Break

We would take a break every now and then. A break was – driving out to the nearest hill station. And the nearest hill station was the Nilgiri Hills.

As winter approached on cat’s paws, the hills would beckon us. That’s why perhaps we loved our blanket like our second skin. There would be that thin aroma of the glinting lake and the surrounding trees of the Nilgiris, wafting in our home and instantly we would recognize the smell and the calling.

Herstory runs backward and history, forward.

So there we were, in our exotically shaped Ford car racing over the hills. Dusk flowed into the night. He loved driving as do I, but then the climb became tedious as a blue mist had descended on the valley. We drove for some more time, lazily till nothing much could be seen, a foot away from us.

We were not anywhere in the vicinity of our favorite destination, the Hotel Savoy. At the end of it, it was a huge mist that sat on the bonnet of our car that decided the matter for us. We could not see an inch beyond.

He braked the car and yawned and immediately fell asleep. I watched over him. He would snore and his body would slump all over me.

I would sit out the night.

As the night slumbered over the hills and morning was just around the bend of the lake, I opened my eyes and got out of the car.

The first thought that raced into my head was that this place was someplace else – not where we had parked our car last night. The car perched precariously over a precipice – but the beyond and the bush on which we stood was a sea of violet-blue flowers.

It was the Neelakurinji, which blooms just once every twelve years. It resembled Thomas Mann’s ‘The Magic Mountain.’

I forget its Botanical name. It has no particular aroma, but the sheer sight would have taken anybody’s breath away. We found several people watching over the waves upon waves of sheer blue flowers. Some of them were madly clicking away on their cameras.

I do not need a camera, my mind’s eye work like one. I shall paint it for you in a jiffy, drawing from that vertigo of sight and smell.

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