Timeless hills, fading memories
THE monsoon season morphed Shoghi into a mystical realm. Hills were shrouded in clouds, their peaks barely visible through the thick, rolling mist. Pine trees glistened with raindrops, and the earthy scent of wet soil filled the air. Streams swelled with rainwater, rushing over rocks and creating a symphony of sounds that echoed through the valleys.
Peter and I, our loose pullovers clinging damply to our bodies and our shorts splattered with mud, trudged to school along the rain-soaked paths. Our canvas bags, heavy with books, dangled from our shoulders as we splashed through puddles, our laughter mingling with the patter of raindrops.
The schoolyard, usually our playground, was now a series of muddy patches and slippery slopes. We embraced the rain, turning every corner into an adventure. We chased each other through the fog, our voices barely cutting through the thick air, and slid down grassy inclines, our joy as boundless as the monsoon clouds.
After school, our routine treat was a visit to Gyani Sweet Shop. The warmth of hot, crispy samosas contrasted sharply with the damp chill of the monsoon. Once a week, we eagerly headed to Sharma Ji’s Dhaba for a hearty ‘kadi-rajma chawal thali’, a meal that seemed to chase away the dreariness of the rain.
One monsoon afternoon, shortly after my birthday, I decided to treat Peter to a thali. The rain had paused momentarily, leaving the air heavy and the landscape shrouded in mist. I approached Peter with a grin, but he turned away, his face as stormy as the clouds. His sudden silence was like a clap of thunder, unexpected and jarring.
As school ended, our lives continued to remain diverged, each of us embarking on separate journeys. Decades later, amidst the quiet hum of technology, WhatsApp bridged the gap between past and present. My heart pounded as I typed the question that had shadowed my thoughts for years: ‘Peter, why did you stop talking to me back then?’
To my astonishment, Peter’s response came back as a gentle echo from a distant past. His puzzled reply, ‘I don’t even remember not talking to you,’ seemed to dissolve the mystery that had long haunted me.
In that moment, I understood something profound. Time had softened the edges of our grievances, transforming what seemed significant into mere whispers in the wind. The grandeur of achievements, the sweetness of happy moments and even the sting of sadness had faded into delicate fragments, scattered like mist in the mountains of our memories.
What once loomed large now rests in the gentle embrace of recollection, a reminder that the weight of today often becomes the lightness of tomorrow’s nostalgia.
