The medley of smells that waft upto your nose once you leave Delhi. From biscuits being baked to the dung cakes basking on bricked buildings.
The contrast is actually so starking.
Highways in India do give you some really fond memories. Lush green fields, temporary walls separating some possessive owner’s property, or small mud bunds between 2 fields on which innocence and childhood cycle their way home after a hard day at the school a few kms away. The donot mind that odd beating they get from their 'masterji'. The pain of that hard whack on the hand is nothing compared to the pleasure that seeing their friends in the pathshaala everyday gives them. You always see that extra step in their run to school every morning. Reminds me of the ‘School Chale Hum Campaign’ advertisement that used to be aired on TV years back. Flip channels to DD National and you might just catch it again.
The fields stretch as far as your eyes can see. And even more. At 5 in the evening, the sun shines in all its glory . Just a few hours away from dusk and the sky is still that perfect shade between blue and white. An odd hut, here and there, and suddenly a whole town full of bricked buildings which quickly transition back to the fields and huts. The golden and the green in the fields are so beautifully entwined that you donot want to able to differentiate between them at all. And the shrubs. Those little blobs of dark green, so barefaced in their existence, can unmistakably be spotted in between.
They spoil the image that could have been and yet make it the image that it is.
At 6 in the evening. the sun now at the zenith of its bright rededness is a few metres from the ground. Its face being obscured occasionally by thick black smoke being spewn by chimneys of brick kilns. And children. And there's a ball too. And the usual chase to the row of broken bricks presumably marking the boundary. The evening game of cricket. So quixotic in its appeal.
As the darkness begins to set in, you suddenly become aware of the mammothian monsters that the transmission towers look like.
They have their peculiar shapes. These transmission towers. Just like an elder overlooking you. Standing tall with the hands on the waist, waiting to reprimand you for not following your daily milk routine. The usual style we Indians love to stand in. They do seem monstrous especially at dusk. booooo...
And as the night sets in, your eyes can only make out that distant bulb lit in a hut somewhere or the medley of 'sandhya aarti' and the pujari ringing bells. And you know..you love it that way sometimes. The quiet, the darkness, the rythymic humming from the temples.
The cool air keeps hitting your face throughout the night while the flies keep abusing you for coming in their path. And the night goes on, and your only companions are the cosmic ones above you. Atleast you can see them clearly here. Thank God for that. Count the stars, make out different shapes and you fall into the soundest of slumbers.
Here in the country side, the morning makes its way very early. Although the sun seems a little sharp to your eyes, you like it.It isn't as sharp as it is in the city. And you do that little thing that you do everymorning..stretching your hands and legs in that wild motion, kicking everybody in your path and making that relaxing noise. You rub your eyes with your hands and the first sight that you get is a father carrying his son on his shoulder for his bath.The little boy protesting this breach of trust with the kickings of his tiny legs and hands.
And a new day starts in the countryside.
Heavenly.
