Lights in the Hills

A chilly winter night.

Time- Somewhere around 11.00 pm.

Location- Somewhere on Mall road, Mussoorie.

Your ‘dinner and walk’ programme has gone late. You are walking along the Mall road (which is quiescent by then) with friends, busy chitchatting. Somehow you manage to get the attention out of the leisurely winter walk to look down to the scene visible down the valley. And suddenly you shriek out- Whatta scene!!

You can see the entire expanse of Dehradun down the hills. Its glittering! One is ought to be awestruck looking at such pageantry of golden yellow and white lights. It feels like the entire galaxy of the sky is being reflected in a vast ocean. The chitchat suddenly turns into a eulogy of the spectacle…

Then you happen to look at the hills above. The sight of Mussoorie is equally astonishing. The lights here are primarily white. The scene looks as if the hills are adorned with a glittering diamond necklace, wherein every diamond bead is shimmering with maximal intensity. And the stray, isolated lights in the neighbourhood give a feel of some diamonds which have been unchained from the necklace. Just look at the valley!  Its still and calm as a meditating sage…

And then, your mind starts diverting. The miracle of lights starts fading out of your mind. You return to the reality. You start treading towards the bookish stuff of human encroachment on nature. The scene you are enjoying now turns into a crisis in making. The horrors of over-possibilism seem real now. The unending festival of lights down the valley turns into an imagery of urban sprawl. The glowing hills turn devilish. You start to foresee possible hazards of this human bravado. From an aesthetic site-seeing chap, you turn into an environmentalist, worried about the future of humanity.

Meanwhile you reach your destination. Your mind is now engrossed into the “what next” conundrum. The thoughts about human encroachment, future of humanity are now being gradually subsided. You start focusing on new challenges presented by the moment now. Life moves on. The environmentalist goes into deep hiding now. And all the bookish stuffs returns to the books now, with a fragile hope of entering somebody’s mind again…

Pic: Googled one.