Ramgarh - the re-visit

Dec 30 ~ Jan 3, 2012.


It was during college that a close friend had shared:

"Bau, you know where I live there is this house on the top of the hill. It is my dream that I live there one day."

And after graduation he not only fulfilled his dream but went on to achieve great things in life.

And so it is with many of us.

As children we want all that life can give and more. Nothing is outside the reach of our wants. As we grow up the barriers build up restricting our thoughts

And yet anything we really, truly want with all hearts will always be there for us.


                      


 The House on the Hill

From Gagar:
The snow-capped peaks
Stood glinting and sparkling in the winter sunlight
Far away in the distance.

It was a state-welcome making us proud.

As I looked around
There rose a sudden tinge of melancholy
And sadness
At the mushrooming concrete all around.
Then the feeling
Fluttered like a trapped bird and faded away.

It was a wilderness under domestication.

And seen that night
Was the beautiful and deadly
Orange garland of death
Glowing as it smoldered and flickered in the darkness
On the sloping hills across:
A forest fire was in the making.

           *                   *                    *

A note of discord;
Had something diminished, changed?

Intuitively:
No!

The intangible:
It lived and was alive.
It was the roar in the sound of the fire
As it burned brightly in the fireplace;
It glowed in the flickering flames
As they rushed up the chimney;
It was the sigh of the wind
As it blew through the pines;
It glistened
In the early morning frost
As it lay covering the canopy and the grass.

It was the substance of nascent dreams
Rising like the floating cumulus clouds
From the soft murmur of the flowing water far below
To touch the blue skies above in benediction
And love
Giving birth to aspirations and dreams.

Then
Softly shaping them into reality.

And as I sat quietly on the grassy hill terrace
Under the gentle warmth of the sun
Looking at the rising smoke
Of the dying forest fire on the slope across
It quietly seeped into my being
And became a gateway
Leading me by the hand
To those islands
Of tranquility, peace and harmony
That lay within.

From that repose
I watched as the moments flowed by
Weaving themselves into a fabric
Of endless time
Just flowing on and on....

             *                *                 *

In this land where legends dwell
Each dream or aspiration fulfilled
Becomes a pathway
Leading to these simple miracles of nature:
The smell of the pines, murmur of the streams,
And whispers of the wind
For us to experience, cherish and preserve.

And as we share it
Our wants, aspirations, desires dissolve
And we become a part of it forever.



This is for good friends and excellent hosts:
Rajen & Anjli; & of course "Mata's Prerna"

 
  

RAMGARH - The Visit

It seems a long, long time ago...

It was a coming together of many things that changed those moments and that period from the common-place into a fairy tale.

It was as if the grouping of families, ages and the swaying pines created an instrument for the blowing winds, the mountains and the snow covered peaks to string those moments into a song.

In our different ways we all heard it.

With some it stayed and with others it took wings and flew away into the valleys from where it had been born .....

to lie in wait for the next coming together... 

Jan 9, 1996

                                   
RAMGARH    -      30 Dec '95 ~ Jan 1, 1996


Gagar - a few shops and the road
Winding down to Ramgarh.
Hot tea in the biting cold
Gazing at the snow-capped peaks far away.
The sight - awesome and stark
A poem beyond poetry.

The terraced mountainside - denuded
As far as man could reach;
And beyond covered with green conifers
Whispering to each other
As the wind blew through them.

In the silence between
And in between
Could be heard the soundless gurgles
Of the river of tranquility
That flowed all around.

And the young yearning to be pioneers
Busy terrace climbing
And going for a walk - Where??
"There...."
Pointing to the tiny thread of water
Flowing over the rocks a thousand feet below.

A windswept afternoon framed by the clouds,
Bitterly cold.
A drizzle of cold rain, very cold,
And within each drop
A flake of snow, pristine,
A truth of nature
And a promise for the future.

The pioneers at lunch,
Rushing out to collect each flake
And watching it melt away
Without sustenance in their warmth.

The evenings - warm
Cosily wrapped in the sound of the roaring fire.
Or watching the stars twinkling above
A reflection of the stars
Twinkling in the valley below.

Each alone
Yet surrounded by the warmth of others...
We were home.

Sitting here now far away,
With memories of the elation,
The physical exertion
And the peacefulness thereafter.

And before leaving
A sharing
Of the sound of the wind blowing:
A sigh? A moan?
Difficult to describe
Yet an apt epilogue.

The deepening darkness and gloom,
It descended on all when we left
Carrying with us
Experiences
Of a tenous linking of people
Time
And nature
Vital, yearning,
Gentled by the the stllness and the vast silence
That was Ramgarh.

A symphony in harmony.