Lost in the Smoke

It seemed as if there was no other world, no other place that could have made us feel freedom to this extent. I was riding an Avenger, not caring about a traffic police interruption, without a helmet, swaying it on the countryside road whenever I wanted to. It was around three in the afternoon. All three of us were under the effect of beer buzz and headed on our rides to the Vagator beach.

The serpentine roads were lined, on one side with equidistant, tall palm trees, and on the other side, with faraway, little cottages in the extensive fields. We decided to halt around that area for some minutes of DSLR session. Daljeet had recently bought one, exhausting almost his entire savings of pocket money he had gathered over months.

“Goa’s heaven for pics”, Daljeet exclaimed framing our bikes against the fields and the inclined afternoon sun.

“And he was the one not coming” Shikoh teased him, sipping through the Budweiser can, “For all money you bought this stuff, it was meant for places like these.”

And I added to the mockery, “Plus it’s okay to loan a trip from your friends!”

Leaving aside his DSLR, Daljeet stared with helpless, gratitude-full expressions towards us. Perhaps, he did it out of his misplaced sense of keeping the accounts balanced. “Go ahead, dude”, Shikoh offered his beer can to him, probably to make him know he should shred the false burden he assumed on himself.

“Care to join us in the party?” An unfamiliar, French-toned voice interrupted us from behind.

“Who’s this?” Shikoh asked him. Tucked up in a ragged t-shirt, he smelt profusely of alcohol and weed. He had kept a goatee and had made a ponytail of his curly hairs. Pointing towards a group of youngsters quite ahead of us, he said, tapping Daljeet’s shoulders, “Come on guys, you’ll forget the world and enjoy! We have all the stuff.”

All the stuff! That was enough to trigger loops of imaginations in anyone’s mind. Avoiding any diversions from our plan, I rejected his invitation, “Can’t join, buddy! We’re headed to Vagator.” Shikoh got the indication and he boarded his bike, but Daljeet had his fantasies rolling. He promptly asked, “Are there girls?” The man chuckled and said, “French!” I could witness gleaming sparkles in Daljeet’s eyes and made an immediate attempt to cut down the conversation, “Sorry, we have to go.”

Daljeet, though a bit disappointed, loaded himself on his Avenger and we started towards our pre-decided destination.

As heard always, Vagator was like the concealed, calm end of Goa. There were little shops where we parked our bikes. But the main beach huddled with palm trees and sand, gleaming yellowish-red against the setting sun, was down the cliff made of reddish rocks and was free of any population. Towards the right end of the cliff was an old, ruined fort like structure, its wall standing against the sea.

We climbed down the steps to the beach, opened our whiskey bottles and raised the toast to that moment. The lightly moist cool breeze carried small drizzles of salty water along with the gushing waves. For me, it was my first view of the sun diving into the sea. I could actually feel all recollections, happy or sad, exciting or boring, surfacing in my consciousness. The only apparent sound was the lapping of the waves, the only feeling was a sea breeze and the only wish was to lie down carefree on that beach. As if there was no returning back…

And then we heard a loud cheer. It was from a group on the left end of the beach where the cliffs were dropping down to the sea. As we looked towards them, they waved their hands calling us. The sun was down the sea, and even the last rays peeping out of the horizon were making their final show. Shikoh hinted to us, “I think we should leave. We’ll have sea food prepared in the shacks.”

“You have a little shack there”, Daljeet pointed to the same end where the group was enjoying their smoke. And the other two of us knew what idea Daljeet’s mind was playing with. And since we had decided on a protocol of freedom, we submitted to Daljeet’s wishes.

Shikoh and I had never smoked weed, nor did we have any such plans. We settled down with a plate of Goan fish curry, while Daljeet, who initially resisted a bit as a show-off, joined the jubilation. The party carried on even in the dark, towards the rocks a bit left from the shack. The night sea was even more wondrous, the never ending dark waters ending as frothy waves at the windy beach. The light grassy bushes at the shack swayed hitherto as the temperatures started dropping.

“He won’t end soon” Shikoh pointed that out the fiftieth time.

“Why are you bothered, dude? Let’s relax here… Nice food” I chewed up a fried prawn, “Can you check the bags, and that guy’s DLSR?”

