Look at the mountains: Some say they are barren. Barren? It is a word too cruel to be used for mountains and the deserts. ‘Barren’ goes beyond the picture of an empty space: it speaks of an inability of fertilize... inability to sustain life. But today, geologists will tell us that mountains too have life: they are growing. Someone in our trek said that Himalayas is a young mountain and that it is putting on height little by little. I know that deserts too grow, eating into greenery. If mountains and deserts grow, aren’t they barren?
I enter a room of people taller than me, and I feel short. I enter a room of younger people, and I feel old. A glance at the mountains too gives me similar feelings. From the beaches lashed with waves and the surf, there is an all-imposing mountain standing tall and mighty. Why am I feeling so small and the mountain so great? That is because I have come to the mountains from a world of comparisons... a world wherein I have to evaluate, measure up, judge and tell my brain the magnitude of everything in comparison. Sometimes, my brain even attempts to compare the incomparable: the Himachal beauty with that of Shy Kerala! Up in some remote corner of Himalayas, I ask “God, Please show me how can I shut down ‘comparison’? Please show me beauty without comparison... beauty without competition... beauty without measuring up! ”
Photo location: On the way to Hampta, Himalayas.
