Relief

The feeling of relief never felt more clearer with an experience I had of late in the dusty hilly area of Madikeri. The town in itself is bustling with tourist activity, activity to the extent the town is able to cope up with. The terrain like all hilly towns is with a lot of inclines and sprinkled to it is the over flow of traffic on tiny roads.

Tourism apparently is the reason for the congestion but I hardly fail to understand what’s it that drove all these people out here! There is hardly anything but a few old buildings worthy of tourist status and even those buildings have been converted to government offices.

A meeting with a really close friend took me there after a lot of hurdles and potholes. Reaching the city, I rush to the spot I thought I decided to meet the person. Not seeing the person there I try to call but the electronic voice which is the source of resentment in the youth of today electrnically and without emotions informs that the number you are trying is currently switched off. Well as if it is any consolation the voice also asks if you want to leave a voice sms and proceeds to give directions as to how you can do so.

Well when you are in a fix as to what to do and how to proceed you tend to rush about town searching frantically. Up, down, left, right and even strangers become friends when you are in the maddening search of the person. You befriend a lot of people you normally wouldn’t even talk to or rather notice, you observe a lot more of the place and also get to visit every damn tourist destination the town has to offer.

The tension rising with every step, your ears hot with the over heating but useless mobile phone, your brain trying hard to conjure up scenarios to both extremes the good and the bad… the bad usually over powering the good and that I turn leading you to overlook a lot of thing you normally would have looked into.

Then out of the blue I get a call from an unknown number. Since I have given my number to a couple of strangers today I call back and was immediately calmed by the voice on the other end. Although the voice through the other end was angry, frustrated and with enough force to send shivers down my spine, strangely today it felt totally relaxing and soothing.

The feeling of relief is a something that you really don’t get to savour very frequently very often but today it was the only one that mattered the whole day. Thankyou.