Chapter 15: Reyansh

# Chapter 15: Reyansh

## The Ghats

Day Seven. The day we reach the Western Ghats.

The Ghats. The mountain range that divides Maharashtra into two Maharashtras — the dry Maharashtra (Vidarbha, Marathwada, the plains that we have been walking through for seven days) and the wet Maharashtra (the Konkan, the coast, the green that the monsoon provides). The Ghats being: the wall. The wall that the monsoon hits and that the hitting produces: rain on the western side, drought on the eastern side. The wall that separates rain from no-rain, green from brown, coast from plateau.

And Pune sits at the top of the Ghats. Pune being: the city that the Ghats created: the city at the junction of the dry and the wet, the city that has both the plateau's heat and the Ghat's breeze, the city that Shivaji Maharaj chose as his capital because the choosing was the strategic genius: the Ghats are the fortress. The fortress protects the city. The city is Pune.

We left Aurangabad two days ago. Two days of: walking (the Hero Splendor long abandoned, no other motorcycles found), the walking taking us through Marathwada's western edge; through the villages between Aurangabad and Ahmednagar, the villages that are poorer and drier and smaller as the altitude increases, the increase — the Ghats approaching.

The road changes. The road that has been flat for seven days. Flat because the Deccan Plateau is flat, the flat, which was Vidarbha's and Marathwada's identity — the road now climbs. The climbing — not the gentle Ajanta hills' climb but the real climb, the Ghat climb, the climb that Indian highways make when the highway must cross the Western Ghats.

The NH60, the highway that connects Aurangabad to Pune through the Ghats: the highway climbing through the landscape that the Ghats produce: steep. Forested. Green: greener than anything we have seen since Nagpur, the greener: the Ghats' gift: the vegetation that the altitude and the moisture produce, the vegetation that the dry Marathwada did not have and that the having is the shock to eyes that have been seeing brown for seven days.

"Dekh," Janhavi says. "Hara."

Look. Green.

"Haan. Ghats hain."

"Itna hara, pehle kabhi nahi dekha tha. Amravati mein, Nagpur mein; sab brown tha."

This green. I've never seen anything like it. In Amravati, Nagpur, everything was brown.

The green, which was: teak forests (the teak that the Ghats produce, the teak that stands tall and straight and that the standing-tall is the Ghat tree's posture: upright, dignified, the dignity of trees that have been growing on mountain slopes for centuries), karvi bushes (the karvi that flowers once every seven years and that the flowering transforms the Ghats into purple, but not now, not in March, the March, the dry season when the karvi is green without flowers), and, and jambhul trees (the jambhul; the Indian blackberry, the tree whose fruit Pune's children eat in June and that the eating turns their tongues purple and the purple-tongues are the evidence of jambhul season). Truthful-hard. No pretence of softness.

The climb is hard. The hard that walking uphill for hours produces, the hard that the Deccan Plateau's flat walking did not prepare us for. My calves burn. The burning that inclines produce, the burning that is the muscle's complaint: I was adapted to flat. You are now asking me to climb. The climbing requires more effort. The more-effort is the burning.

Janhavi walks beside me. Her breathing heavier than on the plains, the heavier (altitude's contribution and the incline's) contribution, the two contributions combining to produce: effort. The effort that climbing the Ghats demands.

"Kitna door?" she asks. How far?

"Maps bol raha hai — Pune 120 kilometres."

120 kilometres. Two days. Maybe three, if the Ghats slow us down. And the Ghats will slow us down because the Ghats' roads are not straight (the not-straight: switchbacks, the hairpin turns, the curves that mountain roads require when mountain roads must gain altitude while keeping the gradient manageable).

"Do din."

Two days.

"Haan."

"Phir: phir hum Pune mein honge."

Then, we'll be in Pune.

"Haan."

The word. The word that carries the weight of seven days and 580 kilometres and Parth on the charpai and the nightmare of the mounds and the toll plaza canopy and the Hero Splendor and Hotel Panchavati and the stars over Aurangabad. The word that says: *yes. We will be in Pune. In two days. The two days being the final stretch.

---

The Ghat road produces surprises. The first surprise being: a waterfall.

Not a large waterfall, not the waterfalls that the monsoon produces, the waterfalls that tourists photograph and that Instagram displays. A small waterfall, a trickle, really. The trickle that the Ghat's springs produce in March, the March, which was the dry season when the springs are low but not dry, the not-dry being the Ghats' gift: even in the dry season, I have water. I have water because I trap the moisture. The trapping: my function. My function is water.

The trickle falls from a rock face beside the road, the rock face, the basalt that theGhats are made of, the basalt that the Deccan Traps' volcanic eruptions created 66 million years ago. The trickle falling into a small pool at the road's edge. The pool: knee-deep, clear, the clear water that springs produce.

"Paani!" Janhavi says. Her voice carrying the excitement that water produces after seven days of Bisleri rationing. Dry. Past its freshness.

We approach the pool. I bend down. Cup my hands. Bring the water to my face, the water hitting my face with the sensation that cold water produces on hot skin: the shock. The delicious shock of mountain spring water on a face that has been baked by seven days of Deccan sun.

