Thought Crimes

On a non-descript Thursday evening in Singapore, I'd finally managed to get my iPod synced. The pod, incidentally, had been a gift from the Company, when they'd organized a Treasure Hunt for us interns. No prizes for guessing who's team won. So it was on the way from one of my informal residences to my formal one that I finally plugged those precious earphones in, and turned on mankind's marvelous machine. And on a road some 1000 miles away from India, from a set of more than 1000 possible songs, it was the shehnai of Rahman's Ye Jo Des hai tera that found it's way to my ear drums. Co-incidence, I believe, is a simple yet effective term that people use to describe such incidents.

They say that if you look close enough, you might find a paradise on earth. I have a feeling I was pretty close to it when waiting for the sun to rise atop Mt. Batur, one of Bali's many active volcanoes. The climb up started at 3 am, in pitch darkness and a drizzle to top it off. There was many a time when I felt like one of the umpteen Hindi movie policemen of the 70s, chasing the villain in the rain through thick undergrowth as my flashlight tried to keep track of our guide. Sitting in the wooden shack that served as the base point for the sunrise-awaiting party, shivering slightly due to the sweat accumulated over the 2 hour climb, and holding a mug of hot coffee to do something about it- watching the sky turn from a dark grey to an opalescent crimson to a clear blue, as the sun managed to gradually weave its way out of the looming clouds, is a sight and an experience that I'd never want to forget. If this was the stairway to heaven, then the trek back came close to being a highway through hell. Have a look at the Facebook album of the same if you can. The eight hours alone made the trip a success and the fact that I was to see the sun set that evening surfing, or rather learning to surf, on a white sand beach was just to be a footnote.

I find myself waiting excitedly for the time that I'm back on home soil, among people I love and at the places I call home. For now though, I must say goodbye. Goodbye to the days of being a denizen in this delightful little world of Second Life. Goodbye to waiting for the 65 each morning, to the occasional realization that 15 minutes spent on the treadmill always seemed much longer than even 15 hours spent at the office, to window shopping for items that were beyond India Today's objects of desire, to making plans so often of visiting that pretty little neighbourhood church and watching the plans go awry each time. Goodbye to recharging the EZlink card, to admiring the futuristic skyline, to making mental notes of all the dishes I was going to include in my equatorial food series. Goodbye to all the people- the front-desk staff downstairs who would always be ready to greet with a smile, to the fellows at the food-court whose stalls I frequented, to the taxi-drivers who'd wish Udi and I luck on our many sojourns to Resorts World Sentosa and most of all to the 15 fellow interns, who were pleasant fellow-travelers on this memorable 2 month journey. Goodbye to this dynamic city located on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula that kindly hosted Lefty for 8 precious weeks- Goodbye, Lah.