Shikoh eyeballed the bags on the right corner, and then continued gulping from the Carlsberg bottle he had bought from the shack owner. The night crept in, the stars spread the carpet over the Arabian Sea and our friend, Daljeet was also probably yelling at the limits of his throat along with the mad group.

Out of nowhere, we saw few people out of the rejoicing flock letting out concerned calls to someone. We soon recognized Daljeet running randomly at the edge of the sea. As he crossed the shack, we saw no member of the group following him. He was alone and down with lots of smoke. And in no time, I freaked out; Daljeet had dived into the sea…

“He doesn’t even know swimming” I yelled out to Shikoh to follow me as I sped towards the point I had seen him diving from. Hastily, I dropped mine and Daljeet’s phone, which I had carried, on the beach itself.

“You stay back and drag me once I come back near the end.”

Instructing Shikoh to be ready, I made a dive. The water was bitterly cold. Daljeet was pretty inside from the beach. As I surfaced against a couple of strong waves, carried back and forth along with the water, I saw Daljeet’s hand going up and down in a random, troubled movement. He was attempting to breathe inside water, causing him to gulp the nastily salty water. I attempted to use my legs against the sea bed to push myself against the waves. But no one knows what lies below the water! The seabed had a sharp slope down from the near end where it met the beach. Drifting back to get myself stable, I made an attempt to push myself ahead and reach out to him. His hands were something I shouldn’t have caught hold of; he would have drowned me frisking with his hands. Clenching him by his legs, I pushed him towards the beach, rounded my grip on his shirt and swam back. Another round of huge wave entangled us and threw us back to the point from where Shikoh easily dragged us on to the shore. As Shikoh brought our stupid friend to consciousness by forcing out water from his lungs, I stabilized myself from the recent adventure I landed into.

“Why did you do this?” Shikoh asked him angrily.

Daljeet had no words, or probably his state, after a sequence of randomness followed by fear, did not let him come back to normalcy. He twisted his forehead, clutching his hairs, as if trying to remember something. We sat around him, making sure everything was fine, until he spoke after a minute, “I just remember… The guy we met on the road… Offered me weed… Challenged me something…”

“That same French guy? How did he land up here?” I inquired him.

Shikoh nudged my shoulders. “That group was the one he was pointing to.”

We looked towards the screaming herd of wild people, careless and unaware of the near escape of one of their partners from drowning.

“But why would he challenge you to dive into the sea?”

“I don’t know”, Daljeet stammered.

“I think I might… See there.” Shikoh pointed out to the shack. 

And as we saw, in whatever light the shack lamps could provide, someone groping through the bags we had left there, we were clear of the French guy’s intention. We darted towards the shack, but he was speedy enough to escape towards the steps over the cliff. Daljeet reached the shack behind us, panting and still under the weed effect. But he did not know all that effect was short-termed. Something was going to bring his peace upside down. What I suspected when Shikoh pointed out to the shack came out to be correct…

“It’s gone! No!” Daljeet yelled out gravely. Even the shack owner came out, attempting to understand his loss.

“The guy had a watch on this camera. We’ll ask the group. Hurry…!” Shikoh pushed Daljeet to get up. We ran to the cliff’s end. The noise was too high. I couldn’t make out whether people were actually talking sense or plainly shouting the alphabet ‘O’. I called a lad by waving my hands. He must have been around eighteen. Ignoring me, he continued his bottoms up round. Daljeet, who had been transformed into a state of frustration, caught that boy by his t-shirt and roped him out, “Where’s that guy? He had a goatee and a ponytail of his hairs… He spoke French…”

“Come on dude!” The intoxicated youngster nodded, swirling his beer bottle, “As if I know anyone here. We are all strangers. He must be someone like you, who joined us along the way!”

Daljeet’s disappointment was audible in a sigh. He let the lad loose, who joined the mad group back again. As we climbed the steps back with rest of the stuff ensured intact apart from the prized possession, we talked about ways- FIR’s, identity tracking through description. Most of it, we knew, was waste. Shikoh and I shared his depression, but somewhere, keeping the amount invested aside, we desired to laugh at the fool Daljeet had made of himself.

As we returned on our bikes and rode to the nearest police station, a thought kept crossing my mind, something the French guy had already hinted to us, ‘Come on, guys. You’ll forget the world and enjoy.’ I decided, ‘Next time, if I would be in Goa, I would be free. Free of anything I could lose…’ The weird though made me smile, as I looked upon my friend on the other bike, deep in a trauma, and another one on the third Avenger, making bleak attempts to lessen his load of terrible sense of loss.

