THE ENCHANTED WOODS

It is a small break in the long hedge that flanks the highway. Almost like a green mouth through which dogs and their owners willingly walk into. And never come out of.

I can see it from my kitchen and have quietly stared at several times. There are many days when I am consumed by an (oxy)moronic mixture of restlessness and laziness. Yesterday it took over my senses and I headed out with a satchel of basics.

With an overhead sun watching me, I made long strides down my street and across a corner to hit the highway, all the while humming the Mission Impossible tune. The usually bustling road was devoid of cyclists and joggers. It had only a few cars zooming at high speeds, like they didn’t want to be stopped on this stretch.

I had reached the gap, only, it wasn’t exactly a gap, but was more like a causeway into the green unknown. With a swift look to my left and right, I marched determinedly onto the path.

It was dim. The sparkling sunshine couldn’t make its way into the thick canopy. I could hear trees whispering to one another, dry leaves rustling in the wind…and a steady thump thump from deep inside me. It seemed as though I was lost in a world that wasn’t infested with human beings. With dense foliage surrounding me, I took a few tentative steps and decided to keep to the path. No use in creating a new path if that’s the last thing I would ever do. After a million minutes, I saw the path curving to the left. There was a thicket of trees and I couldn’t see what lay beyond. It was silent as death. No wind, no leaves, nothing. Somewhere, a bird gave a piercing shriek that had me clutching the nearest tree trunk. I tried to calm the drumming of my heart against my chest and opened the bag to arm myself with my spice weapon – chilli powder, the good old Indian way to incapacitate a person. And then I peeked.

A shimmering lake lay ahead. It was adorned with contentedly quacking ducks, lotuses and algae that seemed to grow right on its bed, making it a giant sparkling emerald. My legs took me forward and collapsed. I was sitting on grass that was littered with wildflowers. There was a gentle buzz of insects. A ladybird landed on my hand. What surprised me the most was that my aversion to creepy crawlies seemed to have gone down and I had actually begun to see some queer beauty in them. (Maybe not so much because I blew the ladybird away after a minute.)

After my time in the sun, I started to see the tree-covered bits in a different light. They no longer seemed gloomy and mysterious but were more like an enchanted wood, where you might stumble upon Snow-white and the seven dwarfs. I walked, laughing at myself for my momentary belief in fairy tales. And then stopped dead on my tracks.

A face.On a tree stump. In a very man-made clearing. The trunk had the etching of a male face. Straight ahead was a wooden carving of a mouse… no, a squirrel. Somewhere to the right was Fred Flintstone’s car. There were bunches of twigs aligned to start a camp fire. Tree stumps had been set around another tree trunk, converting it into a dining table. Then came a scream of joy followed by a child wearing a red cape with a picnic basket in her hand. Little Red Riding Hood? I was stuck in a state of wondrous disbelief. Once Little Red Riding Hood realized there was company, she gave a shy grin and ran back.

Somewhere in the corner of my mind, I almost expected Smurfs to follow me. Shaking my head to remove fanciful thoughts, I walked on, looking at the mushrooms growing on dead twigs and marveling at the velvety green moss that cloaked the tree trunks. The next few steps took me out of the tree cover and onto a tiny meadow…Bang in the middle of it was a carved wooden throne overlooking the lake. It was crude, unfinished, yet seemed to emanate power as it proudly faced the wilderness, like a king.

After sitting on the throne and pretending to be Cleopatra, I continued my journey to come to a wooden bridge over the lake. I slowly walked across it and stopped right at the middle, in the shade of a giant oak. There was profound silence here punctuated by a steady gurgle of water, slight creak of the wood and rustling leaves overhead. I don’t know how long I sat. Time seemed to stand still here. It was like meditation, no thoughts fluttered across my mind, there was no sense of ‘me’. I just breathed and lost myself in this human-free world.

But not for long. Sure enough I heard voices and there they were, clad in sweatshirts and tracks, talking about football. Not wanting to look like a meditating monk, I jumped to my feet and crossed the bridge to find an exit only board. Now I knew why I could never see people come out of the break in the hedge. Or maybe those who were truly enchanted by this world continued to live as a part of the fairy tale.

 I reached the highway and slowly came back to the world I belong to, as a refreshed and a replenished person.