I HAD forgotten that the mud in Matheran is red. I had forgotten how it layers your shoes as you walk from this point to that point. In fact, I had also forgotten about the points with quaint names like Echo Point and Lord’s Point. (No echo, no lord there.)
I had forgotten that there are no cars in Matheran. I had forgotten about the horses and the walking canes and the whips. And funnily enough, I had even forgotten about the monkeys. It’s strange: sometimes when you revisit a place you went to as a child, either the memories come flooding back or you are blank. Free to create a whole new set of memories.
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This time I was blank. And happily so. Someone warned me about the tourists: ‘‘Arre, it is worst. You know, nah? Indian tourists.’’ He was right of course. We make a lot of things that are good. But we make terrible tourists. So I was prepared to have a horrible time.
Especially when I reached the forest parking lot at Dasturi. It seemed that, as far as the eye could see, there were cars. Of every shape and hue ever flogged on The Great Indian Equal Monthly Installment. Big cars, small cars, flashy cars, reversing horns, dangling dolls. Parked under every beautiful available tree. I tried telling my little daughter as I added our two bits and four wheels to the rest, ‘‘You know, this is the enchanted forest.’’ Somehow she didn’t bite. My heart hovered around my toe ring as a horde of horsemen tried to convince me of the virtues of their flea-ravaged beasts. Lady porters, thin saris in frightening contrast to our layered woolies, converged on our meager luggage cackling prices and gossip at the same time.
I tried hard to look cool even as I struggled to remember: Do you mount a horse from the left like a bicycle or from the right? Or is it just simpler to walk? What about the animal activists? Then slowly the decisions fell away as did civilisation. As we wound our way up the red forest path slowly the sounds and the chatter and the car horns dropped away to a faint memory. Just the clip-clop of hooves, the occasional snort from flaring nostrils and the quiet rustle of dusty red leaves.
The next three days I did all the touristy things: Visited the points, went to the market and the night fair with the giant wheel. Bought my daughter a catty and taught her how to use it to shoot trees and other immovable objects. Had a fight with a monkey over the sugar that came with my morning coffee (my daughter’s catty came in handy). Went for a winding walk in the forest where even the most enthusiastic
Indian tourists wouldn’t dream of going.
And rubbed my butt sore riding on various horses named Rajah and Arjun and (believe it or not) Thank You. And as I left the hill with red mud, I wondered how long before it disappears under the tsunami of civilisation? And does that even matter anymore? Or is being able to breathe quite enough?
Postscript: It feels nice to be alive. A little guilty. But nice. So Happy New Year and may your 2005 be peaceful and free of disaster.
(Adi Pocha is an ad film-maker and can be contacted at adipochas@yahoo.com)