Today I am going to narrate to you an experience. A story about ghosts; not of people but ghosts of places that do not let you leave.
Shoja has always been hidden; right in the heart of few of the recently blown weekend getaway destinations: Jibhi & Jalori which shadows it. This is of those few weeks of monsoon, where every emotion of nature is heightened. I call it the sky’s caprice. It lasts no longer than the sensation of love at first sight but a lot more frightening.
"Dozens dead as floods, landslides hit India’s Himalayan region", "Himachal Pradesh floods: 20 dead in 48 hours, over 1,000 roads blocked.", "Dead, Roads Cracked, Overflowing Beas Washes Away Portion Of Highway"
While the nation, or at least those in proximity, friends and family were subjected to these flashing headlines for days; there were young adults like me, mostly travellers and vagabonds, trying our best to stay sane in a deranged environment.
No internet, no connectivity to a single soul outside the quaint village of Shoja.Was it truly a bliss, even when it was at the cost of heartbeats of people who store their love in you? It could touch a little sensitive aspect of the relationships we held in our lives in that moment. It truly demanded composed thinking.
July 10
“Today marks the second day of being held captive by the nature's fury, in this erratic village.” I wrote. The light had stopped creeping in through the distant window in my dormitory. I woke up & I instantly collected myself, before I succumbed to the reality.
What was reality? What was shaping my reality?
Let us try to form the picture of a common room a small house which serves as a cafe for homely people. There are hand-carved and raw wooden tables, a chaotic little dog, coffee mugs with vibrant carvings on its walls, the colour of the wooden walls is lifeless pink; can you imagine this? Now, add a couple dozen people; all afraid, most of them quiet and occupied with their thoughts. Their eyes occasionally meandering on the ceiling, on the mist outside which composed a dense white wall separating you from relief. A wall, which allowed you to get through it; a wall, which was thick enough to never really end.
“Laiba had a bad day.
Ayush managed to do quite a lot.
Nitu liked her soup even more so today
and Suchi's sore throat just won't go away.
Nikita told me to keep a poker face.
Anushka couldn't light two lighters at once, one was faulty yes
and Shatakshi had a few movies downloaded.
Saurabh, his stories and questions kept Keshav and Pranita engaged”
I still remember the grim look on everyone’s faces, especially when the dusk was settling in. The moment we left ourselves unoccupied, the fear crawled in. Every single soul waited for some good news delivered by Jatin (he runs the cafe, Ghar 1964), much as a spy delivers the content of a letter he ate, by heart.
‘the fear is creeping in
through the backdoor,
through the front porch,
and through the hands of people.’
I had not sent a call home since 5:35 pm on the day before or somehow given any updates of my well-being. Every breath was a privilege; food was a privilege and so were cigarettes. I typically find the presence of smoke unpleasant, but in that moment, being surrounded by the scent of cigarette smoke evoked a feeling of human connection. It brought me comfort to realise that I wasn't alone.
Days passed by and the mist prevailed.
The moment I was alone, when those different faded conversations ceased to reach my ears, when I dreamt that I was all that was left; I felt truly afraid. I was being driven into madness. As Tolstoy famously wrote in Anna Karenina, “Those whom god would destroy, he first makes them mad.” Truly everything around me was set for destruction.
“A million men will die
and a million snowflakes will fall upon their graves.” - Emily Dickinson
July 14
“Sometimes your day is not going well. every little thing that goes wrong acts like a stone thrown into an active volcano. You want to cry out loud. you want to allow yourself to shatter, into pieces, into sparks but you refrain yourself. You put a mask on and play a foolish game. You succumb to the toxicity. You start pushing yourself until you hear your heart crack; and still, you are not allowed to shatter entirely. You repeat this over and over again until you become capable of barely staying away from the rock bottom, mere millimeters away and finding solace in that.”
How I was truly feeling was inversely proportional to the number of people around me. I felt burdened by this duty to not let anyone shatter; let alone myself. In the midst of the calamitous reality, I found myself compelled to embody the cheerful presence that elicited laughter and tried to inspire love for everything that was falling apart around us. However, this internal struggle took its toll on me. It still does. They haunt me. The Ghosts of Shoja.
In the midst of all this chaos, Ayush made me listen to a song called “What colour is your raindrop?”. I always refer to this when I am narrating this story to an audience. Amongst every other thing which went downhill (like literally the rocks and trees that fell), there were yellow moments where I experienced real joy and a sense of belonging like no other place. These yellow moments, amidst the turmoil, became the threads that stitched us together as a community, reminding us that even in the bleakest of times, there is always room for a little sunshine.
I never believed in hope but I will always believe in experiences.
P.S. Context: in July, Himachal Pradesh got it by massive floods which cause landslides causing insane amount of devastation. A lot of people died. A lot of house vanished with the river. Situation is much better now; however we still think of & pray for all the lives that were lost.
If you ever want to view pictures from my time in Shoja to visually form an idea, feel free to head over to my instagram @notkartikk . I have a specially curated highlight for Shoja.
Kudos! Manifesting yellow days for you.
