Discovering that I live next to the Reo Purgyil.
Yesterday around 5:30 pm, I went to a higher point near the monastery in the Nako village for selfies in the golden light about to disappear behind the western peaks along with the sun. As I was taking selfies, I noticed a high, snow-capped peak that I hadn’t seen before in my more than a week of stay in Nako. It was bathing in the golden light.
Today I looked up online and learned that it is the Reo Purgyil mountain, towering at 22,362 feet. Also that it is the highest mountain of the Himalaya in the state of Himachal Pradesh.
I had not seen Purgyil before largely because there are usually clouds hiding it and protecting its snow. And when you frequently see clouds whenever you gaze in that region, you don’t see the peak even on days when it’s visible. That’s what happened, until I happened to see it while taking selfies.
In this photograph, you can see Purgyil’s triangle face beyond the golden mountains and above my head in the shadow-selfie. It is covered in snow but looks partially grey from the little cloud’s shadow.
The Reo Purgyil mountain peak from the Nako village. Himachal Pradesh, India. September 2022.
Swimmer clouds.
Look at the clouds swimming along with fishes in the emerald-green lake of the village.
The lake is a dream placed at 12,000 feet. And the clouds are swimming in it. Swimming so good, swimming without getting wet.
Nako lake in the Nako village, Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh, India. September 2022.
Suddenly remembering a beautiful or intelligent thought that I missed to write down five days ago is my favourite magical thing about life.
For the sunlight I stay.
New home in a new village with new people surrounded by new mountains — and yet everything is the same, everything as wonderful as I make it to be.
I may be altered, but remain unchanged, remain forever who I am.
I’m in the Nako village right now. Initially thought to stay for a week but will be here for two. For the sunlight I will stay.
For the breathtaking golden light that falls on my face at 12,000 feet and on the face of the Reo Purgyil at 22,000 feet.
Cold on the mountain side.
A not-so-cold night five days ago. I open one of the large windows in my room in Kalpa and pull the curtain over it to prevent insects from drifting in.
When I go to the window after a while and pull the curtain away, a cold sensation passes through my hand. The curtain is warmish on the side facing the room but cold on the outside, the side facing the snow-capped Kinnaur Kailash mountains.
I want to live carelessly in a village in the Himalaya where today’s newspaper arrives tomorrow and tomorrow’s newspaper the day after.
Two delicious selfies.
In three days, I’ll be leaving my lovely Kalpa for Nako, for my ultimate journey towards the cold desert of the Spiti valley, a year after my visit to another cold desert: Ladakh.
As I’ll soon be inching closer on my bike towards the same kind of desert mountains, I wanted to share two watermelon selfies taken in August last year on the Leh-Manali highway, on my way to Leh from Vashisht.
A shimmering red slice of watermelon against the desert-yellow mountains of Ladakh.
It was a happy surprise, a gift from heavens when I spotted watermelons at a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere. I needed this, as I was exhausted from riding in the biting midday heat.
Selfie 1: The red slice posing for a selfie. Ladakh, India. August 2021. 
Selfie 2: The red slice posing for a selfie. Ladakh, India. August 2021.
Two secrets of a dark night.
Past midnight, no moonlight.
I’m standing at my window in Kalpa, looking at the expansive dark of the night.
There is no way of knowing where the mountain upon which I’m standing ends, where the valley with the flowing Sutlej begins, and where the Kinnaur Kailash mountains stand on the other side. All of it exists as one into the darkness, all of it is as unknown as the night. Exists but not known, exists in obscure secrecy.
Suddenly, I see distant headlights of a car curling towards the village, and realize the night is too black.
Suddenly, I remember there is a road etched all over this mountain, all over the dark night.
Too bad you’re too intelligent.
Turning out to be excessively and unnecessarily intelligent as you grow, when your upbringing and circumstances were not for it, is an illness. An ugly curse that lays heavy on your head. It’s annoying, it’s so lame. It’s depressing, it is depression itself.
How far have I come?
How far have I strayed?