Thirty years ago, before smog and dust made Ooty almost invisible to visitors and residents, we used to look for picnic spots quite confidently. A short drive away from our home on Churchill Lane, we would find a place opposite an old cemetery. The spot was near the quiet bend of the road that led to Fernhill Palace, the summer home of Mysore’s royal family.
The hillside sloped gently into a lush green and wooded location. At the far end of the knoll of grass, a few trees and large rocks were scattered as if someone had placed them at symmetrical distances. A clear silvery stream chuckled along stones of varying shapes and sizes. If we crossed this little stream, we would reach the ideal spot for our picnic. With jamkalans, umbrellas, flasks, picnic baskets, orange juice no and the produce of fermented hops, our picnics were always a day to remember.
My encounter with the stream is set in the days before salvar kameez swept southwards and conquered both young and middle-aged women; a time when a mother of two managed a whole day in indestructable saris.
That day, we crossed the stones over which the water flowed sweetly, step by step, stone by stone. One a particular smooth stone had a faint wrinkle in it. Even before I put my foot on it, I was beginning to fall, slipping sideways. Plosh! I hit the icy water. Immediately, I jumped up pretending as if nothing happened. In reality, I was not alright. My sides hurt and I was dripping wet, chilled to the bone.
That did not stop us from enjoying our picnic. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we decided to hit the same place again. The next time, we checked the sky. It shone a determined blue, the great droughts were just beginning. We set off yet again to the same place. There glowed the green grass and there swayed the same trees and there sparkled that stream with stepping stones to our picnic spot.
This time, before crossing the river, I took extra care and unloaded the boxes and bundles that I was carrying. I hitched up my sari and like a child taking her first steps, I started to cross the stream. I remembered the stone on which I slipped last time. I was very careful not to step on the same stone. To my horror, I put my foot on the same rock.
Plosh! I fell yet again. I was surrounded by unsympathetic laughter this time. And all I could think of was “What did that stepping — sorry slipping — stone have against me and not against any others?”
Email: minioup@gmail.com