A Starry Night

Thousands of collisions, and millions of runs and at the same time the inevitable being of nothingness… It was so incredulous to have such a contrast between the inside of my mind and the truth perceived through the five senses, of my surroundings.

And yet this unlikely pairing brought such a sense of completeness which I couldn’t have felt elsewhere. Such was the magic of the moonless starry night at the banks of the ever rippling Pangong Tso.

The dry cold winds blowing across the vast expanse of the lake, tingling its waters and carrying the blessings of countless families to their loved ones felt strangely reassuring as they brushed past my face. Looking at the sky felt like someone from above just wanted to see the world through a million pinhole cameras.. just enough light to draw the silhouettes of the mountains and its inhabitants on the vast canvas of stretched barren land.

The sheer absence of any sign of civilization, the lack of its intrusion into this perfectly painted picture of night; Never before had I realized, dark could be such a mesmerizing colour; Never before had I seen such plenty in so less. If ever I wanted a momentary company outside my thoughts, I had to only put my ears to the howling gushes of wind and the ripples of the lake. They carried so many stories of the bygone ages and the promise of so many more to come — Silently confident of their own permanence and the fleeting nature of us random souls who came to seek different things at different times and mostly found them here. There would be moments when the wind and the lake would stop, so as to momentarily revere the proud mountains standing guard. And in those small moments of silence there would still be musicality.

Flanked by these gigantic custodians of history, it almost felt like being nestled in the palms of Nature. You could feel both intimidated and protected at the same time. You could just keep admiring her beauty even in the thriftiness of colours, texture and terrain. It was such a dichotomy that Nature seemed to be at her tempest and her Zen mode, both at the same time. And that zen was so overwhelmingly infectious that it could engulf you within no time at all.

Of all the places I had yet tried to find many things, that night, in sheer loneliness I had found them all…. Hope, stability, stillness of mind and yet flow of thought, strength of resolve and the strength to let go, rage and serenity; The confidence to move on and yet hold on to some things.

That night, that hour, I re-read myself and rediscovered too. And in that process figured out oneness, with ourselves and with Mother Nature.

My most beautiful moment. My Starry Night.