Mikolaj sent the SMS before fifteen minutes. It was exactly 10 AM when I noticed. He wrote he would join us at ten past ten. We three were waiting for him at hotel La Bistrol. Here lived Nicholus, a friend of us. We were preparing for a road trip. The destiny was Roses – a small city located on Costa Brava, in northern Spain.
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| Making of Melodies of Roses |
We began our journey around half-past-ten. We crossed the bridge – Pont de la Poste de France – and reached to the Bastille side. We left Grenoble behind, keeping Isere to our left. Within fifteen minutes of our journey we were overwhelmed by a cracking cry from inside of our car. Nicholus discovered that, he had forgotten to carry “Carte de Sejour” – the French residential permission card. It's he who cried in foul.
The moment Nicholus revealed for the first time that he forgot to carry “Carte de Sejour”; it reminded me the eventful road-trip, when I was “detained” by the Italian police. That was the story of the previous year. We were visiting Turin. We were almost the same group of people, only instead of Ranjan, Ian, a friend from South Africa, accompanied us. While crossing the French-Italy boarder, our car was held by the Italian security personals. They – though were quite polite, but – scrutinized us thoroughly. Finally we were released and allowed to enter Italy. Mikolaj travels a lot by car. By that time, he had traveled almost entire Europe. He never had such experience. He, who eventually keeps a deep interest in the New World Order theory, perhaps understood the real underlying meaning of “the new world order”, i.e. the pain to carry a brown man with beard in the post colonel Europe, especially after 9/11. So, this time, we had to return. Someone murmured, "Morning shows the day."
*****
This was the essential beginning of the boring story of four expats – Nicholus, Ranjan, me, and Mikolaj. Nicholus is an Indian. Legend says, the moment he was born, there was a terrible earthquake. Observing various symbols, his wise Brahmin family members predicted that he would be staying in France in future for a long time. Thus, he was named Nicholus, so that he doesn’t encounter any namesake racism in France. I don’t know how his other friends in India reacted to his name, but when I heard his full name – Nicholus Bhattacharya – for the first time, I had the impression that he was born to a Bengali father and a French mother. Ranjan is my old, good friend, and we knew each other from our IIT Kanpur’s days. Now a father of six month’s old daughter, Ranjan was lamenting naturally for his daughter and wife, as they were still in India. Mikolaj, a thorough gentleman, was the third chemists, along with Nicholus and Ranjan, in our group. Thanks to Nicholus I met this invaluable Polish friend. Along with numerous other things, he was famous for his carefully maintained long ponytail, which sometimes made his female friends jealous. Slightly introvert, this man, with numerous calibers and other humane qualities, was arguably the most eligible bachelor the world had at that point in time. And finally me – Dibyendu Hazra, a newly married bachelor, as his beautiful-half was still in India, waiting for her passport and VISA.
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| The (in)famous four |
We restarted our journey at eleven past fifteen. Mikolaj warned us: ‘Check out your documents twice, thrice, four times, as many times you want, but I don’t want to return again,’ before he started up the engine of his sixteen years old car, which he had bought in a dealership of second-hand cars. He feels a sense of belongingness to this old good car, and quite unwilling to change it, despite receiving numerous troubles time to time. We left Grenoble behind. Along with Grenoble, we left the skyscrapers of Notre Dame, the Kebab shops of the city center, the parks of Victor Hugo and Paul Mistral, the canteens of Polygon Scientifiue, and the cacophony of Saint Bruno. We knew that they won’t be the part of our lives’ narratives for the next few days.
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| Mikolaj's old-good reliable car |
Leaving Grenoble behind, within half-an-hour, we reached the busy highway. Inside of the city, possibly, was much less crowded. Many people, like us, were leaving city to spend the long weekend elsewhere, preferably in the southern France or northern Spain, where Mediterranean, with her playful grin, was waiting for everyone – male and female, young and old, gay and straight.
