"Gone Crazy. Gone Mad." This optimistic statement of fact smiled back at us from the license plate of our taxi as we contemplated the sight of our means of transportation perched on the edge of a bottomless cliff. This unexpected abyss had quite suddenly made its appearance on the road we were happily cruising along, effectively signaling the end of that particular branch of the Jamaican highway system. "No Problem, Maan!" said our taxi driver as he accepted our money, performed a tight U-turn, and left us standing at the edge of the world.
We peered over the edge. A couple of hundred feet nearer sea level, a small group of people were picking through the rubble. Between shouts, we were informed that the abyss in question was the result of a landslide the previous night. I surveyed the scene slowly. The twittering birds continued to twitter. The vast expanse of emerald green forest didn't seem to care either way about my presence. I looked at Vishal, my companion, and he looked at me. The unofficial Jamaican national anthem raced through both our minds as we decided to continue our journey on foot. "No Problem Maan!"
Our destination was Newcastle, a town nestled high up on a ridge in the Blue Mountains. From there, we had been promised, unforgettable vistas of Kingston all the way on the other side of the island. As the unfolding events would prove, and had already begun to prove, the destination is merely an excuse - an excuse for the journey getting there and back. That's something every traveler knows.
We skirted the landslide, taking care not to dislodge boulders that would have ended the activities of our friends down below. We followed the road on the other side as it made its serpentine way through the clouds. For obvious reasons, there was no traffic on that road. It was sheer joy, walking up the mountains, our heads in the sky.
The Blue Mountains of Jamaica are as high as the Nilgiris in the South of India where we had grown up. Our feelings of familiarity that day are probably best explained by a quirk of geographic nomenclature - the word Nilgiris means Blue Mountains!
After two hours, I was convinced that we were either on the wrong road or there was no
such place as Newcastle. We decided to give ourselves five more minutes before heading back to the abyss to catch the last bus back. It was then that the strangest series of events unfolded.
The first sign of human habitation in two hours turned out to be a cottage in a coffee plantation. Deciding to try my luck, I knocked. An elderly white woman opened the door.
"Hi, is this the right road to Newcastle?" I enquired.
"Son, come in for some coffee," she replied.
We obliged. Vishal and I sat down in the living room as she made us some coffee straight from the berries of the estate. Below us, the mountain gave way to a valley blanketed with the green of coffee plantations. The clouds cleared and the late afternoon sun bathed the valley in gold. Coffee arrived, served with honey. It was exquisite. After the first sip, we had no choice but to take it seriously when we were informed that Blue Mountain coffee is the best in the world!
Then came the stories. She was white Jamaican, married to a Britisher. Together they ran the estate and exported the coffee. Their children were married and abroad, not interested in coming back to run the estate. It soon became apparent that she hadn't seen her children in decades and by the look of it, probably hadn't seen people outside of the estate for years. She recounted, with fondness, her trip to London in 1965. She recalled, with a wistful expression, her childhood in Kingston of the 1930s, when her family would go to the park in a horse-drawn carriage.
Suddenly, everything in the house took on an air of melancholic antiquity. For a moment I saw the world as she saw it. I shuddered. Jamaica was still a white man's outpost in the Caribbean. Beautiful women waltzed in brilliant ballrooms. Silent figures appeared at the snap of a finger with shimmering champagne. Independence could not be real. It was merely a fantasy in the deluded minds of the rest of the world.
It was strange that my first brush with colonial nostalgia had come outside India. Fortunately for us, her husband appeared to have a firmer grip on reality when he made his appearance at this point. Not so fortunately, however, he wasn't too happy with our presence in the house and threw disapproving glances at his wife. The lady had a mind of her own, though. She secretly bundled ten bags of coffee for us, and offered to drive us to Newcastle. We gladly accepted both offers, threw an unanswered goodbye at the man of the house, and headed off up the road.
Fog and smog conspired to deny us a view of Kingston from Newcastle. Even on an empty road, the drive back was hair-raising. Our elderly host and benefactor floored the accelerator, barely staying within the confines of the road. We stayed a couple of inches from the edge of the mountain for the fifteen-minute drive. Neither the manic melancholic look in her eyes, nor her unending stories of her children helped reassure us.
We did make it back alive. She pointed us to a path down the mountain. With a cocktail of relief, gratitude, and a sadness in our hearts, we stumbled down the steep sides of the mountain into the valley below. We arrived at the landslide, at the opposite end of the estate in five minutes flat (Remember, it had taken us two hours along the road). As darkness descended, we were hailed by the estate foreman. I greeted him with the local "Jah Maan!" In a clipped British accent, he replied, "Have a good evening, sir."
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