Spookiness of scooter rides

It was during the times of growing up when holidays meant happiness and holidays came twice in a year. Once during Dussehra and again during summer. We used to live in our parental house in a small village in western part of Odisha. The village had it's boundary defined by a river that flowed like a dancing girl from west to east and spread herself below a hundred meter long bridge built during the end of 60's. The other side of the bridge was occupied by shrubs, neighboring villagers and a notorious wine house which sold desi alcohol in polythene packets and much to the dread of us, children, a forbidden place even to think about. Small houses of clay, bricks and cement mushroomed on both sides of the road that came bouncing and jumping from a town south to the village and passed across the bridge to the north. The town was close by, just half an hour cycle ride from the village, or may be a fifteen minute ride, depending on your calf muscle strength and the direction of the wind. For us, the southern end of the village was the high school with a huge playground where cricket and football tournaments were organized and occasionally we used to go and sit for hours watching the big boys play and curse each other.

Each year, holidays were spent at my grand father's house where my mother, her sisters and her brothers were born and the sisters were married off and sent to their new homes, new villages. One of my uncle, used to come to our village to take us all in a sky blue scooter. The scooter could fairly accommodate me, my elder brother and my mother. I would be waiting for the moment when the others will hop on the scooter and I will stand in the front in between the handle and the rider, my uncle, who will be driving us towards his village, away, far far away from the river, the playground and the near by town. My height was optimum. Enough to stand and stare, without blocking my uncle's view. Sometimes, I would stand a little slanted towards left and would bend my neck slightly so that my hair while ruffling in the wind would not come near uncle's eyes. I would place my hands carefully on the handle so that they were at least a finger length away from the scooter's gears. I used to look at each and every thing that passed by us. First we used to cross the town and new villages would pop up every now and then. Trees would run in opposite direction. The bus conductor would shout for more people and people would come and engulf the brown-tattered bus. A dog would wander and wait for an opportune, auspicious moment to pee on the wheels. A shopkeeper would throw a pakoda at the peeing dog and it would forget the previous action completely to take part in new adventure. A cycle would stop at a tea shop and the fly inside a closed glass jar of sweets would struggle to go out. Then the green fields used to show up and the smell of rice paddy would fill my nostrils. Birds would wander up in the sky and the random pattern of clouds would filter the sun rays and I would stop looking up and concentrate on the road at length. The dust of the road would be divided by the intruding wheels and fresh cow dung would separate bearing the mark of the tire. I would remember the geography lessons in our primary school which used to start with the sentence that earth is round like a lemon, flattened on the sides and think about the scooter to cover the length of the lemon to reach my uncle's village.

Those days were dreamy days. My perception of the world hovered around the notion that the written words, geometrical drawings on text books and the real dusty-brown world are linked through my thoughts. What I think manifests on the world I live in. The only real world with real people and things were the ones known to me directly. Hence my village and my uncle's village were the two geographical locations which were real. Other scenes, stuffs, space in between were just an illusion. A collage of reality stitched with one end at my village and the other at uncle's. The events actually occurred in between because I happened to pass through them. They were not there before. What occupied was empty space. The two lands were surrounded by empty spaces where matter popped up when I wanted to see them. I used to wonder when I am asleep, would there be the tea shop under a banyan tree. No. It would not be. The bus conductor would not be there, neither the dog.
 When I reached my uncle's house, I used to think that the village I came from, the river and the playground and the people in there would be present there, loitering or doing things just like me, eating a sugar-apple or reading a story from Chandamama. But the places I left on the way, would not be left there. They would have disappeared, vaporized into thin air, from where they came into being. However I would never know, where they went when I did not see for them. I would strain my eyes, while coming back, try to discover the space that took them in while I was away, looking below the abyss of a well or locating a plough and a farmer on the constellation above in a sleepy night.

                   (* Photo taken from Google image - Schrodinger's Cat (Spookiness of quantum mechanics)