One Day on Earth Grand Film screening at Delhi Public School Siliguri

After a really long hibernation, am back to blogging. I hope my friends will be eager to know as to what am up to. Its a long time (more than a year) that I have come back from Bhutan and am presently teaching here in North Bengal, Siliguri at Delhi Public School (DPS) for the past nine months that am in India. But, still the lingering fragrance of the Himalayas have not stopped casting a spell over me that is very tempting and perhaps as an after thought of my great work in my last school in Bhutan, Druk School (where I had shot a small documentary on Waste Management in this hilly country and uploaded the same on 10th October 2010, a date that will remain a legacy forever as on the same day movie makers from all walks of life in almost every country of the world came together and uploaded their short films on Nature and Natural Resources to be projected into a film, directed by one and only Kyle Ruddick.

I am proud to be a part of this great movement to save Mother Earth and also a co-contributor. I wont write more on this but let you browse through these websites to have look and feel for this incredible journey that we all had. Here are the links:

1. Help Document The World's Story - http://www.onedayonearth.org/

2. You can see my video during the 2010 issue here: http://www.onedayonearth.org/profile/ArunavaDas?xg_source=profiles_memberList and


Also proud to announce that my school, DPS Siliguri now figures in the list of confirmed venues for screening of the movie on April 22, 2012, this Earth Day. Do see: http://www.onedayonearth.org/screening See - India - Siliguri

Waiting for your comments.......!!!!!

The Himalayan Expedition – Part 4

This is the final part of the series about The Journey, Visit to an Old Friend, The Climb, Temple of the Snakes, A Folk Song, the Fire, and the Ganges

“Baagh-er Baacha, Baagh-er Baacha” (Tiger's cub, tiger's cub)

I woke up to the cry of Mr. Brahma, followed by a sudden halt of the jeep, on our way from Pantwari to Mussoorie.

Arjun was quick to respond. “Usko le chale kya?” <“Shall we take him?”>, referring to the tiger’s cub. He opened the back door and was about to get down from the jeep.  

Mr. Brahma stopped him. “Ruk! Uski maa saath mein ho sakti hai. Jeep se hi dekhte hain.”

Apparently, Mr. Brahma saw a tiger’s cub trying to cross the road, and which he later claimed, ran away near the bushes, seeking the vehicle’s light.

I was still trying to get over my weariness and sleep and understand what was happening. Recollecting the conversation that just happened, I asked, “Kidhar?”

“Udhar, jaadiyon ke paas.” Mr. Brahma replied, pointing his finger near some bushes, in front of the vehicle. The headlights of the vehicle were kept on, but the engine was switched off.

I scanned the bushes with my eyes and tried hard to get a glimpse of the striped beast, our national animal, which is now on the brink of extinction; but could see nothing. The vision was blurry. Then I realised, I had put my spectacles on the neck of my jacket. After wearing my spectacles, I continued my scanning. This time, in the nearby bushes also. But soon gave up, with the thought that the dark night or the tiger mom might have hid the cub from my prying eyes; or that Mr. Brahma was bluffing, just to wake us all up from the sleep, as apart from Mr. Brahma, on the wheels, none of us saw the cub.

Anyways, I soon made up my mind that Mr. Brahma might have seen the cub, and the cub, after seeing the moving bright lights, got afraid and ran to the bushes.

And being an optimist, made up the mental calculation that; Ya, due to all my environmentalist friends, few politicians and movie stars, and lot of public awareness, a new cub was born (maybe few months ago); and also with the undeniable efforts of the mama & papa tiger, who despite the hardship and cruelty of few humans who kill them for their skin, are positive enough to bring up a child and continue doing their duty to keep the generation and the species alive.

After the baby tiger incident, there was a new found energy in all of us, and we chatted and discussed about the tiger, the climb to the summit and life at IIM in general with Mr. Brahma.

Mr. Brahma and Arjun shared their stories of all the adventures and hiking that they have done together and the joy and enjoyment they have received from Mother Nature in return.

We reached Mussoorie at around mid-night, went to our hotel, had our dinner and retired to bed.

Next day, with an aching body, I woke up for a session on “Suggestions for Improvement of Tourism in Mussoorie”. As management students, we have to give suggestions to the India Hikes team and the hotel administration on how they can work on improving tourism in Mussoorie.

The teams comprised of the climbing team to Nag-tibba. Our team gave the suggestions of waste segregation, rain water harvesting and recycling of water, creating eco-tourism hotspots and developing green buildings.

