Clouds in the valley...

There are few things that can be more relaxing than dusk on a riverside. The unwinding seems even more well deserved if you had had a hard day’s work. Struggles and nerve-racking deadlines sometimes seem to compress time - things run too fast, the backlog is always overflowing, and a day seems to shamelessly underperform if it ticks for only 24 hours!  Which is when a small opportunity to stop still makes you really ‘feel’ the dilation of time. You can literally hear yourself breathe out, and all the bookish lessons of the sadhguru on meditation and mindfulness begin to make a lot of sense. My first job helped me learn exactly this. Straight out of college with stellar marks, I was expecting to design and configure transformers, induction machines and microprocessor chips. C’mon, I had read of Faraday and Tesla for four years - should I have aspired any less? The closest I ever got though, was when I had to approve delivery invoices that had scanty mention of these goods. The well-...

It was a cold November morning, and we two vagrants were, almost insanely, hiking through a freezing drizzle in search of a castle. There was hardly a soul on the wet and shiny asphalt roads, with even the cows in the paddocks giving us that these-guys-must-be-crazy looks. For the second least visited country in the world’s most visited continent, we could have jolly well been the only tourists that day. Or maybe even month (come winter, Europe happily shuts shop). I walked uphill with a trudge, smoke billowing out of my rasping nose, yet I couldn’t help notice the swathes of emerald green alpine forests that seemed to stretch ahead, and even up, higher on the hills. It was then that I froze, as my addled brain failed to process what I saw. Brain freeze, literally. Through my rain-specked glasses, I seemed to note a kind of bleaching on the green forests high up on the hills. And it was spreading fast, coming downhill. Wet, bedraggled, bereft of piping hot tea, it took a few seconds be...

And here they go to chase again, Those empty clouds that never rain, Raising dirt, kicking dust – As the only stream that flows is rust   And here they go to seek again, Clemency from the sun in vain, To burn us all, our truths and lies And then redeem us, at what a price   And here they strive, a Sisyphus each A goal that they will never reach, Yet every day, they roll with care A rock, a dream, an unblessed prayer   Why don’t I stop them, is that you ask? Why do I let them play the masque? Lessons that they have to learn – No words can teach us what’s a burn   But also perhaps, deep inside – Wants to wake a part that’s died – A part that wants to hope again That someday, it may start to rain…   9 th July’2021

Blue skies, the frozen South Ah! The glaciers we had kissed, And yet, those eyes that went unseen For Aoraki, we missed -  The reflection lakes, they came and went The sun, it smiled in jest, Knowing well that we would miss Mount Cook upon the crest. Those few minutes we could turn back Have all now turned to years, How long until the white peak’s seen, To blue a sky that clears They say, Aoraki sees and knows it all, Was it all then planned, I doubt To return again with a purer soul To the land of long, lost cloud… 5th June, 2021 It was a sparkling day, when stunned with the Fox Glacier - within arm’s reach - we headed back to Queenstown. New Zealand, Aotearoa, the land of the long lost cloud is a paradise, every turn a surprise, when temperate rainforest changes to stunning Tasman Coast to alpine lakes to gigantic sand dunes. In this land of plenty, the grandest spectacles have turned to Maori legends, the tallest of which is the celestial visitor, Aoraki, Mount Cook - the talles...

I sit quietly in the beautifully decorated shrine room of a monastery - its walls and floors are painted in crimson red and golden, the rows of cushions on the floor spotlessly Covid-cleaned, while the main altar makes me wonder whether the awe is because of the meditative spirituality it evokes or the artistic splendour. There are three Buddhas in increasing size, representing the past, present and future; they are flanked by other solemn guardians, fearsome warriors, and seven storied wooden pagodas whose artistic intricacies would take your breath away. It is a quiet sunny afternoon, and outside, the magnolias and camellias swish with the gentle winds of winter. I sit back quietly, the only worshipper in the room, and continue to look at the meditative Buddhas who seem to tell me, I have come to the right place.  Every once in a while, a Taiwanese nun comes around and checks if I am really a worshipper - the bodhisattva in me forgives her: she has not seen many Indians around an...

  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...