A silent prayer, a quiet day…
Till yesterday, you were looking up to me
Asking me what do I want
But now I'm sitting here alone, all alone
With my tears and a bleeding heart…
Looking at my life, which is not the way I ever thought.
Where did you both go, and why
I miss your presence every single day,
My eyes are clouded and memories have made their way.
Didi, Jeejaji… you were the best and shall remain so always! I love you and I miss you…
Lovingly
Moni, as I was endearingly addressed by you.
We were heading towards Karjat and I was quite aware of the fact that the roads in India are tough to cycle. Attempt to overtake and pushing you off the road is common and you're given little or no quarter by the bus & truck drivers (although you'll sometimes get the positive thumbs up from them when they see you struggling while going uphill). Often cars will be zooming past with only inches to spare, almost brushing the bike in their frenzied dash for liberation. With all this running on my mind and several other discussions in parallel with Gurdeep, Mitesh, and Vikram we reached Lucky’s Restaurant, Karjat. It was a pleasant site. After a good and satisfying breakfast we all got onto our bicycles... excitement was at its pinnacle and I could not miss thinking of this line by Gusteau in the movie Ratatouille "If you get stuck thinking about what you left behind or lost, you’ll never see what is in front of you." I guess life is so much like biking... To maintain the balance you have to just keep moving. With a smile on my lips and a spark in my heart I started off along with the group! 
For the initial 1km, traffic was banked up in both directions and we quietly pedalled to sneak through the cars, trucks, motorbikes, and buses. The next 25-28km was not a hard stretch of road to cycle, or maybe it was all part of the charm of the place, light weight 24 geared mountain bikes, helmets, and the high energy levels. The road went across bridges over streams, most of which were largely dry and also passed small villages with countable number of huts. Actually after a while it was just us on the road and I pedalled off, enjoying the freedom from traffic behind me. The short, quick breaks, for rest, water, and photography were neat! There's this odd phenomenon I noticed: you'll often hear "Hey!" being yelled out - in an insistent, tone. It'll either be a farmer, yelling instructions to his bullock, or some children waving, and who, on seeing you cycle past are expecting that you'll suddenly stop cycling & immediately head over to them. Sometimes they smile and exchange eye contact if you do stop & look in the direction. Frankly speaking, it was a concerning sight for us when we saw slightly slow vehicles (like a slow truck, or an old man with the bullock & cart) coming towards us. 
In parts it was quite stony bitumen with high resistance making cycling seem much harder than it should. Sometimes we even had to pedal hard downhill, as the bike won't easily roll on this stuff. In fact, it sometimes seemed I was in one of those anomalous gravitational areas you hear of, where vehicles allegedly roll uphill (yes, you got it right – ‘The Magnetic Hill, Leh’ haha I have not gotten over my Ladakh trip). Here, some roads seemed to be going uphill, but you find yourself rolling along without need for pedalling; others seem downhill but stop pedalling and you rapidly come to a halt. Spooky! It wasn't too bad though!!! 
Now the sun went down, the whole town is quiet - hardly any noise, here I am sitting in the comfort of my home post the adrenaline rush all through the day, I give profound thanks to Sumit (Below Banyan), our guides (Santosh, Bhavesh, and Akshay) and the entire group (Gurdeep, Mitesh, Suruchi, Swapnil, Vandana, Vikram, Vinay, and Vishal) for making this trip an exhilarating one. I enjoyed every single moment of it! There was a sense of freedom, and it was eventful and exciting being among the participants. Hope everyone else did too! 
The past year has been a total whirlwind, it feels like practically everything has changed. It's all terribly exciting and nerve-wracking. I live alone and have become a workaholic. With more ideas, and dreams and in all sincerity, I am very lucky. But in all this hustle bustle come Christmas time and I start missing Delhi winters… my woolen clothes, the soft quilts, my mittens, and of days when you can't leave the house without a jacket, the cold breeze on your face and hair. Look at me, now when I am writing this, I have started to miss my childhood. As kids my big sister, and I smelled like pears. Mom had some pear-scented something that she would apply so our skin stayed soft and fragrant. It did the trick and in fact each time I look at those pictures it makes me want to pinch my own cheek
I guess I have everything I want in life but, I still sense there is a big space still left to be filled. Is that the reason I am going down memory lane, or I am thinking of my home town, my days with my sister, mom, and the craft work we did together. I get interested to think of something and then am just as quickly on to the next thing… Even now, while I type this, I am also playing with my new telephoto-lens. But looks like my camera too has lost its ability to focus, as did my mind. I don't see exactly what is missing in this beautiful life and night so I would go and make some tea with ginger, cinnamon, and lemon grass. May be by then I would know what is missing… :)