When the temperature figure is lower than the hour figure at waking up time, we know that it had been a cold night. We had gone to sleep fully equipped, though - full sleeve T-shirt, muffler, woolen cap and socks, and a quilt on top. The room felt quite cosy overall and our sleep was never disturbed due to cold. There is an option of renting a room heater (500/- per night) but somehow I don't prefer them if I can manage without them. Sort of addictive, you know.
So why am I calling this an OREO day? Dark, light, dark, that's why. Morning was a bit dim, and we were wondering whether we will have to spend the day indoor. But gradually the slopes opposite lit up with the morning sun, like a barista slowly pouring cream patterns on a black coffee.
By the time we were having breakfast on the stone slab that acted as our table (a la the Flinstones), the sun was warming our backs, and steaming alu paratha with lasun achaar was in front of us, served by a smiling Amarbhai. As usual, he was wearing a thin yellow T-shirt. We were thankful he was not wiping sweat off his brows, just to give us an inferiority complex.
We get toasted (11.00 am)
So now we were at the middle part of the Oreo day. The sun was blazing in a blue blue sky, with little wisps of white cotton floating here and there. For a while, Panna worked at her laptop on the bench at the riverside, and a better WFH location could not be imagined.
While I went for my bath, Panna had changed into her 'river clothes' and waded onto a rock in the middle of the river. I returned to find her sitting like a Buddha, gazing downstream at the frothy rapids.
It is said: "If you step into a river twice, you are stepping into a different river." So true. A river is just a shape, defined by the boundaries of the flowing water. The content changes all the time, yet we call it the Tirthan river. When we look at another person, we also look at a flowing river of atoms and thoughts. Yet we just recognise the physical boundary of the flow and say: "Hi Rajat, how goes it?" Yet I am different from what I was a second ago.
Panna is a water enthusiast. It is said that around 60% by weight of a human body is water. In her case, it might be 80% - she has a much higher affinity. She will wade, hop, and climb into areas where angels fear to tread. People do ask me, how do you allow her? I ask them, how do I not? She is enthusiastic, but not foolhardy, and she knows her capability well. It would be unfair to impose my discomfort onto her enthusiasm. I just present to her the pros and cons, like a seasoned lawyer, and then leave it to fate.
So while Panna sat midstream, I relaxed on a bench by the riverside, with Osho and Ashtavakra. In some situations, some pieces of knowledge do home in and cause a subtle shift, and today was such a day. I sat quietly for a long time, not reading any more, with the feeling that whatever external knowledge could tell me, it has told, whatever the head could accommodate, it has. Now it remained for the heart to flower in that feeling, and that needs immersion. So I immersed.
Panna joined me after a while, and we both lay on the benches in the sun, our faces to the blue sky, fringed by pine forests at the edge of our vision, the sun bathing us in its warmth, the breeze cooling us with its whisper. The smell of marigold was all around us, and William Blake reminded us idly:
"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
To hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour." - that's the thing.
We lay there for an hour, sort of getting toasted, till lunchtime approached, and we climbed up to the 'restaurant level' and sat at our usual table, putting psychological pressure on Amarbhai to serve us lunch.
A thwarted walk (5.00 pm)
I love to walk the mountainside around this time, with the sun dropping behind the hills, when the shadows have softened and the sky is a light orange. But today the sky was not. When I geared up and stepped our of our room, the sky was dark with rainclouds, the last layer of Oreo. As I stepped down the stairs, big drops started to fall. Soon the mountainside fizzled behind a drizzle, and the temperature started dropping sharply. One of our drivers had said that whenever it snows in the Dhauladhar ranges, it rains here. If so, we were in for a cold night.
We sat in the verandah for a while, watching the rain, then moved indoors to the relative warmth of blankets. Dinner outside would be a chilly one, like yesterday, but the hot daal and alu dum, served with roti, went down like a rabbit down its hole, who hears the baying of hounds. The rainy evening had a different charm, and knowing that we were absolutely alone at the homestay (the brothers slept in a house around 50m away), gave it all a sense of adventure.
Let's see what's in store for us tomorrow.
Photo credits: Panna Rashmi Ray
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