shadow lines..

you just have to sit and listen to ghosh to identify the nuggets he throws away so effortlessly in his writings.this is one of them..i love this-

i could not persuade her that a place does not merely exist, that it has to be invented in one's imagination..tridib had said that we cannot see without inventing what we saw, so atleast we could try and do it properly..."why? why should we try, why not just take the world as it is?".. i told her how he had said that we had to try because the alternative wasnt blankness- it only meant that if we didn't try ourselves, we would never be free of other people's inventions.

kashmir

before kashmir, its earthy freshness, rich colours, mountain silhouettes, dusks n dawns, smells, vibrancy, peace, chill, warmth et all- merge with the speed of my city life into one intangible grey cell in the backroom of my memory, i need to put this down...hasnt the ever -progressing science n technology discovered anything, anything at all (analog or digital) to make a moment remain palpable forever? you can get to the place of yr dreams at the speed of your wish, but once there, how do you make time run slower, slow enough for you to rub in all the live sensations of an exhilarating moment, one by one, deep under your skin..so that all you've to do is finger those skin pores to relive it all later- feel the andrenaline rush and annihilate any need for thought or word..
to say that kashmir is heaven on earth is to me, a half-hearted attempt in appreciation. its on the contrary, sensuous, earthy, raw- full of scents and flowers and snow and pines and streams and seasons- truly a celebration of the creative juices that flow inside the earth. and yes, there are those sinful seasonal apples that grow in the soil of that valley(or otherwise you find them smiling in the cheeks of those beautiful people all through the year)- so that takes care of any notion of a 'perfect' heaven per se. kashmir to me, was the smell of fresh snow, the thrill of a sip of hot 'kehwa' on a chilly morning, the translated blue mountain light dissolving in the lake under my shikara, dim lights romancing inside houseboats on the periphery, a lone silhouette sailing across the twilight, a clear night streched across the horizon, only stars and snow shining white..forever virgin in this valley. .so much beauty, your heart races..and yet you are not speeding..time, as ruskin bond would say, stops at kashmir.