Gracious people of Hills

Seems so near when thinking today ,the beautiful faces and lovely smiles of people in Chamoli.
                                       

Loads with smiles

Smile It was really astonishing for me, people smiling amid hardships of daily life. a very frequent sight was women carrying 30-40 kg of grass on their backs and climbing with that heavy load to their villages. the worth mentioning thing is " the radiant smile" which you receive when you look at them ,even with that load on their backs.

         One evening I went out for a walk near the river,children were playing there they easily sensed that I was not a native of there. My welcoming smile invited them and soon I found myself flooded with lots of questions. The only thing children were aware of, as career was either joining army (if boy) and becoming a teacher (for girl).Everything was so untouched by the complexities of city life, what we experience usually in the name of modernization. I remembered saying of J Krishnamurthy "where there is choice there is no freedom" . and seriously these children didn't have many choices.

        Not many of them knew about internet.,a strange thing at place where newspapers reach after 1-2 days normally.(and many times even later if roads are blocked due to rains, or some other  miss-happenings).
       It was a different world altogether.Markets( tiny ones if u say so!!) gets closed by 9 pm one could hear leopards and foxes roaming in the marketplace, after then.
       I loved my daily travel to villages in the morning. It was like nature changing shades everyday with the weather. The hills ,trees and the river seemed new every morning. The road curved like a snake and coursed parallel to the river.

Back to thought-o-sphere

       Its my observation which may or may not be true ,that the frequency of thoughts are much less than normal at such calm and serene places. Whatever chaos prevailed in my life in those moments stopped bothering here.As I know perhaps the number of thoughts are thrown in thought-o-sphere around us is reduced with the number of people constituting that layer of thoughts....................!!!!
                                       

                                      

chamoli experiences.!!!!

smowfall in january on nearby hills.

besides the river in chamoli

thanks baba for asking me to write something about my stay and the prevailing health conditions  in chamoli.
                              today sitting in my room cosily, i shiver when i remember the cold weather of hills. when  ashish and i first left for chamoli , we were not really sure as to how many days we would be able to stay there. but i starting getting excited when roller coaster ride of hills started  after haridwar.
                             the scenes were extremely breathtaking.  straight ,high rising mountains with alakhnanda river coursing in a snake like fashion at the foot hills. the air started getting fresher and the river more adolescent, as we ascended the hills. i was imagining about the place we had to reach , thinking how much the population would be. the first populated spot was known as devprayag, followed by srinagar, than karnprayag , rudraprayag and finally chamoli. each prayag meant union of two rivers.
                              i felt like smiling on the irony of life ,as me going to hills for working ,who has always feared heights since childhood. these are the moments when i ask  myself as to would i have any regrets if i die right there. the answer came 'no'. and i was quite relaxed.
                              from haridwar the journey took almost eight hours . by the time we reached chamoli it was almost dusk and as soon as we reached our guest house it started raining. what a wonderful welcome!!!.

i stood at the door of my room staring at the hills in front and marvelling at the serenity and beauty of the place

beautiful chamoli

birthday girl

today when i reached my scanning centre, a patient was waiting and only one girl was available at reception. when i took the patient to the scanning room the ultrasound  machine was not yet on. i felt irritated and one of the girls from reception came rushing in ,apologising for being late that she had to go to a temple. i started thinking, who cares if you had to go to a temple. is this an excuse for being late? i tried to hide my irritation saying if any senior doctor was there she would have blasted everyone. at these moments i remember our CEO telling us to treat our staff politely. they are the ones working under us at much lower salary . they work as hard as us and yet get paid much less. anyways i started doing the scan and the event went out of my mind.
in the evening when i was busy on my computer making a report, the same girl stood beside me asking for a minute.
when i turned back she offered sweets to me saying it was her birthday. i was surprised at first than was filled with guilt recalling the morning event. but i thanked god the very next moment for being able to see myself and not express much of my anger, that morning. else i would have regretted for spoiling the special day of divya, the birthday girl.!!!!!!