Chapter 18
My big thing in college was to go on a trek. At least once. Everyone I knew had walked and climbed great distances. I liked the sound of it, the sense of adventure it entailed.
I mentioned it to Andrew one weekend. The following morning, we were headed to Ramanagara of the seven-hills elevation, where one of Bollywood’s iconic films was shot some four decades ago.
I was in baggy tracks and sports sandals; I didn’t own a pair of sneakers then. My backpack had a packet of biscuits and tissues; Andrew had thrown a bottle of water into it. That’s how prepared we were.
We had walked for almost half an hour when we saw a group of guys. They told us they were headed back as they hadn’t carried enough water with them. The regular vendors weren’t there either because, in the summer, there were only night-time treks.
We turned back, too.
Andrew was sweating profusely, a steady stream; the front of his tee was wet, and the back was in a similar soaked state. He sweats buckets anyway, but this was way off even for him.
My head felt like it was splintering.
‘You need to hydrate,’ he said, suggesting we stop and replenish.
I dunked half the bottle of water and gave him the rest. He opened the biscuits I had carried and gave me two.
I ate one and then threw up everything I had ingested.
What a waste. We had just one bottle of water.
Andrew forced me to drink the rest of it, saying we’d find some shop or the other at the base, where we had parked.
I was sobbing. I’d never known physical pain that bad.
I don’t know how, but we managed to get to the end of the trail. I remember seeing the steps, painted a garish blue, before I passed out.
When I came around, I was in a moving vehicle. My father’s. Andrew had blasted the aircon and was singing with the radio, something he never does. I was lying down in an almost-flattened seat; he was driving like a rally driver.
‘What happened?’ I asked. It felt like I had missed half the highway chase.
‘We’re going home.’ He was loud.
‘Lower the volume, you won’t need to shout.’
‘No,’ he shouted. ‘I need it to get us home.’ He was singing again; he had cranked up the decibel level. He patted me with his left hand; it was wet.
‘How did I get here?’ I didn’t think he had heard me.
‘I carried you.’
‘Down the 300 steps?’
He continued to sing. The nineties chart-toppers were playing on a bad stereo, and Andrew was driving like a man possessed.
The view from my position – I was on my back – was lovely. It looked like Bengaluru was a tree-lined avenue. My mother had told me that was the city she had grown up in during the seventies. Was this some kind of a time-warp race we were in?
I spotted my backpack in the far corner and pulled out the biscuit packet. I offered it to Andrew, but he preferred to sing.
‘Don’t get up, Myraah,’ he screamed, ‘just rest.’
I wasn’t trying to get up.
‘What a crazy trip,’ I said, not trying to match his decibel level.
He didn’t respond, and I shut my eyes and dozed again, thinking we’d be home soon.
I opened my eyes when the car came to a jerky halt. After a brief struggle with the door, Andrew crawled out of his seat and threw himself under the gulmohar tree. I stared at him confused. We were supposed to go to my house, but here we were, at Andrew’s.
‘Get me water quickly, bubbs,’ he shouted as he rolled to his side, curling up like a baby, clutching himself.
Something was wrong. I rushed to his side, asking him what had happened. ‘Cramps,’ he shouted.
I ran into his house, using the back door, which was always open during the day, and grabbed a few bottles of water from the kitchen counter.
Andrew gulped them down. I was massaging his calf muscles, his shoulders and finally his head as he lay shirtless on the fiery orange carpet.
He was moaning. That’s when I realized that he needed more than water.
I rushed out and got him sugarcane juice from a street vendor, which is what I think finally did the trick of restoring his electrolyte balance.
‘Has this happened before?’
When he was in school, after a game of hockey, he had suffered similarly. He started carrying water everywhere he went thereafter. He had another episode, but he didn’t elaborate on the when and why of it.
The Browns, typically, hadn’t consulted a physician but had clicked on Dr Google and come to the conclusion that the both of them had hyperhidrosis.
‘Why did you make me drink all the water?’
Andrew was on his back now, and his bony hand was on my cheek, trying to pinch it. His face was wearing a tired smile.
‘Why didn’t we go to Ramanagara town? We’d have found some shop or supermarket selling water. We’d have been okay.’
Andrew tugged me, and I fell on his chest. We lay there for I don’t know how long. I drifted off to sleep, and I suspect, so did he. When I opened my eyes, he was on his side, pushing my hair back.
Andrew had gambled with some decisions. Had we gone into Ramanagara town, we could’ve bought ourselves all the water we needed, but had he stopped, he wouldn’t have been in a position to drive for at least another five to six hours.
It would’ve taken his body that long to get control.
He wasn’t sure if I was okay to hold on for that long, given that I wasn’t keeping anything inside me.
I had apparently puked my second ingestion of water, too.
He decided to drive us back, willing himself, using the music as a distraction.
He put me before him, and I did the same. It was our signature.