Fire and Shadows

The beer bottles were empty; even the VAT69 too. I turned back to ensure there was more wood for the bonfire. An inclined smile blocked my view, close enough that I could feel her warm breath. One could have been lost in those sparkling eyes and delve into the irresistible perfume emanating from her hair. Ignoring the pulses, I shifted my chair back and pretended to cater to the burning woods in the centre.

“Daljeet and Shikoh gave up early. It’s just one; the forest isn’t yet sleeping.” I tried to fabricate a new talk and bent her focus towards the distant howling of a fox down the woods in the fog-huddled valley.

“They’ve had almost three-fourths of this stuff. It’s good they retired to a sound cottage sleep.” She added, signalling sudden reminiscence, “This one’s smooth and has nice effect… the VAT69…”

I smiled back and reached out to another chair for my recently bought jacket to stuff myself away from the increasing chill. She zipped up her black jacket and started rubbing her hands close to the fire. Against the hazy moon, I could view the drifting clouds on that dark, virtually silent hill slope of Coorg. For almost a minute, no conversation took a form between us. Only the crackling sounds of ignited woods…

And then, all of sudden, her eyes widened, her smile grew mysterious, and there it was- a familiar leather bound notebook- that she had been hiding behind. I jumped to grab my possession back, but she wouldn’t let me have it. “I went through some of what you’ve scribbled here. Nice stories though!” She announced with a tone of assumed victory.

I had to make an appeal, “Ahh… Preferably you shouldn’t have done that… Give… Please…” As she nodded, I started fiddling over the notebook, and that’s when my fingers brushed over her soft palm skin. Shredding my diversions, I had to manoeuvre my grip on it and pull it out with a jerk on her wrist. She cried aloud, probably because of a sharp agony triggered by the jerk.

“Huh”, she exclaimed letting out a massive sigh, “I wish my parents were here. Their being gone to our uncle’s engagement seems like an advantage to you.”

I sensed a discrete flirtatious hint in her voice. Ignoring it, I started towards the car parked towards the end of the backyard garden. Breaking the sheer howling of the misty winds, she asked me out, “I half-read the one where the guy goes psychic and falls for a female ghost. Is he finally treated out of his imaginations?”

For a second, as I unlocked the car door, I wondered, ‘Come on! I have got much more than my stories. Is she really interested in knowing the psychic, insomniac guy’s romance life with a ghost-ess?’ As I tucked the notebook down the lowest depths of my backpack, I satisfied her anxiety, “He lives on to believe she is real, secludes himself from the rest of the world, writes his own love story, which soon becomes the bestseller.”

She probably started walking towards the car; her footsteps made it evident. Her eyes, gleaming against the distant flames of the bonfire, were soon staring at me right from the top of the car’s door. For a moment, I wished I could forget she was our owner’s daughter. Her slowly growing smile made me realize as if I could stop my scrupulous and judicial thoughts.

“Brissss… SSSSS… Dhushhh...”

The sound filled my ears; immediately I knew it wasn’t the winds, it wasn’t the trees. My involuntary actions pulled me in a sequence to turn off car lights, let the doors remain open to avoid making a noise and signal the already cautioned Vidya. The short-term noise was loud enough, as if something dragging through the dark, windy and thickly forested slope, right at the end of the garden where our car was parked. I bent on all fours and tried to peep through the bricks lined up at the edge, down towards the valley. Nothing moved but the distant ripples of Cauvery, producing intermittent lapping sounds.

“Some animal”, she said vaguely in an audacious tone, almost causing me a cold shiver, “Don’t be worried. We are used to this.” I was absolutely left aghast by her carelessness. A better advice would have been: ‘Let’s rush to our rooms or wake the servants up from their quarters!’

Vidya stood intrepid as I attempted to explain in whispers, “An animal slipping through these slopes… It’s not a kid’s tale; ideally this causes fright to normal people.”

She gave me a teasing smile, turned about and walked back towards the chairs, “I told you I’ve been staying here since five years. Travellers like you people get terrorized by these incidents. Whatever’s there won’t cross a habitation. You’re our guest; so enjoy freely; I know to fire a gun, if at all it’s needed.”

