Making Sense of Mountains(2) - Called By Hills

Both: The book & the journey of booking the trek happened in parallel. It was like one was feeding the other.

This is the second non fiction book which was on my list after reading 2 heavy (BIG) books - {The Loneliness of Sunny & Sonia and then Railsong} books which spans a generation and are sprawling with multiple characters I decided to switch track. 

This is a book like nothing I had read before. A book written so beautifully - that I could visualise every line of the book in my mind. In some sense its a small book - but I read with elongated pause just imagining what I had read about the house or the dogs which started staying with her & her husband, hoe she made a space in the mountain almost like occupying the forest without permission - And how the mountains & their people accepted her. Of course after much doubting and testing. 

A book which tells about the same place (near Ranikhet) but covers an expanse of 25 years +. I have stayed in Bangalore for last 20 years & the story all my friends and relatives have heard is that “Indranagar (where I stay) 100 ft road had 1 store and now….can’t count”. But beyond this my imagination can’t stretch because I never really lived here - with 10 hrs in office and frequent travel Indiranagar was just a place of convenience.

But for Anuradha Roy it was a slow process of adaptation, understanding the nuances of the hills, the people, the plants, the animals (wild or pet) bureaucracy and of course development. The animal - people divide and her last chapter hauntingly titled “The wounded Mountain” - A closing chapter so poignant that it almost made me cry.

I can still visualise how her dog disappeared and the despair of not finding her, or how the foxes disappeared not to be seen as the roads being built in the mountain pushed them away and away. No one knows where.

As we were moving from Dehradoon from where we were picked to be taken to the base camp at Katgaon, we were stopped several times because roads were being made - I could see 10’s of JCB’s boring their hard steel spikes into the mountains and removing rocks, landslides where the rocks got loose, or large swathes of land just not there because during rains landslides would have just broke that part of the mountain.

One part of my  mind was crying at the devastation being cause because pf people like us who need the roads & one part of the mind was rejoicing that at least I am able to see the mountains. I am not sure my next generation or there next will have the opportunity.

This is kind of dichotomy which I carried with me as 25 of us drove towards our base camp.

Is it a problem with choice or Pull of our senses ?

The old books, cloths, shoes, jackets which we were receiving from people coming in to give were across our table. We were doing our fist preloved sale aka 2nd hand products which we had received from our previous collection drive. 

Needless to say my eyes were lit when I saw a Murakami book “First Person Singular” (one of my favourite author), a book on climbing the Annapurna peak (I had just come back from ‘Har Ki Dun Trek’ and my mind was filled with mountains, The inside story of GUT(my last 1 years work on changing my food habits to get the gut going), How do you live ? By Genzaburo Yoshino (A book written in in 1937 and was translated in Japanese in 2021 and inspired Hayao Miyazaki of Ghibli Studio to make his last film - The Boy and the Heron, Now Ghibli is and Miyazaki are my gold standard in animation) and lastly, Sum - A book on after life (maybe the B/W picture on the cover - otherwise no RATIONAL reason). 

I picked all of them and kept them aside.

Now I am a person who is very very diligent of what book I read or movies I see - there has to be a strong reason. Why ? because I am investing my 1 hr every working day and few hrs in the non working days to read - experience - feel them. Which otherwise I could have done so many other things. And I don’t mind investing any amount in a book if I want to read it. 

But here I was with an array of books which I could read and give back and it will be sold in the next PRELOVED SALE. This was my rationalization. Everything you see above in (is the rationale).

But as I drove back home, the other side of the brain kicked in::

But these were meant for needy people 

Which needy person (read maids / security guards who bought) reads Murakami. Blah

But if the rich person bought these books then money would have gone to trust.

Hardly any fiction / non fiction book were bought, only children books were sold. Anyway there will many more sales opportunities after this. People can buy them.

I tie myself in these ideological ruminations. Sometimes (like today) I ask myself - do we really need to get into these mental debates ? Will it make me a better person? Am I judging myself hard or trying to be perfect ? What is perfect anyway ?

But when the questions come - It pours.
For once I thought I will pour it out on paper blog 🙂

& Not look for an answer.

Self Quote “Most questions about life do not have multiple choice answers.”

