Clouds in the valley...

  Shimla, Shoja left behind We climbed up to the Pass, To find a jewel in the hills, Of meadows and green grass Layered hills in fading blues, Smoked a bit of cloud, Far away, there was some snow For the mountains’ always proud All around the hills were sprayed In yellow, purple, blue -  Periwinkles and the primulas -  And cobra lilies too Solitude had no human sound, Though the fairy winds did blow While grazing cows tinkled their bells, As a stream did gush below There was something calming in the air, Pine-scented and so lush, The age-old hills reminding us, Where was the need to rush? An orange sun set timelessly, A red dusk left behind, All it took - one evening To cleanse a wearied mind With night came darkness to the camp But there were wonders more,  The clouds of Akash Ganga rose, To thrill as n’er before A bonfire crackled, bringing back A bit of earthly glee Where cinders stopped and stars began All seemed a reverie But then a bit of noise when came A few ...

  Hikers wear many a badge of honour when they recollect their hardest trek. Be it the thrill of watching gorillas in the mountains of Rwanda, or trudging in an atmosphere of breathlessness in the dizzy heights of Annapurna, or finding the elusive birds of paradise in the cloud forests of Papua New Guinea - the ardour is more often than not, made up by the achievements. Not in our case. First of all, I will have to replace the badge of honour with a bag of honour. Literally. After all, the hardness came not from the trek but from the paraphernalia that came with it. It was indeed, some walk in the park. It all started at the calanques near Marseilles - steep limestone cliffs, carved out of riverine erosion millions of years back and flooded with the rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age, about 12000 years back. The calanques serrate a long coastline in the south of France along the Mediterranean and make for spectacular hikes and rock climbing. Their unique geography led...

Truth was, I didn’t want to come, Grandma was hanging by a few more breath, And all around was the smell of gloom, That feel of damp, and a bit of death Cocooned in all my college fun, This was not the place for me -  And looking at those two tired eyes, This was not how she was meant to be Grandma knew; she always knew, She called me with a gnarly palm, As I sat by her side, the past returned The edges dissolved, and all was calm The tears came how I never know Perhaps they have a memory too, But Grandma smiled, as she always did As if all was same, nothing new Grandma spoke with a raspy voice, A few more words for a rainy day: ‘This too is a part, my child You cannot always run away…’ Run I did, from the hardest times, Anything that I couldn’t bear, Some sadness here, or grief at times, And the fun-loving youth was never near And Grandma knew, though she never said, An escapist never wins the world, She had called for me, for that one last look - And to live that day, so gray and...

It was a late morning near the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim - blue autumnal skies, a staggeringly beautiful monastery gracing the overwhelming mountains and an immensely friendly people made every moment feel like paradise. (Add to it a brunch of pahadi chicken and strong ginger tea and you can wonder what 24 carat memories are made of). Feeling peace and joy, I wondered continuously how charming it must be to live in these mountains. There seemed peace in every view, a smile on every lip. You see, after years of being exiled in books and I-have-to-top-this-time-too exams, I had gone for a holiday in the hills, ignorant that a deep-seated yet forgotten love for the mountains was about to be rekindled.  I saw a bunch of school kids happily returning from school while walking on a hilly slope, each armed with a pine cone or a cedar branch as his choice of weaponry. I couldn’t help wish aloud how delightful it must be to go to school in the hills - what with these delightful views on th...

  I stand beside the bulging stream, As muddy waters flow, Though clouds have ruled the week for now, Inside, there is a glow A glow from vintage memories As the mind, it wanders free -  Warm and sweet, intense as well Served like a cup of tea Then, every raindrop, cold and hard Brings back a shard of time, From the Garo hills to the Western ghats, The winds begin to chime A little boy in a raincoat blue, Walks in hail to school, While a grown up soul then climbs in rain To splash in a cascade pool He ambles in the deodar hills, The Pelling rains are cold, Through clouds, the Kanchenjunga squints With vows of a sunset gold From backwaters to the coral isles, The echoes come again, Sajan, Shimla, Sindhudurg -  A common thread of rain   The worth of moments sunk in time Are best judged as a memory A drop of rain ushers a storm, This strong the past can be    My friends call me, it’s time to leave The rains, they say, are bleak -  Sieve the past , I ...

There is something special and prized about a window seat on any vehicle. It feels so engrossing to watch the world pass by. Talk about a window seat seat on a flight, and the stakes are raised, well, literally. It is then that I fight with missionary zeal to grab that window seat. Yes, and not on the wings please - they are absolute kill-joys! Taking off from a city, I find it a sheer delight to look outside the window and see the city shrink like a miniature model, my eyes scanning for landmarks that stand out. Any city, big or small, then seems to offer its best on a plane-platter, as I like to call it. My first flights out of home - Kolkata used to be during my higher studies, when I would return to a campus life for yet another semester, with a slightly broken heart, while leaving my city of joy. In those last moments when the plane would shoot beyond the sheet of clouds, a glimpse of the Hooghly river, shining like a silver string would offer a strange kind of consolation - and s...

‘Je … voudrais … aller … a … Nice.’  We were trying with great difficulty to narrate in French that we wanted to travel to Nice. Unlike other subjects taught at university, here was one curriculum we were finally getting to practice in real life. When we couldn’t, we would complain that the pedagogy was too theoretical. When we could, we realised - ooh la la - we had landed in Paris! Too late, mon ami, too late! Back in the days without Google Translate or Triplingo, life was not a cinch. Correction - talking to the snobs of Paris was not a cinch. They didn’t give a damn about English or Esperanto - rule number one to enter the hallowed halls of the bourgeois Parisiennes was to speak French. It was then a daily struggle to query about the simple things of everyday life - travel directions, train times, food, anything Hey, monsieur, is that rabbit meat or horse meat? My friends here are vegetarians...no no, not beef either - no boeuf, monsieur, no viande ! Vegetarian, vegetarian! An...