Post this; we went for another team-building exercise near some hill in Mussoorie, which has Tibetan flags .

THE FIRE

Once we reached the place, we were assigned various tasks, where we have to use our common sense, presence of mind, survival skills, and help each other in completing the task. Here again, the team comprised of the climbers.

The first task was to prepare tea for the team.

Well although it may sound simple to those, who know how to prepare tea, but it is actually easier said than done, in the jungle.

Protocol we followed to prepare the tea:

• Time allocated: 45 minutes
• Teams are assigned different colours.
• Once inside the jungle, search for the coloured ribbon in trees, branches, rocks, etc.
• Direction for next location will be either above or below the ribbon. Identify the direction accurately (we got confused with Left and Straight, twice!). Fifth location is the destination.
• Once in the spot, search for the tea preparation materials, hidden somewhere. This was the tricky part. We took about 20-25 minutes searching for it. I found it later, hidden under the stones, covered in dry grass. The grass gave the clue.
• Once with the packet, light the fire, and prepare the tea. But with only 6 matchsticks, chances of mistakes are minimal.
• But thanks to numerous hours of Discovery Channel and NatGeo at the Idiot Box, we could light the fire with minimal efforts, using the dried leaves and grasses first.
• Another issue we faced was how much to prepare. So we poured almost the whole bottle of water (kept some to extinguish the fire) and negotiated within ourselves on the amount of milk, tea leaves and sugar we should put to make a decently tasty tea.
• After much effort, we prepared the tea and presented it to the India Hikes team for inspection.

While creating the fire, I did a bit of introspection on how fire has changed the course of human history. From cave man to the modern man, fire or energy had always played an important part in shaping our future. Agriculture (sunlight), Industrialisation (coal), Transportation and Aviation (coal and oil) and electricity are few of the marvels possible only due to energy in its various forms. This introspection, further builds up my confidence on the use of renewable energy sources as a driving force for sustainable development of human society. Any energy which is sustainable and non-polluting will definitely stand the test of time and emerge as a winner. Best example would be wind and solar. From drying cloths, sailing ships, drawing waters from the wells, to generating electricity, wind and solar energy has come a long way. And I bet, will be go-on-and-on-and-on…

After doing few more team building activities, we came back to the hotel.

For our last night at Mussoorie, we (Alok, Divya, Inaka, Indu, Jaitun, Keerthi, Puspa, Syrop and me) did some shopping and went for dinner at Kalsang Friends Corner, for some hot momos and noodles. As a souvenir to the tasty food of Kalsang, Jaitun drew an ambigram.

THE GANGES

The last day of the Himalayan Expedition was spent by going to Shivpuri from Mussoorie. It took us about over 2 hours to reach Shivpuri, from where started our white water rafting in the Ganges. The Ganges water was cold and soothing. From Shivpuri, our destination Rishikesh was 16 kms with about 5 rapids, including one Grade 4 rapid.

We formed our own group and boarded one raft.

Our raft guard was friendly and gave us few basic safety instructions and life jackets. After practicing paddling the raft, we started our journey. In our raft, we had Bijay, Harita, Indu, Jaipal, Montu, Puspa, Tony, one other guy and me. For most of us, except Jaipal and Tony, it was our first time, including our instructor.

River-rafting – After reaching Rishikesh (Oct. 21, 2011), with my batch mates from IIM Indore 

So it was necessary to pray “Jai Ganga Maiya” before starting our journey, which we hailed religiously. There were about 9 other rafts, all with IIM Indore participants, accompanied us. So we were bit optimistic about the ride as well.

In the Grade 4 rapid, few rafts toppled, tossing most of the crew members, while we rescued one batch-mate from one of the toppled rafts.

Our instructor informed us that now the water is smooth, and we can dive in the river. I was the first to jump in the laps of Ganga Maiya, as I was really excited and enjoying the whole rafting experience.

After few minutes, we reached the area where we can do a cliff jump. I took the opportunity to experience it but got bit nervous as I looked at the water below from the edge of the cliff… My heart was pounding and legs were shaky… I was in a state of mental blankness… Couldn’t decide on whether to move forward or give up the whole idea of jumping in the river water which was icy cold. Gaining bit of courage and lot of faith, I shouted “Jai Ganga Maiya” and took the plunge.

