𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗟𝗢𝗡𝗚 𝗥𝗢𝗔𝗗 𝗧𝗢 𝗣𝗢𝗞𝗛𝗥𝗜 - 𝗔 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿-𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 - 1

The night that preceded my first ever solo destination holiday was spent in slight apprehension. Travel jitters are normal for me, but this time the butterflies were a bit too fluttery. Not because I was going alone for the first time, but I had no clue what to expect during my sojourn. It was a leap of faith I was undertaking fueled by the singular intention of finding and reclaiming a part of me that I had dropped somewhere on the way in the recent past. Of putting the energies back into the deflated chunks of my self. Of shaking off the unnecessary crusts that were collecting on me. Of making certain that life and I kept loving each other, despite everything.

‘Vipassana?’ more than a couple of people asked when I mentioned to them about my impending trip to the mountains.

‘Better than that,’ I said. ‘It is a self-designed program to rejuvenate and realign. Actually, no program. Just flying out into the vast expanse,’ I said, meaning every word I spoke. I was going on a blind pilgrimage, one where I did not know what shrines I would pass by or what deities I would stumble upon.

I spent the previous night looking at the sky from my bed in Dubai, watching the moon just shy of its full circle, accompanied by sparkling Jupiter, slowly get down to the knees at the horizon in the wee hours. I jotted a couple of verses in my phone, inspired by the night and waited for the silver to reflect in the sea. I asked the moon if it was delaying its setting time, just to have me in company for as long as it can. And after scattering silver on the waters, when the colour of the moon started getting warm at the final descent, I took pictures on my DSLR. For what and whom, I didn’t know. When you are besotted with something, you don’t ask boring questions. You merely soak in the moment and let it become a beautiful memory. All you want then is for the moments to become a part of your DNA to be carried to the dust.

The insomniac night passed in moon watching and feeble anxiety. However, on the day of the flight, my jitters grew nasty hands and feet, and I began to feel the tremors. But I have means to put them to rest. Half a pill is all it takes, and the doc has given me the go ahead to use it when required. The last thing I wanted to take with me was mental baggage. The waves mellowed. All set, loaded with smiles in place of silly nerves, the journey to Pokhri began.

It was going to be another long night. Landing in Delhi at 1.30 am, I will have to languish for five hours before I get on another plane to reach Dehradun. From Doon, a good six hours by road to my dream destination, Birdsong & Beyond, in Garwal. Reports coming in from India weren’t propitious. It was raining incessantly across North India, people said. Accu weather predicted thunderstorms in the mountains. Now that could be a bummer. But then, I wasn’t going to be stopped this time. Neither by people’s caution, nor by weather’s dare. Nor my own irrational worries and fears that had found a breeding ground in my mind space.

I was on an outing of a lifetime, and I was going to give it my entirety.

Now, whoever said ‘if something could go wrong, it will’ deserves a Nobel Prize. You can decide the category, but nothing truer has ever been said in the realm of positive pessimism. Nothing major to rattle me out of my wits, but a few minutes into arriving at Dubai airport, the sole of my Skechers peeled off, leaving me with a shoe that flapped noisily as I walked and made my stride very awkward. Ghar se nikalte hi, kusch door chalte hi, raste mey phata joota mera. I couldn’t help humming it to myself with mix of a sardonic smile and a frustrated frown. I dragged my foot, faltered a couple times and wondered if there would be a shoe store in the Duty-Free area. It’s Dubai, so I was upbeat about the chances.

The ripping of the shoe just showed how long it had been since I used my travel shoes and went on long treks. It wasn’t the most opportune moment for the sneakers to let me know of my neglect of them, but then the shoe has its own mind and it decided to show its dissent at its own privileged time. So be it.

The vexing scramble at the security over, I went in search of shoes at DDF, mildly worried that I may have to pay a king’s ransom to get a pair. Do-buy it is after all.

‘Don’t compromise,’ an obliging spouse texted me. ‘Buy the right ones you’ll need for the trip.’ It was true that I would have a lot of trekking to do, and a good pair of shoes is indispensable, but my middle-class mindset about money has made me habitually thrifty and buying decisions are largely price-tag based.. But then again, I must spend what I need to spend for the right purposes, and so I got myself the cushiest ever Skechers I have worn.

Nothing like a pair that feels like they were cobbler-made for you keeping your odd feet in mind. Now, I was truly set.

Himalayas, here I come. Garwal hills, see you soon.

Just that I didn’t see Gharwal hills as soon as I had planned. Nor in the manner I had worked out.

Didn’t I say the chap who gave us that valuable quote about things going wrong if they had to was a seer and sage? Things went wrong, and how! If the unexpectedness of life can be summarised in an episode, it would be in what happened with me yesterday.

𝐓𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐝…

-𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆-

What do mountains have that nothing else under the sun has? Did you say ‘height’? Clever answer. But I want a romantic answer, one that would come from the heart and not from the head. So, let’s try again. What do mountains have that nothing else under the sun has?

