Warm Fellowship

“Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life.” ― R.A. Salvatore,

The lake glistened in the moonlit night, the trees stood nonchalantly while the majestic coconut tree bent downwards a long leaf as if it were greeting me. The vast expanse of land with the multitude of plants and animals was strikingly beautiful with the gleaming lights in the darkness. Every half a meter there was  a fluorescent light to give sufficient light to look around and move on. I looked at the muddy stretch hoping to meet someone as now the place seemed forlorn and abandoned. I walked a little, looked at the early morning sky beseechingly to see the sun rise. I heard a rustle and a groan in the hedges. I started running to meet my husband who wondered at the slackness in my morning walk.

It was 5.45 am on a winter morning, perhaps people preferred being at home. I gladly hastened my pace considering myself lucky to have a companion. Slowly people started pouring in. The platform used for yoga was being lit by the yoga teacher. The others joined and began their yogic exercises with chants. People sat in the playground and meditated. A few ladies walked briskly as they spoke to each other in low whispers. The people around in the pitch dark morning enthused exuberance in me. When I was a little girl, we fought for our space to study and to gain an independent space. I would study the texts, reading aloud disturbing my sisters who would keep hushing me to stop reading aloud. Sometimes my sister, a couple of years elder to me would also read aloud to make me understand the painful act realistically, but I would never surrender.I would raise the pitch of my voice greater than hers, and then the racket would bring my mother to send us to separate rooms, but the one who would have to sit in the kitchen would threaten my mother by confiscating a lot of goodies stored in the kitchen. My mother feared that and so would try to send one of us out in the garden to study. However in those days we would wait only to gain an independent space. We would run under the guava tree,  occupy the space near the rose bushes, the pomegranate plants or the backyard veranda to gain our own space. Since it was for a short time we loved the brief solitude but at dusk we all adored the joy of being together, of being cuddled in one room with everyone of us discussing our day. Perhaps they were the most beautiful days. We never minded the discomfort  then as it made us feel safe under the warm affection of parents and siblings. We had heard of small time burglars in our colony who jumped the wall and managed to sneak away with a few valuables from the houses in the colony. We all spent the night together comforting each other. As we grew we  all loved the liberties in a nuclear family. It meant a small family with greater space and a whole lot of comforts, no dearth for money and no place for the third person in our hearts. Some call it materialism or greed, conceivably we had paved our ways towards diffidence making us self centered. Possibly we have engraved our way towards abandoned path of loneliness.

I recollect our visit to Kufri in Himachal Pradesh. The place has a few clearings deep down in the valley where the villagers dwell. The rest of the place is a winding stretch high up the Himalayas, exquisite and abundant with nature, amongst tall Deodar plants(deodar Cedrus deodara de·o·dar (dē′ə-där′) or de·o·dar·a (-där′ə) n. A tall cedar (Cedrus deodara) native to the Himalaya Mountains)Wikipedia. I loved the solitude for I have spent most of my years in cities as bad as Mumbai where one does not have the space to himself for a walk. 

We stayed nestled on a huge mountain  cliff at Toshila Royal Retreat, the hotel indeed royal in their service.

The rooms faced untainted nature filled with mountains abundant in greenery reminding one of supremacy of the Almighty. The sunrise was as early as four in the morning while the sun set by seven in the evening. The rooms were on the floors above the office while the basement had the Dining, Billiards, Spa and many more. As we were leaving for a walk in the evening the security there warned us saying that the place is very dangerous with no people around and animals like bears on the prowl. He said the animals can hurl us in the valley which was several feet down. The very thought was scary. The people at the hotel were warm and made us feel at home,I walked a little ahead near the hotel and saw a number of monkeys descend down the trees to cross the road, a dog saw them and tried to bark, but was slapped hard by one of those monkeys. We rushed back to the lounge. A little later we were all invited to the basement to play Tam-bola (Bingo), sing songs with the help of a Karaoke machine and play games. We got an opportunity to know people from various places in India. After Dinner we enjoyed the campfire and casual talks. We stayed there for a couple of days, but we were safe,  protected and sheltered amidst nature. As we left we loved the fact that we were not lonely in this unknown place, we did live in a world with people to talk, share and treasure memories.

 “How we need that security. How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this. I need someone to pour myself into.” ― Sylvia Plath