Note: This article appeared in the February 2012 issue of Expressions eZine, published online by iCare India.

The Himalayan Expedition – Part 3

This is the third part of a series about The Journey, Visit to an Old Friend, The Climb, Temple of the Snakes, A Folk Song, the Fire, and the Ganges

Dated: October 19, 2011

Participants of IIM Indore at the Nag Tibba summit (~10000 feet above sea level)

As I’ve said earlier, the most difficult part of mountaineering or trekking is descending, and more so is keeping it clean of plastics and other non-biodegradable wastes. Most of the ‘so-called’ disposable plates that we used while in Nag-tibba were collected and taken down to the valley on the back of mules by the local hikers, who accompanied us. The small plastic wrappers of the energy bars and candies that we were eating found a dump-yard in my new leather waist bag.

We started our descent at around 4pm. Since most of us were too tired or sore to carry our own luggage, we paid a small fee to a local guide to carry our luggage. Normally a mule is used for carrying luggage but since it was getting dark and most of the mules were required in the base camp, the gentle man agreed to it. Mr. O N Brahma (no relation), our guide and consultant of India Hikes, told us that he would join us later. So Amit, Alok, Divya, Puspa, Panda and I started our descent without any guide. We were able to manage fine, with steep descent and intuitive trails, when we met our luggage carrier. In a typical Pahari accent, he informed us that we were descending by one of the most difficult routes and that the easier route is through the sides of the mountain. Since we were already on our way down, we thought of continuing with the trail. While we were deciding on our next route of trails, our luggage carrier ‘vanished’ in front of our eyes, as he hurried down the mountain range (since he was familiar with the terrain).

Shortly after that we heard a voice from behind. It was Mr. Brahma. That was a relief, as we were kind of lost on which route to take. So was Amit. We could hear Amit’s voice though. Later we ‘discovered’ Amit enjoying the cold water of the mountain, from a villager’s stream. We took a few minutes of rest near the stream and then continued our descent. Meanwhile, it was getting dark and we had only 2 torches and another 6-7 kms of descent left. The remaining light of that day, Oct. 19, 2011, was used to climb down goat trails and a dangerously steep trail. The trails were so narrow (just enough space to place a single foot) and dangerous, that one wrong step and we would have fallen down into the valley in no time, all crushed to our deaths of course! So we were coming down very carefully under the leadership and guidance of Mr. Brahma. As darkness fell, we switched on our two torches. One was in front and the other one with the last person, as we were walking in a line. That downhill trek was in itself an adrenalin rush which we did by singing songs and joking and laughing (more so to overcome our fear). As we reached further below, Mr. Brahma told us that we need to stay close to each-other and not to panic or shout if we hear weird noises of the night; which in a way, informed us that we needed to pass a jungle.

For a long moment (so it seems), there was silence. I guess we were undecided on who should make the first sound, the jungle or us. This silence was soon broken when Mr. Brahma started humming a tune from an old Bollywood movie, a Kishore classic. He had an excellent voice: we were informed by Panda that Mr. Brahma had also sung for a few rock bands in Kolkata. Now the worry of the weird noises of the jungle was gone and overpowered with the desire to sing or hum along with our rock singer. Somewhere behind some animals was screeching, some birds were crying but we were busy in our pursuit of bettering our vocals with the singer.

After we crossed the jungle, it took us another hour to reach Pantwari. Arjun, our driver, and Mr. Brahma’s company for most of his expeditions, was waiting for us. Like a hungry pack of wolves we had our snacks and loads of tea in Pantwari, before we started our ride back to Mussoorie.

A FOLK SONG

Mr. Brahma took to the wheels at around 8 pm, as we insisted him to accompany and drive us back to Mussoorie. After about 5 minutes into the drive, the singing session started again, but as none us of had much energy left, after walking about 13 kms and descending over 5000 feet, we resorted to Arjun’s music system in the vehicle, which had a mix of Hindi and Garhwali songs. One Garhwali song in particular caught my attention. Although I heard the language for the first time, I realised I understood the lyrics of the song quite well. The song may not be a folk per-se, but the originality of the song cannot be denied by history itself. The song is “Na Kata Taun Dalyun” sung by Nar endra Singh Negi. The mean ing of the song is “don’t cut the trees, friends, don’t cut the trees”. And how history cannot deny that the modern Chipko movement was started by the brave women of Garhwal, and I suppose this particular song is a tribute to these brave women.

