A story told backwards.

See that man there with that pained smile on his face? That's my father. He's mortally scared of all animals barring me. Right before I took this photograph the sheep (bottom left-hand corner? Yes, that is a woolly mountain sheep) was trying to nibble at his elbow. He couldn't possibly escape because we were in a jeep, so he's shuddering inside instead.

The sheep entered the jeep (that rhymes, that rhymes!) around five minutes into the journey from Dhanaulti to a nearby mountain shrine. We were sitting at the back, and there was only one empty seat opposite me, but in climbed a woman with two children. I thought the children would occupy her lap, but it then became clear that the son of the family would have to hang onto the door for dear life to make way for the family pet. It occupied all the legspace and its stomach was pressed against my knee, which is why I can now inform the world that a sheep's stomach makes very interesting rumbling noises.

We were in the backseat because the front looked like it was housing illegal immigrants. Seats meant to hold four people were packed with seven astride, with five more on various laps, and toddlers arranged on the handrests for ornamentation. It was a cannonball held together by nuts and bolts, this jeep. The driver drove it like he was trying to reach a new high score in some flashy video game, only this was in Garhwal so we were mentally composing our wills during the journey. I had my doubts about the jeep the moment it halted outside our hotel; a village woman with a nose ornament resembling a coat of arms jumped off, shook her fist at the driver, and proceeded to be violently sick under a fir tree. It would have been a good time to turn back.

We couldn't turn back because we'd missed the Garhwal State Transport bus to Tehri by five minutes. Those five minutes were spent on breakfast that was roti-mushroom curry. Before that the caretaker was telling us about a little shrine on a mountain on the way to Tehri. Very good view, saair, he said. Bus and taxi pass through everyday, saair. We missed the bus and the taxi turned out to be the jeep. Dhanaulti very well connected by transport, saair.

We originally fled to Dhanaulti after a day and a half in Mussoorie. My father was sick of the dirt and the pollution, my mother was shopping too much, and I was getting an inferiority complex from the slimmer-than-thou moneyed exquisites who use Mussoorie as a watering hole. I had sneakers, you see. So we fled. Dhanaulti wasn't perfect, but we found a tiny place away from the main village where the caretaker was sorry about the state of the blankets, but he was, well, taking care of us. We thought we'd have some peace and quiet, but then the sheep happened.

The reason this post exists is because I just rediscovered the photograph. If I were you, I'd read it starting from this paragraph, and move on upwards.

It's absurd how much I like playing around with this blog :)