Unique

Two nights ago was unique. I’ve met this guy down here, who’s wild, crazy and a little bit insane; a great deal of fun, in other words. We were sitting around in the local coffee joint with yet another friend (a woman from Italy who works in the IT industry, though you wouldn’t guess that until she told you) and it was a dry day. In most countries that means no rain, but over here that means no booze - a very difficult situation to be in for at least two of us.

Suddenly the bloke had the good idea of going up to these hills (I can’t remember the name). ‘It feels,’ he said, ‘like you’re at the edge of the world.’ Now, that was something we had never felt before, so we readily agreed. We didn’t know, at that point, what we were agreeing too. We walked to the car to pick up supplies (warm clothing, smokes, chocolates, etc.) and found that the lights had been left on.

That, of course, meant that the battery was flat (it always does. You’d think they would have made batteries that could last a while longer with the lights on) and that, in turn, meant we had to push. Finally all the working out in the gym was good for something! It took two tries (the first time he let the engine stall, which was quite naturally met with cries of great enthusiasm) but then we were off.

We passed the guy’s house, but he’d left his keys at his friend’s place, so we were forced to just admire it from outside, without picking anything up from there. That wasn’t such a great thing, because the hills were supposedly cold, but we were still full of good spirit, so we just headed on.

We drove down to the country, visited a banyan tree that you could park inside, tried to have a cigarette there but were thwarted in that attempt as we had no fire. No matter, on we went.

Then we ran out of gas.

I was quite impressed with how well everybody took it. We all just looked at each other (a little bit more at the guy that was driving) and then got out and made our way to the gas station. We filled a sprite bottle with gas, made our way back and continued on our way.

It was an hour long drive, in which we chatted, smoked and braked suddenly for speed bumps that would loom up out of the darkness (the highways over here have speed bumps. No, I’m not quite sure what to think of that either.)

We made some detours, on purpose, and then the Italian lady had a paranoia attack. Not a pretty thing to have happen to you when you’re speeding through the darkness with two guys you barely know in a country you know even less well and after having smoked a nearly pure joint of the strongest stuff. Actually, now that I come to think of it, those things might have had something to do with it.

Some gentle words and slow driving later and she got over it. At which point a cat jumped onto the road in a desperate attempt to commit suicide. Or maybe it just didn’t understand the laws of physics about force, reactions and all that kind of stuff. We hit it and went back to check where it was. It wasn’t there anymore. Fortunately its attempt had failed and it had scampered, or possibly hobbled, off into the darkness.

The mood was still surprisingly good and we soon made it to the top of the hill. It was about 2 am at this time and the hills were completely covered with the thickets of mist. You really couldn’t see past three meters.

For a time we just sat, talked and smoked. Then others arrived (whom we initially didn’t know) and soon what had just been three people talking turned into nearly ten people jamming to music, quibbling with each other and generally having a blast. I’m ashamed to say that the three of us drank easily as much as the rest of the people combined, but we did have a reputation to uphold (or create).

Then dawn came and we were allowed into the park. There we reached the edge of the world. It was, in true Indian style, a cliff which was hard to see in the mist, with no guard rails. It was called ‘the suicide point’ and I thought it was very nice of the authorities that they had not tried to hold back those people that might want to do that name justice.

It was an amazing view. The mist was thick as soup and ended just beyond the edge of the cliff. The sounds were muffled and the wind whipped and chased around us, pushing the fog this way and that. On a high from the drugs, drink, company and altitude we each sang a song on our own, into the mist from the bottom of our souls. It was simply amazing.

Coffee in a little tea house, accompanied by omelettes and bread. Then back into the car to bead back to Bangalore. Both of them were supposed to show up for work that day. Neither of them made it. We actually only got back in at 11 am. By that time I had well and properly passed out in the back seat.

I was told that after he had dropped us off he had discovered that the wobbling that had started on the way back turned out to be a flat tire.

Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong; but it just made the trip that much more brilliant. Hardship on the journey makes the it all that much more special.