Kalpana has not been in the Kumaon for a very long time. It’s the Autumn Equinox (or it was when I wrote this - on 22.9.22) which is a time to reflect on what is working and what isn’t. It isn’t working for me to be away from my cottage for so long. Why have I stayed away for months on end?
Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
I may tell you why, or I may not - depending on how extroverted I feel.
Kalpana has been in the UK (the United Kingdom and not Uttarakhand) and in the EU. Kalpana has whizzed between the two under the sea, in the Eurostar. https://www.eurostar.com/rw-en But Kalpana has not been to the Kumaon for far too long.
Hurried Selfie - but at least is isn’t harried
I’ve been brave about it. Pushed down feelings with philosophical statements along the lines of ‘It is what it is,’ and ‘there are other important commitments. Those tasks that had dragged me away and kept me tethered to Delhi at 47 degrees C, with Covid prowling outside. But I had to face the demons, both fiery furnace blasts and the chill possibility of Covid, and go out to attend to things.
I didn’t realise how much I was longing to be in the hills till yesterday. My car had started doing this mystifying thing which could be hilarious or alarming, depending on how neurotic I felt on that day. The doors made a locking (or unlocking) sound when I pressed down on the accelerator. It was quite unnerving having a staccato accompaniment, near my right shoulder, to the gentle pressure of my foot. Since a late monsoon complete with landslides made travel to the hills unlikely just yet, and the locking and unlocking, reminded me that a service was long overdue, I booked a car service, forgetting what I had in the boot of my car.
Sometime in late June, when the crisis blew over (more on that later), I’d planned to go back to the Kumaon for a short trip before whizzing off to the UK. The car was loaded with cottagey things needed there but the trip had to be abandoned, as more crises hit, and the car was never unloaded.
I jetted off, my cats boarded at Furry Barn and attended to crises in Germany. No, it was not a holiday. Apart from the time I spent with my daughter in the UK I was sorting out things. It was a Very Tense Time.
I jetted back to India and found my cats had thrived in spite of my absence and in fact, Rosie has learnt some manners and been initiated into the concept of gratitude.
It was only when I went to the mall and the Security Guard checked my car for bombs, as they do, that he asked me, tentatively, whether the box would remain in the car or did I plan to take it into the mall. I said I didn’t remember what was in the back. Politely he said, ‘Er rum, Madam.’ Let’s pause here for a moment to laugh at how incomprehensible it was to him that this Senior lady planned to carry a carton of rum into the mall.
I explained that the old cardboard box didn’t contain bottles of rum but books. He believed me but I could have opened the sealed box if he hadn’t. Considering this event, I should have remembered what was in the back of my car, but I didn’t. It was only when I reached the Car Service Center and opened the back that I remembered. What did I find?
Books were sorted and packed into empty rum bottle boxes. Fairy lights nestled in Sholapith flowers waited patiently to be strung up at the Cottage; spotlights on railings to throw light on the beams of my wooden room; new table mats in a shade of blush that I love; tiny Khadi glycerine soaps in jewel colours; hand-painted glasses from Kashmir; things lovingly bought for my home in the hills, as I waited to be able to go there again.
I’d forgotten about them, although I was vaguely aware and slightly troubled by the fact that there were things waiting in the back of my car, or that I was waiting, unable to fulfil my plans. When I opened the car for servicing and saw the shola flower fairy lights bought with such hope and anticipation tears pricked the back of my eyes. I have been parted from my cottage for far too long.
On this day of the Autumn Equinox, a day to reflect on where you need balance in your life, I think my balance will be restored by returning to my home in the hills. What conclusion have you come to about areas needing balance?