After about half an hour of music, when we were all about to go to sleep, Mr. Brahma suddenly shouted in Bengali “Oye Saala, Baagher Baacha, Baagh-er Baacha” and our vehicle came to a stand-still with a screech.

Song: “Na Kata Taun Dalyun” by Narendra Singh Negi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-4hCp1ynRk

(to be continued…)

Note: This article appeared in the January 2012 issue of Expressions eZine, published online by iCare India.

The Himalayan Expedition - Chapter 2

This is the second part of a 3 part series about The Journey, Visit to an Old Friend, The Climb, Temple of the Snakes, A Folk Song, the Fire, and the Ganges

“KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!”

As I knocked on the door of Mr. Ruskin Bond’s house, I was greeted by a voice, followed by a familiar face. Even those who’ve never met him know he’s a gentleman and a very humble person. I guess the child in him is still alive and kicking. We chatted for about 15 minutes, where we discussed our mutual interest in books, bits of Hindu mythology (e.g. the meaning of my name), etc. I also complimented him on his collection of books. Time seemed to fly past and when I looked at my watch and it was already 6 pm. With a heavy heart, I bid farewell to him, and wished him good health. He wished me good luck on my endeavours to go beyond the ‘gunas’ (you might want to Google the term ‘Gunatita’).

As I reached my hotel, my friends we all getting ready to go out for dinner at the famous ‘Lovely Omelette Centre’ in Mussoorie. I joined them, and we headed out to eat the cheese omelettes. Post dinner, I made a few last-minute food purchases for the trek the next day. One of the things that I purchased was “Yak Cheese”, a tasteless, hard and solidified cheese made of Yak milk. From my previous experience, I had found Yak cheese to be a very useful food during trekking, as it gives tremendous energy. After the purchase, I went back to the hotel where we had another briefing about the trek and were reassigned a new group. My team consisted of team leader Narendra, Amit Bhil, Synrop, Prateek, Chanakya, Manmit, Prabhu and myself.

THE CLIMB

As per the course requirement, we were supposed to climb a hill. The locals call it Nag Tibba, which is one of the highest peaks in the lesser Himalayan range, standing at about 10,000 feet.

We started for Pantwari from Mussoorie (about 60 kms) at 9 am, three hours late from our scheduled departure. Luckily I got to board the trekker and not the bus. I was accompanied by Kim, Divya, Pushpa, Indu, Keerthi and Prabhu. We completed the journey, replete with a winding ride and scenic beauty all around us, in about two and a half hours. Once we reached the base, i.e. Pantwari, we were told to be with our newly assigned group mates. After we had had our breakfast of oat meal, eggs and tea, we were given instructions for the climb. A packet lunch was handed over to us. There were 6 groups in total, and we were the last group (Team 6) to start the climb with a difference of 25-30 minutes between each group. The instructor, Mr. O M Brahma (no relationship with the writer), told us that the team that reaches the summit first will win.

We started our climb at around 12:40 pm. From our base, the Nag Tibba point is about 9 kms, with goat tails and less travelled roads. We were told to follow our instincts if we got lost, but needed to maintain a distance of 30-50 meters between groups. We might cross a group, but could never leave any team-mates behind.

The first 100 meters was an up and down slope, but I got bit exhausted while walking the trail. We left Team-5 behind in the first 100 meters. Due to this initial triumph, we missed the narrow trek on our left and instead took a right. We travelled the vehicle trailed road for about 1 km, when we meet the Team 4, consisting Tony, George and others. We thought that we were on track, but while interacting with the villagers, came to know that we came the wrong way. So we travelled back again while Team 4 took another route, and searched the narrow trek that we were supposed to take.

From that point, the climb was steep and getting difficult. With boulders and rocks in the trek route, I was finding it difficult to get a grip, but somehow managed to do just fine. My backpack was heavy as I was carrying loads of food and water. Thankfully, my team leader swapped his bag which was lighter with mine. Post that, I got a bit of enthusiasm and inspiration to climb and not let my team mates down.

