemed to want to make an early start. And the gurgle of the water gushing down the slopes and steps into the drains below. The many small sounds that one cannot trace. But believe me when I tell you that such are the small sounds that one is accustomed to hear in Shillong that one quite misses them elswhere.

Those were good days.