Few more pages

15th May 2012.. Verdict is out..I wait impatiently for the attachment to download..the order I have longed for..transfer order to Delhi..happiness, joy at the expected news coming a notch earlier..phone calls.. to a husband who is unreachable as usual (being away watching IPL on that night switching off mobile), parents, in laws. Guess my mother in law was the happiest of all..which mother in law would love to see her daughter in law pack her bags and kid off to a far flung place and ' leave' her son ' alone' ( alone in the city of Delhi!!) for a year for the sake of a job..whatever the job might be.

Waves of joy coupled  with a tinge of loss for leaving the place and a feeling of not being able to deliver..deliver what the place deserved. May sound redundant and philosophical after the transfer order but then this one year apart from loving the hills and clouds..mourning for Delhi , husband, planning for leave, suffering bouts of illnesses, blogging at random..what did I do!! Strange question..I did discharge my duties, did what I was supposed to do..and I would have done same in Delhi too,do what I am supposed to do. Then..just an excuse to sigh and get philosophical, my husband would have quipped at once, ' Getting all sad and melancholy is kind of your hobby, pack up your bags and rush off from that place'

I am going to do the same. Pack my bags and flee. Yet I know I have not been honest or not been able to be honest to these hills I claim to love, to the girls who work so hard. Yet I know the seat I hold in my office, the salary and respect it draws I should have been able to do a lot more than just what I am supposed to do. Apart from getting aircraft safely on the ground from my tiny tower, indulging in office gossips, imparting a few english lessons to a part time plumber, being sympathetic to local young office girls, being the ' Agony Aunt' to my young Malayali colleague, sometimes the protective elder sister making her life a bit smooth in this alien land  there is hardly anything worthwhile I did...

The hills are now green , rains have started not the incessant ones ( global warming and all) but one shower almost everyday, and while the rest of India burns in the sweltering heat Barapani whisks off the rain drops from her body with a brush of her clouds.. This is bliss... cool breeze in the evening and the invariable chill in the wee hours of morning.. The brush of green has painted the landscape in all shades, youth at its best, beauty radiating from the hills just enough for a long breath to escape..the hills did not get their due nor its people from ages, wanderlust travellers being beckoned ,enchanted, loved and then they move on leaving these hills for  greener pastures.

I would go back soon very soon, doing little for this place, little for the hills , nothing for its people. I would forget this land as a fling, a passing phase and this land..would bid me adieu with her open arms , would welcome other wanderers, other souls trapped in this exile, love them, caress them and send them back happily after a year.

Barapani Diary coming to an end..tale of our discoveries..me discovering Barapani and Barapani discovering me.. few more pages..fewer readers..