Clouds in the valley...

It is the season of the ‘little girl’ here in Australia. La Nina (little girl for Spanish) has brought with it moody skies and broody days, a perennial hang of gray clouds giving an unusual sense of melancholy in summer. It is different to the empty blue skies, with a 40 degree dry heat that seduces Sydneysiders to the cool of the Pacific - isn’t that what summer is all about? But then, it is also a welcome difference to the orange, cinder filled skies of a bushfire summer that was last year. After a summer that scorched the nation from coast to coast, the ‘little girl’ seems to be a welcome break, pouring its healing waters to the ash burnt lands, and soothing the acrid burns that will take a long time to heal. The grey melancholia is then a little price to pay. For the summer-seekers that is. For those like me, though - pluviophiles - it is not anything new. We have seen it every year in our homelands, in an annual ritual called the monsoons. Steaming in the Indian summer, 40 degree ...

The Andamans, Langkawi ‘And that, my friends, is ... the Sunda Colugo…’ whispered our nocturnal forest guide. I tried to rerun the words that I had just heard in my mind, none of which rang any bell of familiarity. I looked around and realised gleefully, that I was not the only ignoramus. The guide had a smile on his face as well - it seemed like a regular drill for him - and he went on to enlighten us. ‘The Sunda Colugo is more popularly called the flying lemur...’ Now, he was starting to talk English. ‘...though it neither flies nor is a lemur. It is one of only two gliding colugos, its other cousin found faraway in the Philippines.’ ‘Is it a primate?’ asked one of the visitors in the group, while we all tried to peer outside the balcony (yes, I will come to it) onto the palm trees to understand this cute little grey critter with bulbous eyes and a strange membrane connecting fore-limb to hind-limb (called patagium), justifying the ‘flight’ part of its moniker.‘ ‘The Colugos are uniq...

It is over 45 degrees. The mid-day sun bakes the helpless earth, the blue seas the only salve. When the wind blows, there is little relief, rather a hot gust of summer scorches us further. Standing under the compassionate shadow of an eucalyptus, I feel heavily drained of energy, but my mind receives a sudden jolt, and all the stupor dissipates away. I remember instantly of the one place in my experiences where a similar dry summer was everyday life - not Kolkata with its humid extravaganza or Mumbai with its seaside smile, but northern India, more particularly, Lucknow. Summers in Lucknow were a simulation for a blast furnace – the blazing sun, the angry loo, the desiccation in the air were stifling. I remember assiduously pouring water in my water cooler – an old contraption of a motor that would spray water on a curtain of straw, which in turn would be blown by a fan – though scientific, it added little respite. If summer had a version of ‘When it rains, it pours…’, well, this would...

Chapter II - Gwaldam Every night, when unsettled, I have gazed up on a starless sky, To see upon that emptiness, A twinkle, that would make me sigh… ‘If you really want to lose yourself in these pine-scented hills, head to the temple atop the hill next to the Tibetan monastery. And if you want to tread on a larger pilgrimage, head to the Badhan Garhi temple, croyez moi - believe me, the views will absolve you of all your mortal sins.’ I listened earnestly, trying hard not to let my jaws drop in surprise.  For the tips were way beyond my Outlook Traveller guide book. And the tips were not coming from a local guide - it came from a Monsieur Vincent - an eighty year old Frenchman I happened to chance upon a hill, on an early morning in Gwaldam. ‘How long have you been here?’ I couldn’t help asking. ‘Not long, I came last week, but yes, this is my eighteenth year straight that I am coming to the Himalaya, and the fourteenth in Gwaldam.’ I was flabbergasted. ‘You have been coming here ...

    C hapter I - Kausani In the mysteries of the Milky Way, Will you remember, a spark of earthly light? Perhaps, if you could hear the mountains sing, In that twinkle on the hills at night... ‘What is that light twinkling on the hills?’ I asked Sharmaji. The pitch black canvas of the night was punctuated by just one sparkle, far away and elevated. ‘That is the village of Gwaldam,’ came the prompt reply. ‘Gwaldam?’ I tried to trace that name in the atlas of my mind, but failed, ‘ What’s special there?’ Sharmaji laughed. His guffaw was that of a mountain veteran, who had all the opportunity to escape to a fatter paycheck, but had decided long back to submit to his love for the mountains, for his home, and trade money for happiness. ‘For you travellers , it can either be another tourist spot, or if you can love these hills, it is another memory, waiting to be etched. It is like a flake of snow, just like my Kausani - once you hold it, it will melt. Yet you will get that feeling ...

  Do you recall that single frame, In the lofty mountains high? When you were stunned, in insanity So happy you had to cry It’s in that moment, one turns wise, The vagrant finds his peace, For the mountains overwhelm even life, (Or that it is on lease) I had that spark one winter morn, When life had beat the odds - And I had chanced upon that dawn, An assembly of the gods Trishul thundered to the west, As if, Rudra in penance, While to the extreme eastern edge, Chaukhamba peeked a glance In between, other celestials Hummed with the morning light, Nanda Devi, above all -  Bedazzling in her white The plumes of snow had started still Their prayers to the skies - Enchanted spells that broke the edge Of earthly truth and lies And all along, I sat and watched The wisdom of the peaks, In the timeless magic of the hills, What more the mortal  seeks? Every yogi  wakes up thus, To everyone his song, But it always starts upon those hills, To where we all belong What of you? Do ...

  There’s Annapurna in the air today, Blue skies a mountain boon, Crisp the smell of crushed pine leaves, But I, a faraway afternoon. That white outline is a blessing, you see Not many can feel its pull, While fewer turn to pilgrims still, The altar’s seen by a mere handful. And those who see, are forever lost, In a divine world, their own, When close, you live a thousand lives, When far, you breathe a secret mourn. But even in that melancholy, You are never really far, You close your eyes and see Her stand Shining down a thousand star Made more divine than a mortal soul, That journey made you pure, Don’t you see it broke all bonds? That you don’t need, at all a cure? And thus it is for all the shrines, Annapurna or Trishul, Kailash, Nilkanth, the Nanda peaks -  The eyes a sacred teary pool A smile returns, the truth it dawns And the pilgrim finds his way, You can be far, but you always see - Annapurna in the air today… 16th October, 2020