Rampaging through cold stillness, the swift tracks of this animal left no marks behind. As the morning mist broke against its face, it charged ahead to its determined destination, with no looking back. Not yet at least.  

It were as if the NH2 was a bulund darwaza to Delhi’s rural antiquity. The tollbooth darbaans out of uniform, goats flaunting their 4-packs, with their guarding dog off-duty. Sugarcane stalks on their way to meet the footpath ice. And all around, roofs of houses polka-dotted of dung cakes. 

The most familiar of all though was this; a man ever-so-often with a plastic PET on his way to check clear his morning business. And here was my face, scrunched up like used aluminium foil. Thank goodness, I wasn’t keeping count. Or was I?

Sitting inside our more than comfortable car, here I was. Chomping on chips and switching radio channels before every un-peppered song could salt me down. The FM at this A.M had no ads. The sound of music sounded even more musical. 

The entire trip, my mother had smiling  eyes as she played her own travel games. She was identifying each tree down to its cellular level; the fruits, leaves, roots, the stage of photosynthesis. Horticulture. Agriculture. Bacteria culture. She even had a story to what chores may be happening inside that distant shed behind that babool tree. How she knew that was babool from a google maps worth of distance, I didn’t have enough caffeine to comprehend.

Arrey home loans ki kitni chinta hai. Kya hum hamare sapno ka ghar kabhi nahi le payenge?

This wasn’t what my dad said. This was what the FM dad said. The radio ads had started.

And so did my impatience to get to Taj. Okay, Shah Jahan built it. Okay, he cut off the hands of all those workers. Okay, it is one of the world's wonders. Horn Okay Please. Why did trucks continue to slap that on their bums? Anyway, the highway had ended and now it was one mid-construction flyover followed by another followed by another followed by 10, 11, 12 more. Maybe I should have been keeping count of this one.

Each time the tires swiveled up dust, I coughed inside. Each time we stopped for gas, I took out my sanitizer and poured half the bottle on my hands. And each time someone leered inside the window, I became Kangana Ranaut in Once Upon a Time in Mumbai.

What? I was on holiday. I could act however I wanted.

Taj was lost in transit. It was blistering hot outside. Or so I am guessing. I was leaning against my push pillow with my AC/DC and drinking diet coke.

Agra’s Best Panchi Petha. The Best Panchi Petha Of Agra. Panchi Petha, The Best of Agra. Shop board after shop board, the same message to the same audience with the same words. The only difference was that by now I wanted to try some.

If only Taj stopped playing so hard to get.

I am a leaf. I am a leaf let loose in the woodlands of consciousness.

You can wrench your head high because you take young morning walks or meditate ascetically, or because you think you admire trees more than others, which makes you a nature-aficionado. But it doesn’t.

I am cemented in ticking time trying to fracture its walls. But in freedom, I fondle the falling mist and nuzzle with dirt.

Each new green-adventure erases my past green-adventures. This trip to the mountains, I saw that rolling hills are shades of shadows and light, mellow with ripe greens of great ups and lows. I saw that forest fog and clouds come close enough to kiss the vapor off of each other and disperse without a trace. I saw that if you whisper to a horse close enough and caress its neck, you can almost fathom how happy he is to be in the plateaus of home.

I am naïve —even if brown. I befriend the wind, the wood, the water and the wildlife. But perish with effluence. Without saying a word.

Velvety lavenders carpeted both sides of the road and ever-so-often a thread of delicate stream sprung down—whistling a white sonnet. The waterfall they all led to was rightfully its mamma—a roaring force of nature and a dangerously beautiful creation. The frigid waters were a reminder to leave no tracks behind but its gracious summoning came to be powerfully endearing.

I am desperate to be a wing of independence but once I’m on my own, I’m weak enough to trust a foe. I look out at the butterflies and the squirrels and cry inside because I can never survive on my own. Not long enough.

The only sanctity of these woods is that they are largely untouched—the self-sustaining, uninterrupted and breath-taking piece of the planet. The prolific soil and the fruiting trees and the hunting deers needed each other and every time one of them fell short because of external dynamics, the cycle was pricked. So I made sure. I came, I saw and I left no trace.

I am wet and loose and have my sides now gnawed out. But I lived a full live. I saw all seasons, I blossomed and fruited, and I contributed back to nature. Sometimes outside my will. It was only when I was snapped-out from my core, I realized that it was not freedom I seeked.