I know, one can't answer this instantaneously. I have been thinking hard too and have not been able to fathom the beguiling mystery of the mountains. They are many things to me. An intrigue, a revelation, a challenge, an invitation to unfettered existence, an intoxication, a love-affair, an all-consuming obsession…I could go on with the list till the mists dissipate and the woods are awash in twilight.

Every now and then, they beckon, wooing me to run into their open arms. For three years, I stayed away, the last rendezvous being in the lap of the Alps. Now I am going again, in pursuit of the mountain’s soul to harmonise with mine. To dip two weeks of my life in the Fall colours of the Himalayan slopes and give it a lavish brushstroke of bliss and peace.

While I am there, little stories may sprout, a manuscript might develop, and the spirit may expand as far as the open skies. I shall write postcards from there whenever I can - with little delights that I may catch, with tales that I may hear, and share the glimmers of peace that I may find in the long, silent hours of night.

FOR ONCE, REMEMBERING APPA WITHOUT GRIEF

‘Happy Durgashtami.’ The messages have been coming in steadily since morning. It is a day of celebration for Hindus all over the world. A day when Goddess Durga vanquished the demon, Mahishasura, and sent the message out that She will manifest whenever there is danger and save us from the hands of evil.

It should have been a happy day for me too, as the greetings that came in religiously bid. But it hasn’t been so much. A dull, but insufferable heaviness has been weighing on my heart since morning. A heaviness that I have been trying to disregard and get on with my day’s routine but haven’t succeeded till this moment.

I decked the puja up in earnest, said my day’s prayers and settled to write my column for the week. Despite the distractions, the sinking feeling stayed adamantly stuck to my consciousness. Ignoring it wasn’t working, resisting it was making it dig in its heels further and disrupting my fragile calm. So I just allowed it to remain, giving it space to expand as far it needs in my body and mind, and run its course. At some point, it will climax, exhaust itself and reach its denouement. Till then, I will let it be. Let the dull ache pervade me and claim its agency over my heart.

It was on the night leading up to Durgashtami six years ago that I lost a piece of myself forever. It was wrenched out of my being by force, and I haven’t been able to grow that part back again. It was a night that left me and my family in tatters, giving us no time to even make sense of what was happening or devise means to put ourselves together. Appa just left that night, without notice.

The world was preparing to celebrate Durga’s victory the next day, and I, mindless of the celestial festivity, was down on my knees beseeching her to bring appa back from the brink. Perhaps, she was too busy fighting the Asura for the greater good of the world. Or perhaps, She decided appa had to go, for reasons She alone knew best at that time.

When the eighth day of Navaratri dawned, my soul lay slain. Devoid of pain. Devoid of grief. Devoid of the faintest emotion. There was plain disbelief and my heart was replaced by an iceberg. The iceberg hasn’t melted till today. It is perhaps the weight of that frozen mass that is weighing on me today. I have lived in its freeze for six years.

But in these six years, I have come to reconsider Durga’s mortal decision with regard to appa. The first impulse would have been to accuse Her of utter insensitivity, of being inconsiderate and unkind, of being ruthless enough to snatch Appa away so randomly without heeding our prayers. I was disillusioned with Her decision, no doubt, but not once did I direct my ire at Her. I was probably too numb to question her. Or I was just stoic about Her intentions.

But now, as I look around me and see people in their twilight years go through unspeakable ailments and misery, I reconcile to Appa’s departure with a new perspective. It’s true that the night of his demise and the day of every Durgashtami will haunt me for the rest of my life, but somewhere down the time that has elapsed, I have begun to accept that Durga took him away from us for a good reason.

After his heart condition was diagnosed as almost irreversible, She didn’t want to reduce him to a man of limited mobility. She didn’t want to place fetters on his joie de vivre and make him a shadow of his old self. She didn’t want him to have an extended lease just to plod through its many deficiencies. She wanted to give him an easy release. A smooth passage from the mortal realm to where the angels tread. She wanted to spare him a life he wouldn’t have enjoyed living. He was man who laughed a lot and She wouldn’t have wanted him to deny him that. He deserved an easy passing.

As for my pain, it’s self-interest that is at the root of my suffering. It is ‘my loss’ that I take so subjectively that I am grieving and that is the ultimate sign of selfishness as I see it now with some added rationale. Today, I am determined to look at his departure as his gain; as his victory over the vagaries of old age; as Durga’s ratification of his impeccable character and goodness and there is nothing more gratifying than to realize that Appa won the battle of life so handsomely. He left like mist, unnoticed, without leaving anything behind. Not even a scrap of regret. In this redeeming thought, I will find my palliative.

Appa, I will not stop missing you, but today I know that you left gracefully and gallantly. Without a pain. Without a grouse. Without unfulfilled desires. You left, on this day, six years ago, with only the almighty’s name on your lips. NARAYANA.**

Durga Ma, For giving him a plain sailing without any suffering, for taking Him in Your arms on this auspicious day as you would an innocuous child, my salutations, and my gratitude.

(** 𝐼𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 ℎ𝑒 𝑢𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑎𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔.)