I and my socially-challenged friend

I and my socially-challenged old school friend decided to have an evening out.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Although I am the narrator here, I did not bestow this obnoxious epithet on her. The credit to that solely goes to my friend herself. But, being a mother of two immensely adorable but nevertheless extremely vulnerable children with age-appropriate naughtiness, her social challenge can be considered more circumstantial than temperamental. Housework and motherhood did not leave her much time and perhaps inclination, though subtly so, to mingle. And wise women that we are, we felt there was no social crisis that could not be solved with an evening out.

So a fine evening – or so we thought – we took off, leaving our children under the able care of our husbands. She drove while I listened to jazz music, her choice, and enjoyed the newness of the music and the landscape. The plan, as we had meticulously discussed and finalized, was thus – drive to West Falls Church, take the metro rail from there to Smithsonian, take a tour of the Lincoln Memorial, which my friend’s sight-seeing-driven hospitality considered a must-see, then walk around Georgetown, maybe go to a club, drink a little, laugh a lot (which I am quite notorious for after a whiff of vodka), relax, gossip, get nostalgic, and get back home socially de-challenged.

We didn’t predict the rain – which came in torrents. With all my navigation and my friend’s driving skills, the route map, and a husband on the phone giving verbal instructions, we still managed to lose our way, which was quite unplanned too. We almost crashed into a car stopped at a light, missing all that excitement by less than an inch. Finally, we did reach the West Falls Church station and got ourselves a couple of tickets from an unimaginably complicated and willfully hostile machine, shaken and a wee bit stirred, but certainly not deterred from our original idea of having an evening out.

Lincoln Memorial was, well, lofty. The huge statue of Lincoln looked on impassive while the dwarfed tourists crowded to read the Gettysburg address engraved on the wall. I read it too. “At this second appearing to take the oath of Presidential office…….,” a speech that apparently was long and did not resemble the rather iconic Gettysburg address. Seeing perplexity in my eyes, my friend, who might have muttered “you dummy,” led me to the opposite wall where I saw engraved the quite familiar words of “Four score and seven years ago…..” – a fitting tribute to martyrdom, freedom and equality, carved majestically on stone.

Later, walking down Georgetown’s M Street, we took in the quaintness and richness of the town in equal measures. Our intention was to find a club although admittedly both of us panicked a little. The questions we bandied were “have you ever been to a club?” “do you enjoy drinking that much?” “do you really know the etiquettes of a club?” “are we even dressed properly?” “Isn’t it too early?” The answers were mostly firm “nos” and a couple of equivocal “yes’s,” which did not make the matter anymore clearer. Maybe for an instant or two, we were eighth graders once more, daring to be different, confident of being special, but still aching to run back to our comfort zones. Luckily, we didn’t spot a club and didn’t have to make a decision on that. What we ended up spotting was an Indian restaurant, and that made our choice easier. Tearing out our buttered nans and munching our succulent paneers, we were gloriously happy in our comfort zone.

On our way back, we got into a wrong train – which was again unexpected because we were quite sober. Although we had become a bit heady by then with all the talking. We talked a lot that day – oh, there was no dearth of topics – husbands, children, life, husbands, children, life, husbands……

And that ended our special evening out. An evening where we realized that we are no longer different, that we will never get back our girlhood again, that we might be a little inept at ticket vending machines, but we still can be special in our own little ways.

And no, my dear friend, you are not socially challenged.

Of a canyon and a sun

It was worth the wait. This overwhelming of senses was corroboration enough that my trip was worthwhile. I was standing at Yavapai Point of the Grand Canyon waiting for the sun to set. And beyond the ledge on which I stood, and beyond hundreds of tourists gathered around the breadth of the observation station, the canyon unfolded in all its timelessness. “As old as time” – that was the phrase that kept flitting to my mind. I was gazing at maybe a billion years of natural history. I was witnessing the power of nature that can etch a landmark so pristine in its starkness. It was enigmatically beautiful, yes. But what was arresting was the very austerity in its wilderness – earth brown as opposed to fecund green, chiseled layers as opposed to smooth contours. And then, the unimaginable size of it all. I was almost a proselyte – from confused monotheistic idolatry to primeval pantheism.

The jagged edges of the canyon rim were turning golden under the setting sun. Wind had picked up while we waited as the sun came inevitably closer to the horizon. I whimsically wished for wings while I pulled my jacket closer. I mused on inevitability – of Colorado River flowing on, of sun sets, of life, of time ticking away.

I felt a tug and looked down to see my 3-year-old prancing around.

“I want to pee pee, I want to pee pee,” she chanted.

“Can it wait?” I asked miserably; I already knew the answer.

“Noooooooooooo,” came the plaintive cry.

“Now walk fast. I don’t want to miss the sunset,” I said half dragging and half carrying her to the rest room I had spotted near the car park, which to my impatient mind seemed to take forever to reach.

“You are not happy with me.” She pouted on the way back.

I hugged her tight and explained to her that I am of course happy with her. I was only unhappy with the inevitability factor that seems to rule our lives. “The inevitability of your pee pee,” I said, snuggling her. “But let us hurry, the sun has not yet set,” I squinted at the golden glow in the horizon.

“Why sunset again again?” She was quizzical, as she burrowed her head deeper into my neck. She too resigned to the inevitability of her mom’s quirkiness.

And thus we watched the sun set – the canyons becoming golden, then red, then brown, and finally a rusty silhouette against a darkening sky. We went back to the hotel, unsated still, but somehow at peace.

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Sunrise was at 5:15 AM. We reached Mather’s point at 5, a crispy morning, cold by my standards although my warm blanket of a husband termed it as pleasant. My three-year-old was up too and thanks to some curious turnaround in her mental makeup, she was actually keen to see the sunrise. Mather’s point was crowded. There were two bus loads of Japanese tourists and a convoy of Harley Davidsons, and of course a bunch of photography enthusiasts. Thanks to a Harley Davidson couple’s magnanimity and probably due to my daughter’s rather audible announcement that she can’t see anything, we were given a spot right at the edge of the safety railing.

“Mr. Sun, sun, Mr. Golden Sun, please shine down on me,” I sang my daughter’s favorite ditty under breath.

That was all the encouragement my little songbird needed to erupt into the full song.

“Mr. Sun, sun, Mr. Golden Sun, hiding behind the tree…” she echoed.

“Is the sun hiding behind the tree?” I asked her.

“No, behind the Grand Canyon.” She immediately chirped and broke out into a revised rendition “….Mr. Golden sun, hiding behind the Grand Canyon.” Everybody around us laughed, either politeness or actual amusement, while I silently blamed my husband’s genes for my daughter’s propensity for unrhythmic parodies.

A Japanese tourist beside me enquired whether we were from India. I prudently did not get into the nitty-gritty of the issue but just said yes. He beamed at me and spoke of Taj Mahal. The heaviness of his accent made it almost impossible to understand him, but the fervor in his voice was unmistakable. I nodded quite proudly.

The sun did start to rise at that time and an expectant hush fell on the crowd. We all watched another spellbinding show of sheer gold spreading over one of the most recognizable landscapes on earth, and many among us were speechless – except my little songbird of course who sang on uninterrupted.

The show over, we parted ways, the Harley Davidson couple with a wave and the Japanese tourist with a nod. We hung back for a little while more, memorizing, recapturing, reminiscing. I thought of Keats and his slavishness to beauty. I thought of Wordsworth and his emotions recollected in tranquility. I thought of the transcendentalists – Thoreau and Emerson. I thought I understood them more, standing there on the edge of a chasm so deep and so beauteous.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever – be it a Grecian urn, the Taj Mahal, or the Grand Canyon.