chapter 21

To Boston and Walden PondIt was raining when we checked out and we decided to take a cab to the bus stop. As always, VK began a conversation with the cabbie, an extremely nice person, who was only too pleased to open up. It was amazing how almost all the cab drivers were very forthcoming about their life stories. I had always believed that this garrulousness, especially about one’s personal life, was a uniquely Indian trait.This driver hailed from Kazakhstan. Lack of job prospects back home had brought him to the U.S., a move he didn’t regret. He was happy making money driving a car in a strange land, often working fifteen hours a day. He had tried working in a warehouse first, but after two heart-stopping encounters with men brandishing drawn guns, had shifted his residence to a flat near Comfort Suites and started driving for Uber. Life was good, he said. It would have been better if his family had moved to the States, but they preferred to live in Kazakhstan.As we reached New York’s Megabus pick-up point, the cabbie became very concerned about the heavy rain. The bus stop had no shelter and the bus hadn’t arrived. ‘You’ll get wet,’ he stated the obvious and actually took a U-turn to drop us off in front of a tall office building. He advised us to take our luggage in and wait as he waved us a reluctant goodbye. His heart was in the right place all right. In my experience, cabbies don’t generally do this sort of thing. They are paid to take us a particular distance, and will disgorge us even if it is beside a waste dump.We stumbled in, wet and uncomfortable, pushing big suitcases awkwardly. A well-dressed gentleman immediately swept us out with his tongue and several ‘No, no, no, no, no’s with the efficiency of a good broom sweeping out dust.American buildings lack eaves under which one can hope for some protection from the elements. Standing flat against the wall, as if lined up for the firing squad, didn’t help. VK and I propped ourselves with great difficulty on the narrow strip of ground outside the building, keen on protecting at least our heads from the cold New York spring rain, while the good people inside the building watched the circus act. I hope it brightened their day.A&A took most of our luggage across the street to join a few others waiting there, hoping to manage an early entry into our coach when it drew up. The cold, the rain, the several things we had to lug or carry, all compounded the problem. This is among the worst things about travel—managing multiple bags, a coat or a jacket on one’s arm, a tote bag on one’s shoulder, a phone to be kept dry and handy and the narrow confines of a plane or bus aisle to negotiate. Very good arguments for staying at home, VK averred, balanced on one foot.A&A soon hailed us; the bus had arrived. It was a double-decker. We climbed to the second deck—a habit from childhood days. To look down from those er … Olympian heights and watch the world go by gives a great feeling of satisfaction. I got a window seat with VK by my side. A&A sat a few rows ahead. Having got wet in the rain, and feeling cold, my immediate concern was how I’d manage the long journey of four hours without going to the toilet. I watched everyone like a hawk, to see if all had obedient bladders.Soon I caught sight of two women going down the steps. Where were they going when the bus hasn’t stopped? Surely it wouldn’t be just to stretch their legs or to take a look at the seats below? Was this their first trip on a double-decker? They were robust women and didn’t look the sort who would leave their seats to seek another spot unless they had a solid motive. My curiosity roused, I kept my eyes focussed on the steps. What goes down in a moving double-decker bus must certainly come up. I wasn’t wrong. Soon they returned, looking happy—or, rather, ha-pee.I whispered my suspicion to VK that there could be a toilet on the lower deck. VK went to scout and soon returned, looking pleased. I went down and expecting something smelly, I took care not to breathe in. Odoriferous toilets might be more effective than yoga to help you learn how to hold your breath. I found a tiny boxlike place and a small toilet inside—more a hole than a toilet, but, holy moly! It was very clean. The blue water in it probably kept it so and chased the smell away.Now I was more comfortable and, fortified with occasional snacks of yogurt and fruit raided from the fridge after breakfast at Comfort Suites, I tried to sleep but failed for a squeaky-voiced Chinese-American man in the seat before us talked non-stop into his phone all the way to Boston. If I had understood the language, at least I could have eavesdropped and got some idea of what Chinese-Americans are concerned about during bus journeys, but it was all ‘Chin cho chu chem. Su me yu …’ to me.It rained for the greater part of the journey and from the wide glass windows of the top deck, we got hazy views of thick woods, stretches of wilderness interspersed with occasional water bodies and rocky terrain, but it was mostly vehicles that we passed for we were on a busy four-lane highway. We reached Boston at 11.45 a.m.We were staying with Luckshmi, a former student of mine, in Boston. I gave her a call and handed the phone to my son, that’s how easy travelling with A&A was. Following her instructions, Amar, who was quite familiar with Boston, found the right trains to reach Alewife. What an intriguing name. Sounded pretty fishy. It was. Literally. I found out later it had been named after the nearby Alewife Brook that got its name from ‘alewife’, a fish. How disappointingly tame! It would have been so much more stimulating if it had been named after the perennially tipsy wife of a tavern-keeper.Luckshmi’s husband, Anil, met us at the station and drove us to their house in Lexington where she and her kids, Malavika and Madhav, were waiting for us. How lovely it was to meet them on U.S. soil. We caught up with them over a very tasty and elaborate Kerala lunch that Luckshmi had prepared for us. Sleep ought to have been the natural sequel to that very satisfying meal, but the great Walden Pond beckoned, and its greatest votary, VK, beckoned frantically to us to get ready. Luckshmi asked us to go ahead; they would join us later. Walden Pond was just a ten-minute drive from her house.