There was lack of water in the hills, so we drank whatever we carried, and after that we filled up from the village well. The villagers were kind enough to let us use their well and help us with directions. The well water was very sweet and rich in minerals. After drinking it, a new wave of energy swept within our team, and we went gung-ho to master the summit. We climbed quite fast in order to leave behind few more teams. At a short distance, after taking very little rest, we saw another team going just ahead of us. While we tried to move ahead of them, we saw that all the other teams were just ahead of us, along with few of the trekkers from India Hikes team. The trekkers (locals) told us to take some rest and have our packet lunch, and that our basecamp for tonight is just half to an hour climb ahead. Two more teams were yet to reach the site where we were having lunch. The final league of the climb was very competitive as all the teams had to start at the same time, and the winning team needed to have all its members in the basecamp. With hard work and heightened spirit, our team climbed the very steep hill and about an hour later, became the first team to reach the basecamp, with all the members. We celebrated the moment vociferously.

Later Mr. Brahma joined us with the rest of the teams, and after resting for a while, briefed us and showed us how to build a tent. We built our tent, but because of the slope, couldn’t get a proper location.

Post those activities, and a few photographs later of the setting sun, we sat down for our bon-fire and reflection session. After the dinner, we retired in our tents with weary and tired bodies. The weather was very cold and I wore about 3 layers of clothes to protect myself.

TEMPLE OF THE SNAKES

After waking up at around 7 am, and having a quick breakfast, we started for our trek to the Nag Tibba temple and the summit. Nag (Snake) Tibba is an ancient temple and the villagers come there to pray to the Nag devta (God) for protecting their harvest and cattle. From the base camp, it is only 3 kms, but a steep climb.

I was the last to start the trek for Nag Tibba along with Mr. Brahma and Divya. Mr. Brahma taught us few breathing techniques to be used for high-altitude trekking, and told us to climb at our own pace, enjoying the scenery around. Due to the fast climb the previous day, my right knee was paining severely, so I had to take a branch as a support. With slow paces, we reach the Nag Tibba temple at around 10 am. After visiting the temple and seeking blessings from the Nag devta, we continued our trek to the top of the summit. Pushpa, Amit, Alok, Jaitun and Panda joined us for the final climb. The most enthusiastic among us was Amit, who in a playful way, was selling tickets in his imaginary vehicle to transport us to the summit. Limping for most of the last climb, I, along with my other friends, reached the summit at around 12 pm. After spending some time in the summit, clicking few photographs, Alok showed me the tip of a distant mountain covered in ice. The whole panoramic view was beyond what words can describe.

After about an hour in the summit, we started our descent back to the basecamp. Climbing down the hill is more difficult than climbing up, and I learnt it with an injured right leg. While coming down, Amit declared that he had lost his mobile’s SIM and that we would have to revisit the temple again. After some 15 minutes of searching near the temple, Amit finally found his SIM near the temple.

At around 3 pm, we reached the basecamp, only to realise that most of our friends had already started the descent, and another group of friends, who started the climb early morning for the basecamp, were about to reach. After having a light lunch, we started our descent.

(to be continued…)

Note: This article appeared in the December 2011 issue of Expressions eZine, published online by iCare India.

The Himalayan Expedition - Chapter 1

This is the first part of a 3 part series about The Journey, Visit to an Old Friend, The Climb, Temple of the Snakes, A Folk Song, the Fire, and the Ganges.

As per our academic requirements (a 4-credit course), we were supposed to go for some kind of leadership and team building activities: essentially an excursion. So it was decided by our PGP office that we go to Mussoorie, a hill station in the state of Uttarakhand. About 100 participants from our institute were assigned to go to this place.

I was particularly excited about going to Mussoorie because until then, the farthest that I have been in the Northern part of India was till the North Campus of Delhi University, that too some 11 years ago. Having spent most of my life in the Northeast and Southern India, I was excited that I will be going farther and viewing the Himalaya, up close and personal. Also, the mountains have some magical power that be- witches me whenever I see them. I always feel the urge to climb that and take a view from the top of that mountain, maybe because I was born in the hilly state of Manipur. And the hope that I will be seeing lot of mountains and hills in Uttarakhand further increased my excitement to go there.

THE JOURNEY

So we formed a team of 10 people (all friends) and booked our ticket in the Indore-Dehradun Express, a direct train. Our team comprised Nitin (our group leader), Ashwin, Divya, George, Inaka, Kim, Pritom, Synrop, Tony and me. We were lucky to get the tickets, as it is a bi-weekly train, and rush during the peak season is relatively high. We boarded the train on the afternoon of Oct. 15, 2011 in the AC Tier-II compartment. Most of our fellow passengers were travelling till Haridwar, to take the holy dip and perform other religious activities in that city. The train pantry, for obvious reasons, served us vegetarian food during the entire course of our journey. After we settled in our berths, Tony took out the UNO cards (UNO is a coloured card game wherein the player’s objective is to lose the cards in his/her hand. The one, who loses the cards first, wins). For the most of our journey we were eating, playing UNO, chatting, sleeping and again playing UNO. It was during one such game that we realised that we’d be reaching our destination soon.