The assurance seemed to come from a colonel’s daughter. Well, that’s what she actually was- I realized and eased up a bit. I thought to myself, “Why would her parents leave the guests only at her watch? She’s a tough daughter, obviously. These ‘brisssses…’ might be a daily soap for her.”

I recalled Daljeet had cautioned us as we had headed from Madikeri to Gonikoppal, just to avoid the holiday crowd and stuffed up hotels at Madikeri. He had done some googling, “Are you sure you’re ready to drive forty-eight kilometres more? It’s already five, hills are going dark and we don’t know what the road condition is.”

His precautionary arguments had been convincing enough that I had slowed down our car. I would have taken a U-turn unless Shikoh wouldn’t have warranted, “I know, that resort is almost the best here. Gonikoppal has the lowest habitation, yet is the most beautiful, in Coorg. The resort’s owner is a wealthy retired colonel, so obviously he would have a full stock of miscellaneous drinks. Let’s exhaust his supply, guys!”

We had been still unsure, unless he had tapped at my back and reassured, “Believe me, my friends stayed there. It’s worth the extra drive!”

Not yielding to the confusion, I had pressed on the accelerator, driving towards this place: surrounded in all directions by forests, tucked on a hill slope in a fashion we couldn’t make out in the darkness of the night, accessible from the main hill road through a winding, unlit and muddy road having precisely the width of a car.

“Are you okay?” Her shrill tone intercepted my chain of recollections. Since she was confident of her experience, I let my suspicions shrink away. Her salubrious smile was enough to render me into a state of belongingness. I weirdly felt myself being a part of that place.

As she took her chair by the bonfire, my mind ran in a different lane. Quickly, I hovered inside the dark car for the aux cable. As if some foolishness had clouded my reasoning, I thought to better grope for the cable without turning on the car lights, but eventually caught hold of the wire. I twitched it, gave it a few jerks, unless I got the end-point to plug it in my phone. It was stuck somewhere below the seat, but who cared? Tuning the old Jab We Met song ‘Tum Se Hi’ in the best, softest volume, I stepped towards her to ask her for a dance.

Deliberately, I dragged my chair quite near her. A curiosity rose in me; I was attempting to spot the same anxiousness in her eyes, as was in mine. But she wouldn’t let me have a look. Her eyeballs moved repelling my gaze, her hairs shone like a dark, golden shroud over her expressions, and her hands engaged themselves adding wood to the burning pile.

‘Krrrrkrkkrrk…’ The speakers in the car yelled out a piercing disturbance followed by the continuing song.  I turned back instantly… There was nothing except the growing fog. A weird emptiness lurked inside me; anything that came in my vision behind was eerie, silent, swaying with the breeze if it could.

Her chair shifted behind, giving me sudden creeps. ‘What is she doing?’ It was totally perplexing. Her eyes were focussed, her hands straight on the sides. She circled the bonfire and took a step or two towards the end opposite to where our car was parked.

“Vidya, are you okay?” As I asked her, I noticed the small cosy-seeming villa on the left. I realized there was no one inside. From outside, its porch and side-windows gleamed in the reflection of the fire. From inside, it had an omnipresent darkness inhabiting it.

She stood firm, her gaze fixated towards the right corner where the servants’ quarters were dimly visible. I gave her shoulder a nudge, but she didn’t care to reply. I forcefully bent her towards me. Her eyes were grim, unmoving, not blinking at all. I stepped back catching hold of my trembling hands.

‘Daljeet… Shikoh…’ My brain worked something and forced me to rush towards the guest cottage on the right.

“You won’t find them there!” A hoarse voice put brakes on me. That instant, I wished my suspicions to be false, my imagination to be fake, or perhaps the resort to be located somewhere in the middle of a city, maybe Vidya’s parents’ car to arrive in the garden behind the villa, or actually a fictional, bright sunrise to happen, some new guests to hop up in that midnight to occupy the other two empty cottages. Her words had instilled fear in the silence that followed. I just wished my stories to be just illusions…

‘Was that the reason she mentioned about the story I had written? Was she giving an inkling of what she was? What has she done to Daljeet and Shikoh? Who were those people I met as her parents?’ Confounded by the battering questions, I moved hitherto and that’s when my gaze fell upon it. I almost skipped a couple of heartbeats as I twitched back to collide with the chair. Whatever it was, it had been there all the time, hidden and merged with the darkness it resembled. I saw her giving a frightful smile to the silhouette beneath the turned-off lamp post in the corner.

