Enthralling Trails

“ Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey. ”   Vera Nazarian The soft tune of the mobile ring broke the profound silence. My sister  answered the phone in a low  voice. We could hear her assure the caller that my father was truly at peace then and that he could go to Kerala for his holidays. We understood that it was Prabeesh, the male nurse from Red cross who had been a help for my father. Memories del uged as we remembered the day he was appointed. He was just in his late teens, lean, bony and shy. He was trained in a few basics of nursing by Red cross society in Kerala. It was his first job and we wondered whether he could manage my father who was in poor health. His job was to be a companion and look after my father who was gradually losing his muscular coordination due to neuro muscular degeneration.  The worst part was my father who could never sit at home, lived a sedentary life. He was intellectually safe. He had slowly b

Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us."   —   Marianne Williamson A strong nudge made me turn ind ignantly only to find a little girl looking at me serenely. She was roughly nine years old and had a little boy accompanying her. She was  dark with gleaming eyes, wearing a long  skirt and blouse, her curly hair left open with an oran ge mark on her forehead. The boy was younger than her, untidily dressed in a white shirt and coloured shorts. They were holding a flat plate with a few idols of Gods and Godesses in it. I nodded my head in disapproval and moved ahead. It pained me that these little children found pride in begging, and giving them money would turn them into scrupulous vagrants. They did not mind it, and walked briskly down slope on the mall road in Manali which  was filled with tourists who were gay and debonair. We were put up at hotel Kanishka which was just half a km away from mall road in Manali.  The mall road has a large central clearin

  "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."   —   Friedrich Nietzsche T he street was overflowing with people, it seemed very narrowly  laid in the vast spread of greenery. It was vacation time for the kids in North Ind ia , in South Ind ia the schools reopen in the first week of June. People love being at Shimla in Himachal Pradesh in summers, it was the summer capital during the British rule, it has a pleasant weather being a hill station. There were people of all age groups. Every one seemed rich and  debonair as they made their way towards an opening sporting two lifts. One has to pay rupees ten to go to mall road in Shimla via this lift. The lift carries eight people at a time, moves  half way up and then we need to walk through a by lane to enter another lift which carries us above the hills on a steep mountain road called the mall road which has several small shops lined on either ends. There are a few diversions which lead us to clearings where