Visor Up

There's a stretch of road on my way to work that passes through a wildlife sanctuary. Every time I enter that ghat section I flip my visor up. Something about that air — the way it hits differently, the way it carries the weight of everything the forest holds. Fifteen minutes of solitude between the world I came from and the work I'm here to do. I look forward to it every single time.

Today I was looking for an animal. I always am on this stretch. Eyes open, hoping.

Then from the corner of my eye — movement. A monitor lizard. Ghorpad. Two feet long, slender, crossing the road. I evaded it but caught a flash of something that made me brake hard and stop.

Blood.

I got off the bike. Went closer. It moved — and something in my chest unclenched just slightly. I tried to pick it up. The claws found the tarmac and held firm. Tried again. Still nothing. So I found a twig and tried to nudge it toward the side of the road.

It didn't budge.

And then it looked at me.

I don't know how else to say this — it just turned and looked. And in that look was something I can only describe as trust. Or permission. Okay. I know you're not going to hurt me. The claws let go of the tarmac.

Slowly, carefully, I moved it to the side of the road with the twig. A couple of bikers passed and gave me looks — the kind that say what is wrong with you. They don't understand. For them a ghorpad is something to hunt and eat.

Their loss.

I made sure it was clear of passing vehicles. Clear of passing humans too — and I mean that exactly as I wrote it. Looked it in the eye one last time and just — hoped. That the injury inside its mouth would heal. That it would make it to a tree. That it would survive.

And then, because I am human and cannot help myself, I hoped it would remember me. Not because I saved its life — I'm not sure I did. But because we share this nature. This same stretch of road, this same air, this same fifteen minutes of sanctuary.

Always hoping. Always a little selfish. I know.

—

Here's what I didn't say out loud on that road but I'm saying now.

Two weeks ago I rode past a puppy that had just been hit by a car. It shrieked and limped away and I left. I've been carrying that since. Not loudly, not dramatically — just quietly, the way guilt tends to travel.

I didn't plan this. Didn't set out to redeem anything. But somewhere underneath the decision to stop, to get off the bike, to spend ten minutes on a ghat road with a twig and a lizard — I think that puppy was there too.

Maybe that's what guilt does when you let it sit long enough. It doesn't disappear. It just waits for the next moment you can do better.

This time, at least, I stopped.