To Musoorie, with love.

"जाएगा भी तो कहाँ 

तू ये कारवाँ छोड़कर ?

तू ये कहानी लिए ,

बैठा है किस मोड़ पर ?

पलकों पर तेरी 

- जल रही है -

हाथों पर तेरे 

-बदल रही है -"

There is this something about places and people. If you collide with the right ones, the ones made up of the same material as you are, you are changed. I have fallen in love with people. I have fallen in love with places. I have learnt to move on, to absorb new places and people. But this. But You. Yes You, the queen of hills. You have truly been , by far, the most powerful experience of my life. And so, its going to be difficult.

Its not just that you were beautiful physically. Beautiful to look at, beautiful to traverse, beautiful to touch, to feel and absorb. No, not that. But that we could see the souls of one another.

 Like I had known you since ages as I climbed up on your boulders and cobbles. Like you had known me since ages, as I would find refuge in your conifer canopies. 

Like you knew we were going to have those conversations, share that laughter, shed those tears. Like I knew, you were going to make me fall in love with you, and smile that it happened, and weep that it ended. Ended so soon. 

You were beautiful to your core. And though I could never reach the magma you are made up of, I had felt it throb in your eyes and your touch. I had felt it stir you up, just as you had seen me stirred up so many times.

As I came back in a cab down the hills, and when I entered the plains, there was this song reverberating in my head. I kept playing it on a repeat in my earphones with wet eyes and a shivering body in may summer heat. 

"I wonder why, I wonder how, I wonder where they are.. 

the days we had, the songs we sang together.. 

So I say a little prayer. 

Hope my dreams will take me there 

where the skies are blue to see you once again."

Now this is what I have to say to you.

"You were your rocks and boulders and pebbles. You were your cracks and crevices. You were your rivers and waterfalls. You were your curved roads and pathways. You were your clouds and sunshine. You were your breeze, and snow and hail. 

You were your culture and music. You were food and wine and coffee.  You were your jokes and tickles and scream
s. You were your lights at night and sunrises at morning pt. You were the colours of buddhist flags and chants of Tibetan prayers. You were me.

You are me."

ps: Its been a day and a half back home, and I still am not here at my home. I am still there. I am still that. Its like a famous hindi song of the nineties:

ऐ वक़्त रुक जा , थम जा , ठहर जा ,

वापिस ज़रा दौड़ पीछे। 

मै  छोड़ आई  खुद को जहाँ पे ,

वो रह गया  मोड़ पीछे। "