Making sense of the MOUNTAINS (1)

I don’t know where to start. With all the anxiety of the pre trip planning and ending with the excitement of eating, chatting, joking with a group of trek mates, who were unknown 7 days back but now feel like we are a group of BFF’s.

There is so much to write factually and there is so much to mull over that I don’t know where to start. I guess it will take a few days / months for some of it  to surface and and some of it to be absorbed.

Like Eagles says in one of there songs (In Hell Freezes over)…this is how it all started.

Lets begin before the beginning.

A naive me in Ladakh dreamt of doing Chader Trek excited by the stories of walking on a frozen lake. But then Covid stuck and we were locked in for almost 2 years. In those 2 years and after that many things happened but the trek. Ladakh was the first time I experience nature like I had never done before and if I was 

Solan - Shimla - Beginning of the Himalayan journey

22 and 23 both years I spent considerable time in Shimla - Solan. I understood the mountains through the programs we did for the teachers who were working in small communities spread across far - flung areas. Their past, the secrets of traditional herbs, their dresses, festivals, aspirations , difficulties.  But what stood out was their love and kindness. One such experience was - On a small hike, when me and friend got lost they not only showed the way but opened their house for rest and tea. But then I saw the hills burn from our window - not able to do anything. How the mountain cried, vegetation disappear so does the species. We thought of doing many treks across nearby mountains but none materialized. This March / April the choice was to go for a meet being organized at Shimla and then navigate my way for a trek. But looking at the locations and itinerary I realized - it can’t be both. 

And that’s how a trek was decided

Why “Har Ki Dun” ?

This question was asked by the trek lead to all of us and the simple answer was “It called me”, there was no strong logic, which peak to climb - but the only thing which I could connect was what Arjun (founder of Indiahikes) says in his video of it being a trek of self discovery - spiritual etc. 

Does visualisation work ?

The pic above says its all. I joined this session being done by my friend to create a visual board for 20 26. It there on my soft board from Jan 1st.

1 bucket List done. Thanks to my lucky mascot JO. More Soon.

And 20 26 is here

Fab 4 Vision Board

It’s been a bad December, end of a otherwise defining year. Entire December the only sticky memory I have is of being sick. While the year started with special focus in building a healthy me with strength training and plant based diet. Life came a full circle when in December my never ending flu pushed me to visit a GP and got a dose of antibiotics.

Anyway, I hope that is swiped away with the remnants of 20 25.

                                So, How was 20 25 ? Some end of the year Musings…

I valued:

Slowing down although I did not know when I did it. Reading old newspaper or a long form article in Mint Lounge or Hindu Magazine, physically with the paper in  your hand and sitting in a corner. Maybe in sun if lucky especially when you are in Bangalore or in bed. It was / is my go to process for centering. 

& Work - Coming back to work after almost 3 years rewired my whole life in a new & positive way. It gave directions, interactions with young people and most importantly a life beyond home. Maybe I can call it independence.  

I also discovered - the quiet of BOSE headphone, the experience was surreal on how you can shut out the world with the press of a button.

Concept became experiences in 20 25: Interconnectedness, Abundance are not just concepts they are real. I got my job in 2nd innings after 2+ years of volunteering because I showed up at many places with unknown people to just volunteer and learn. In one such instance I met someone and Socratus happened. I have been desiring an IPAD from last 20 year but could never cross the middle class sensibility and buy 1. Then one day someone wanted to give his old IPAD as it was slow & it back happening :)

I tried / engineered making friends with people whom I admired / liked maybe infatuated with or I though logically and rationally that they should be my friends from college / past work but by end of the year I realized. It does not work that way. I remembered the quote which hung in my wall of my hostel for the longest time “If you love someone, set it free. If it comes back it’s yours, if not, it was not meant to be.”  But I also learnt the flip side of it, you have to show up with sincerity before you let it go - so that you can tell yourself “You tried.” I don’t think I will try much of this in 20 26. My books, movies & occasional plays / music are friendships I plan to cultivate more in 20 26

We are like this only? A phrase which played on repeat in my head when dealing with family. It was a topsy-turvy journey with 4 of us staying together for a whole year after 10 years.

Age showed up in the form of aches and pains, low energy - Yes it’s a number, but you should know what’s behind that number. The sudden decline can be humbling.

Accept & Move On.  Onwards & Upwards.

