Latitudes.

by Laura Preite (Italy)

I didn't expect to find India

We’ve been travelling by car for hours now. We left Udaipur, a fragment of a world without time, heading to Gujarat; a change of plans not considered until yesterday. Owing to the 200000 people displaced in Kerala by the August Monsoons’ fury. “Mount Abu, mum. Good place” says Om, our driver. He only knows four English words, but his apparent confidence in any given situation touches me. We’re on our way to Mount Abu when we discover he has never left Rajasthan before and he’s only carrying a paper map and old Nokia mobile for sms and calls. After ten days of unspeakable hot weather and chaotic local markets, unintelligible towns, meetings and exchanges which broke all the bones of our fragile certainties in reality, my best friend Roberta and I can’t talk to each other. Sitting with betrayed expectation and rambling opinions of the order of the things, we’re blaming one another for all the failures of this trip. The car starts climbing to Mount Abu and I hate hairpins, I’m scared to fall off the mountain; I close my eyes: no empathetic gazes around and rage is stiffening my nerves. A forest immersed in a simmering dense fog is moving alongside; unseen palms and trees are climbing to the sky, like a prayer. Om is driving absentmindedly; I think he’s happy because it’s his first time here, and his look slides away from the windshield all the time that is possible, trying to capture all he can. We reach the summit, here’s the town of Mount Abu: 22000 inhabitants, Jansen temples and the lake Nakki; all information we will get through our wifi later on. In this moment it could be a random place anywhere in the world. Om isn’t able to find our B&B, a recurrent “gag”, only this time nobody is willing to have a laugh. It’s called “Welcome Heritage Connaught House” a very precious historical heirloom. Owned by Jodhpur’s Maharaja, it used to be used as a summer stay for the Prime Minister of the prince-ruled country Marwar. After a welcome mango juice which cleans away all sour thoughts, two waiters in a colonial-style uniforms guide us to our room. The perfectly-preserved victorian-style suite doesn’t seem real: two king size beds, a breakfast area, a regal bathroom and a garden…that garden I will still think about whenever I’m somewhere I don’t want to be. I’m flabbergasted, especially when I spot the biggest tree I’ve ever seen. It starts raining and finally it’s fresh, an apotheosis of pleasure after days of sultriness. I sit down by the tree and now I couldn’t move away and leave it, I let drops fall over my body and I close my eyes. it’s all true, I need to repeat it to myself often, it’s all true. Roberta is on the other side looking for flights back to Italy on her computer. After a while I join her, smiling ”let’s go to see the lake, put your sweater on”. It was as if September came in a second; the month in which all the lost balance of the world seems restored and back to clean our gaze. The month when the air is clearer and thoughts thin out, are less thick and more kind, forgiving our excesses. ”It could’ve been worse for us” Roberta says .”Robi, this place is a treasure”. We walk along the lake talking about love, nostalgia and all the things which got bigger some hours ago and we go back to our room to jump in our immense beds; two cots for our fragile bodies which are just trying to understand. ”Robi, Om is in the car…” ”…Did he sleep in there?…” We discover that Om used the car to rest after giving us to the elegant waiters at the B&B that morning. Mount Abu is the place where my mind runs to anytime I need a truth as strong as the tree in that garden. A truth that shakes and reinforces me. A truth that shows me the inconsistency of my habits, and my need to find answers in the furthest places, humblest eyes and less comfortable latitudes.