It was sunny when we began. Temperature was high and the weather, altogether, appeared to be unpleasant for a long road trip. But the fortune was not that bad all the times. The shadows of the spattered clouds brought some relief. There was no rainfall. The landscape, on both sides of the highway, had very little variation. It is also possible that, from inside of a running car, I could not perceive the subtle changes the nature underwent. Enough trees, mostly unknown to me, were implanted. The leaves of many trees were yellow or radish in color. I believe their color transformed due to excessive heat. The leaves took contorted curly shapes. Every now and then there were the cultivable lands and gardens at the proximity of the highway. Away from us, the horizon terminated at the top of the unknown mountains.
Almost every half an hour of our journey, there were car parking and petrol pumps. Adjacent or attached to the petrol pumps were shopping malls and restaurants, dedicated to the travelers. We were taking break in every two hour. We had to. Only Mikolaj could drive.
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| A nice resting place on the way to Roses |
We crossed cities after cities: Valence, Montelimar, Orange, Nimes, Montpellier, and Narbonne and so on. Every French city has unique character; accurate observers say this very often. Perhaps every city in the world is unique in her own way. But the highways, most of the times, are built away from the main cities. Thus, from highways, it is always difficult to appreciate the true character of a city.
*****
*****
Mikolaj expected that we would reach within five hours. But the traffic condition was really terrible. So we knew, from the beginning, that we would be late. But late by how many hours, was the only question in our mind. After almost eight hours of journey, leaving highway behind, we entered inside the city. Mikolaj printed out the necessary maps. We didn't have a GPS.
The red roses on both sides of the road hinted that we didn't take a wrong path. Our last years’ experience in Barcelona was horrible. Roses, compare to Barcelona, was too small a city to get lost. We could identify our hotel from the car. There were enough parking slots just outside and adjacent to the hotel. Parking was free of cost.
The lady in the reception appeared quite old, above seventy for sure. She spoke broken English. She spoke very softly in general. But we understood her mumbling.
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| Nicholus from the Balcony |
We booked just one room. There were two beds and one sofa-cum-bed. None of us was particularly fat or gigantic. Whatever the room had possessed was enough for the four tiny men. Our room was in the third floor. Adjacent to the room was a balcony. While standing at the balcony for the first time, the Mediterranean made eyes at us from few yards. The four bachelors were easily seduced by her blue eyes and playful grin. Restless, we were drawn towards her shore. It took about a minute from our hotel to reach the sea beach. By then it was already 8 PM. It was cloudy. The daylight was fainting. We had a plan to swim this evening; but the breeze of mild wind made us feel cold; we had to postpone the plan till the next day.
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| Sea beach and the city |
We, rather, began to walk along the wide concrete footpath, constructed at the proximity of the sea beach. The crowd on the footpath was pretty thin. There were plenty of hotels and restaurants at the proximity of the footpath. Almost all of them were quite crowded. Apart from hotels and restaurants, there were small shops. On one side of the footpath, at some corners, few hawkers, almost all of them black people, were selling some stuff like toys, sunglass, swimming itineraries etc., on a small scale. We had to buy few things: half-pant, swimming glass and so on. Instead of buying from footpath, we preferred to go inside a shop.
*****
We returned to our hotel after shopping. We were exhausted; we had to take bath. Mikolaj went first. He took time. His long hair demanded special care. He was followed by me. Nicholus was the next. Ranjan already took bath in the morning, skipped. Three of us could finish within half-an-hour; there was no woman.
After bath, the hunger began to murder us from inside. Only Mikolaj could ignore the hunger, he decided to stay home. We three went out for dinner. People eat to live; Bengalis live to eat. Instead of city center, we went towards the beach, the same place as before. We chose a restaurant at the proximity of the beach. It was already 11 PM. The daylight disappeared.
Nicholus and I ordered paella, the famous Valencian rice dish. The forms and ingredients of paella have evolved over a period of time. Its nighty-gritty varies from place to place. It was, from what we ate looked like, a kind of hodge-podge. Sea fishes, prawns, snails, and few other vegetables along with conventional meats – like, chicken, pork, and beef – are mixed in a spicy rice environment. Except for Paella, those who wished drank. Married Bengalis are generally too courageous to drink in front of their wives. Married Bengalis, by definition, never drink in the absence of their wives.
