THE TRIP

THE TRIP

        The alarm buzzed, it was 4.30 am, and ops I was late. I rushed to the bathroom and was out by 4.40, usually I never take less than half an hour but today I simply couldn’t afford. I searched for my phone, now whenever you need something urgently you never usually find it; it has turned quite a habit with me. My bedroom had completely turned into a mess, finally found my phone under the blanket and without wasting any further time ranged up to Surya………..

“Halo Surya, is it you?” blah the phone went dead…………..

He called me back, he was still in bed. “How can we both be late?” we had planned something today. I was literally pissed off, all my excitement vanished, again my phone buzzed, it was Surya, I regained my composure and picked up, “We still weren’t that late after all”, finally I decided, I was not going to waste any further time, I jumped out of my bed, took my charger and water bottle, now again “Where the hell was my bag?” I had packed my bag yesterday and kept it near my bed, now things sort of seemed to vanish, when u need it the most.

I madly searched here and there, asked Jojo my younger brother about my bag, now this time, it was mummy who had kept the bag in the shelf, I thanked her and dressed up, I preferred my leather jacket, as it was chilling cold outside, and after all we were about to ride a 100 odd kilometers. I left for Surya, reached at his place within a few minutes. Called him, now from his window, I could notice him, his speck was after all so huge, one could notice it’s frame even from miles away, tickling his speck in a funny way he whispered “come in” I refused as we were already late, having no choice left he came down in his sorts and sort of shoved me upstairs. I noticed aunty standing in the stairway so I couldn’t resist, she asked whether I had my water bottle or not, I nodded quietly, then finally Surya was all set.

We rushed down, and within minutes we were on NH-5, it was quite pleasant outside, dew drops seemed to swathe the earth with a thick blanket, sun was slowly waking up from its sleep, and rays of warmth soothed our body and mind. It is always a treat to witness sunrise in winter, and that too when you are on a motorbike. Surya was after all a good pillion; all the time while I was riding he was busy taking clicks with his new Phone. Now we two were not alone, we were to be joined later by Aman and Charan, Aman was my childhood buddy, Charan happened to be my college mate. It was decided that they would join us at Konark. Actually there is a little bit twist in this trip, it was 14^th of December and Aman’s birthday so we had decided to surprise him with a trip just the day before so he was not prepared at all, but we knew that he would never deny. But it was a huge task to convince his parents, so he decided to keep it a secret from his parents, especially his father, a very polite and humble gentleman but very strict when it comes to Aman. Thus it was decided he along with Charan would join us later in the day as an early morning winter ride with us might raise trouble for him, especially on his birthday, after all he had to be present in the pooja and rituals that usually follows on natalem.

By the time we had almost entered Puri district and were heading towards Konark, people usually tend to visit Puri first and then via the marine drive head towards Konark. But we had preferred the other way round because of safety issues, it was not safe to return to Cuttack via Konark at night, now from within I could sense that my stomach was growling. I knew that it was time for us to take a break and have something. We looked for a Tiffin stall, to our utter disappointment we could only find cows grazing on both sides of the road, for the next 5 kilometers we could hardly find any shop. Just then we came across a small market and after a tedious exertion we finally ended up having bananas, In fact something is always better than nothing.

We again were back on the road, this time I was in the pillion seat, the scenic hinterland untouched by human interventions seemed to arouse in me a deep respect for Mother Nature, and the scenic landscapes were indeed priceless, even a blind man could sense its beauty. As I was not driving now, I was completely engrossed and lost in my world of imagination. A truck’s constant honking finally brought me back to my senses. After a sort while we were able to witness the majestic Sun temple standing tall above the ground. We decided not to visit the temple first; instead we headed towards the marine drive as Aman and Charan had not reached yet.

The beauty of Chandrabhaga was captivating, we were not able to resist ourselves, and ran like kids towards the beach after parking our bike. The view was breathtaking, we folded our jeans, as soon as tides washed our feet’s an inexplicable sense of joy ran through our veins. We enjoyed there for the time being and decided to explore more about the lives of fishermen living in the coasts. Surya seemed a bit worried, I asked him about the weird sort of expression that he was giving, and it was a mixture of uncertainty and perplexity. He was actually of the opinion that Aman and Charan should have reached by this time. I called Aman, but he was not answering, we both tried calling them, charan’s phone was switched off, and Aman was not answering the call. I tried calling Aman a couple of times…….. No response from the other side. Now both of us grew tensed. Surya tried calling Charan again but instead of him a lady in a polite way conferred, “The number you are trying to call is either unreachable or switched off at the moment! Please try again after sometime” blah the phone went dead....................