I was bred in the hills and the world was late in coming to me. Nor was I keen on seeking it. So it waited yonder, far away, as I wet my toes in the brooks that wound through the woods down the hills. The world I grew up in was ringed by hills. Many a brook trickled down their thickly wooded cheeks.
Sometimes I did long for the world that lay beyond the hills looming upon mine. At times, my own world seemed too little and too aloof. But the longing would only flit through my mind and rest as I also nurtured a fear of what might lie beyond. Because, in all the life I have lived, I have nurtured a fear of strangeness. This is perhaps why I do not take easily to people who are strange to me. May be, the hills make you aloof.
Beyond an occasional longing for that beyond, I longed for little else, for I loved the world I lived in and was content in it. It had everything that I needed to live with then, fleecy clouds perching atop hills, shiny beetles beneath the blades of grass, the moan of the wind on a stormy night as it ruffled the trees, lying under the quilt I would imagine it to be the moan of a marauding monster, and the sky of a shade of blue I have not seen since I left home.
The rain always lurked in some corner of that sky and every now and then came swooping down upon the land. But on some days, alas how far apart those days seemed then, I woke up to a sky not laden with grave, grandfatherly clouds but awash in the tender glow of a baby egg-yolk sun gingerly peeping behind the hills, creeping up the sky. I remember we used to rejoice on those days. The washing would finally get a chance to dry, and I to frolic in the backyard, to build my castles, to explore my strange continents where even stranger peoples lived, and to assist Phantom in fighting the pirates. If the clouds did not snuff the sun out during the course of the day, Baba and I took a walk in the evening. We generally took the road that led out of the town. One did not need to walk too long to walk out of the town. Fifteen minutes, or twenty, perhaps, depended on how fast one walked. As those little houses receded behind us, I quizzed him on everything that was of pressing concern to me then, from how hot it is on the sun to why the leaves are not purple. He, on the other hand, would quiz me on the books or the comics that I might be reading then. Sometimes I would say, “You know, if I get the chance to, I can make magic better than Mandrake.” I do not recall that he ever showed any disbelief.
The house in which we lived in those days will appear strange to a plains dweller. It was wooden and rose above the ground on stilts of cement, each about three feet high. But this is the way houses are built in that far away fastness where the earth is prone to shifting its back sometimes. The wooden floor showed a few faint cracks at places. I knew all of them by heart. But to me they were not mere cracks but mighty canyons and valleys. They never posed a problem to me, however, for I was a giant and could leap across them as one leaps across a puddle. I had a corner in the house. It lay beneath one of the bedroom windows. It was my kingdom. It was where I had set out on a wooden raft with Tom and Huckleberry, it was where I had ridden the high waves with Captain Ahab.
My window did not face the hills but another did. They looked rather sullen to me. And they seemed resentful of the clouds which will veil them as though they did not exist when it rained. Sometimes, the sun will shine as the veil still held. Then many a colour I could not name then and cannot name now will flit upon it. Or, sometimes, it will serve as a canvas for a rainbow. No one, as I knew, had ever passed beneath a rainbow. What about the birds then? I will wonder.
It was not just the clouds, the hills changed colour too. Only they were slower in it than their rivals. With each passing season the ceaseless forest which clothed them changed to a different shade of green. I could not name those shades then. I still will not be able to name them. I am rather incompetent with colours.
I was fond of watching the passage of seasons and awaited their passage. But it will be a long wait because winter occupied most of the year. There will be a foreboding of it in the air by the end of September and vestiges of winter will linger in the air till the end of April. But no matter how long the wait, winter gave way to spring. It always does, everywhere.
Spring rode on many signs, more colours, more birds and buds on the branches of trees, but for me the most inevitable augury of spring was the smell which preceded the season. Each season had its smell for me and spring had its own. One day, while the far away peaks will still be swathed in snow and the earth and the naked trees will still slumber in the embrace of winter, will waft in a gust of wind carrying that smell. I cannot describe it and have no name for it. Apparently, there is a great deal that I cannot name. But for me the smell was the oracle that foretold that soon the grass beneath my feet will no more be a pale, sickly yellow but will change to a brighter shade of green and that the sun will show up more often. And that, soon, once again, there will be beetles and grasshoppers about. It also meant that the river which flowed a little way outside the town will no more be a faint trickle. The snows will melt upon the peaks filling it with water and Deo will gurgle and chuckle loudly running down to meet his brother Dibang. Spring was also when you rolled on the new grass and let your skin smell of it. I did. Besides, there was something else to look forward to. It was the season when elephants walked down the street we lived on. No, they were not wild but were owned by the tribal chieftains who were in the lumbering business. The beasts will walk back home in the evenings after a hard day’s work and I will run out to the veranda to gape at them. I dreamt of owning an elephant someday. Not because I wanted to be a lumber jack but because it seemed like a kindly, sagacious animal which will make for some good company.
