Walking through the woods at midnight, I found myself approaching a figure rooted to the middle of the road. In the darkness that pervaded - tonight there wasn't even the moon in sight in the night sky - it took me a few seconds to confirm if it were something for real, or just my imagination projecting my own fears. A few minutes back I had been hyping this nightly treading to a friend over the cellphone, recalling an earlier incident when a friend's girlfriend, who was once out much before the break of dawn for a morning walk, had run back home after coming across - on this very stretch of road - what she claimed was a ghost. Me and Abhishek had once been exhaustively collecting sources on the malevolent forces inside these roads of Aarey, one of them referred to as "The Aarey Runner". Maybe my imagery was getting to me.But real, indeed, it was, and still barely decipherable owing to the dark overalls. All I could register was a tall male figure, with his head at a tilt, and the vacuum of his face frozen in my direction. Regardless of the probabilities of an unpleasant outcome, my steps hadn't ceased in their intention. I still continued ahead, furtive. He still stood there, rooted. Meanwhile, the cicadas and frogs in the forest kept at their calm rhythm, and the rest lay silent.
Our distance narrowed, and in the uneasy moments that followed, I had walked past him; he remained frozen like a statue, the features were still undecipherable. The only detail I could notice was a crumpled package in one of his hands, besides that he seemed like a madman. "Must be drunk!" I exclaimed to myself, and now feeling a certitude of being out of harm's way, and moreover out of curiosity, I took a shot....
"क्या बात है?"...
And the head that was away from me came to motion.
"आसमान में प्लेन देख रहा था|" came a timid reply.
The situational inversion, and the innocence in that voice found me tripping with words that could make for a fitting response. This guy wasn't making words, he really was at that. I wouldn't have expected stumbling into a dreamer at this hour, lost in thought, collecting the greater picture.
This world truly belongs to poets and madmen.
PS: As I found later, madmen of this kind have also dwelled inside Aarey. My luck.
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