CALL OF THE WILD - I

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

After savouring mammoth portions of Keats and Coleridge to set the tone for my spiritual and cerebral pilgrimage, I set out to the hills tucked tastefully among the lush green and roaring streams ...my home....my heart...Uttarakhand. The land of the gods has always been close to my heart for its vast expanse of majestic imposing deodars, minty whiff of the Pine trees, the bark of the kakar, the ripe Kaaful, mighty hills dressed in green finery, the clear blue stream and naulas, the chill at dawn and the calm at dusk ......can't describe the feeling, you have to be in the lap of the wild to fathom its opulence and also be lost in the concrete to crave its want.

Since the past half decade I had been stifling the call of the wild. But the wanderlust's urge finally got over his urbanity. So I took a 4 day off from office, tanked up the car, bought my manna(Aw! hate to admit it....roasted betelnuts and flavoured tobacco), packed the camping gear and tore through Delhi's choking sea of metal and concrete like the Fohn cleaves through the Alps.

And here I was cruising on the highway, loving every moment of it tucking it carefully inside the greyish meninges to recall later when the urge again drains me with nostalgia. Around 200 Kms down the hishway, I halted at a roadside fruit seller who had tanked up his hand carriage with mangoes to lure the passerbys. By Jupiter the striking yellow hue and the mellow aroma was too Herculean a task for me to resist. The seller with his marketing instincts sharp promptly approached me with a Kilo which i devoured, within a matter of minutes. The mangoes were just the taste I like. Bit tangy and sweet and the aroma....well words wouldn't suffice for that. Since I started with the first light, daily ablutions were done at a nearby field with a long bath under the tubewell which gushed out water like a cannon blazing during the battle of Bulge. The gushing cool water, the red hue of the dawn and the greenish-brown expance, Waldorf Astoria are you reading this.......

If winter has come, can the spring be far behind. So after a hearty bath, can a sumptuous breakfast be far behind. The query was answered at a roadside dhaba with roti, white butter and steeming sweet tea. The rotis baked over the choolaha with wood burning underneath and smeared with white home made butter has the subtle smell of mud and the smoky flavour is enough to capture your taste buds and in my case I lost myself completely. Washing it down with piping hot, sugary tea gives you the feeling like been to the feast of Lupercal.

locked....Stocked....and ready to Rock........My call of the wild had just begun.