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| Paella |
When we finished our dinner, it was almost midnight. The entire restaurant was empty. The waiters were closing the gates. Only one gate was kept open for us. We took our time. The quantity and quality of the food, in comparison to the price, really brought big smiles to our faces. Much before traveling Spain, I learned from some experienced friends that it's fun to earn in France and spent in Italy or Spain or for that matter most other parts of Europe. Now I could get a glimpse of that. Though this was not a new experience; we had the same pleasure last year while visiting Barcelona and Turin.
After dinner we began to walk along the footpath, adjacent to the beach. Many people were walking like us. Most of them were old couples. There were few small groups as well. The weather was stable. The ambient was very pleasant. As we moved forward, we met many more people. But we didn’t encounter any young woman or couple. Everyone, except for three of us, was pretty old, at least above fifty, or pretty young, at least below twelve and came with their parents or grandparents. Naturally we were upset. After half-an-hour forward and backward walk, we halted in front of a luxurious hotel. It had a large open space. There was, as one could see from the footpath, a small gathering in that opens space. A guy, perhaps a professional singer, was playing music. He was singing in Catalan language. He was the sole player.
This part of Spain, known as Catalonia, is a sensitive zone. Catalonia is an autonomous region. But for a long time there has been demand for separate nationhood. In some sense, Catalonia can very naively be compared with Kashmir or northern part of SriLanka; though there has not been any serious violence for quite sometimes. Most part of Catalonia belongs to Spain; only a small tiny part has been a part of France. Historically, Catalonia has been ruled both by French and Spanish.
In Catalonia the native speakers speak Catalan, which – as I have learnt from some unauthorized source – has closer resemblance to French than Spanish. Because of the separate nationhood claim, many Catalan speaking people have apathy towards Spanish. While listening to the Catalan music, I recollected the memory of a Spanish friend of mine. She was originally from Madrid. She spent few months in Barcelona, which is the most important city of Catalonia. She recollected from her memory that, whenever she spoke in Spanish in Barcelona the reply came in Catalan, whereas, she noticed that, the same person spoke perfect Spanish with other foreigners who, unlike her, didn't look Spanish. She, as she used to say very often, disliked, in fact hated Barcelona.
We were neither Spanish nor Catalan. Reaching above the cultural clash and identity, we could simply adore the wonderful dynamics of human emotion, the melancholy in the unknown language. The singer-cum-musician had a wonderful voice. He began to get good appreciation from audience. From the melody, now, he switched to more rhythmic music and songs. Like us, many people from here and there were flocking around and clapping in the rhythm. The old and completely drunk couple began to dance. While the magical combination of music and alcohol had brought down the ages of the older couples to nearly thirty, three nearly thirty year old youth decided to move slowly towards their hotel.
*****
Next day we visited a museum. I went unwillingly. I normally don't like museum, as I didn't like this one. Both Mikolaj and Nicholus are fond of museum. Ranjan seemed to be an unwilling visitor like me. This museum was built on the dead-body of Ciutadella, a medieval city, which was completely ruined by the French during the beginning of the nineteenth century. The new cities, like Roses, were subsequently built along its eastern part. The museum was divided into indoor and outdoor sections. In the indoor sections, there were plenty of medieval stuffs, the old statues and rusting metal ingots. The wall-pictures, systematically arranged, were demonstrating the medieval history of that region. Outdoor sections had quite a few walls struggling to survive in isolation and semi-destroyed medieval buildings. I found them mostly unimpressive. My other comrades also didn’t look much excited. Here, from the veranda of a ruined building, we could see the Mediterranean. We immediately felt a thirst from inside. We knew our real love, our real destiny.
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| Mikolaj The Great inside the museum |
We came out of museum and marched towards the beach. On the way, we discovered that we had only one mat to sit. For four people, we required at least two. As I said, there were plenty of shops nearby. You remember that last night also we went to a shop. This time we chose a new shop, much closer to the main beach. We didn't have patient to go further. A middle-aged brown woman welcomed us. She didn't look Spanish or Catalan; anyway, I could not have made that fine distinction: Spanish or Catalan. Nor did she look typical Arab woman we see in Europe, especially in France. Like most people in this part, she spoke French as well. She asked me in French whether I was an Indian. I said we three were Indians. She asked whether we were coming from India directly. I replied we were working in France. I found she was satisfied with my answer. I understood the essence of her question: Except for very handful rich people, normally Indian-Indian can't afford to travel Europe; whereas, an averaged income European can!
