Wearing the rain

Feels like a drizzle, looks like a fog ... when the spray rises from the Jog falls.

I went there in August, just hopped on to a bus without planning, bit risky, but it was such a melancholy morning...

I was chilled as soon as I stepped out. A perfect day to get lost. I asked at the booking office. The tourist buses, both state-run & private were booked full, & more importantly, already departing. I went to the Bus depot, I was quite familiar, I carried my windcheater too.

One of the tourist buses was tallying its passengers. There was a person missing, & they sold me the ticket.

On the next seat was a college girl, going on the tour with her sister & father. They were decent polite people, at once took me into their fold, without being the least intrusive ...

I hardly remember them – they were nice to be made friends,

but on certain days, You feel like just taking the rain on yourself & letting it run down your face... You do not remember people.

... People were carrying cameras. The bus made a stop for breakfast & another at a temple. All is hazy, it was a large temple with golden gateways, the girls & their father offered pooja...

There were two approaches to the Jog falls. We were above it. Like many large falls, it was a horseshoe shape, & viewing points were on both arms.

It was a day when the Sun didn't show it's face at all.

All scenes were shifty, like reflections in rippling water, only not all that clear,

All views were wet, breath was steamy, all colours had shades of smoke & mist. Grey-green, grey-blue, grey-transparent.

That fine spray which rose, when parts of streams of the water, falling over the edge, broke their flow on the jagged backside of the fall,

was sticky & a little sweet.

The lunch & snacks available there at the stalls, I considered unfit for human consumption. Lot of human beings were having them.

Every once in a while, there will be a gust of wind, & the spray-mist will lift for a few seconds, clearing the view to the frothing white waters rushing down the falls. Collective clicking of couple of hundred lenses, a sudden lighting up of a small part of the air around us, already laden with moisture, by the simultaneous flashes, a low, generic exclamation of awe.

A moment, isolated, suspended in time,

& then time is rolling again, everyone moving, this spot is covered, on to the next stop.

When the bus moves through an early evening, even the darkness is not too thick, because it is wet! Unknown woodland, unknown roads, unknown evening. No road lights. Lights inside the bus dimmed, because everyone is tired. Unknown music leaking out of someone's earphones. Wipers grinding continuously. A shop or shandy seen only after an hour. The headlight beams the only visible & distinguishable area ahead. Drumming of the drops, splashing of the tires. A ride back from 'tourist spot' through wilderness to civilization.

In the fluorescent light, everything is familiar. Everything is routine. It is not melancholy anymore.

I had a bitter fight with the houseowner for returning late at night.