Despite the ups and downs of mountain life, one feels deeply for the place one has left behind. , Photo Credit: RV Murthy
You wake up one morning and realize you’ve been magically transported to the quaint hills where all the popular writers live. You’re reminded of Ruskin Bond-esque tales where characters see inverted ghosts during long walks alone up a hill. While it is snowing outside, you read poetry, sip hot ginger tea, and breathe in the refreshing scent as the mist slowly rises. Buransh (Rhododendron) welcomes you with a smile, song of ghuguti becomes your lullaby and the mesmerizing view of the Himalayas serves as your constant inspiration.
Life in the hills sounds like a gratifying bargain, making a writer/painter/artist/adventurer out of you, promising a lifetime of comfort and wonder. You have been given many narratives about what life is like in the hills through popular stories, cinema and literature.
Having been born and brought up in the small hill town of Chamba (Tehri) in Uttarakhand, I am familiar with the hill life. However, it was when I shifted to Delhi to pursue my higher education that the generality of this ” hill Life” was shaken. The frequently used mountain terminology of “over the road” and “under the road” does not exist here; It is not customary to eat regular rice during the day in the plains of northern India and life without ACs, coolers and fans is practically unimaginable.
As a student at Delhi University, there were many instances when my classmates would ask, “Do you have internet connection there?” or “Are your houses diagonally built?” Initially, I would answer with a frown but slowly I realized that the geography of the place I come from is the reason behind their curiosity. i was his hill classmate, one of MountainA place with a different topography than theirs.
Morning is the best as well as the toughest time of the day for those living in the hills. Cleaners, milkmen/women, newspaper vendors/paperboys and farmers start their day with dedication wrapped in warm shawls and fluffy jackets/coats. However, there is much more to living in the hills than picturesque views in the popular imagination.
Traveling in the hills during monsoon is an extremely dangerous proposition, which is the everyday reality of the people here. Lives are lost in landslides. People whose work requires them to travel through hills on a daily basis face great risk. Vehicles making their way through the mountains are at risk from the possibility of rockfalls. The Uttarakhand floods of 2013 were a disaster.
And yet, despite the uncertainties of mountain life, one feels deeply for the place one has left behind. For those of us who have spent childhoods in the hills, a growing awareness of the gradual exploitation of the mountains, the loss of our favorite places and the gradual eroding of our storehouse of memories is strongly felt.
Distance provides hope, meaning and purpose. We raise our voices time and again, engage in actions like planting trees and cleanliness drives, and sometimes, we write poems, stories and articles. In that process, we capture even small memories like berries — of fruit, Hisar Or kilmore – Growing up on the hill. Lost places like the submerged city of Tehri (replaced by the massive Tehri Dam) live on in the memory.
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