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| A historical anchor in the museum |
We completed our shopping. We bought a mat and a football. Mikolaj bought a spectacle for snorkeling. We came out of the shop and stood on the beach in front of the Mediterranean Sea. It was a sunny day, though the summer didn't begin with full blow. The slow winds were pouring the sands over our feet. The sea beach gave the impression of a desert; nothing was to provide shadows except for palm and date like trees. The beach was not very crowded. The peak time for tourist is considered from the middle of June. Few groups assembled, here and there, in a scattered way. We found, or should I say managed, an empty space to play football. Few groups were already playing.
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| We played football |
I played football after almost three years. As I began to play, I immediately recognized that playing on the grass and sand was quite different things. Three of my other colleagues were also not skilled footballers. After a while two extremely young kids, hardly 8/9 years old, desired to join us. These kids were French. Without even bothering to ask whether we understood French or not, they started speaking French with full flow. It reminded me a Biblical verse: Those who have seen the son have seen the father. If Jesus was French, he would have said: Those who have seen the father have seen the son.
A football match began: European Union vs India. Clever Mikolaj chose to become a goalkeeper and allowed the French kids to do all the hard work. On Indian side, it seemed that Ranjan and Nicholus didn't touch football – or even jogged – for decades. On the other hand, the French kids were full of energy and could run relentlessly. The result was expected. We suffered a humiliating defeat. I understood why India stood 150 in Football ranking. Only consolation was we scored few goals, digesting the double.
The French kids jumped in joy. They hopped: the British sarcastically call French frogs– I suddenly recollected that. The glorious victory at such young age gave them pride and confidence. They ran to their parents to announce the victory. When they reach to their parents, the middle-aged French couple had locked themselves in deep kissing after a sea-bath. They were delighted. The mother exchanged a smile with me. She looked younger. The kids now found a new group to continue their football venture.
The next few hours were passed by periodic and repetitive swimming, taking sunbath, and watching the beautiful displays of women's underwear. Others could see our ugly tummies. Occasionally we could see magnificent faces of fat Arab women in veil, accompanied by their male counterparts with extravagant bellies. They looked pretty odd in this nude heaven. Civilization, in some sense, has always been about veiling and unveiling of human race.
*****
In the evening, intending to walk along the sea shore, we set out on a long march. On the way, we were mesmerized to notice some fancy architecture lay on the beach, designed and built by local architects. We saw these before, but perhaps for the first time we observed them so minutely. They were castles, constructed by sands and waters. A very primitive technology was used; the castles could hardly withstand the blow of the wind; time to time, the architects had to repair or rebuild some parts of the castles.
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| Architecture |
Most of these architects were homeless people. At nights, they rested at the proximity of the beach under sky or in crumbling tents built for temporary measures. I had no clue where they lived during winters! Near the castles they built, they kept a bowl. Their fortune completely relied upon the mercy of the kind-hearted tourists. Most of the bowls were almost empty; only few ones were partially filled by 20 or 50 cent coins. Altogether, it seemed, the lives of the architects were difficult ones.
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| Ancient cannon |
Besides those architectures, some ancient cannons were kept under the sky for displaying. There was no security nearby. The sheer weights of the cannons were enough for their self-protections. They miraculously survived the bad habits of birds and street dogs. Nicholus pushed a canon to have a sense of its weight; Mikolaj and Ranjan climbed on top of it for a photography pose. As the last activity of the day, after photography, we marched towards the port to see the sunset.
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| Sunset from the port |
*****
Next day we visited Cadaques which, in comparison to Roses, was indeed much bigger and popular city. While planning for the trip, Mikolaj wanted to stay in Cadaques, instead of Roses. But we could not find any accommodation. All the hotels and the youth hostels, by then, were reserved. Cadaques is a typical hilly city whose elevation (23 meters) is much higher than Roses (5 meter). From roses, it took us about half-an-hour by car. Amid greeneries, our car took numbers of upward turns in a spiral-like trajectory. The traffic was normal; there were not many cars on the way. Hardly any human being or households came to our notice. Almost halfway, we halted on a plateau near a roundabout. Few cars – whose drivers perhaps had awful direction sense – returned back from this roundabout. Mikolaj and Nicholus were overwhelmed by the magnificent view of the mountains. They came out from the car in desperation. Anyone standing outside might have the impression that something serious had happened: such was their desperation. Mikolaj began to climb up. Nicholous flashed his camera again and again. I and Ranjan, till waiting inside the car, finally came out. A gentleman – who perhaps spoke only Spanish or Catalan – made a gesture at us. He wanted us to take his photo in his camera.
