an incomplete retreat...

(I)

Everyone has a limit… Physical, Mental… For last few years I had been running wild, without any direction, living a fancy of unrealistic dreams; but still working my way through my profession which earns me my bread and butter, cereals and cigarettes. In an ethical sense I think I have done injustice to my profession in beginning years when I spent my time more on my philosophical growth than profession growth, reading my way through almost every book I came across (though not necessarily finishing it) when I should have been looking out for the growth opportunities and enhancing my technical knowledge to boost my “career”. But that’s past now.

Last year around same time I had retreated back to the mountains but for an entirely different reason. Mentally and physically ill, not sure of what I need to do or “why am I doing what I am doing”, at that time my struggle was – ‘to be or not to be’. I came out well in that struggle and next one year I spent contemplating on my life from a broader perspective and becoming more realistic, complaining less and letting life happen. My friend (or perhaps alter ego) joined me and that gave a different dimension to my life. I can’t imagine I could have come this far without his company. But again, life wasn’t meant to be stagnant and I needed to become an identity of my own, and this was a struggle in itself. So after one year of hard work and mental struggle I returned again to my village to recharge myself once again. This time I allowed it to happen. I didn’t push it like last time. I just let it happen. I could have pushed it but then I knew that the prison I want to break free from lies not in the place I live, the prison is right inside me and I need to break free from it here and now. The struggle of this retreat is – ‘how to be what I want to be’.

(II)

When I come to my village, which is situated in inner Himalayan regions of Himachal Pradesh, altitude ranging from 2000 to 3000 meters with sub-tropical vegetation, I not only return to an entirely different place from the development explosive plateau city of Hyderabad but also in an entirely different time. It is as if I have come back some 20 years from where I was. You cannot make living here with similar curriculum vitae as you can in Hyderabad. IT isn’t I.T. here; it is just ‘it’.

A place where air is still fresh and you can actually breathe in without any dangers of losing your lungs, a place where people know their neighbors and relations are still important, and a place where agriculture is still a part of everyone’s daily life. I retreat to a place where gaddi nomads live, a tribe which wanders with its sheep flocks, untouched by the 21st century or globalization, unaffected from the interest rates, government policies and taxes. (I think they qualify to be the mankind available in purest form today, as it was in the beginning. Living in own terms.)

To recharge my broken spirit, I retreat to my village. It gives me courage to move on further keeping itself at the back of my mind. I ask the existential questions to the mountains and they give me the answers. I sit looking at the clouds and the sunset which gives me strength. I sit silent just breathing the fresh air and that boosts my soul. I dig my land to grow vegetables and that brings back my instincts. This is the place where my roots are. This is where life actually lives, unlike the city where life simply exists.