The water is cold. Mountain-cold. The cold that the Ghats' altitude produces, the altitude of 600 metres, the 600 metres being the height that the road has gained since we left the plains, the 600 metres producing: cooler air, cooler water, the cooler-and-cooler being the Ghats' contrast to the plains.

I drink. The drinking, which was: cautious (the cautious that spring water requires — spring water being cleaner than river water but not guaranteed clean, risk that the road has taught us to calcu. The not-guaranteedlate: is the benefit of drinking worth the risk of contamination? In the new world, where there are no doctors, the calculation changes: risk-tolerance decreases.). But the water is: the water is from a spring. Flowing. The flowing, which was the indicator of safety: flowing water is safer than stagnant water, the flowing clearing the bacteria that stagnation accumulates.

I drink. Deeply. The drinking — the luxury. The luxury that seven days of two-sips-and-cap has denied: the luxury of drinking until satisfied. The satisfied that the body requests and that Bisleri rationing has denied. I shielded it with my palm.

Janhavi drinks too. Kneeling at the pool's edge, her hands cupping the water, the water running through her fingers and over her chin and down her neck. The running-water producing the sound that springs produce: the musical sound, the texture of water on rock, the sound that is the Ghats' soundtrack.

We fill our Bisleri bottles. All four each — the four — refilled from the spring, the refilling, which was resupply that theGhats provide: I am the mountain. I have water. Take it.

"Yeh bahut achha hai," Janhavi says. Sitting at the pool's edge. Her feet in the water, the feet that have been in canvas shoes for seven days and that the canvas shoes have compressed and blistered and that the cold water now relieves. "Bahut achha."

I sit beside her. My feet in the water. The water —: relief. The relief that is not metaphorical but literal. The cold water reducing the swelling that seven days of walking produces, the swelling decreasing as the cold constricts the blood vessels and the constricting is the therapy.

We sit for twenty minutes. The twenty minutes being the longest rest we have taken, the longest that we have permitted ourselves, the permitting: the Ghats' gift: you have been walking for seven days. You have been rationing water. You have been eating Maggi and Parle-G. Sit. Put your feet in my water. Rest. I am the Ghats. I have been here for 66 million years. I will wait for you.

---

The railing was warm from the afternoon sun.

The afternoon brings the Ghat road's second surprise: a view.

The view comes at a bend, the bend that the road makes as the road switches back, the switchback (road-engineering solution to steep slopes): go left, turn, go right, turn, go left, the zigzag that gains altitude while keeping the gradient manageable.

At the bend: a clearing. The clearing: the gap in the trees that the road-builders created: the gap that provides: the view. The view that the Ghats provide to anyone who stops at the bend and looks.

We stop. We look.

The view is: Maharashtra. All of Maharashtra; or at least, all of the Maharashtra that the eye can see from 700 metres above sea level. To the east: the plateau. The brown Deccan Plateau that we have been walking across for seven days: the plateau stretching to the horizon, flat, the flat. Identity that the plateau has had for66 million years and that the plateau will have for 66 million more. To the west: the descent. The green descent that the Ghats' western slopes produce. The slopes falling toward the Konkan coast, the coast that we cannot see from here but that the slopes suggest: *beyond me is the sea. Beyond me is the coast. Military canvas, coarse-woven.

And: between the east and the west, between the brown and the green, between the plateau and the coast, Pune. We cannot see Pune from here (Pune is still 120 kilometres south, behind the ridgeline) but we can see the geography that Pune occupies: the junction. The place where the brown meets the green. The place where the dry meets the wet. The place where the Deccan Plateau meets the Western Ghats.

"Wahan hai Pune?" Janhavi asks. Pointing south.

"Wahan kahin."

Somewhere there.

"Kitna aur?"

How much more?

"120 kilometres. Do din."

"Do din." She says it the way you say the last two kilometres of a marathon, with the exhaustion that the distance has produced and the hope that the remaining distance provides: only two more days. Only 120 more kilometres. The only, which was the reduction of seven days to two, the reduction (progress), the progress, which was hope.

"Haan. Do din."

We look at the view. The view that is the most beautiful thing I have seen since the virus, the view that the dead world provides as compensation for the dead: everyone is dead. But the mountains are not dead. The forests are not dead. The view is not dead. The view is alive and the alive is the mountain's gift to the two teenagers standing at the bend.

"Bahut sundar hai," Janhavi says.

"Haan."

"Agar, agar sab kuch theek hota, matlab, virus nahi hota. Toh main kabhi yahan nahi aati. Kabhi yeh nahi dekhti.

If, if everything was normal, I mean, no virus: I would never have come here. Never seen this. Never gone to Pune either.

The sentence, the paradox; the paradox that the dead world produces: the virus killed everyone. But the virus also brought me here. The here: the Ghats. The Ghats, the view. The view, the beauty that I would not have seen if the virus had not killed everyone and the killing had not sent me walking.

I do not respond to the paradox. The paradox does not require a response. The paradox requires: silence. The silence that the view produces and that the view deserves.

We stand. Look. Breathe the Ghat air: the air that is cooler than the plains' air and that the cooler air carries the smell of: trees. The wet-earth smell of forest. The green smell that the Ghats produce. The smell that is the opposite of the plains' dust-and-heat smell.

Then: we walk. Down the switchback. Into the Ghats. Toward Pune.

120 kilometres.

Two days.

Bhai, zinda hoon.