Sitting on a hammock, I and Ranjan chatted on various topics. We discussed contemporary politics. We conversed on Grenoble. We admired the eternal beauty of French women. We talked about French habits, their foods and drinks, their beautiful language, their English pronunciation – how do they eat ‘H’, dissecting their language we came up with our own interpretation. We recollected the memories of IIT Kanpur: How did we spend our times during playful summers; how, many of our patriotic professors, instead of enjoying sunbath, preferred spending summer vacations abroad, propagating the scientific glory of IITK; how we always obeyed the non-alcohol policy of IITK. We recollected our crazy friends; the famous, infamous and notorious teachers and their popular scandals; the popular gossips that dominated the public domain. We recalled the miserable male female ratio of IITK and how that compelled most male, starting from boys to men, to remain single and virgin till their late twenties or early thirties; and how the sperm, thanks to compulsive celibacy, used to climb up to the brain internally. While we were nurturing our world, the rest two, who were lost somewhere for quite sometimes, finally returned and joined us in our prolonged conversations. Momentarily we forgot that we had a different destiny. I don’t know how long did we spend there. All I remember now is that when Mikolaj restarted the engine everyone was in a dreamlike state, lost in an inner solitude. This dreamy state continued for a long time. Then all of a sudden we entered inside a fairly populate city. We reached Cadaques.
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| A stop on the way to Cadaques |
After parking the car inside a grand underground parking, we began to walk towards the sea beach. Mikolaj opened his map. He was directing the direction. While walking, we noticed that this part of the city was very congested. The roads were narrow. The cloths, towels, and underwear were hanging from the walls. After walking ten to fifteen minutes, the narrow lane terminated near sea, to a wider road. In front of it, the Mediterranean was waiting for us. We continued walking, keeping Mediterranean on our right. On the other side, there were plentiful of restaurants and shops, very much like Roses. In this part the beach was not spacious. There were only handful people.
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| Cadaques town center, Sea, and three idiots |
As we had moved further inside, the landscape kept on changing rapidly. In some parts, the sea shore terminated just to a vertical wall. In some other parts, the beach was quite wide to accommodate few people. After tens of meter, the road took a new turn, keeping Mediterranean still on its right. The number of shops and restaurants, in this part, was less. The population density reduced dramatically. Now leaving the main road, we came down to the beach and started walking along the sea shore. Then all of a sudden we reached to a place which was quite isolated from the outside. Here, the beach was spacious. We decided to settle down.
Mikolaj first went for a swim. He was immediately followed by Nicholus; then joined Ranjan. Someone had to look after the belongings – bags, clothes, cameras etc. I was appointed for that. Every group was devising the same strategy. After fifteen minutes, Mikolaj and Nicholas returned. Now it was my turn.
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| The interesting flora of Cadaques |
I dipped my right feet into the sea and slowly touched the ground underneath. Unlike Roses – where, there were soft and smooth sands underneath the water – here, I felt the presence of hard and cracking rocks and stones which had fairly large size distributions. The smaller ones were sharper. Everyone, eventually, got small or big leg injuries; though nothing was very serious as such. Apart from stones, the water in Cadaques was freezing compared to Roses: Cadaques is exposed to the open sea, whereas Roses is a bay. Now I felt the presence of a thick layer of green algae that made every single piece of rock extremely slippery. As I moved from sea shore to the deep into water, I got some favors from the bouncy force. I felt lighter. The body could undermine the reaction from the hard stones. In Roses, the sands made the water dirty and unclean: Inside water, even with the proper spectacle, one could hardly see anything. Here in Cadaques, I could see small planktons floating inside the water.