Sunday Musings (Last Post of the year): An ode to memory

As the year draws to a close, whether we are with our friends and family or in an unknown place. One thing which we will all do is to reminiscence. Yet in the age of reminders, push notifications and alerts when forgetting should have been impossible - the more we record, the less we recall. Have you noticed how we keep forgetting to remember a past incident.

I read this article many times and in case you don’t have the time to read the same here are a few bullet points for you and for me as well. Because I will treasure this touching note till next Christmas if not more.

“Our personal history are archived in clouds we never see, and our collective past is compressed in searchable databases. It is as if memory itself has been liberated from the burden of being human. But it may have lost it’s soul.”

In a sterile or an impersonal environment like office the pictures on our softboard are our gateway to a life lived through pictures. Echo photo triggering a memory or a story - told & untold both.

“Memory gives continuity to identity.”

“For most human history, memory was an art. Ancient cultures cultivated elaborate techniques of recall - the Indian Oral tradition, the greek ars memoriae, the monastic practices of meditations.”

“Remembering was not about storage, it was about synthesis. To remember was to interpret, to connect, to assign meaning." "True memory is selective shaped by emotion and meaning”, “We remember what matters not what happens”

If we are somewhere in mountain or in the beach, should we experience the sunset or record the perfect sunset shot.

As 2025 merges with 2026.

Maybe, “we must learn once again, that memory is not a file to be accesses but a flame to be tended. To remember is to care. And to care, in an age of distraction, is the rarest act of all.”

Memory in the age of forgetting (Link to article)

The dystopian cities are here

Few months back I rewatched Stanley Kubrick’s The Space Odyssey and I was amazed that he could predict the IBM machine n talking computer etc back then. The same with Neuromancer - he actually talked about metaverse - living there etc. That was just an ode to science fiction

But yesterday n today Bangalore is dark, cold with high levels of AQI, I didn’t dare go out. We don’t talk about COVID anymore because it has become regular to have slight cold, cough, body pain - which lasts for 2 weeks or more. 60% of my colleagues are suffering so am I. 

Delhi is worst - people are wearing masks when they go out. Apparently they have air purifier everywhere - from car, balcony (one friend has 5 in his house), office clubs and yes roads too. They tried cloud seeding with no effect. Another friend was saying he and his wife went to Bhopal, another is in Himachal, the richer would have to gone to Swiss. But we don’t talk about the auto driver, bus driver, conductor and the slums which houses 60% maybe more of Delhi and runs Delhi.

I was in a Chikkaballapur - 60 km from Bangalore. Just looking at that space I felt - can i live here, if nothing I will breath some fresh air and maybe grow something in the side. Many of us want to do especially on the other side of 40 but no one is listening. While things are better managed it’s no different - polluted lakes, droughts, sanitation issues. 

There is nothing much we want to do - we just continue to live. The same life which from an environment n health perspective is being worse but thank to all convenience and discounts we have a perception that we are leading a happy life. Everything comes packaged at your doorstep right in time to put the masala on your pan - Just 10 mnts.

Some of us who are wiser won’t do that and if we do at least be wise to order an organic product. But for other it’s the palak on time - doesn’t matter where it was grown, how, what water, what soil. The curry is on time and we are all happy that we had a nutritious meal. Did we ?

It's been 3 and half years trying to do something. But, working in climate sector is difficult because whatever you do, it still makes you feel inadequate. We know it won’t solve a problem but we tell ourselves - we have taken the 1st step many might follow. Or, let me do my bit, my home, my apartment / neighbourhood. Let me clear one blackspot at a time or plant a tree - if not a forest.

It’s a daily set of check list I have - wash the plastic - store it, convince everyone around not to orde and if they do, avoid getting hot soup (a constant demand in this weather), compost my wet waste, was vegetables and fruits. It’s a battle inside & outside the house.

As we often say “There is no Planet B”. And there is one home 🙂 and one life.

A week of Discovery - Thru Art

Last week I saw “Meanwhile Elsewhere” - for the first time something done by Mallika Sarabhai and her troupe which I always wanted to see. Based on Invisible cities - Italo Calvino. It was an experience to be cherished, like a magnum opus which u want to experience and not judge (like we do after all plays - movies - books). For a change I did not want to - I just wanted to experience the colors, the music, and enjoy the movements. 

