I have fascination towards road. It gives me a hope that there is a way wherever I go. It does not matter to me if the way is straight, lush, barren or invisible; I know it is there somewhere, if not permanent at least momentarily. When I was a kid I remember watching the lonely streets from the barred window, just looking at it. The patch of the road that I could see from the window went through countless times of re-formation. It went wider one day but distinctly it was so familiar to me; just down to earth as always. It is almost two decades right now when I last saw that patch of road, but the fascination towards the endlessness of roads is still anew.
I am quite flattered by the success of unplanned events. They turn out to be sheer pleasure, may be because they don’t carry the burden of our prior expectations or maybe because we accept them the way they are or maybe the pleasure comes just because they are unplanned. Two bikes and four friends, 11 PM at night, loaded fuel tank and no idea where we were heading. We just hit the Bangalore-Mysore stretch and followed the road.
After half an hour of ride the real essence of long drive was building up. The road seem to lie down silently just for us while the motionless wind for someone who is standing by the road, was hitting ferociously as an reply to our unpardonable speed. We screamed and sang to the audience-less exposed nature. The buzzing wind playing tantrums around our ears posed us with the challenge to scream and sing even louder. I spread out my hands to see if the wind can push me back. No it could not; instead I pushed the wind mercilessly. We switched off the headlights turning the ride even more devilish. Uncompromising on the speed we took the turns barely missing the grip on the road. The moonlight over the streets was not beautiful but ruthlessly shining at us. I have never seen such a revengeful face of the road ever in my life. The road was conspiring and it put its wrath on us sooner than we expected. The trees were hiding the moonlight and dark seemed like getting darker; silence ruled and we were its obedient followers. Every turn was won with acceleration when finally a sharp turn successfully got the wheels off the road and we were skidding.
One bike passed the fate safely and the second bike was on the verge of being crushed by the wrath. The sandy path below the road did not let the tyre grip. The acceleration was showing an entirely new face; it was exciting and fearful at the same time. Bumps in between made us leave the road and float on air higher than we were expected to be and for the first time in my life my faith on “roads” were dissolving to oblivion. We were passing through the path where we were not supposed to be, or should I say the path that we were encountering was not supposed to be there. The reflex of the rider manipulated the gear-shifts, the breaks and the accelerator and then with a jolt we were back to the road and at least there was physical stability attained. The headlights were on and in moments the mental stability was back too and as we rode the darkness galloped with us leaving the twenty feet of the road that was smeared with the light from the head-lamps of the bike. The twenty feet of road that was visible was saying something to me and it did not take much time for me to understand.
We had no idea where we were heading but we firmly knew our limitations (or possibility as it may be called). We surely did not know the path we were taking but what directed us was the twenty feet of road. We need not know the entire stretch of the road to where we were heading. The twenty-feet was enough for us to know what was in front of us, that twenty-feet was enough for us to know we were safe and that same twenty-feet was our faith of the moment that, we will get to where our destiny belong. We chose the 75 Km mark and nailed it as our destiny. We took the next U-turn and continued back with our ferocious speed.
We stopped for out dinner on a dhaba right under the sky. It was the one of the spot on the stretch which seemed awake. The Barista and Coffee-Day were open but its sophistication was an unavoidable mismatch to the raw ride we had and so we let them pass by on our way. The return journey was silent. But our speed was way above the limits and this time we were open for anything to happen. The twenty feet of the road was guiding us and we were back from our so called destination to the start point in considerably less time. We halted in the friend’s house which came earlier. Our chatting posed a sudden silence with our eyes shut down with a universal phenomenon called sleep. The next morning we were up at 6 to hit back the road which was supposed to take us to our respective home.
The next twenty minutes ride was a quiet once again. It matched the serenity of the moment. The road seemed so peaceful and the longer stretch of the road was visible compared to the night. But it was still like an unconscious and yet conspicuous feeling that it was the twenty feet of the road right ahead of us that directed our course. We never took a turn which was significant to reach our destination, that was way ahead to come, but we directed our movement as per the twenty-feet of vicinity and yet we knew that we were going to reach where we are heading to.
I was wide awake when I reached home and as I was sitting and writing this, what I remembered was the journey. The destination seemed meaningless to me. It was like a decorated dangling piece of temptation amalgamated with momentary passion that is destined to be kept behind and we all need to move on starting a new journey for a new decorated temptation. What actually made me wonder was, does some kind of final destiny exist after which there is no journey? Is Death the answer to it or should I call Death an unplanned abrupt end to a journey? I sat for entire hour thinking about it. Truly speaking I could not conclude. I satisfied myself saying that any kind of destiny is a myth, a myth that comes when we set ourselves on the road and this myth shall live ever as the unending road always exists even if we find a dead-end. Beyond this dead-end is the beginning of unseen and unidentified endless road. May be we don’t believe it but do we have a choice?
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