Glimpses of Travels with a little “Sonder” by Abhinita Mohanty

The seagulls glided along the waves as the water flapped against our boat. The journey was rough and exciting as the Chilika Lake rumbled underneath our boat. R was munching her chips, and mamma was chatting with an aunt.

“Look at that bird above; doesn't she have the loveliest of wings?” R mumbled with her mouthful of snacks. There were numerous birds on the sky; I could not identify a single one with a name. All the while I looked at the seagulls, riding with us. The waves were fast, and the boat roared, the seagulls moved on. During this time of the year, lots of birds migrate to the Chilika Lake, for the seasonal holiday and pass their time looking for food; foreign, exotic, unknown and smelling another land, for a change.

There were seven of us on the boat as we took off to visit a famous island temple on the lake. Suraj was scared of the waves and the noise. Any kind of journey, ‘unsmoothened’ by watery waves or potholes always scares JK. Nitu too never belonged to the rugged. So, I loosened my nerves and replied to R's question, “Yeah, but did you see the seagulls and those Siberian cranes”? “Yes, but what about them”, Nitu replied as veins popped all over her forehead! She was queasy, on the rough lake. 

The baby seagull at the end of the herd was now swimming faster, with stealth, without fuss, it was in a zone of lingering peace. The boat roared louder. The lakes were rough, and we had a million things, forming bubbles of polythene in our minds. My anxieties were monotonous; work, assignments, money, etc. 

The baby seagull was learning to fly, a bunch of Purple Moorhen were busy sampling their treats on islands, shrubs and roaring above the rugged terrains. Life, in its tiniest form, showed me pieces of ‘incidences’ as I wondered, can anything be uninteresting? 

II

Years ago, we had boarded a toy train to Ooty. A man got up in between stations. I looked at him; his fancy cell phone was tucked in his palm as he sat beside me.

The wallpaper on his phone has a word, I can only see it half, ‘S-O-N…..’ “What?” I thought.

A little baby smiled at her mother, she tried to eat the dirt off her own shoes, but the woman does not let her. The father clicks a picture; the baby extended her arms towards him.

The man sitting beside me does not let his phone slide off his palms! I want to read that word. He smiled at me, I reciprocated. “I work in the town”, he said. I nodded. “It is a nice place”. The quaint hill stations bustled with summer crowd, and the little train buzzed through the majestic hills. 

“It is nice but boring, I am trying to go away from this place”, he yawned.

“Where?” I asked.

“I do not know,” he says. “Somewhere”.

An American on the other seat talks about the thinning forests and the cloudless skies.

“Ooty is beautiful”, I thought.

The man beside me was now reading, and I could now see the word on his wallpaper, “S-O-N-D-E-R”. Sonder. I do not remember such a word, I just like the way it sounds.

I opened the dictionary on my phone, “No network” it said. Since the network was dead, I spent more time observing other passengers and less time admiring the scenery outside. Both felt voyeuristic. 

III

It was the best time to go to Phulbani region; for a picnic. White, milky streams, lush of greenery, pines on the hill and exciting relatives. S and P wanted me to play with them; all they did was throw stones into the streams. “I can throw further than P, you know I do it always”, S grinned mockingly.

The lady eating her lunch near another stream shouts at S. “Stop throwing stones”. Her clothes were dirty, and her arms skinny. “All day, I stand under the scorching heat, and then you don't allow me to eat in peace”, she yelled again. N came and told the woman not to shout. “She goes to the nearby school in the evening and works during the day, and she is always in a bad mood”, N tells me.

“So she is just a poor woman”, P says. 

I was sitting as usual with a book. Instead of my walls, there was a small spring beside me. The aroma of picnic food, sandwiches, pickles, cakes, etc., filled the forest, echoing through the hill. The women were bathing and cleaning. They laughed and talked, adding mirth to the stealth valleys. These introvert women knew everything about each plant, the healing properties of roots and how to poison, even the little spring.

IV

It is evening, and I have to read this before the dinner is ready.‘S-O-N-D-E-R’. Sonder, I reread it today, on my computer screen. I googled the unusual word.   

“The realization that every person around you has a life and history just as rich, interesting, difficult, and unique as your own”, coined by John Koenig.

I went back to reminiscent, the compelling, hidden lives of birds, and I am privy to those bits in their lives. The man I met in Ooty didn’t know where he wanted to go. Perhaps he was restless for a while in the little town, but he never had the courage to leave, or he had the last laugh on the train racing closer to a chaotic life faraway. The number of bystanders I see around me and those vague faces on the train, the stories of laughter and inside jokes the women shared near the spring; they all added to my Sonder. I stood there in the distance, detached from all these lives, yet retaining a small part of their story, within me.

Abhinita Mohanty is a Research Scholar in the Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT, Madras, India. She is passionate about writing and poetry. Her work has been published in Outlook Magazine (website), Women’s Web, New Asian Writing and Burgundy Balloon (upcoming).