Chapter 3
It was eight in the morning and Nathan prepared himself for the long drive ahead. Despite living in a huge bungalow, he followed a simple routine. He dedicated himself totally to teaching his students in Palampur University. In the winters the University is closed from January to March, so he took pleasure in arranging excursions for interested students. Geology being his subject, his research had taken him far and wide from The Grand Canyon in America to the Great Barrier Reef down under. But ever since his wife’s death in a road accident, he stuck to his research and students, and refrained from offers which involved going abroad. His only son was a software engineer working in the States. Nathan lived alone in his mansion. Outside the mansion was a two room set which was occupied by his whole time servant and driver, Dhiru. Dhiru used to bring his family in this flat in the summers, since his two small children studying in primary school, would have summer holidays. Nathan was nice to them and would often take the kids out for an excursion to the nearby khad or gorge. His favourite pastime in the summers was lawn tennis. He had even taught some of it to Dhiru.
Nathan was always very punctual and liked others who were too. “Time to wake up, Dhiru”, he thought. He went to Dhiru’s flat and knocked on the door. Dhiru instantly opened it, and greeted Nathan. “I am almost ready” Dhiru replied the knock actively, “just getting the hot water bottles”. In the cold there is nothing more comforting than a hot water rubber bag, which you could toy with without any risk of fire and keep yourself warm. Since Nathan and Dhiru would be traveling in a jeep, the hot water bag was an indispensable item. The water in it would keep warm for about two hours. Nathan hoped to see sunshine by eleven o’clock and so would not need the hot water bags as seriously. Dhiru packed some useful snacks for the journey mostly some dry fruits, some potato chips, mango pickle with bread, which Dhiru had bought last evening and a thermos flask containing Saab’s favourite masala tea. “It does you well to have masala tea in the winters”, was what Saab always said. In any case Dhiru thought that if the weather was good they might stop on the way for a small snack, at a roadside dhaba…
Dhiru locked his flat and the mansion doors. He then locked the two main gates of the entire complex that included the mansion, a lawn tennis court, Dhiru’s flat and a garden. No one would tend to the complex for the next one week or so, and as far as Nathan was concerned, it was perfectly ok this way.
They started at fifteen minutes past nine in the morning while there still wasn’t enough light. The road was bumpy but Nathan trusted Dhiru with his driving. He had been driving on the same kinds of roads for over six years now and could negotiate turns in surprisingly quick maneuvers. Nathan had been seeing the same scenery around him in the winters but never dozed off on long journeys. He always managed to find something new.
“Have you been to Kimpri before, Saab?” Dhiru interrupted his observations of nature and wondered that in the six years that he had been with Nathan, he had never asked him that before.
“I have been to Shankli before, but never to Kimpri. Ah yes, you remember the earthquake of eighty nine in Kalka, don’t you? I passed Kimpri on my way to Kalka, where I was called for a geological survey, but never stayed as such in Kimpri.”
This was one thing Dhiru liked about Nathan; you ask him a question and he takes his time to answer it, explaining everything in detail. And you could ask him the same question any number of times he would always answer with the same patience. The patience of a teacher.
Dhiru and Nathan had known each other too well over the years to talk much during the journey. Dhiru preferred to concentrate on the contours of the road and Nathan preferred to look out of the frosted glass window, observing something or the other.