‘Can I run?’ Practically, yes! But according to what would generally happen, no! I groped quickly for car keys, rushed inside the vehicle locking the doors. A flashing and disappointing thought crossed my unstable mind. ‘Daljeet… Shikoh…’ I wished I could have listened to Daljeet and stayed back at Madikeri. We could have got a small, hotel room, but safer from this desolated, and now actually haunted, resort.

The last time I had seen the dark figure hadn’t moved an inch from the corner. Unlike what usually happens in movies, the car engine throttled, favouring my escape. With a quick recollection of the way I was supposed to take, I pressed on the accelerator and steered the handle. And it caught my legs! I freaked out, left the handle and gave a jolt to my legs. I could feel its hands tightly clutched right above my ankles. The car sped with the jolted acceleration and before I could make an amending movement, it crashed straight with the edge of the villa. I choked; the steering handle had come right against my chest. I thought I would faint away… There were fumes, a sudden flash of white light, a couple of concerned and familiar voices, but in the end, the darkness took hold of me…

The Guide

I thought my vision was failing me. Immediately, ignoring the steep pain rising through my ankle, I cautioned myself for any cracks that could have given me away into the river below. Fortunately, there were none. Sliding swiftly for a couple of meters, I reached out to my latest prized possession, my Nikon D5300, I had brought along especially for this trip. For a moment, a fading happiness lurked inside me on assuring it was safe. Taking heavy gasps in the thick air, I turned my face away from the frosty breeze and slithered on all fours to the edge of the frozen river.

“Sirjee, upar barf aane wali hai! Gaadi toh na ja paayegi. (Sir, there’s snow coming on the hills. The vehicle can’t go up.)” The taxi driver had warned us. But my enthusiasm jumped across the view of the snow clad hills ahead.

To get a better grip, I removed my gloves. The snowstorm had grown denser. Sitting far at my home, the imagination of such a scene would have brought a scenic surprise and an adventurous excitement to me. On finally reaching the river bank, I sat down on a rock and gazed towards the nearby road bridge spanning the river. My hands had already transitioned into numbness, my breath was freezing my wind track and my eyes had their human limitations- unable to pierce through the fog. For a few seconds, I simply unfolded my palms to feel the soft crystalline snow-flakes, but actually felt nothing. Everything was calm except the howling blizzard, black and white- the forest trees on my back, the meandering frozen water-body I just landed minutes ago, the abandoned road bridge where I could reach by climbing the valley for half a kilometer.

I recalled my boat house owner, back in Srinagar, exploding grimly about our visit to Sonamarg, “Wahan toh iss samay kuch na hoga. Koi terrorist issue nahi hai, par wo jagah achchi nahi. Na jao saahab waha; Gulmarg chale jao, waha skiing kar lena aap. (You’ll find nothing there. There are no terrorist issues, but the place is not good. Sir, don’t go there; you can visit Gulmarg and enjoy skiing.)” Driven by our passion for touring unusual places, we chose Sonamarg, a small village in Kashmir near Pakistan border.

Breaking the tranquillity, a loud shout entered my ears, “Waapas aa bhai jaldi. Hum niklenge ab yaha se. Theek hai na? (Make it fast, bro! We have to leave this place. Are you okay?)” The voice came from the bridge. I could see two muffled figures anxiously waving at me and replied in a stuttering tone, “Aa raha. Yaha se raasta dhoondna padega upar tak. (I’ll be there. Let me find the way above.)”

I stood up; the pain above my ankle was getting unbearable. I wished I could light some fire to warm myself up. Adjusting my overcoat and taking support from my hands, I took a step above but rapidly slipped back again. Snow on valley mud is too slippery. Out of nowhere, a hoarse voice chilled me from behind, “Idhar se chalo saahab. (This way, Sir!)” I turned around to find a boy, of about twelve, wearing Phiran, a long woollen overcoat popular in Kashmir, and an old dirty muffler. He had gloves and boots, but kept his hair uncovered; these Kashmiris were anyways used to this. I saw his footsteps trailing back to the forest. ‘What was he doing in the forest behind…?’ I thought to myself and concluded I had no business asking this, when he might be of some help in my trouble. In a very silly attempt to photograph the northern view, I had dangerously tumbled down from the edge of the valley on this frozen river.