‘Lucky Luckshmi,’ commented VK as we waited for the cab to take us to Concord Museum, described by its official website as ‘The gateway to Concord’s remarkable revolutionary and literary history’. It housed the oldest and most treasured collection of Americana in the U.S. Not surprising, for the Battles of Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775 signalled the start of the American Revolutionary War.The revolutionary history was represented by muskets, horn, pistols and other symbols of warfare, but it was the pacifist Henry David Thoreau’s possessions that drew VK like a magnet.‘There are Emerson’s artefacts too,’ I offered a democratic reminder as we went around, but Emerson had to be satisfied with a cursory nod of approval as VK went around reading all the texts on Thoreau and memorising the great man’s quotes. After a close look at the reconstruction of Thoreau’s house in the museum upstairs, we started on the trek to Walden Pond.Thoreau had lived in self-isolation for two years and his second book, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods, is based on that experience. The book’s success made him famous enough to merit a public monument when he died in 1844 and that was what we set out to see. We started on the trail, but it was really cold.VK, eager for that first glimpse of Walden Pond, strode ahead with Amar, while Arpitha and I dawdled after, sharing a broken umbrella. The combination of cold weather and rain is a sure-fire recipe for misery. Luckshmi called to say they had reached but had decided against walking the trail since it was too cold for the kids. They waited there for a bit before going back home. I was so cold I wished I could turn into a kid and go home too.VK’s regular and enthusiastic references to Walden Pond and Thoreau’s cabin made me visualise a small, picturesque pond with a delightfully cosy wooden cabin tucked near the bank. But then, having already got the hang of the American attitude to size, I should have been prepared at least for the size of the pond. For it was no pond, as I know ponds, but a huge body of water.An awestruck VK was at the edge, drinking in the sight—there was nature’s plenty to drink—before he bent down and reverentially cupped the water in both hands. I blinked in disbelief, for he is so sensitive to cold, he wouldn’t, in normal circumstances, have dared dip even the tips of his fingers into such freezing cold water. The powers of adoration!The small stones that were scattered about the sand bank made my hands itch to play duck and drakes. I selected a suitable flattish pebble, but VK guessed my intention and was appalled. ‘No, don’t. One shouldn’t play here. Let’s walk to the monument.’I dropped the stone into my bag and followed him with Arpitha, who had gathered a few stones too. At the end of the half-mile trek, we found a heap of stones of different sizes. Nearby stood some narrow granite posts spaced out and forming a rectangle.‘Where’s the monument?’ I looked around.‘There’s the monument.’ VK pointed to the haphazard pile of stones.Really? What a strange memorial. My curiosity was roused. VK, thorough on Thoreau, explained that Mary Newbury Adams, an ardent admirer of the conservationist, visited Walden Pond in 1872, ten years after his death, to find nothing in the woods to mark the place where the historic cabin had stood.Dismayed, she got the idea of placing a stone from the pond to indicate the spot that was pointed out to her. Her suggestion that everyone who loved Thoreau should add a stone was enthusiastically taken up and soon a cairn grew there. What a novel method to move stones. If only we could use it to clear rubble around our place.When the foundation of the cabin was discovered in 1945, just a few feet off the stone cairn, the granite posts were put up to indicate the exact area. This was a unique way to mark the site of a unique man’s pilgrimage, or, let’s call it hermitage. The solemnity and aura of the surroundings rubbed off on me. I placed the stone I had with me among the others. Arpitha offered one to VK. To our amazement, he refused to accept it, choosing instead to pick one up from the pile and pocketing it. ‘A souvenir,’ he mumbled, looking a trifle shame-faced, but, recovering quickly, he added an explanation to legitimise his unusual act. ‘I’d read that people don’t just add stones to the pile. Some take a stone or two as keepsakes.’ Aha! A neat give and take policy that had prevented the molehill from growing into a mountain.A large wooden board with Thoreau’s quote stating the purpose behind his self-isolation stood nearby. His words were heartening: ‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.’Bit by bit I understood why VK had a special fascination for the man who practised social distancing long before the pandemic, who preferred to put not six or eight feet, but a mile and a half between himself and other humans, the man who loved nature and was admired by Gandhi and E.O. Wilson whom VK admired too. The latter’s work, The Future of Life, starts with a moving letter to Thoreau.But soon it got biting cold and philosophic contemplation gave way to a very physical desire for warmth. We walked briskly back to Concord Museum to find Anil waiting for us and rushed into the warm car like cats seeking sunlight. Oh, for a beaker full of warm tea, I fantasised. And there, indeed, they were, cups of welcome, warm tea—a Boston tea party of sorts—waiting for us, thoughtfully provided by Luckshmi.