It's These Little Things

"Madam tagdi lagti hai", I was told. "Madam seems strong." I wondered if this was an appropriate reaction to what had just chanced. Minutes before, I had been this close to accidentally piking myself to death with an icicle. The clean weapon made of frozen liquid glistened with a few discarded drops of water and reflected the rays of sun filtering through the window of the car. Ang Chook, the driver and my constant companion for these 5 days in Ladakh, smiled.

"Madam tagdi lagti hai." Because I had tried to chomp down a humongous icicle in a moving car? Or was it because, despite the swaying roads, the sudden break and the icicle jabbed in the throat, I had managed to come out with only a mild throbbing pain in the back of my throat? Maybe it had nothing to do with the icicle at all; maybe he was referring to my skeletal frame. It was the first day of my tryst with Leh and Ladakh and with Ang Chook, and it was no understatement that I was having a fairly hard time figuring him out.

After a few stray comments were exchanged, and the icicle was gently put down beside me where it would continue to shed tears of ambiguity, we resumed our journey in relative silence. The wind blew, sometimes taking flecks of snow with it. The clear waters sparkled down below as our journey upwards to a "gompa" continued. At the gompa, the silence deepened and I told myself, my 5 days here was going to be 5 days of introspective silence.On the journey back downwards, I would be proved wrong.

Well into the evening, nearly touching plain land now, the swerves left far behind, I sat in the backseat looking intently at the icicles that still adorned the place where my nemesis had come from. As I looked away, I saw Ang Chook smiling at me through the rear-view mirror. I smiled back. "Madam tagda hai". He repeated, this time asserting my strength instead of speculating about it. My curiosity final took the better of me. "Why?", I asked.

"My niece once did the same with an icicle. She was five. Se had to be rushed to the hospital and things were touch and go for several minutes." My moth gaping, my eyes round like saucers, I listened. Ang Chook smiled again. "She was fine. She in 6th grade now."

The tears of ambiguity which had turned the icicle into a wet patch on the seat beside me now glistened in my eyes. It had turned an awkward tryst with my driver into five days of shared lives. Ang Chook left me with less ambiguous tears when Ladakh turned from a journey to a memory.