I nodded in agreement and he started immediately. Initially he took me away from the bridge, but I realized the valley was less steep from there. For a few meters, we had to again crawl on all fours, until we reached the top. I could easily spot my friends, Daljeet and Shikoh, anticipating my arrival. All of a sudden, that boy made an easy jump across a deep wide gorge. Below, there was a narrow stream joining the main river. And to my grave surprise, the boy took an immediate second jump. So, there was another gorge. I looked for some bypass nearby but none was visible. Mustering up courage, I threw my Nikon for the boy to catch and leaped over the first one, only to slide again, get hit by a rocky edge right on my face, and land into the second gorge, thanks to the unreliable boots I had. Or maybe, I did it in a hasty, incorrect manner. To my horror, the frozen stream below me had developed a crack on my fall. In a hush, I stared above to find the boy guiding me to a point somewhere. I was afraid; the gorge was around fifteen feets deep. I felt trapped between the wet rocky walls, the first thing I touched not covered by snow...

Something warm, and salty too, flowed through my lips. And soon, blood trickled down on the frozen snow below. The realization of a broken nose hit me like a tremor and I threw myself into a state of anarchy. The body yelled, “Waha se aao! Aage se! (Come from there! A bit ahead!)” But I was too filled up of random thoughts to listen to him. Daljeet and Shikoh had also come to the edge of the gorge. Their arrival relieved me a bit and, if I could have listened earlier to the boy, I saw an obliquely stuck tree trunk in the gorge a bit distance ahead. Forgetting the ankle pain, the oozing blood from my nose, I climbed the tree trunk from where Daljeet pulled me above. As soon as I came above, I realized the road was there and felt as if I would have almost sunk in the unending whiteness of the hills.

Shikoh hastily applied some pain reliever on my ankle and Dettol on few cuts I had received on my face and handed me a handkerchief for my nasal blood. Picking up our backpacks, we thanked the boy and asked him, “Kaha rehte ho? Kahi jaana hai toh humari gaadi pahadiyo ke neeche khadi hai. (Where do you stay? If you need to go somewhere, our vehicle is waiting below the hills.)” He saw us and then looked behind towards the forest in a strange manner; it was as if he expected nothing, as if he was blissfully relaxing in those spine-chilling and abandoned valleys and forests. He exclaimed in a low tone, “Rehne do saahab. Aap iss road se pahadiyo ke neeche pohoch jaoge. (Leave it, Sir. You can follow this road to reach the foothills.) “

I looked into his vacant eyes. It was the first time I noticed his stoic, vacant expressions. Snowstorms might have been scenic to people like me staying far on Indian plains, but life in those hills would be traumatically disturbed by the winters. The village of Sonamarg was based on temporary habitation, all of which moved to the foothills before snowfall became extreme. None of the houses had smoke in their chimneys or fire in their rooms. Only a dead silence and an omnipresent white howling storm! Without any notice, the boy trod back towards the forest. We gave him a couple of calls, but he did not turn back. As he disappeared into the fog, we walked back down the road, carrying a mysterious disappointment along with us. The blizzard thinned down and finally disappeared when we reached the foothills after walking for almost five hours.

Soon, we arrived back to Dal Lake in Srinagar on our taxi. I could see the teasing grin on our driver’s face when he saw my pathetic condition and the blood-red handkerchief. Daljeet called for a Shikara, a boat used in Kashmir for lake tourism. As we sneaked back into our boat house and warmed ourselves up near the fireplace, the owner offered us a special warm tea, called Kahwa.

The pall of night darkness had started falling over the Srinagar valley. I was idling on the sofa in the living room when my gaze fell on a photograph hanging on the wooden wall. It was the same boy with vacant eyes and stoic expressions. And I rushed to Altaf’s home behind the boathouse. His house was situated on the mainland accessible from the lake via a footbridge. And as soon as he opened the door, I asked him showing the photograph, “Ye ladka kon hai? (Who’s this boy, here?)”

Altaf smiled looking at me, turned his face towards the skies and fixed his gaze to a room on the first floor of his house. And I stood confused; I did not know how to react. Unusual places usually display unusual turn of events.