Beyond an occasional longing for that beyond, I longed for little else, for I loved the world I lived in and was content in it. It had everything that I needed to live with then, fleecy clouds perching atop hills, shiny beetles beneath the blades of grass, the moan of the wind on a stormy night as it ruffled the trees, lying under the quilt I would imagine it to be the moan of a marauding monster, and the sky of a shade of blue I have not seen since I left home.
The rain always lurked in some corner of that sky and every now and then came swooping down upon the land. But on some days, alas how far apart those days seemed then, I woke up to a sky not laden with grave, grandfatherly clouds but awash in the tender glow of a baby egg-yolk sun gingerly peeping behind the hills, creeping up the sky. I remember we used to rejoice on those days. The washing would finally get a chance to dry, and I to frolic in the backyard, to build my castles, to explore my strange continents where even stranger peoples lived, and to assist Phantom in fighting the pirates. If the clouds did not snuff the sun out during the course of the day, Baba and I took a walk in the evening. We generally took the road that led out of the town. One did not need to walk too long to walk out of the town. Fifteen minutes, or twenty, perhaps, depended on how fast one walked. As those little houses receded behind us, I quizzed him on everything that was of pressing concern to me then, from how hot it is on the sun to why the leaves are not purple. He, on the other hand, would quiz me on the books or the comics that I might be reading then. Sometimes I would say, “You know, if I get the chance to, I can make magic better than Mandrake.” I do not recall that he ever showed any disbelief.
The house in which we lived in those days will appear strange to a plains dweller. It was wooden and rose above the ground on stilts of cement, each about three feet high. But this is the way houses are built in that far away fastness where the earth is prone to shifting its back sometimes. The wooden floor showed a few faint cracks at places. I knew all of them by heart. But to me they were not mere cracks but mighty canyons and valleys. They never posed a problem to me, however, for I was a giant and could leap across them as one leaps across a puddle. I had a corner in the house. It lay beneath one of the bedroom windows. It was my kingdom. It was where I had set out on a wooden raft with Tom and Huckleberry, it was where I had ridden the high waves with Captain Ahab.
My window did not face the hills but another did. They looked rather sullen to me. And they seemed resentful of the clouds which will veil them as though they did not exist when it rained. Sometimes, the sun will shine as the veil still held. Then many a colour I could not name then and cannot name now will flit upon it. Or, sometimes, it will serve as a canvas for a rainbow. No one, as I knew, had ever passed beneath a rainbow. What about the birds then? I will wonder.
It was not just the clouds, the hills changed colour too. Only they were slower in it than their rivals. With each passing season the ceaseless forest which clothed them changed to a different shade of green. I could not name those shades then. I still will not be able to name them. I am rather incompetent with colours.
I was fond of watching the passage of seasons and awaited their passage. But it will be a long wait because winter occupied most of the year. There will be a foreboding of it in the air by the end of September and vestiges of winter will linger in the air till the end of April. But no matter how long the wait, winter gave way to spring. It always does, everywhere.
Spring rode on many signs, more colours, more birds and buds on the branches of trees, but for me the most inevitable augury of spring was the smell which preceded the season. Each season had its smell for me and spring had its own. One day, while the far away peaks will still be swathed in snow and the earth and the naked trees will still slumber in the embrace of winter, will waft in a gust of wind carrying that smell. I cannot describe it and have no name for it. Apparently, there is a great deal that I cannot name. But for me the smell was the oracle that foretold that soon the grass beneath my feet will no more be a pale, sickly yellow but will change to a brighter shade of green and that the sun will show up more often. And that, soon, once again, there will be beetles and grasshoppers about. It also meant that the river which flowed a little way outside the town will no more be a faint trickle. The snows will melt upon the peaks filling it with water and Deo will gurgle and chuckle loudly running down to meet his brother Dibang. Spring was also when you rolled on the new grass and let your skin smell of it. I did. Besides, there was something else to look forward to. It was the season when elephants walked down the street we lived on. No, they were not wild but were owned by the tribal chieftains who were in the lumbering business. The beasts will walk back home in the evenings after a hard day’s work and I will run out to the veranda to gape at them. I dreamt of owning an elephant someday. Not because I wanted to be a lumber jack but because it seemed like a kindly, sagacious animal which will make for some good company.
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