2 movies which RE- defined SLOW & WHAT CAN A LESBIAN RELATIONSHIP BE

THERE ARE FOUR FLOWERS & THERE’S THE WORLD

The first movie of Achal Mishra I saw was Gamak Ghar and I fell in love with his film making. Slow, great photography like poetry which lingers on an image or a face, real & local conversations ’s and a touching story told without much fanfare. Most artists are local and unknown faces so it’s almost like you take a handycam and shoot a movie - but in his hand it becomes a painting. Then I saw Dhuin and now this…
A documentary on hindi writer Vinod Kumar Shukla who is 88 years old and has won numerous awards and has collaborated with Mani Kaul for his movies and wrote scripts etc. 

This is what MUBI says and it captures the essence 

“A meandering brook of moments from two afternoons spent with Vinod Kumar Shukla, his wife and son at their home in Raipur, saunters between the mingling geographies of past, present and future drifting in and out of pauses - to ponder, to reflect, to reminisce and to share..”

Manav Kaul is the interviewer and he does it being almost invisible and away from camera just posing few thoughts. Few lines and statement which I still remember after many days

“I don’t go anywhere. I have been in the same house. I look at the same tree daily but each time I see a different tree, a different pattern of sunlight, different sounds which surrounds me and a different thought comes to me. Do we really need to go anywhere ?

His son “I can’t write much & I don’t speak much maybe thats why I keep taking photographs daily so that each photograph is a a story or its trying to say something.”

It actually reaffirmed many things - yes I love and want to enjoy reading the newspaper under the morning sun in the balcony with a cup of tea..I want the moment to linger on with no next thing to be done or looked at. Doesn’t matter what anyone says and thinks.

MY MOTHERS GIRLFRIEND

LGBTQ+ is about multiple colours, vibrancy and multitudes which these colours define the iconoclastic nature of the movement. And generally associated with young and bold. And maybe rich and infamous. This movie looks at the other side

It’s a 15 mn short film about 55 - 60 lower middle class mother of a grown up son (a taxi driver) in love with another women. Her son happens to see her mom celebrating her birthday in a beach when she supposed to be in a temple. And later she watches them at her house together. 

Its sensitive portrayal of real - true - selfless n caring love which also has passion. The photography and screenplay is beautiful - it captures the moments between the women but Mumbai as well. The mix of close up shots and expressions takes the movie to a different level.

It’s a slow - short & touching movie.

Threads that hold us

“The only shield Kasmiri muslims seemed to have against the systematic cruelty of those governed them was the solace of their religion and the shelter of their close knit families. Family unit are close knit in India too, of course. The family unit is the rope of which the whole world swings. But in Kashmir it had a different import altogether. Grief, loss, anger, fear shame - families were drawn close by these threads of acute suffering” 

Recently for whatever happened or didn’t or maybe I read or saw something. (Like Orundhati for me writing comes first as a visual to me) A photo of glider came to my mind -you know people / group of people who jump from plane and form a circle or whatever. And I was thinking family is like that - if one link breaks the circle is never complete. On families ( religion & Kashmir) - Arundhati Roy - Mother Mary Comes to Me.

It’s been upheavals - emotional highs and lows - breakdowns and exhilarations - lot of love and lot of hate for last 1 year when 4 adults formed a family after a break of 10 years. In those 10 year - kids who went to boarding to college became adults and came back to the nest to start their career. 

The rope had loosened, the threads had come out & the quality of threads had changed, it was different material. Now the threads were all hanging and doing its best to form a rope. 

I didn’t know what else to make of it. Family was my cornerstone. I remember this workshop on Stephen Covey principles. They asked us to draw an image of my dream. I drew a family of four holding hands with everyone smiling. 

While I worked hard and reached a place where I was getting a salary which very few get in today’s world, I did my best to manage the family, make time - be  there, support there when needed. I still do the same but things changed. I cannot understand them they don’t understand me - there are frequent misunderstanding. I feel more isolated than being part of the family - a lone ranger among 3 musketeers who are joined. 

I know the kids try at least they have the belief that things will change for good. Between adults we have given up long back. 

I am hoping the thread will be made soon.

Till then, I guess we just hang in there.