Away in the hills!

by Parimal Wasekar (India)

A leap into the unknown India

I dream often of Mountains, away from the urban chaos. I felt poised as the landscape outside my car window gradually took the shape of hills and clouds and the air turned thin and cold. It was my first trek, based at Aut, a small town in Himachal pradesh. Nestled in the neck of India, Himachal has one of the most beautiful stretches of pristine Himalayas. The terrain was rugged and beside us a small group of houses centered around steep hills laid titillated by the Tyndall hands of warm sunrise. Bhairav, our local guide was a skinny man with a sharply outlined face, wore checkered shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows and always carried a bark fashioned to serve the purpose of a trekking pole. With an ever present grin he led us through his secret wild trails traversing utterly diverse landscapes which left us guessing, “Maybe there’s even a desert ahead!”. With some magnificent scenery of snow clad hills alongside us, we marked ourselves through dense forests, waterfalls, meadows and villages. After a while, a quaint village stood at the edge of a hill ahead of us and as we came closer, we were welcomed by its children jumping from one rock to another, with their bare feet and jiggly laughs. Soon I found myself staring at a tiny girl who was peeking out of a small hut uphill and as she noticed me she abruptly hid herself behind one of its wooden pillars. After a moment of her pretty shy games she walked out behind her brother as they watched us pass. Another group of wrinkled women smiled at us as they worked in their field. The times when the trekkers were no longer compressed together and instead a few dozen meters from one another, it was easy to get sucked up in a transient solitude where the senses deepened a bit. Where the drunk breeze layered the skin and the cold ravine played its tunes. Our guide was astute and as the group halted for breaks, he would frequently scoot away to puff up some smoke, whenever he could. He once plucked one bright red Burans flower right off a tree and ate its petals. I tried one myself and savored the heavily sour relish on my way. Bhairav and I, with a few others, walked along at the front as we inquired him about the life in the hills. The path was filled with rough mountain grit, senescent leaves, rusty pines and fresh Rhododendron flowers all its way. After a heavy ascend on a certain hill the leader finally called it a day and with stiff limbs we camped at the very edge of it. As we settled and ate, the sun was already gone and the sky turned colors until fully dark. While everyone played some games, me and my new friends squandered them and wandered. Along the moonlit paths, we walked between the shady pines and arrived at a clearing with a dead end. Although a full moon, the sky was jet black studded with fathomless twinkles and as we lowered our eyes, the vastness of a dreamy scene unveiled. Adjacent hills were shining with numerous hues of the foliage. The trees gradually stooped on them as they reached their feet stretching up to the banks of a ravine which was glaring with moonshine. On the other side of it was a wide expanse of houses with their empty fields which pitched up to the fading silhouettes of mountains over the horizon . We forgot the chats we left midway and augmented an appropriate silence that surreal view deserved. I stood there holding in my eyes, everything I could, breathing thinly. The rest of the night was spent musing and staring at the bright moon. In no time the dawn broke and soon the trek continued. After a while of treacherous descent, it was soon over. I bid my heavy adieu and soon was on my way back. There was an instant strangeness,.. an unknown feeling of being a destitute that suddenly clouded. Sometimes in the everyday I find myself dreaming often and wishing to escape away and to be alive again.