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Sylvia Khan

A Brief Trip Into Madness

Then I had this flash of genius.

"Everybody pack!" I said to the brute brigade. "We're going out of town for a couple of days."

"Who's taking us? You?" they asked with a politically unsound display of distrust.

"You can't take us anywhere, you don't have any money."

I let them live, only to be subjected to a brisk round of 500 Questions.

"Are we going to Goa?"

"Singapore ? There's a great Peter Andre concert that I can take in" (That was my 13-year-old; quite often, her hormones spoke for her.)

"We're going to Igatpuri," I announced.

"What's that?"

"Where's that ?"

''Is that the village where you were born?"

"How can I tell my friends I went to a place called something 'puri'?"

My children are blessed with the scientific spirit.

"Come on, you guys," I entreated, ever the saint. "Give it a shot. It's a wonderful place. Shock your lungs with fresh, no-pollution-for-miles air. There's this track which winds round the hotel, on which a real cowherd leads his flock home every evening. Then there's this fantastic brook, where you can count the pebbles at the bottom of the stream - it's that clear. There are also some amazing walks, where you can touch real trees and admire real flowers, not just flowers of silk and wire."

"Okay, okay, Mama, don't go on about it, we'll go on this rustic trip of yours!"

The matter was settled. We piled into the car the next day and, some hours, many stomachy rumbles and about a million squabbles later, we reached Igatpuri.

We found our hotel and tumbled out of the car, limbs aching with relief. Then it hit us like a sandbag. There was no sound. No buses grumbled past. No motorbikes screamed away the silence. No television sets assaulted us with inane blather. I smiled at the sky blissfully, and stretched. It was just as I remembered it - beautiful.

The perfect moment was ended by my son's voice, "There's something abnormal about this place. It's like the city of the dead. You know, after the entire population has been wiped out by chemical warfare, and only the shells of the building are left?" I didn't dignify that with a comment. What could you expect from a person whose middle name was "TV's- my-life"?

I was their mother. It was my duty to educate them. "This is normal," I said. "This is what is life-giving. What we of the city call a life is manic, death-inducing and definitely not chicken soup for the soul". The 'now' generation exchanged looks. Clearly, I had touched a chord. Pearls are pearls, whichever way you look at them.

There was a lot of relaxing to be done and we got on with it.

That evening, Ayesha, my firstborn and solace-in-a cruel-world, slipped into my room. We spent a wonderful evening in that rare, true mother-daughter companionship. Then, she said in her serious-child manner, "Mama, I have to tell you something about this 'Let's get close to Nature' stuff. If you feel that you've done the right thing for your kids by exposing us to the simpler pleasures and you're happy, then that's good."

"This little excursion of yours has been a success. But, Mama, we have to go back to the world you so dramatically denounced this morning. That's where we live and strive for happiness and the illusion of sanity."

"So, even if the system is 'death-inducing' as you so charmingly put it, don't go on about it, okay? Because it's still what we call a life, perhaps for want of a better word. And, Mama, no one would want to believe that all that has so far defined our lives and happiness, is madness. Really, Mama, sometimes you're completely over the top!"

She gave me a hug and was gone.

There was a whole day left, in which I could try and whistle away that little speech. We ate well. Read. Listened to birdsong. Watched the sky turn amazing colors at sunrise and sundown. Went for rambling walks in the fields near our hotel. Watched the villagers watch us. Sometimes missed the television remote to squabble over. And I thought we were happy.

We were a quiet lot as we drove back. The 'nature fix' was too tiring to even discuss.

As we carried our bags and our weary selves into the home, my holocaust-awaiting son summed up our weekend.

"Mama, it was good," he said. "Like a brief trip into madness. Short, sharp and satisfying! Wild! All that no-TV and dead silence and plasticky cows with only their jaws moving! I'm glad we went and I'm really glad to come home to sanity!"

Are they crazy ? Or is it just me ? I think I need help on this one.

Illustrations: Dominic Xavier