Up the hill
I have lived for twenty years in a small town called Mussoorie. I was brought there when I was less than three years old. That was when my father got transferred to the college in Mussoorie.
Most people view Mussoorie as some sort of a tourist attraction --- a typical British Raj hill station with a Mall Road and all the paraphernalia that goes along with one, a few waterfalls where you can satisfy your inner child's ( dear females, no pun intended !) desire to splash in puddles, a couple of spots where young honeymooners can spend some quality time, some roadside eateries which consistently fail to satisfy your demanding palate and lot's of poor rickshawwallahs and coolies who are always looking to fleece unwary tourists.
Mussoorie is not only all this but much, much more. For twenty years in Mussoorie have made me what I am today and I am afraid to trade these years with anything else lest it tur things for the worse. This small town where it is possible for one person to know everyone else, where people are still intereseted in what the family four blocks (I use the term figuratively here) away is doing, where in one evenings walk you can traverse the towns entire span has , I dare say, more to it than one finds in big cities like Delhi and its likes.
There are so many intangibles, a term people like to use much these days, which still keep me a Mussoorie-man at heart. Pahaadi, my friends call me. I don't blame them. The hills are in my blood now. I will always be attracted to the hills. The unforgettable scene of the Doon valley at night ---a dark sea on which are scattered tiny resplendent glowing forms ; the winter line where the sky meets the earth ; the picture of clouds filling up the Doon valley and overflowing into Mussoorie;
the temperamental weather where it alternates between bright and sunny to dark and rainy every few minutes; such images and many more will keep me connected to the hills and its people for life.