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| Swimming and snorkeling in Cadaques |
In every 15 minutes, we were exchanging our positions. Now I was again sent back to land to look after our belongings. I could notice people surrounded by me. Ever since we had come to Cadaques, one thing had definitely made us happy. We could see many young couple. Here, though, most couples were middle aged, above 40. There were some very young couples as well. During sun bath, many couples were undressing everything, except for lower underwear. One could compare and conclude: nudity and beauty are two different things altogether.
During the lunch hour, we entered inside a restaurant on the way back to car parking. The ambient of the restaurant was pleasant; on the opposite side of the restaurant, one could have a nice view of the ocean. It was already 5PM. The restaurant was not particularly crowded. We were given an English menu card. We ordered Paella. We found special offer for a group: for four people you just need to pay for two. We called the waiter. We wanted a confirmation. The water spoke broken English. He knew enough vocabulary to communicate. He spoke fluent French, as I could hear him speaking with the French group sitting in the neighboring table. He confirmed the offer. Ranjan speculated that the amount may not be adequate and hence such an offer. Paella was brought within fifteen minutes. The amount was sufficient. Thus Ranjan was not disappointed. I found here Paella testier than Roses. Altogether it was a satisfactory lunch. The time was shorting, so we could not pass lazy ours inside restaurant chit-chatting. On our insistence, when the waiter brought the bill, we discovered, with surprise, that we were charged for four Paella. We asked for clarity. This time we discovered that the waiter spoke almost no English and no French, as if he had no clue of what we were asking. He only said “four Paella”, so 4 multiply by 20 equal to 80 euro. None of us had the energy to contest or fight him back. Nor we could without knowing Catalonian. We came out from restaurant, mastering a form of business strategy.
We had to return Roses, but still we had plenty of time. We, Mikolaj in particular, wanted to see the light house which was located few hundred meters upwards. It took almost half-an-hour to reach. Like any mountain path, here also we moved in a spiral like trajectories. The landscape was quite similar to what we saw during our journey to Cadaques from Roses. From the light house, from this top part of mountain, the Mediterranean looked magnificent. As we looked towards the Mediterranean, we could only see the endless blue water – without any beginning and without any end. Occasionally, far away, few ships came to our vicinity. Because of shear distance, they looked like toys.
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| View from infront of the lighthouse |
*****
It was already evening, when we returned to Roses. Except for eating hot, spicy prawn soup in a restaurant, the evening was event-less. And then came the final day, the Sunday, the day to return home. We vacated the hotel room by 11 in the morning. Around the auspicious 13th hour in the afternoon, Mikolaj started the engine. Before the final departure, as a symbolic ritual, we had taken the last holy deep in the Mediterranean, to avoid possible trouble in the road, just a symbolic buttering to the God. When the car reached to highway, we understood our rituals and prayers have been fulfilled: the traffic condition was as ugly as the day of our arrival. The French were returning home. The cars, including ours, were moving like a bullock cart. Quite a few hours were passed by counting almost static cars which were desperately trying to move amidst the jungles of other cars. Mikolaj got furious now. Some nice words, very unlikely of him, came out of his mouth. And that was not merely because of horrible traffic. In the last few hours, it was difficult for us to estimate the distance we had moved, but we had already paid heavy toll taxes quite a few times. After almost four hours, our inner voice told, we should wait till the traffic condition improves. Thus we began to hunt for a parking slot or an empty space in the roadside.
I don’t remember exactly when, but our fortune favoured partially. An open space, just in the proximity of the road, came to our sight. Mikolaj parked the car. Three or four cars were already parked there. The space was limited; people were quibbling; we were lucky that we could manage a space for our car. Most of the other cars were quite big. Each of them could carry about 8-10 people. Just immediately after our entrance, couple of cars followed us. Virtually no place was left for them. Thus they parked on unauthorised spaces. French break rules if needed. Now we saw a long queue in just 30 meters from us. Something serious was happening. People were too busy and alert. Some were too active; some were too impatient. There were two toilets. People were fighting to entre. We noticed that no one was using the left most one. Then, all of a sudden, one desperate man from nowhere, perhaps infected by bizarre urgency, entered in hurry to that toilet. Surprisingly, no one’s – who were waiting on the queue for a very long time and eagerly waiting for their turns – objected. Almost instantly after his entry, the man was reverted by some supernatural forces from inside the toilet. He returned devastatingly while vomiting. Someone on the queue, manner less, giggled loudly. Shit happens. We looked at each other. None of us had the guts to use the toilet thereafter.
