Portraits

Experiencing The Rock Solid Mountains

When I used to travel in trains, I would catch glimpses of mountains, sky scrapping shapes, deceptively close, and I always was fascinated by them, I loved the Mountains, I don’t know why, I had no specific reason, but there was something that fascinated me.

And may be that’s why one fine day I took on the Himalayas, to just discover the fact that what is it that thrills me so much about the mountains. Just to know myself more, and most importantly to find a meaning. And hence I decided to go trekking.

My first day of the trek was an exhausting task. The mountain had to be labored for slowly, painfully, breathlessly to reach the final destination.

It used to be annoying to walk up the mountains as the initial excitement had died down, not to forget to mention the embarrassment that came along when I used to pant after every two steps. My fellow trekkers would savor each and every moment of their walk. It was a cake walk for most of them. And I envied them, but secretly admired them too.

I would march resentfully with my cousin, and my mind would say and insisted that I didn’t know anything and I should “observe”.

I was exhausted, deep inside a thought sprung up, it kept pricking me, ”Do I really love the mountains, or was it just a myth?” I suddenly felt like till now I was living a false belief that “mountains fascinated me”. Was I cheating myself? It was like a mind war; As usual I didn’t know what I wanted. I would wallow in self pity; I was tired of climbing those endless kilometers.

But the mind war fortunately came to an end, as the next day we had to force our self to leave our cozy beds on a freezing morning to see the sunrise.

The sunrise was SPLENDID, there was a sudden ray of optimism, my mind was clear, and everything just fell into place. Looking around through the crystalline air, made me feel I was on the roof of the world.

From the even carpets of clouds, emerged a few scattered peaks. Everything was just so pure, everything was just so perfect. There was an air of wisdom, let us call it there was clarity of thoughts. I was more self aware.

The climb had been a grueling five hours, the magical peak time less than ten minutes, and I knew which would remain strongest in my memory.

 From then on, climbing up was not an exhausting task, I loved the pain, the heavy breathing, the fear of falling when you see down the hill, the adrenaline rush; I lived and loved every moment. I was more than happy.

After that I wanted to take pleasure in every step I took, I wanted to soak everything in and for this reason alone I wanted everything to be in slow motion. It was simply awesome.

Long back I had read somewhere; “one of the secret of happiness is surrounding oneself with wonderful people”. And yes my fellow trekkers were wonderful; the best part was they inspired me by just being themselves.

Sometimes I felt I was so petty, so unkind, so small, so selfish, and materialistic among them. Some of them had a complete different perspective towards life. I didn’t know people could be so kind and helpful even to strangers. So I am glad that they happened to be my fellow trekkers.

I owe this trek lot of things, I owe it my love for this planet, the love for the nature, I owe it my growth and my never ending quest to explore.

So now the mission ahead is to do lot more treks, in other words I think I should just stop doing Google search for a meaning, get out of the four walls and just start living. :)

FOOT SLOGGED - EXPLORED A NEW WORLD

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