My first date with the hills

I found this writing in an old diary couple of months back. Reading through this experience that I wrote about in 1995, I realized not much of me has changed. I made some minor changes in the text while posting it.

After a decade of my life, I went out of Kolkata to a beautiful hill station in West Bengal. In 1985 when I last visited the hills, I was just a child who was stepping into womanhood. Come 1995 – I was travelling for the first time, by myself, along with my other classmates and seniors of the English Department of the University I was studying in.

It was my first college trip and I was super-exited. It was indeed a task to get the initial permissions from daddy. Being the single child, and raised with protection, he was quite naturally worried about my security for my first venture outside home alone.

Prior to this, all my travelling happened with my parents. In 1985 little did I realize how much travelling moved me. The fun experiences I had were innocent and pure. But here, I pen down what I learnt about myself. The fun experiences I will share later.

I was here, climbing the slopes, holding the snow with my own hands, soaking in the beauty of the green forests and the rugged mountains, feeling the drops of rain and snowflakes on my skin, inhaling the fresh air and the aroma of the fresh flowers.

I did not even know that I had instincts that always called me close to nature. But now, being so close to the vastness of beauty, awakened me. It united my body, mind and spirit into one, composed, as if I finally felt at peace with myself.

It gave me a different identity – someone I didn't know existed before. The mysterious, wild me, the gypsy hearted soul who was a free wanderer deep within.

All I was dreaming of was snow-capped mountains, streams, rocks and pebbles, valleys and forests, the wild and the wilderness. Here, nature ruled. No-one to tame or bind me in chains, just like the freedom the wild hills had. I was dreaming of flowers and birds, lakes and sand, forest fire and ice, beauty and enchantment. And here it was all, right in front of me, as if smilingly saying, ‘your wish is my command.’

Moments never ceased to pause for once, and I found myself having thousands of conversations with the hills and myself. The wild green forests swayed slowly to the musical breeze, and at times stood still. The swift river flowed, beating across all the rocks and pebbles.

The mountains stood upright with trees branching out recklessly, the snow-capped mountains shining with glitters of sunlight. As far as my eyes went, I felt the nature pour into each cell of my existence, the bounty life engulfing me, every minute of silence where I met a new me.

It was two parts of me meeting from two opposite corners and plunging into an eternal end. An end no one could decipher.

By being there for a few days, I was able to claim a relationship with the untamed nature for eternity that resonated with me.

The relationship never ended. I felt, for once and for all, the unification of nature with my own spirit. The mystic beauty of the hills always calls out to me.

Had I not been there, then, I would have probably not found the one I am now.