From Dehradun, Mussoorie is an hour’s drive, yet we reached the city at around 10 pm after having reached Doon at 7pm. We had our dinner of Momos and Chowmein in the town and walked towards our hotel, Mussoorie International. The hotel is located in the Mall area in Mussoorie. Our briefing for the Expedition was supposed to start after lunch the next day. So we retired to bed at around 4 am, after settling down. Since I was excited about my trip, I could hardly sleep and woke up at 7am. I thought of taking an early morning stroll near the hotel, but saw the terrace and climbed there instead. From the terrace, during the clear sky of early morn, I could see the tip of some Himalayan mountain covered in snow. This was the first snow sighting for me. I was thrilled. I started a conversation with a fellow watcher who happened to be Mr. Srinath, the consultant from India Hikes, who would be our trainer for the whole expedition. (It is worth in- forming my avid reader that India Hikes organised the expedition for our institute.) The 5 day programme (Oct. 17-21) included trekking to an altitude of ~10000 feet, team building exercise and water rafting at Rishikesh. I got to know about the details of our expedition from Mr. Srinath.

Post my conversation, I met Pritom and Alok. All three of us sat down for another game of UNO till the breakfast was served. Post breakfast and after freshening up, Synrop and I went to see the town. We went to the Aquarium in Mussoorie, which despite being small, holds some exotic varieties of marine life. There was a fish in which the name of Allah was naturally inscribed, another having the symbol Aum or Om. After that we went for shop- ping. Then we came back to the hotel for lunch. After the lunch, Ms. Sandhya, one of the Co-founder of India Hikes, along with Mr. Srinath, briefed us about the whole expedition and re-distributed all 100 of us into different teams. We were told to come up with business problems that we have identified for Mussoorie by 8pm. After the briefing I went to catch up with some sleep. Barely about an hour later, I woke up, and with some hesitation, dialled a number. The number was of someone whose name would be familiar to all, especially book lovers.

VISIT TO AN OLD FRIEND

While coming back from the morning shopping spree with Synrop, I saw a book stall, Cambridge Book Depot; that showcased the latest collections of Ruskin Bond’s book. I purchased Mr. Bond’s first and the latest book, namely The Room on the Roof and Secrets. Looking at my enthusiasm for Mr. Bond’s book, the store owner started a conversation with me. On my enquiry about getting Mr Bond’s autograph, he told me to come on a Saturday. I told him that I won’t be staying that long, but need Mr. Bond’s autograph, he gave me his residence phone number and asked me to call him in the evening. After taking my afternoon nap, I dialled his number at around 5 pm and asked for an appointment, so that I can get his autograph in my newly purchased books. Mr. Bond told me to come before 6 pm, as he will be going out for dinner after that. I hurried myself to get ready, when Ashwin came to know about my little trip to Mr. Bond’s house. Ashwin was also excited to go along with me, but due to some work, couldn’t come. Instead he went with me to the book store and purchased a copy of The Room on the Roof, and handed it over to me, to be autographed by Mr. Bond.

I took a taxi from the taxi- stand, near the market and asked the driver to take me to Ivy Cottage, the dwelling place of the author. After about a 15-minute drive, the driver stopped the car, and told me that we had reached Ivy Cottage. My heart started pounding, when I realised that I have reached my destination, and very soon I would be meeting the Sahitya Akademi and Padma Shri awardee English author. With small steps, I climbed the stairs of Ivy Cottage. Led Zeppelin’s song, Stairway to Heaven, was playing in my head, when I reached the door. Being nervous, I searched for the calling bell, only to realise that it is not there, or maybe I couldn’t see it. Then I thought for a few seconds on what to do, whether to knock the door or call out. I decided to knock the door. But then again, my mind was playing tricks on me. My mind was questioning me, how much to knock, how loud to knock, how many times to knock, etc. etc. I shut my mind out, before it could play the song Knocking on Heaven’s Door, and gently knocked thrice.

(to be continued…)

Note: This article appeared in the November 2011 issue of Expressions eZine, published online by iCare India.