Trishul is the kernel of the Himalayan vista from Ranikhet… no other snowy massif imprints itself upon the psyche of the town than the venerable trident, it’s stoic gaze sweeping the ridges and valleys through the seasons… Shiva’s weapon the centre stage of a panorama that manifests a fierceness out of every element… averse to life within its own ramparts but cradling it downstream… a canvas of cultural motifs, annals of deep time…

Monsoons find the ranges mostly hidden from sight, sparring with the clouds to elicit their share of water… when the veil lifts, Trishul is the first to peep out… it’d been a while since I’d seen the peak in the rains, and when it graced the horizon as we were driving up from Gagas valley back into town, it demanded a furious hunt for vantage points twixt pines and electric wires…  

I find the view from other parts like the south-east side of the range rather disappointing, as the profile of the mountain spreads out (and it doesn’t even resemble a trishul) unlike the view from the south side one gets in Ranikhet or Kausani, where the mountain seems much more mysterious and alluring, resembling the top of an amphitheatre blocking the view of the stage below… patches of light and dark accentuating it’s sweeping arcs equally…

Now one among many, it was at its zenith during the early twentieth century… highest known, highest climbed, usage of supplementary oxygen… lost somewhere in the assemblage of other coveted summits, its prominence over the quaint cantonment remains, a constant among varying spheres of flux… ‘tis nostalgia, this peak, shaping the contours of a childhood, defining perspectives in adulthood, taking the sting out of cold winter mornings, laying ghosts to rest in salubrious autumn evenings…

Musings on the Himalayan panorama from Ranikhet, Uttarakhand…