Mountains make their own weather… they also, perhaps less acknowledged, make their own time… where durations are defined by degrees of experience rather than dances of gravity… there, more often than not, time is intensity, be it physical or sensory… mountains make their own time, I’m pretty sure, whether plodding through fresh snows or getting helplessly entranced by distant massifs…
I was doing the latter the last day of 2021, watching the sun set over that quintessential Himalayan panorama deep-seated into the (sub-) conscience of every resident of Ranikhet, and as the sun set on 2022 over a deteriorating AQI of Delhi NCR, the mountains came to mind… I spent the afternoon looking for avifauna in my favourite haunt of Thandi Sadak, mostly Kalij pheasants and woodpeckers but eventually ending up with a Blue-capped redstart, and as the light started to fade, rushed to the platform above Pathak Bakery to catch the sunset panoramas…
In my head there is a clear distinction when it comes to these Himalayan panoramas… Trishul is Ranikhet’s or Kausani’s, Nanda Devi is Mukteshwar’s and Panchachuli is Pithoragarh’s… that day, despite Trishul dominating the vista as usual, accompanied by wisps of clouds, ‘twas Panchachuli that was stealing the light, quite literally, the five congested spires fading beautifully into dusk with an impressive palette of pastels that I hadn’t hitherto seen or noticed… but there it was, kindling twilight, piquing thoughts…
That’s how they bend time, these mountains, panoramas seen a year ago seem like yesterday, memories of the alpenglow warming the cockles of one’s heart through the seasons… ‘tis no secret that gravity can warp space and time, but it goes beyond the realm of physics too… how we perceive time individually is also quite elastic… time passes slower when one thinks about time, else it flies when one is engrossed in something else… and sometimes, ‘tis a state of suspension, this luxury of looking at snowbound horizons, where time passes, yet seems still…
Musing on views of Greater Himalayan peaks, Ranikhet, Uttarakhand
