Places - The Colors of Home

I just returned from an all-too-brief yet extremely enjoyable visit to India (Delhi and Mumbai). After living in the desert, one learns to appreciate natural colors. For me, this short visit home was all about colors. The color of real grass on the ground and real leaves on the trees as the airplane came into Delhi. The colors of the undulating hills surrounding Mumbai (never mind that these once-beautiful hills are now full of ugly slums). My kingdom (such as it is) for the sight of a hill!! The color of the deep blue sea at Bandra Bandstand near where I live.

I remember looking out of my bedroom window in Mumbai yesterday morning and marveling at the bougainvillea and gulmohur trees in full bloom. Colors - pink and dark red, green grass and brown trees, vivid against a heat-glazed, metallic blue sky. I make it a point to remember these colors, since soon I will be going back to a place where colours are hard to come by, and what colors there are, seem drab by comparison.

What is home and where is it? Is it a physical place, an idea, a state of mind or a combination of all these things? Is it the place you are born in or is it where you and your family choose to live? Is it a refuge in your mind that you retreat to when life’s problems seem insurmountable?

In the course of an interesting, if sometimes unplanned life, I have traveled and lived away from home a great deal. For nine of the nineteen years since I turned twenty-one, I have lived out of a suitcase away from home. From Mumbai (population sixteen million) to New York City, from Doha, Qatar to Laramie, Wyoming (population twenty-five thousand souls). At one time or another, I called all these different places home.

But home for me (as those who know me well are well aware of) are the enchanted mountains of Uttaranchal. So to keep myself going, I play back images of the time I have spent in those hills. As a child, I visited the Uttaranchal Himalayas every year during the Diwali vacations to meet my grandparents. It was something to look forward to and I used to get excited at the prospect several months in advance. The good news is that some things never change no matter how old one gets. I still get as excited as I used about visiting the mountains as when I was a child. I am looking forward to that visit later this year

The business end of the visit kicks off as one drives out of Delhi – past Noida and the dusty, nondescript towns of Hapur, Garh Mukteshwar, Moradabad and Rampur. The Indo-Gangetic plain is often referred to as the cradle of Indian civilization, and for good reason. As one drives out of Delhi and into Uttar Pradesh, one cannot help but marvel at the fertility and the rich green colour of the soil, which somehow seems to be in complete contrast to the poverty of the people living in this now-benighted land. It is a pity that the land is rich but the people are poor.
As you cross the border from Uttar Pradesh into the state of Uttaranchal, the Himalayan foothills suddenly come into view and rush up to greet you. They are like old friends you haven’t seen in some time. Like with old friends, just being around them makes you happy. So my sense of anticipation and excitement will build as we drive past the last large, dirty town in the plains – Haldwani. And suddenly, the air will be cleaner and cooler, and you will hear the gushing of the mountain stream as it chugs past you in the valley, the water gleaming like diamonds in the clear autumn sunlight. The vegetation will change – carefully planted eucalyptus trees replaced by oak, pine and the majestic deodar. Colors – the play of bright mountain light and shadow in the valley below.

So, I am looking forward to the last few miles of the drive into Almora, which is ninety kilometers up in the mountains. The silver birch tree in the garden of the house my grandfather lived in many years ago is still visible from miles away, though the terraced gardens he so carefully and lovingly cultivated for so many years have all gone, sadly forever. The garden was full of flowers and there also was a vegetable patch with succulent tomatoes and lemons. The vegetable patch was frequently raided by langur monkeys looking for a tasty snack. As a young boy, I remember standing in the garden with a small-caliber airgun, waiting to ambush the monkeys as they made one of their raids. I was never successful in scaring them off. My grandfather, a man of few words, smiled indulgently, but I do not think he was too impressed by my efforts in securing his vegetable patch!!

Colors again - the memories as vivid as a Van Gogh painting, as clear in my mind today as they were thirty years ago – the colors of my grandfather’s garden - bright yellow sunflowers, blood red and deep pink roses, set against a pale blue autumn sky

But – back to our trip. As a child, my heartbeat quickened when I glimpsed that silver birch tree from the winding mountain road in the foothills many miles below. I knew it meant that I was coming home. Beyond the silver birch tree lies Almora, the lights of the town twinkling at dusk. It reminds me of Rivendell, the home of the elves in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And beyond the town lie the eternal Himalayas, with their pristine silver summits glowing like burnished gold in the setting sun.

And I am looking forward to the ride to Brighton End Corner on the outskirts of Almora, where my old friend Bharat Shah lives. Past Karbala and the Ramakrishna Mission through the pines on our left. Up and above on our right, we will see the last rays of the setting sun as they light up the higher branches of the tall, ancient deodar trees in Almora Cantonment. And in the cool, crisp autumn air at dusk, I will hear again the high-pitched drone of the cicada and the chirrup of crickets, and once again see the sun’s rays reflected through the wings of a dragonfly. Bharat will be there waiting for us at journey’s end as always, standing in his military fatigue jacket two sizes too big for him. And I hope, as always when he sees us coming, a smile will spread across his handsome, young-old face. It is the warmest, most welcoming and most infectious smile you will ever see.

And once again, we will sip hot lemon tea to refresh ourselves and ward off the cold, and sit in silence at dusk as the sun goes down over the eternal snows, turning them from silver to gold to pink, and finally to ashen. The summits of the mountains will go dark like giant torches being extinguished. From Chaukhamba and Badrinath in the West, to Trisul and holy Nanda Devi front and center to Panchachuli in the East where the Pandavas are supposed to have cooked their last meal before they ascended to Heaven. Once again, we will watch the twinkling lights come on in the little villages in the valleys. And once again, we will commune with the blessed roar of those eloquent mountain silences.

And suddenly all my troubles and insecurities will melt away, and at last, I will be home. Hopefully, you will too.