The last time I went to the Himalayas was in 2017.
With a lover I don’t call mine anymore, with friends I don’t talk to anymore, with a camera I didn’t touch for a year now, with a love for frames that is choked by its throat in my small corporate desk now.
Last time I went to the Himalayas was in 2017.
The first time I went there, I was a kid, trading the age of 5-6, on my father’s lap, in the seat beside the driver of the jeep that snaked to the top. I vaguely remember.
I vaguely remember the hairpins, the rocks, the cliff that I hung my head out of the window to, the never-ending rocks on the other side with mosses, plants and flowers, the clouds that would just enter on the way and turn the view from the windsheild white. Perfect surrender to nature.
I vaguely remember the car would stop once in a while for the driver and my father needed a smoke and I would hold my mother's hand and walk near the cliff. We had a old reel camera then, my mother would pose with me, I'd smile.
I vaguely remember we passed localities, wooden houses half made, the dwellers walking with huge logs, sometimes a gang of goats would crowd the road ahead, the car would go slow following them till they dispersed. Perfect surrender to situation.
I remember the whole trip vaguely, but there was this small girl, perched on top of one of the wooden house's half made first floor, I saw her through the bamboos placed straight, waiting to be made into a room, with her sister or maybe mother with a book and laughing. Somehow our jeep slowed down there infront of her house, I saw her face distinctly. A small girl of most likely 1 or 2 years, still growing her mouthful teeth, her dangerously straight hair sticking out of her two polytails on both sides, wearing a frock that had wild flowers printed, small hands holding the book, laughing with the women beside. I remember her eyes, small eyes with big eyelashes, hardly visible through ber wide eyelids. And in that wisp of the moment when my car passed and she looked up, she smiled. By the time I could smile back, the jeep has picked up speed again, and I lost her. And in my heart of a 5 year old, it brought a surge of sadness. Then we went places, villages, we came back, I grew up, I went to the hills many a times, but she stayed in my head.
I passed that roadway to the top some three times from the first year I visited, I never saw that house, or maybe I did. Maybe the house has changed it’s colour, maybe the first floor was no more a makeshift of bamboos but a room, maybe she grew up and looks different. Or maybe she left.
I vaguely remember, but she never left my mind.
I passed people cutting logs of wood, and wondered, is that her father?
I passed sheep crowding the way ahead, and wondered, does she own them?
I passed houses, hairpins, sunsets, cities and she never left my head.
Eighteen years from then I went to the hills, and made newer memories. I lost the people, passion, the love, the friendship. Two years from losing everything that I once went to the hills with, it still doesn’t affect as much as that little girl does.
What happened to that little girl in that wooden house?
With a lover I don’t call mine anymore, with friends I don’t talk to anymore, with a camera I didn’t touch for a year now, with a love for frames that is choked by its throat in my small corporate desk now.
Last time I went to the Himalayas was in 2017.
The first time I went there, I was a kid, trading the age of 5-6, on my father’s lap, in the seat beside the driver of the jeep that snaked to the top. I vaguely remember.
I vaguely remember the hairpins, the rocks, the cliff that I hung my head out of the window to, the never-ending rocks on the other side with mosses, plants and flowers, the clouds that would just enter on the way and turn the view from the windsheild white. Perfect surrender to nature.
I vaguely remember the car would stop once in a while for the driver and my father needed a smoke and I would hold my mother's hand and walk near the cliff. We had a old reel camera then, my mother would pose with me, I'd smile.
I vaguely remember we passed localities, wooden houses half made, the dwellers walking with huge logs, sometimes a gang of goats would crowd the road ahead, the car would go slow following them till they dispersed. Perfect surrender to situation.
I remember the whole trip vaguely, but there was this small girl, perched on top of one of the wooden house's half made first floor, I saw her through the bamboos placed straight, waiting to be made into a room, with her sister or maybe mother with a book and laughing. Somehow our jeep slowed down there infront of her house, I saw her face distinctly. A small girl of most likely 1 or 2 years, still growing her mouthful teeth, her dangerously straight hair sticking out of her two polytails on both sides, wearing a frock that had wild flowers printed, small hands holding the book, laughing with the women beside. I remember her eyes, small eyes with big eyelashes, hardly visible through ber wide eyelids. And in that wisp of the moment when my car passed and she looked up, she smiled. By the time I could smile back, the jeep has picked up speed again, and I lost her. And in my heart of a 5 year old, it brought a surge of sadness. Then we went places, villages, we came back, I grew up, I went to the hills many a times, but she stayed in my head.
I passed that roadway to the top some three times from the first year I visited, I never saw that house, or maybe I did. Maybe the house has changed it’s colour, maybe the first floor was no more a makeshift of bamboos but a room, maybe she grew up and looks different. Or maybe she left.
I vaguely remember, but she never left my mind.
I passed people cutting logs of wood, and wondered, is that her father?
I passed sheep crowding the way ahead, and wondered, does she own them?
I passed houses, hairpins, sunsets, cities and she never left my head.
Eighteen years from then I went to the hills, and made newer memories. I lost the people, passion, the love, the friendship. Two years from losing everything that I once went to the hills with, it still doesn’t affect as much as that little girl does.
What happened to that little girl in that wooden house?
