meadows, wild and brooding, are the direction one’s daydreaming self takes on rainy days as overflowing drains and traffic jams inundate urbanity… for there’s a sense of space and life in those innumerable shades of green that provide no protection from the elements but wipe away all the mildew of the soul…

they are also quite deceptive though, these meadows … while some are rolling carpets of green with dollops of colour here and there that cajole one into a Wordsworthian state of mind, a canvas steeped in all the romance one can conjure… flowing waters, cascading thoughts, a few horses, the mind trots, raptors tracing arcs, soft orations on perspective, ungulates chomping furiously, ruminations on what’s eclectic…

then there are those ferocious ones, that look quite nondescript from a distance, but enter their realms and it’s like one of those enchanted forests from the folklore, a riot of vegetation inebriated by the glacial runoff that refuses to give way, raucous roots biting at the ankles and thorny stems snapping from all angles, camouflaged boulders ready to trip the unsuspecting, add a bit of rain or hailstorm and the journey from heaven to hell seems complete in a few minutes… thrashing and stomping across such treacherous beauty, one surmises that stumbling upwards is a thing after all…

but these are minor tribulations in hindsight, for the landscape always ends up soothing the wounds of gnarly trails… one drinks greedily, these meadowy vistas draped in monsoons, the sun may manage to come up for a while but the clouds are never far away… it’s dull and gloomy on the outside but deeply reminiscent on the in, a sunny meadow makes the heart soar, a cloudy one makes the mind introspect, from the itinerary at hand to elegies on what’s gone by…

musings on Himalayan meadows…