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| A stop to abscond traffic jam |
We, rather, preferred to explore the locality. We walked randomly for about an hour. It was just an eventless expedition. Nothing extraordinary happened. Almost no experience was gathered. When we returned to our car, there was no queue in front of the toilet. We thanked God. And then God returned our thanks for not polluting nature with natural and unavoidable instincts. The last phase of our journey began almost immediately. The day light was slowly disappearing. The traffic condition was still disappointing. Everyone wanted to outsmart others, resulting in chaos and further slowing down the speed. Mikolaj explained us: instead of outsmarting others, if everyone maintains an average speed, everyone would benefit. But most of the drivers perhaps lacked such common sense. So the 21st centuries sophisticated engines mostly moved like ancient bullock cart.
Sitting in the car, I gazed through the window to the outside world. The landscape was familiar. We crossed the same road few days back only. Everyone inside the car was quite silent. Perhaps a kind of mental tiredness had infected all of us. Mikolaj was concentrating hard on his driving. Nicholus was reading “Shiva Trilogy: The Immortals of Meluha”, and occasionally commenting on his compelling read. Ranjan was snoring in his dream. I stared through the windows to the outside world and kept on watching the same old field, the same old mountains, and the same old trees. I observed with hateful instinct the cars that overtook us. Then all of a sudden the landscape changed dramatically. I couldn’t believe that I had passed through this road only few days back. Our car entered into an oasis. Amidst the jungles of the palm and date trees, Mikolaj was driving like a superman, avoiding clashes with the trees. Just few yards from our car, the jungles of palm and date trees had ended, and began cane fields that extended miles after miles. The Arabs were celling palm and date wines, and fermented cane juice. I saw among them the famous Buddhist monk, who was born with circumcised penis and three legs. I told this to Mikolaj and he smiled in response with a sense of disbelief. I saw the princess of Arabs stood immediately behind the monk. She wore just a pink bikini and gazed at Nicholus with her seductive green eyes. “I am Rebeca,” she shouted waving her red handkerchief at Nicholus. Her fleshless, bone-only, lean body was vibrating in the air. The hidden dimples on her round face were displaying complex geometries. Nicholus was unresponsive. He was meditating. Ranjan started singing loudly. I never heard him singing before. He was singing English Gazals. I could not believe that he could sing with such fine accents. Mikolaj was driving. He didn’t care about what was going inside or outside. Now the car entered into a populous city famous for its White Castle. The castle was huge and magnificent. It extended for miles. I could remember this castle. I lived here long long long time backs with my thousands of wives. It was a different time altogether. Here, ‘Hoja,’ the first black convert to Islam served me red-wine. In the third floor of the castle lived that famous cousin of Ursula, who was born with a pig’s tail. Near by, there was a brothel where the visitors were mesmarized by the melancholy of the thirteen whores who were compassionately loved by thirteen inter-twined brothers. I wanted to tell all these to Mikolaj, to Ranjan, and to Nicholus. I could not. A sense of fear shook me. I wanted to cry in pain. At that moment, I was jerked by Ranjan. “Are you sleeping?” he said with his tired voice. I discovered myself amidst the cacophony of “Saint Bruno,” just in front of the building of my apartment. We returned to Grenoble.
Many months later, while resting in solitude, as I shared my dream with someone who understands my psychology better than anyone else, she only responded “Really! Are you sure you recognized colour in the dream?”
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| Genesis of the bizarre dream |
Acknowledgement: I sincerely acknowledge my lovely wife for her insistence in writing this travelogue. The last part of the story was entirely typed by her. She gave me plenty of ideas about the story telling. Many thanks to my friends – Mikolaj, Nicholas, and Ranjan – without whom there would be no story.
This story is dedicated to you Mikolaj. You are one of the great friends I had in Grenoble. I wish you every success in life. Where ever you are, just fulfil your dream.
Three years have passed and I still remember this trip. It was a blast, indeed. Greetings!
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