Udhagamandalam - Last Day

On the last morning in Ooty I kept the promise that I had made myself on the 1st day - I went to Woody's for breakfast. A sumptuous Onion Uttapam and Cardamom tea again! I lingered in the market place buying more homemade chocolates. It felt as if I didn't want to leave. L I have only one regret, two actually - one, because of the bad weather I couldn't visit Dodabetta peak. I am told the sunrise and sunset both are awesome there. And two, I couldn't visit the wax museum - though I passed it on my way out of the city on the last morning. The road that you take out of the city is different from the one you take when you come in - I don't know why though.

My last impressions of Ooty are made up of three things I noticed on this road. First was when our car stopped and was asked to wait at the roadside along with some other cars - probably to give "right of passage" to some VIP car. Naturally, I looked around. We had stopped in front of a small building the top floor of which was occupied by what looked like a typing institute - one that accepts typing jobs. As I watched a girl hurried in, got a key out of her purse and struggled with the front door lock. Then she went inside and opened the windows. I saw another man enter close on her heels. Then an office boy went in. The girl came out again and crossed the road hurrying. I craned my neck to see what she was doing - she accepted a sheaf of blank papers from a man who had arrived on a bicycle. Just as she hurried back upstairs with what I thought was the day's supply of the stationery, our car moved again. You might wonder - ok, so what's the point? Funnily (and you might want to club me on head for this!) I don't have any point to make. It’s just the thought that that girl must be doing the same thing every day - even today when I sat down to write this - but I, one of the so many tourists on their way out of the city that day, had stumbled onto this slice of her life. And again the age old question - was it pre-ordained or it just happened?

Then the graves - I caught sight of them as the car kept twisting and turning its way back towards Coimbatore. They were on a slope - surrounded by trees and green grass. Not rows and rows of them like I have seen in a cemetery in New Jersey and in war memorial cemetery in Pune - but a couple of them scattered along the slope. I don't know why but the sight of graves has always unnerved me. I wonder if it's because it reminds me of death or because I have seen maybe too many horror movies. These graves also unnerved me but I also wondered about them. I have often heard the expression "feeling like someone has walked over your grave" and puzzled over its meaning. As I looked at these graves this expression kept popping in my mind and I wondered what it must be like to lie in eternity on a green slope.

But these thoughts were soon blown away - because of the waterfalls. They kept crossing my path on the left and though none of them was big they commanded attention the way a playful child does. Some of them announced their presence in advance - I heard them before I saw them. But some were sly - they didn't reveal themselves till the car turned the corner and then they just blew my breath away. Crystal clear water - its coolness seeping through to me through the open car windows. Monsoon wasn't here yet so at some places I could see the path created by bigger waterfalls that had vanished now leaving just boulders and loose soil in their wake. I tried to imagine what they must look like in monsoon as each turn took me farther from Ooty and closer to Coimbatore.

I realized that the journey was over when the car dropped me at the airport. Jet Airways didn't make me wait for long and when the flight took off I only had Nilgiris on my mind.