21 Feb 2021, Amritsar
There is a place, far from all the hustle & bustle, where air still smells sweet, where skies still shine blue. Where milky way paints the dark canvas of night and you can count the stars to sleep. A place which magically absorbs your stress, where the evening breeze gives you a new life, a place where you feel closer to the heavens. That place is my village, in amalgamation of lower Himalaya and upper Shivalik mountain ranges.Located on a hilltop(Himachal Pradesh), my village overlooks the Bhakra-Nangal Dam. The combination of sky-reaching mountains, sprawling lake in a lush green valley and occasional snowfall can easily trap you to believe that you’re in heaven. The mystic spell can make you realize how futile your problems are and how beautiful life can be. For me and my sister, childhood was mostly about counting the number of boats in the lake or sometimes, following a boat from one bank to the other. That simple!
My village is a place where people still trust each other. We didn’t use to lock our homes, until recently. It was considered inauspicious. We don’t have child day-care homes like in the cities, entire village belongs to the kids and everyone takes care of them. We work on each other’s fields and stand with each other in times of grief and joy. It’s something about the mountains which brings the noblest person inside you out. Gypsies still visit and roam around our regions and we make elaborate arrangements for their commute and conveyance. Large herds of sheep with shepherd families(called ‘Gaddis’ in local language) come down in winters and enjoy our hospitality. That used to be the best time for me in childhood. Feeding & chasing lambs, eating ‘Gaddi’ food and occasionally, a walk through the trees , herding the sheep with Gaddi girls xD. I gained a lot of shepherding skills from them and even considered doing it full time like the guy in ‘The Alchemist’. But the summer always arrived and took them away.
Our region is still safe for girls. No one cares if they are still roaming around in the market after sunset. No one is concerned if someone offers a lift home, or any help. I’ve seen skeptical faces when a person is polite and kind. People of my village are kind from heart and they do seem naïve sometimes in the urban setup where you’ve to fake yourself. Love still happens the old school way here. We don’t believe in expressing our feelings by texting yet.
Don’t take my village to be some remote, illiterate and background place. Our district has a literacy rate of 90% +, a sex ratio of 1095 females per 1000 males and the highest road density in the country. Almost every family has at least someone serving in the defense services(mine has 4 generations). We have a Paramvir Chakra recipient(Sub Maj Sanjay Kumar) and an Olympic Silver Medalist(Sub Vijay Kumar, London Olympics) from our region. Young people here have just started dreaming and will definitely make a mark soon.
Yes, every place does have the exceptions and people do go the wrong way sometimes. But I don’t think we should use these miniscule errants to generalize a place. Recent movement of outsiders to our place have started bringing in a few mutations here and there. While it worries me on one hand but on the other, the possibilities excite me. For years, our region has lived in oblivion. It’ll be amazing to see how the Gen-X and Gen-Z mixes up with a world their parents had never seen.
I might have exaggerated a few things to add a poetic touch, you’ll have to visit by yourself to reach a conclusion.