A Tale of 2 States - Part 2

The torture of our previous neighbour’s uncouth habits had got onto my wife’s nerves - Mr. Dholakia, the patient I shared my next room with was an interesting old gentleman. The silence of the new room now was almost deafening with hardly a word shared between my neighbouring patient and his accompanying wife. Wondering whether contrary to my previous neighbor, they had taken the ‘Silence Please’ notice too seriously, I tried to initiate some conversation but to no immediate response. Apparently, Mr. Dholakia had been unable to talk and eat which was precisely the reason of his visit to the hospital right in the midst of an on-going family wedding.

As Mr. Dholakia communicated with actions and post-its, Mrs. Dholakia informed us of her husband’s unfortunate tryst with cancer of the vocal cord some years back which had left him bereft of his voice. Successive operations & treatments later, he had been able to blurt his mind out thanks to a sound box fitted into his system, but today, on the occasion of the wedding of his grand-daughter, he had turned ‘mute’ with nothing edible going down his throat. As the new grand-son in-law had circled around the fire hand-in-hand with their grand-daughter, our geriatric dear Mr. & Mrs. had needed to circle around casualty folks trying to get a hang of ‘how-to un-mute and eat’.

As my treatment progressed well, Mr. Dholakia’s reports had begun to pour in by late evening. Unable to diagnose appropriate reasons, the doctors had begun to dig deeper; unknown to all, the past few days of family wedding functions had been a major occasion to snack on an awesome Gujarati spread & Mr. Dholakia had lapped up most of the delicious offerings that had come his way.

Having lodged itself at an appropriate position in his throat such that no spiel would come out and no food go in - it was only when a cough tickled Mr. Dholakia’s guttural glands that a ‘pea’ was thrown up in a sneeze; like a Ram Gopal Verma flick, the climax had hardly lived up to the build-up, but then the moral is that aka the famous David-Goliath fable, a ‘pea’ could really be a ‘show-stopper’.

As their grand-daughter had walked into her new home, the Dholakia’s walked out of the hospital with the unassuming ‘pea’ dislodged… as they left, the gentleman bid me ‘get well soon’ with an appropriately worded humble request…

God Bless the Dholakia’s & the humble ‘pea’!

As our day unfolded to a spectacular view of the early morning sun-rise encapsulating the green valley with its ochre rays, our stroll in the wilderness exposed us to the wooded, peaceful and serene estate. A spread of healthy indigenous trees bearing flowers & fruits combined with pruned wild trees, interspersed with waterholes dug for animals to quench their thirst spoke volumes of the ecologically balanced nature of the forest and the responsibility with which its care-takers had restored the biodiversity.

Wildlife such as squirrels, rabbits, mongoose, porcupines and grey langurs were a common occurrence. With a proliferation of insects, crabs, moths, frogs and snakes; birds from the indigenous Myna to the migratory Red-wattled Lapwing had nestled in higher numbers making the forest their home; definitely, a haven for all bird-enthusiasts.

Our pit-stop for breakfast back at the dining-place was a buffet of fresh local produce sourced directly from the villagers in the vicinity with some amongst the staff also serving it out to us. On chatting up with a few, it was heartening to know of the local support provided to them by taking up social projects for the development of the Jambulne village, half a kilometer away; all this apart from training them in hospitality & educating them on relevant environmental matters enabling ‘greener’ lives.

Our local guide during the hour-long evening trail was a ‘google’ equivalent on the flora & fauna of the region; driving home some local trivia, he interspersed it with information on the estate -  100% off grid and run only on sustainable resources with solar power panels & wind mills set up across, the Machan lived up to the spirit of eco-tourism in its true sense by limiting accommodation so that each guest could have over an acre of green space to oneself, reducing the stress on the forest whilst providing a serene experience; so much so, that the water for consumption was ‘pure mountain’ in its source – pulled up from a 300 foot deep bore well. 

A rare specie of a flowering thorny leaf plant

The watering holes set up across the forest

The idyllic setting of a lantern –cum-candle-lit dinner in the lap of tall bamboo trees with hammocks strung across them was like poetry to the eyes – a fine mix of local culinary expertise with a romantic setting.  After the sumptuous meal, our verandah offered the most amazing spread of astral constellations twinkling across the perennial stretch of ether – the enormity of the universe & our pygmy-like existence in its backdrop as though closed in on us as we drank in the scenes of the celestial gems studded into unique patters light years away and of those that chose to be outliers shooting off the treaded path to discover their own novel course. 

x---------- End of Part 2 ----------x

The concluding Part 3 shall be uploaded day after