Nostalgia

Thousands of kilometers away from the hills that have always been my home, today the non-chalant clouds in the sky reminded me of Almora. Phone calls and news on the T.V. continually update me of the pangs of pleasure and cold that my hills go through. I can well imagine trees swishing behind their poky blades, as men and women walk around draped in shawls over thick woolens; a laconic air of cheerfulness about the ruddy cheeks of children in schools, with folded hands pressed together with an animated effort fighting faded blazers; solipsistic yogis in ochre coloured garbs, with hair flowing down their ochre caps– protected by cool winds behind their impressive beards, reading on the stairs of the Kasar Devi hill or listening to an exciting commentary of a cricket match running close to their ears out of a dull plastic radio. How routine it was only a few years back! Travelers would come and go and inform me that it was heaven on earth– hamin asto.

I am a traveler, a vagabond now going from one railway station to another– living in cities with big names, bigger histories and biggest financial standings. Emasculated by the boredom of avarice these new homes fail to give me a motherly embrace, not even a foster mother’s caress. People here tell me with great confidence that I have come from a land that’s the closest to heaven on earth, and why? They look happy here under the scorching sun, then why do they expect me to be sad and try to make me realize that I ought to be at home, not in an alien place!

Most of the time I give them unyielding replies– a mere this or a fad that– to make them stop their stupid nauseating comments in a fumbling version of my tongue. But today I am reminded of home. All their bewilderments and awe at an abseil to an infernal land from the paradise at my own will makes so much sense to me.

I would have been preparing for the evening with an iron stove stuffed with dried pieces of carefully chopped wood– saggad, a Kumaoni word drawing parallels with the plenary gatherings of the Canterbury Tales. Families and friends would gather around for the flame. Women would knit, men would make jokes, and I would displace a burning loner of a coal in the saggad to the centre with a pair of tongs where it gets some air and helps the wood burn, with an eye half closed because of the rising smoke. A kid would request to throw some sweet potatoes inside. After an hour everyone would be served a little portion of the baked sweet potatoes. A community is rejuvenated– love is shared in the sweetness of the baked potato.

But it is all a dream. There are no families gathering for the sake of the warmth of the burning log. There are no kids requesting any trifles anymore. The distance from Almora gives me moments like these when I can reminisce, make up stories like these that have never happened with me like Lamb’s imaginary children. My dreams give me the strength to play the music as it pleases my soul, to make people do as marionettes tied on my fingers, to create the neverland that I have heard of in the stories of my elders. And it gives me confidence to feel pride when people say my land is a paradise with lives so simple.

And look, the clouds are gliding away in the sky. They are traveling like me to some other version of me to help him remember what he must. They are dry clouds that do not rain. But they always shower enough on me that I let my head and my limbs out of my carapace to catch as much as I can to drench myself thoroughly. Come again, clouds! You remind me of home!