Soft Rain Voyage

One day, Baptiste and I go for a tea break at our favorite chai stand. It has a block of cement you can sit on and a palm leaf roof for shelter from the sun. Plus the man who makes the coffee serves it out of a large, shiny copper vat, which is somehow much more visually appealing than the standard tin ones we see in town. Upon our arrival, we find two staff members who have escaped as well for a break, and as they pass us the world's hardest "sweet" - a combination of peanuts and sugar packed into a tight cube - I decide to wow them with my newly acquired Tamil skills. "I am a woman." I state. Encouraged by the display of grins amongst the tea drinkers, I say, pointing to someone, "He is a man." I continue on "I love Rainbow the dog. Rainbow is a dog." Baptiste, who had been mastering the fine technique of keeping all his teeth and eating the nut dessert, only just tunes in. He wants to talk too. "I am a dog (nay)." he proudly says. Everyone roars with laughter. "Aan" (man), I offer gently, "You are a man." He nods, looking a bit confused, turning the peanut mass in his fingers. I don't insist.

Upon returning to the office, the Director's son, Illivaranso, 33 years old, approaches me. He worked in the entertainment industry in Chennai (Madras) for ten years, then moved back to Tirichuli, married his cousin, and is now enjoying the "jolly" family life he's established. He never puts his cell phone down and is the proud driver of the Ambassador car.
"We go see soft rain." he says, gesturing like he's driving.
"Ok." I say, smiling, waiting for more info, because I've heard there is a trip in the works, but I'm not sure if "soft rain" qualifies as a destination.
"Fall" he says.
Talking with only the use of verbs has become standard for me, so "fall" potentially has many meanings. It is maybe the rain that falls, or someone he knew fell once, or because of the exhaustion of another day at the office, he is concerned that I will fall. I keep nodding, waiting, biding my time.
"We go to falls. Mountains." Now I understand.
"When" I ask?
"Saturday." This is good.

Of course, a Saturday departure quickly becomes an impromptu Friday afternoon departure, and, because I want to have some control over my destiny, I ask in the one hectic hour I have to pack, where, exactly, I am going. From each of the five staff members I ask, I hear something different; I am able, not to distinguish a word, but a single consonant - "K". I look up every possible destination in Tamil Nadu in my guidebook as I throw an assortment of belongings into a small backpack. Nothing seems to match both waterfalls and the letter 'K', so I give up, per usual, the sense that I have any idea what is going on.

Baptiste, Illivaranso and Chandru and I head out in the jeep, bouncing past hogs, cows, and five people crammed onto a motorcycle. After two hours of driving, there is a sudden flurry of cell phone calls, and Chandru and Illivaranso are gleefully shouting back and forth. Where we were once beeping our way down the "highway" at an unsettingly rapid pace, we have now bumped our way onto the shoulder and pulled to a halt in the middle of nowhere. Across the road, another jeep has done just the same, and a stream of men pile out of it, rushing towards us. Apparently, they are friends from Tirichuli who I haven't met yet, so I get out of the jeep, immediately stepping onto a large juliflora thorn that slips its way through my flip-flop and into my heel. I yank it out, check out the local flora and pick a particularly beautiful purple flower. I show it to the group of men and they start waving their arms frantically, pointing to a white substance pouring out of the stem. "Poison!". I drop the flower, quickly wash my hands, and wish I had just stayed in the van like Baptiste. Soon we are back on our way, approaching mountains awash in clouds, and Baptiste and I are wondering out loud, in French, just how cool the air will be.

I consider that this is primarily a scenic, peaceful excursion of sorts, maybe involving a quaint hike, some photos, a picnic of curries and rice balls; I am surprised to find, as we pull into the main town of the "Five Falls" attraction, that this is hardly what is in store. This is India, after all. The "parking lots", really, are just place holders, with no rhyme or reason to them. Everyone does just as they please, regardless of how everyone else is going about the tricky business of cramming their vehicles into a swell of ditches, mud, and ill placed trees. Buses, which play songs when they go in reverse, are screeching into the lots, narrowly escaping tragic fates then reversing out to try again. None of the "reversing" songs match and one has the acute sense of being at an amusement park gone terribly awry. Buses get stuck in any number of ditches that have developed over time and some drivers don't even bother to dig themselves out, shutting off the engines and heading straight for the falls. People peer out of the windows, dropping mango rinds and newspaper bits to the ground and when, or rather, just before, their bus comes to rest, they rush to the bus doors and tumble out by the hundreds, tossing babies, packages of hot sauce and bottles of shampoo between them; ice-cream vendors weave through oxen and dogs. I cautiously get out of the van, hear the roar of one of the falls, and have an immediate craving for chai.

After simply looking at this particular waterfall, and seeing the hundreds of tourists lining up to stand underneath them, we retire to our hotel, and change for the "bathing." It is now late at night, the blue moon hanging above the clouds, and the boys are ready to move. When we get to the next waterfall, things have quieted down a bit. "Soft Rain," offers Illivaranso again, pointing to the sky where, indeed, a light rain is sprinkling on us. Before I can even answer though, I am being pushed past a large tree by a group of women. "Follow them!" says Chandru, pointing down a rocky slope to the "women's" section of the waterfall, and I obey, scuttling down the rock face towards a crowd of women standing, fully clothed, directly underneath the water. They push me right into their midst, and I can't see a thing from the heavy fall of the water. One of my bangles snaps in half, I can barely hear anything either except for the occasional "From what country come you?" that this woman or that, shoved into the tight space between rocks where we are all huddling, inquires over the deafening roar of the falls. I push my way out, gasping for air, only to be lathered up with soap and tossed back into the fray. Some of us are laughing, some women are frowning intensely, their eyes clasped shut, meditative. In the chaotic rush to the falls, I haven't been able to remove my towel from my waist and so it gets just as soaked as me. But this is India, and everything dries up right away, back to the way it was minutes before, just the pressure of the falls leaving its traces in the frayed edges of my clothes.