Gateway to the Azure

As this decade draws to a close, this blog which started its journey from the very first year of this decennium in 2011, has been my public diary of sorts, ever since. Consequential would be a very mild way to describe these ten red-letter years for me, which saw me move out of my static lifestyle at Pune after a stay of sixteen long years, and cover almost half a dozen odd cities from Varanasi to Mumbai to Bangalore just to name a few, before settling down for the time being here at Panipat in the NCR, for my career following my higher education, this ledger capturing almost all the undulations along the way.

So, concluding this decennary alongside my family with a trip to Chail followed by Kufri, the second highest peak I’ve ever visited after Rohtang and the first snow-clad terrain my wifey and I have together stepped foot on, during this Christmas, just felt right. Although I am no stranger to ensorcelled views of raw nature, the sheer presence of the Kali Tibba Temple at the highest point near Chail, offering unobstructed views of the valley around and sweeping views of the ice-capped lower Himalayas, forming a gateway to the empyrean, was simply something out of a fairytale. For would-be wayfarers, Chail also has some other interesting sites including the highest cricket ground in the world and the palace of the erstwhile royal family of Patiala.

Kufri, on the other hand, offered us a lot of numero-unos, including our first yak ride and our first tryst shooting arrows instead of air gun pellets, not to mention telescopic views of the Kedarnath and Badrinath peaks, and a sore back as a memento for the days to come, thanks to the slippery melting ice on its surface. Having some extra time on our hands, we thought of taking a detour to Shimla, which I must admit was rather disappointing, with utter hubbub on the streets and an infrastructure utterly inadequate to handle the onslaught of post-lockdown tourists on top of the increasing local population of the city.

Anyhow, I guess it is time to bid this year as well as this decade a final ciao! With a new strain of the Coronavirus, even deadlier than the existing one, emerging in the UK and slowly taking stem in India and other parts of the world, who knows what the coming year has in store for us all... Nonetheless, wishing everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous new year, as we cautiously step into 2021, I would like to end with a catchphrase I had devised for the very first article on this blog, apt against today’s disquieted circumstances.

BE THE FORCE!!!...