I forgive you boy, but don't leave town

Sunday was weird. It started off all right; I woke up late and stared out the window, wondering what to do. I saw a Murakami book of short stories lying on the bed where I'd tossed it the previous night, and picked it up and read "The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler's Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds". It's a fairly short story - shorter than the title would lead you to believe. For those who have not read it, the story is split into four sections:
  1. The Fall of the Roman Empire
  2. The 1881 Indian Uprising
  3. Hitler's Invasion of Poland
  4. And the Realm of Raging Winds
Although the Realm of Raging Winds is just one of the four sections, it is the central idea of the story, and is vividly described in the other three sections too.

Which is why, when later in the day the sultry still Pune summer gave way to a Realm of Raging Winds, I stopped what I was doing and paused and thought.

This was uncanny. Weird, as I've mentioned earlier. This was a definite Sign. I felt like God.

I told this to my friends, who laughed at me. Mat called it a random coincidence. But then, lots of people call God a random coincidence too, so I was not terribly put off by that.

Mat called me a nutcase.

But you couldn't deny the existence of the wind. A few sprinkled showers accompanied it, and made things much pleasanter, clients more tolerable and friends more forgivable. Thus, I suggested to Senti that we ride our bikes to Bombay the next morning.

This was not a whimsical thought. We were to visit clients in Bombay on Monday anyways, but had so far been thinking of busing it there. The winds, however, changed everything.

It was one of the best decisions we made in a long time. The ride to Bombay on Monday morning was effortless and comfortable. Bombay was still hot and muggy, but we were coddled by our respective clients in their AC offices. And we caught the winds and the rain on the way back in the evening. As Kehlog Albran once mentioned, The Wind was a friend - it made the weather very pleasant and our rides memorable. The Wind was an enemy - it was so strong I was nearly tossed off my bike near Lonavala. However, unlike in Albran's time, the Wind was definitely not neutral, like Switzerland. I guess I'll have to mature some more until I can fully grasp Albran's philosophy.

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