The Anatomy of Journey

That evening, just as the sun began to descend over the stone-grey mountains, storm clouds started to gather. The darkness that followed was immediate, and would last all night. There is a soft and re- assuring regularity to all rains, and they all begin with an almost imperceptible change in the way the wind blows. Having ridden at a single stretch all the way from the heights of Khardung La, we had successfully set up camp in the Jurassic valley of Morey Plains, about a thousand meters from the broken road and another thousand from the mountain face. When we finished lodging the last of the tent pegs firmly into the ground, we noticed the clouds. The tent flaps that were quiet until now whipped in the sudden breeze as it picked up speed and a new direction.

  'Rain?’ 3 asked, looking at me.

  'Looks like it,' I said, following the line of clouds with my finger. 'We need a fire soon.'

  The change in wind is followed by the slightest scent of wet mud. It is a sign that the heavens have opened somewhere nearby. Moham picked up this scent first. He pointed to his nose, smiled expectantly and said, 'It’s raining nearby; just beyond those hills, I think. Let's get the raincoats out; we can sit in the rain.'

  In the city, where the angry beauty of nature is hidden behind concrete interruptions, it is hard to appreciate the many ingredients of a good, rollicking thunder storm. But out here in the plains, we were allowed to witness a three-dimensional show. Enormous cloud formations, miles high and wide, looked and clashed like Titans from a mythical age, rolling in like monolithic spaceships and devouring the sky. They moved at great pace, and displayed an almost occult range of color in that spectrum between black and grey. The sound of faraway thunder seeps into the earth, thrumming through the ground and reaching the mind through the feet.

  Once it was lit, we sat around the pleasantly crackling campfire, enjoying the glowing, dying orange light of the translucent evening sun, spread neatly and evenly over the entire sky by the porous clouds. By this time the army of clouds had conquered the sky from horizon to horizon, and we couldn't see a single patch of blue between the mountains that shielded the plains. Amidst our small talk, thunder rumbled, closer and closer, until we saw a single streak of lightning split the gathering darkness for the briefest second.

  'We are in for a wild night, boys!’ I said, shouting over the ensuing drum-roll of thunder.

  The first drop of rain falls with hesitation, almost as if it is too shy to kiss the earth. It travels slowly down and falls unseen. But they quickly gather courage, those tiny drops, and begin to fall thick and fast upon us. The fire sputters and sparks but stays strong, and we move closer to it to warm ourselves in the increasing chill.

  It is in the nature of things to be shaped relentlessly by sound, and I don’t know how this booming storm will change me. Within me I notice the spark of a strange turmoil that identifies with the enormous grey clouds whipped into torment by tornado winds. It is an indescribable mix of melancholy, pain and the romance of rain, invoked and stoked by the scent of the earth. It is the same feeling you get when you hear two opposing octaves resonate with each other. You can't see it, but you cannot but feel certain that in some dimension the two sounds dance together. Rains are instruments of resonance, matching your frequency with that of the rain and with that of other’s. Slowly, slowly, the fire and the orange glow resonate with the dissipating darkness; the insects of the land march towards the fire; slowly we nestle deeper into our coats, closer to the fire and closer to each other, and slowly we learn to speak in silence. Within the rain, the entire world is enveloped in a bubble of resonance where everything is on the same frequency, where nothing speaks, where everything listens. The insistent sound of raindrops hitting the earth, the gurgle of water as it collects and runs down channels off the mountain face, and the ethereal mix of rushing wind and thunder is too precious, too spiritual to disturb, especially when you are alone in an enormous sandy valley, with three good friends and a storm, a fire, a tent and a bike. It seems almost perverse to talk, to enforce my identity in front of nature's majesty, to ask for more.

  *

  A feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain,

  And resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain.

  H.W. Longfellow

  *

  Catharsis

  The only journey is the one within.

  Rainer Maria Rilke