Coming back home and leaving it gives a strange feeling...somehow the increase in the flow of adrenaline is equal in both the cases...former out of excitement and the latter with anxiety. When I came back to Srinagar from Delhi in mid May, I was excited...had romanticised the beauty of Kashmir like never before...drawn visual pictures of Dal, the sun set at Boulevard, the magestic Chinar trees, the flowing water, the fresh air, the crude markets, the narrow lanes, the simple people and my home!...It wasn't the same before.
I have walked pass the Zero bridge above the Jehlum river many times before as well but there is something different now...something inexplicable...something mystic.
I keep looking at the river as I walk...the trees surrounding it from both sides...the half empty houseboats...children peeping out of it...and the horizon! The sky seems to blend into Jehlum as if making love to it...so pure, so beautiful it is!
As I walk back home smelling the dust kicked by my feet into the air and feeling the slight caress of the breeze, I look at the same trees, the same water, the same sky, the same houseboats with the same undying enthusiasm everyday.
The old Chinar tree on the way casts a speckled shade...how magestic...how huge!
Kashmir looks all the more beautiful now in all it's shades...more beautiful now when I have to leave than when I came...
