Close to the angels on a hot air balloon

Photograph Preeti Verma Lal

As the balloon sailed at 1,000 ft, I knew I was closer to the gods. And I happily forgot the prince. If I stretched my hand I could probably pull out an angel out of the clouds; if I missed that I could pick a leaf from the tree that stood proudly over a denuded hill. “Want some flowers? Wait. Let me try and land on a tree,” Steve was being impish again. Thankfully, he did not keep his promise. But we did brush past trees for I could hear the willow basket graze against the thorns.

That night I dreamt I was a bird. That morning I wanted to fly. The wicker basket looked beefy, the balloon beautiful, the weather gorgeous, the palace exquisite and the prince handsome. And I could feel the wings on me. It was early morning, the sun seemed indolent and the air frosty. At the ballooning site near Samode Palace, there was the drone of the pick-up trucks and the burble of the men in canary yellow hurrying through the rigmarole. In haste, my Hush Puppies had amassed sand in its sole and my expensive jeans had caught burrs on its seams. But that morning I did not fuss. For that morning I was ready to fly - unharnessed, standing in a wicker basket, swayed gently by the westerlies over the thorny terrain, naked hills, wading through clouds not too far away from the gods.

And I waited. Patiently. The balloon made of 6,500 metre of silicon-lined fabric took lazy minutes to get inflated. The whirr of the inflator fans broke the dawn’s silence. “Be careful of the fan, your long hair might just get caught,” one of the men hollered. Ah! The mischievous fan. On my last balloon ride, it had almost wolfed down my flouncy silk skirt. “Scared of height? Don’t bother. We would play hide-and-seek up in the skies,” Steve Triebber, the chief pilot, was being puckish. He had a wicked smile on this face and some tricky landing drills up his sleeves. But before he could scare me further I had hopped into the wicker basket, squeezed between four propane cylinders, other passengers and yes, the impish Steve. Steve cranked and the funnel spewed hot air into the balloon’s envelope that crammed an absurd 1,80,000 cubic ft. within its folds. The folds were modish too – it is made of the same anti-inflammable fabric that wraps Formula One drivers when they burn tyres on the F1 tracks.  

Before I could get the drift, the ground under my feet had vanished. There was no bump, the balloon had quietly left the ground. The 400-year old Samode Palace that till a moment ago looked an arm away suddenly started looking puny. First, the hibiscus got blurred, then the turrets went missing… A little later all I could see was a large, beige palace looking as big as a picture postcard. Behind the palace snaked 375 white steps up a hill, the steps to the Hanuman Temple looking like a wanton chalk scratch on dark slate. Like the palace, the prince too became a smudge in the sky, he was in the other balloon with pilot Bill Mackinnon, a former Scotland Yard cop. Jai Thakore, the man behind the first commercial hot air ballooning in the country, had metamorphosed into a yellow speck. They all seemed like Lilliputs, but nobody shouted Langro Dehul san.

As the balloon sailed at 1,000 ft, I knew I was closer to the gods. And I happily forgot the prince. If I stretched my hand I could probably pull out an angel out of the clouds; if I missed that I could pick a leaf from the tree that stood proudly over a denuded hill. “Want some flowers? Wait. Let me try and land on a tree,” Steve was being impish again. Thankfully, he did not keep his promise. But we did brush past trees for I could hear the willow basket graze against the thorns.

The mere thought of sailing unharnessed in an open basket can scare the daylights out of anyone; but trust me, the balloon sails so smoothly that you would not feel your stomach churn. The ride is incredibly gentle, the balloon going wherever the winds took us – the quiet shattered by the buzz of the hot air being pumped into balloon to maintain the altitude. “I am the pilot, I get to stand with the propane. I am the king here,” Steve laughed as the breeze flirted with my long hair. But he was the not the only one feeling like a king that frosty morning. With us was flying a liveried attendant complete with a turban and broken English carrying a steel flask full to its gill with cardamom tea. While the balloon swayed and Steve told stories, I sipped on tea, feeling like a princess and an angel in one glorious moment.

Blissful up in the sky, I forgot to time how many minutes we had done or how many kilometers we had sailed. Must have been an hour. Must have been six kilometers, I guessed. On ground I saw a lovely patch of green and the walkie-talkie cranked, “That’s where we would land. On your knees, we are landing. It would be bumpy.” I recapped my knee-bending lesson, held on to the ropes and waited for the bump. But the patch was not large enough to land. We sailed further and were not too far from the ground. I could count the huts and the cabbages. And yes, I could hear the commotion. The villagers were shouting excitedly, the dogs barking furiously and the children running fretfully in the balloon’s shadow. Even the cows mooed nervously. Steve was still looking for a large patch to land and the longer we sailed the more the pandemonium below. A woman in red, her face hidden behind a sequinned dupatta screamed, “neeche aao (come down)” and an aggressive, probably envious kid, threw a stone.

Finally, Steve found a patch. “Hold on to the ropes. Kneel. Bend backwards,” Steve reiterated loudly. The balloon landed as it had taken off – very smoothly. Not a bump, Not a bruise. The retrieval vehicle was still trying to locate us and the crowd around us swelled. An old, stubbled and scrawny man peeped into the basket and said, “What a jaadu (miracle)!” A dusky woman with gold in her nose mumbled in awe, “Gas. Apna wala gas (the gas we use)? The village head shooed away children, that curious dog and shook hands with the pilot. After all, he was the village head, he appropriated that privilege.

As the retrieval vehicle kicked dust and screeched next to the balloon, I hopped out, still answering questions from the nosy villagers. I looked up, the hills and the gods once again looked so far away and the palace just an arm away. The prince? Must have landed somewhere. I was still in my adventurous ballooning mood. The prince can wait.       

Published in Mail Today, December 2007

Contact: Preetivermalal@gmail.com