What are men to rocks and mountains?
- Jane Austen
The yatra stangles the carrying capacity of Kashmir, not only the cities, but even the farthest of nooks on the highways, like a swarm of locusts razing a field in a blip, for faith does not see curtailment as a logical course of action, and the scramble for an ice fromation seems a tad too selfish at times...
The tourism department, meanwhile, muses in its own secret slumbers; half the populace in that maze tells us that a permit would be needed to go further into the mountains, while the rest shrug it away as a nonchalant rumour, a situation even more ironic by the fact that all questions are diverted towards the moot map...
A permit is needed, the finality is arrived at after two days of persistence, and morning runs into noon as one keeps chasing the officials for that elusive stamp, for Monday is not the day to expect punctuality, or hospitality for that matter, from the public servants...
Permits acquired, and a choked highway is the next obstacle, the mountains looking hapless as irate honks keep jabbing at the innocent canopy...
The day enters the last quarter as the rain starts punctuating the slopes encircling Sonamarg... last minute rations are scrambled for, the ponies are loaded, and with a sigh of relief the feet start panting upwards, as far away from the roads as possivle, where the laws of economics would start feeling dizzy, and subsistence has its heart laid out in green...
Sonamarg is adorned with rainbows as the ascent becomes steeper and thw wind blows the drizzle away, the eyes shut and the lungs pull hard... for this is where the pristine so craved for would start relenting...
The tree line is dotted with Bhoj and Maple, and sheeps lining the slopes paint the alpine... as the body huffs striving to acclimatize, the ridge beckons... Sonamarg dropped out at the bottom, and the gentle green sloping meadows of Shekdur pointing to the glacier at the distance, the white so seemingly innocent yet fatal in all of that soothing white...
Shepherd huts lie interspersed around the brook, and one gulps in all of the velvety green as the eyes would allow, and to think of guns and bullets here incites a sarcastic (and apprehensive at the same time) guffaw...
A shepherd comes aforth with the (so) usual courtesy, and salted tea with thin corn bread is the sumptuousness that follows, as the curious kids crowd round the shutter, as the kitchen fire hums on...
'Tis eight in the evening yet one is still in the awe of the light that remains and the dusk that somehow seems reluctant to be on the job, the purples and the amber skipping across the pale blue that a couple of hours ago was nowhere to be perceived, and the wicket keeper curses aloud chasing the ball far down the hill...
The stove is pitted against the wind, and the body gets its fill in the tented frenzied calm... dusk finally relents as the Milky Way flows magnificently in white patches, the stars chatting in countless numbers, the wind a gentle lull and the human disposition looking exasperatedly at the lights now dimmer, an unceasing chant of whys...