And, they were all present in that room, all prepared & excited. No one really understood, maybe a quarter knew. She strolled in. The classroom, yes, it was a classroom, was large -- designed to look like NC-2 , but, the rows were longer. The seating all ended, very clear of the walls, maybe 1 metre at least or perhaps even 5 at max. Everyone sat neatly arranged in the seats. They were from different countries. I, I think I was from India. At least, my mind seemed to think so, but, when it came to comparing times across different time zones, the time shown on my watch wasn't the IST. It just wasn't. I thought it was, but, it just did not match. Rohan, yes, that was most certainly him, sat a row ahead of me. Someone at the back, in the other half of the classroom said that they were from the Maldives. The map of the island shot into my head. Wow. Then, Rohan spoke, " I'm from Baldives". And, he paused. “Baldives? “. "Baldives." " Baldives?" "Baldives." It took a couple of back-and-forth of 'Baldives' before the questioning party realized that he was indeed saying ‘Maldives.’ It clicked in my head at about the same time too. She shot a couple of questions. The girl on my left tried to answer one , but, wasn’t allowed to, for the R&D team wasn’t supposed to answer that one. Each team had mysteriously designated questions ; it wasn’t explicitly announced that the next question was for the Sponsorships team, but, the R&D & the Marketing were expected to realize that they are not to answer.
And, then, we were there. The icy cold hit us. No, wait, it didn’t hit us. It was there, welcoming us. The transition was almost seamless. I do not remember how many nights we were to spend in this warm, icy place. We reached our hotel, pausing to ensure that everyone did indeed get a room. The hotel was magnificent . It stood, tall, with emerald green and wood panelling on the whole front wall. There were sharply rising doors of steely glass. Each had a handle – silvery grey, long, rather very long, almost as if each handle seemed to know that more than one person would be clutching him at once. It was cold. The handles were metal, they looked metal, they were not very cold. I held onto one, it glistened In the soft sunlight. A single ray of light appeared to fall on the top part of the right handle , at a 45 degree angle. The ray of light cut across the door, colouring the lower half of the left handle at a lower angle. The parts where the sunlight fell were warmer. The handles themselves, of course , were only ornamental, for the doors were automatic. The large plates of steely glass swung inward, moving very smoothly. Ah, technology!
Once inside, each of us was allotted our rooms. The whole place looked like a community living area. There was a large central empty space, tiled with square-ish, yellow-grey tiles. The yellow was almost like a shade of desert sand & sunflowers seamlessly blended into one. The central yellow was lined with walls, about 3 feet high. They were white on the side that faced the yellow and blue on the other, which faced the brown. Each wall had on top a matt-black railing, about half a foot in height and cylindrical in shape. Around this central open area were brown doors, placed at regular intervals. For each brown door, there was a green door, placed at a precise 90 degree angle to it.
Each brown door was assigned to one of the persons in our group. One, placed diagonally across from the entrance , along the left side was mine. I remember putting my luggage down , there, but, I never stayed there. As soon as night fell, I was in the corner-most room, closest to the entrance. I liked how easily Angaee and me understood each other . She had, without any requisite communication moved my luggage into this new room ,possibly her original allotment and had fallen asleep in mine.
We stepped out the next morning. To the right of the hotel was this vast expanse of pristine blue water that seemed to stretch out till almost the same depth as our hotel. The water was flowing, yet, it was as still as it was blue. The tall, slanting slide of ice stood, slanting down into the water. Rising high, almost upright out of the Earth’s surface , stood one end of it, a large vertical wall. As icy, but, less blue, it had frigid, chalky white water flowing off the top, almost as if flowing off a steep cliff. The water appeared to froth, appearing colourless, then, frothy as it crossed over across the perfectly orthogonal bend, and finally chalky white with a touch of brownish-yellow was it fell in straight, flowing sheets across the mighty vertical surface. And, the slanting slide, glistening in the sun like unscathed crystal. Of course, we knew that is was only flawless ice, the kind that could be seen only here, in a whole realm untouched by any human presence. The Arctic. The North Pole. The top of the world. And, the entire pristine , icy blue scene looked just as I remembered from my last visit. Ah, my last visit. It had been less eventful than this one was to be, but, I did so many activities that time just wouldn’t permit this time. Nothing could beat that feeling of feeling the icy cold of the yellowed ice wall as I struck hand after hand against it, scaling the whole mammoth length of it, to the very top. And, then, the cool of the glistening crystal that was the slide, as I sat myself down on it, prepared to slide down all the kilometres to the water. Hitting the water with the curtness of finality and then swimming across , savouring the smell of the unscathed frigid, every minute. I’d done it only once, that last time, but, every pore of my being tingled with the memory of that sensation, as I stood, with the rest of my group, each set of eyes transfixed on one of the wonders , wonders so wonderful that only Nature could have created them. And, all the eyes continued to stare, with growing wonder, as a chalky white ball of ice, slightly brown from rolling, spun slowly about itself, moving down the slide . As it hit the water, the water splashed, drenching all of us. As the cascade of icy water hit me, soaking my every inch, I felt a surge of memories and joy.
The next time, I was at my window, watching the same icy ball, rolling down again, just as it had.
