The Railroad Trek

I take the same strides as i walk into my workplace this fresh morning, i take a deep breath like everyday. I look out into the morning sky out of my window, a beautiful blue aeroplane on the horizon preparing to align itself with the landing strip. I sip my morning coffee with ease, and then slip into my ergo-luxury chair... of course like everyday.Or has something changed today? it is not quiet like everyday. While i hold my cup of coffee , i can feel and attend to the fact that it is warm against my palms, i can feel that the cup has a certain softness to it. The coffee smells like it has never smelled before, or maybe theres something about my olfactory senses today. I am giving each step a little more thought today than i have ever done in the past. I have a feeling of being very lucky to be sitting on chair today and knowing that i will be very safe and comfortable here. I have seen the airplane, the means to communicate with people, the internet, the TV. I feel alive today. I am living today unlike any other day.I have been amongst the glories of nature yesterday, i have been hiking.
40 Kms in two days on foot out there in the wild, a day out in the sun on the beach and the clear sea : a thought to open the senses dormant for 23 odd years. A trek to be remembered 5 lifetimes.
Three days back.
The beginning is full of expectations, and every step is a discovery, the first rock-spring which is opposite the usual road, the first bridge which makes the spine go stiff, the first tunnel which one thinks would never come to an end. the railroad in between flanked by the natural beauty which has missed for years, the sound so harmonious that i wonder what music I have had been listening to all my life, the moisture and the temperature, which change every ten steps and yet make each step an invitation to bliss.
The smell of invisible calendulas and orchids hiding behind those smoking forests, all play their part, and I just about get a glimpse of heaven.Beginning is like "anything else", shaky, full of apprehensions and the negative brain programming which has happened during my academic life, is at work. But take the first steps without even thinking, drugged by the sheer spiriual force Nature is imposing.Slowly the apprehensions die. Footsteps become surer after the first bridge is crossed, the first challange met, a mental block tackeled!The best thing that God created is life, think as I walk through this forest. All this beauty and serenity, the hills in the distance covered by the carpets from the high poet coleridge's imagination? Such a waste if nobody were alive to appreciate its existance. I compliment its existence because I appreciate it. I am alive. And love it.
Food is not always desire. Discover this in the middle of a bridge but that is only after I discover the existence of each muscle that is in the webbing and on the inner side of my feet, near the heel. After covering 8Kms. I eat a couple of buns, half a pound of bread, a pack of biscuits and half a litre of water. The Sun had made its appearance quite a while ago, but it is only now that I realise that things are so much brighter here. The Sun does not hurt me. He is my friend. I secretly pray to him. I kill the leeches that have been on me for the past hour. Life is so short, a click of salt is enough to end it sometimes. But they have great endurance these leeches, they comeback so very often even though they know that they are going to die eating food. Probably they feel great about being alive like I.
The destination of the day arrives after a most beautiful Waterfall and a sharp curve. It is a quaint station yedukumeri, manned by a helpful person- kaka we call him, who makes no effort to have his presence announced, or to show us for how many years he has been living this life. We exchange some of our sugar for his tea leaves, for the tea that we will never really prepare, the tea leaves though, make a good memmory.
After sleeping in the Sun for two hours, wake up to an evening superior to the imagination of the poet. The station here, notice is only built on the side of the hill I have been trekking, and there are no houses or roads here. Certainly no humans except for the kaka. Logic has gone for a toss , and it is only later while writing this treatise that I will think of the question that why need a station when there is no road or people. After a short treat of about a pound of bread and jam, some noodles and a glass of warm wine, ask the kaka to show me a place to bath and he takes me to a spring parallel to a bridge .A heavenly spring. You either take the track thourgh the bridge or through the spring, I would have missed the spring had not kaka shown me. I wonder how many such springs I have missed when I did not take the alternate way, just because my companions had taken the bridge.
The next day is easy, I wake up before dawn. Walk out of the gang-hut wary of the hunters that stalk these parts at night in search of game, snakes or anything that can sell or satisfy hunger. Could I befriend a hunter? The night sky is glorious and each of the smallest star glows like a wedding bulb. Orion is so large, his belt so bright.I am getting lessons into getting opiated on the starry nights like van gogh. Walk down to the spring, fill up my bottle. This morning Nature is spreading its charms and exerting great influence on anyone open to it. All my thoughts sudenly vanish and its like a deep meditation for me , the next 10 Kms. pass by by under the effect of this divine drug. Our destination which marks the end of the railroad trek and the beginning of jungle tre is here.
Break off the railroad and follow the tracks made of elephant dung and footsteps. The Sun cannot be seen because the bushes are so dense. I am assured nevertheless that he is there for me.Deep down in the ravines a river is audible, and it makes different sounds every curve. But it gushes with a roar most of the time. Someone had told me that the river doesn't permit crossing it before Diwali.
At the end of the long black track in the jungle, reach the footsteps of the hill and take a wrong turn, only to discover a very beautiful rivulet which is merging ahead in the mighty roaring flow. A dog is cooling himself in this rivulet, and is not disturbed by the presence of humans. Every man for himself!
After gobbling some more food, we are on our way to civilization.
A nature walk of a lifetime.