The songs, the mountain and me

The songs, the mountain and me

I was listening to a very romantic song toady. It reminded me of the mountains and the way I felt when it was time to leave the mountains and resume the routine. In this song, one of the stanzas says: "There was animosity, indifference and anguish. The one with whom I parted had everything but didn’t have unfaithfulness (अदावतें थी तगाफुल था रंजिशें थी मगर, बिछड़ने वाले में सब कुछ था बेवफाई न थी adawatein thi tagful tha ranjishein thi magar, bichhadne wale mein sab kuchh tha bewafai na thi). " When I was coming back from the mountains, I felt something similar. It was difficult to climb the mountains in high altitude, rocks and snow. The mountain was indifferent to the worries and problems of those climbing and couldn’t help in any manner. The rubble beneath our feet was difficult to walk on and when we fell down, we cursed. However, when it was time to leave, I felt as if I am leaving my best friend. Because like the song says I knew that however difficult it might have been for me, when I fell down it was the mountain that supported me and kept me where I was. The most faithful friend I could find was the nature that I encountered there. Yes, there were people around. The sense of calm I experienced when I looked at the peaks, snow, land, trees and everything around had no parallel. The nature was my companion from day one. It existed within me and then surrounded me like a mother taking her baby in her protecting arms. I lived in its embrace.

The separation was merely physical. The spiritual connection that had developed between me and the surrounding nature had grown further in this trek as nature acted as a balm for all my worries and troubles and aches and pains. One look and I forgot everything that bothered me. When I extended my hand for support, I found a solid support. The nature reflected itself in everyone around me. It suddenly felt home as no one was new. My soul could attain peace and swim in the serene water and clouds.

I am afraid of climbing down in general. If you are walking with me on the stairs of a railway station and pay close attention to how I walk, you would realize I am anxious when I walk down and much more careful. This has been one of my driving forces for climbing mountains. When I realized that this dear nature was my dearest companion, I realized that if I fall, I will fall on the ground that I feel so connected to. When people encouraged and helped me climb down faster, I decided to trust them blindly. However, the anxiety was still there. Somewhere between going down, falling and getting up it struck me like a lightening that when I fall I would be on the ground and it would give me the stability. Nothing had reassured me more. I thank the free-spirited people and the dynamically stable nature. I won’t say I have overcome my fear. I might need more practice for that. However, I definitely had taken a step ahead.

Now, I am going to tell you how nature helped me understand that nature exists within other people around me and how it made me open to asking for help.

Life experiences can make you hesitant to ask for help. I have become like that as a person. I won’t ask for help easily and when I do I feel ashamed and like a burden on others. With time, I have developed ways to help myself through the five elements of nature. Water is my remedy for all the physical and psychological pains and aches. I realized that I may not always get to help myself with the ways that I had developed in my city-life. So, I meditated sitting among the trees and asked them hundreds and thousands of questions that were troubling me. I opened my heart to them. I told them that they needed to tell me what to do. When I had emptied my mind of the clutter that I was carrying around with me, a voice spoke from within as if echoing the calm of the trees and wind around. It reminded me of my mantra: God (Please feel free to read God as the ultimate reality, superpower, the universe, the aura, the guardian angel, and/or anything that you can connect to) does not give you more than you can handle. So, God is present beside you when the task is more daunting in the form of everything around you. There’s just no hiding away from God.

I met amazing human beings. They altered the associations in my head. I would like to share some of them.

I used to hum a song while walking in a lane near my house. One of the amazing people I met kept humming that song. Now, the person has formed a association with the song and that lane. I was walking with my friend in that lane after I came back and remembered the song and the person. Coincidentally, the person’s name is similar to that of a restaurant nearby. There are hardly any chances that I am going to forget this person.

So is the case with another gazal that I love. I can smell ice and mountains when I hear that gazal now. It’s amazing that in the heat of Mumbai, sweating too much and travelling by an auto I could sense and smell the nature and see the people as if they were with me.

Whenever I think about trusting, I think about this trek along with my students.

Wow!!! When we live, we develop. I don’t know about good, bad, right or wrong. I know that the connections feel like home. 

Meditative ramblings on the mountain top

Not tethered

Emotions gush through me
Enveloping me
Stealing me from myself

The nature stands still
Being there is what it knows the best

Oh divine!
Only if all could be
True to their nature!?

The re-realization

The re-realization

Recently a trek made me realize again that we all follow the same structure of taking birth, struggling to live, dying and decaying. That’s what we all are supposed to do. How do we do it is what makes all the difference.

So, it is something like we all are given a big canvas, paper, cave walls and the like and then we decorate them the way we want it. That is why each painting, sculpture, story, article is different. The underlying principles may be the same but they are expressed in a different manner. Let’s take loyalty. For someone, loyalty might mean staying true to the religious path following all the rituals and customs to the word. For someone else, loyalty could mean not thinking about anything else but work. The principle remains the same but the expression is different.

So, let’s go back to my trek to Deo Tibba Base Camp through an organization called Youth Hostel Association India. We had to report to the base camp in Katrain. The reporting day was free. The next day, we went for an acclimatization walk in which we basically climbed half of the mountain and climbed down. Our instructor was Ramakrishnan sir. The next day we were taken for rappelling. That night we were asked to present a variety program for the camp fire in our orientation. We struggled and enjoyed preparing for that. The next day a bus took us to a village called Jagatsukh from where we started climbing towards our goal. We passed a village called Banara as well. We met our guide Mr. Jeevan and Mr. Tenzing. We reached our next camp called Tilgad, a meeting place for the panchayat of Banara and Jagatsukh. Our camp leader was Mr. Nadeem, who called himself Shakal. The next day we climbed through trees as well as rocks to reach our camp called Sarotu, the grazing place for the sheep. Our camp leader was Mr. Mihir. Next day we climbed through rocks and snow with less of trees to reach our next camp called Dumdumi. Our camp leader was Mr. Dixit. The camp was situated on rocks in between ice. It was very cold. Next day, we climbed through ice to reach our summit by afternoon, the Deo Tibba Base Camp. We took photographs. We began our descend with walking and sliding down the snow. We encountered a snowfall, a hailstorm accompanied by thunder and lightning and then followed by rains of course. We reached our next camp Kharabandari. Our camp leader was Mr. Ramakrishnan, the same person who took us for acclimatization walk. We continued our descend the next day to our next camp called Jobrinala. Here, our camp leader was Mr. Vibhas. Next day, we walked down the road literally to reach Prini. Then, we went to Manali for our lunch and returned to the base camp. That’s actually it.

The description above is informative but Oh My God it is so boring. This is what we all did but it is definitely not all that we experienced and cherished. Like I mentioned above. The above paragraph gives us the details of the trek objectively. However, if there were only objectivity, philosophy wouldn’t exist and life would be really boring. Subjectivity makes way for change and keeps interest in life. I digress of course. The point is, I find the structure for anything like life structure itself. There is a beginning, there is in between struggles, conflicts, this, that and blah… and then there is the conclusion and achievement. 

So, how is your subjectivity doing?