That night, Hrishikesh , Pranav & co were at work, playing the new, Anshik-designed version of Dungeons & Dragons. I remember peeking in and overhearing fragments of conversation that made almost no sense to me. But, they did sound intricate and knowledgeable about whatever it was that they were discussing.
Arihant. He probably wasn’t big on the whole ‘group adventure’ thing. Anyway, the group had likely departed. We got to this other thing that I’d been meaning to try. The ice ‘boat’ of sorts looked like it was designed for two, but, of course, single persons were welcome. I closed my eyes and opened them to see this icy, gloomy, glowing tunnel. The tunnel was long, winding, with just a hint of sunlight falling through the ceiling that provided visibility. The floor was slippery, crystal-like ice. The walls were chalky white, and slightly brownish in patches. I felt the desired cooling sensation, from the icy air against my arms and the openness in my heart. The tunnel seemed to go on for ever, so beautiful, so inviting. It was as if the tunnel just wanted you to be there, explore every cranny, feel against your warm human hand, each scratch of ice and just fall in love. Hence the two, perhaps. We moved along the tunnel, revelling in its icy charm, looking at nothing but the slippery white floor beneath and the calm on the other’s face, looking with nothing but awe and love.
The tunnel came to this fork, where one of the prongs seemed to continue along the same tunnel, icy , frosty but the other seemed to open into an almost oblong area with a higher ceiling than the rest of the tunnel. The ceiling appeared to be thinner, almost a criss-cross of ice arranged like the fine threads of a spider’s web. Of course, being ever the fantastic, I had to pick the prong less travelled. Arihant is boring and all conventional. Perhaps , there is some truth in the idea of ‘opposites attract’ . Promising to meet him outside, for he wished to continue along the tunnel, further into the ice and then to the outside, I got off the ‘icy-boat-for-two’ and walked ahead. What I saw was spell-bounding. There were these women. They were most definitely human, I thought, but, somehow, they didn’t feel quite so human. With plastered smiles and high-cheek bones, they seemed to seamlessly drift across the tunnel, past the walls, through the ice, along the frost . Every one of them had eyes, deep-set, full of emotion , hollow , wandering , silent. They did not seem to feel the cold. They wore long skirts in bright pastel colours, long, almost translucent skirts in bright pastel colours with small white dots arranged in an intricate pattern. They were all smiling, effortlessly, like it needed so much conscious attention to perform that simple task, yet, the smiles did not fade. The cold they radiated probably kept them from feeling the frozen around them, they were perhaps so warm that the cold was respite . They continually poured and carried buckets of water, all along the shiny ice floor, the renewal of the top ice-layer kept it clear, clean, even with the marks that the ‘icy-boat-for-two’ ought to leave. The water in the buckets was not hot, it was encased in this ice tunnel yet it did not freeze, and, they kept pouring. I walked past them, smiling. They smiled back , taking no notice of me. I went past the clearing to find a frozen flight of stairs to my fantasy. I walked up, taking care not to slip, for I could not muster the seeming grace of the ephemeral women who were forever. I walked up one flight to see nothing except another flight. I realised that the tunnel had perhaps led us underground and I would have to ascend to exit. Climbing the second flight, I happened to see another one of the beautiful women. I asked her the way to the outside. Her gaze was so loving, her gaze seemed to bore holes , right through me and into the hard ice wall, I could see the sympathy, almost empathy in her eyes. “Outside ? There is no outside.” I just kept looking back at her, at the entire ice-cased surrounding around her . I tried to enunciate but the words would not form. I heard a high-pitched voice. It was only my own.
“The Arctic Novel has been read, both parts; you read the first part the last time when you’d gone ice-wall scaling and you’re now done reading the second part. Leave, go to the ‘Midnight’s Children’, now.” It seemed like a very sensible suggestion. I was glad that I had finished reading a novel, it had been a while since I’d done some ‘good’ reading. I decided to leave. But, hadn’t the lady just told me that there was no outside?
I looked at myself, almost from a top-view. I was sleeping, it was all a dream. I only had to move , wake up and I would obviously be outside again, in the country that I recognized as home, not in the Arctic. I was conscious, not asleep anymore, I had to be, for I was giving myself this advice. It seemed to be even a dream within a dream. I screamed. I screamed thrice. The dream-me watching the me sleeping in the dream heard sleeping-me scream. It had to be over. I was awake. I could open my eyes. I saw my right hand, close to my head that lay on my red –patterned pillow . I moved my right hand upwards, to force my eyes open, for they did not seem to heed to the electric impulses that my brain kept frantically sending, repeatedly. I moved my hand up to my left eye and pried it open. Only, the me-watching from the top view saw me turn , from facing the wall my bed rests against to facing the other side of the room. I screamed again. Sound ought to wake me up from this increasing panic. I looked again at the hand I had moved to my eyes. My hand had not moved. My brain felt it move, my brain made it move, my fingertips sent confirmatory impulses saying that my hand had indeed pried my left eye open, but my open eye seemed to see an unmoved hand. I moved frantically, with writhing, troubled movements. My brain felt every movement. The lady with the icy glaze for a gaze saw my every movement and simply said, “There is no outside.” I screamed, a scream that was lost forever and found.
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