When you see
something big, it’s just a sight of something that consumes more space. But
when you see something magnificent, you realise where you stand and what you
really are. This is something magical that happened to me as well. There are
mountains, there are big mountains and then, there are huge mountains. My
expedition to the Mars of India led me to a very powerful realisation of how my
existence is almost negligible in this vastness called the Universe. My camera
was a shame for capturing such beautifully ruling landscape which, in all its
mightiness, impresses its power upon you. In the little that I could really
capture while bumping in the moving bus, the splendour of the trans- Himalayas becomes
a bit evident. A small dot on those loopy roads, set amidst the wide
mountainous landscape, is actually a huge truck. A truck, which is considered
the biggest thing on the road in the cities, had no identity there in the hilly
deserts. So, where did I stand? Who am I? What is the importance of my
existence to the world? I was just a speck of dust, or may be even minuter than
that for what stood in front of my eyes. There were fort-like formations created
by nature on those gigantic mountains. Somehow, nature had its way to express
that it is the most powerful of all on the earth. It was nature who created and
destroyed those forts, decided whether a passer-by should be allowed into its
wilderness or not and might as well, became the master of your destiny in that
lonely, deserted, wickedly silent atmosphere. Now that I am back to the fast
life of the cities, I realise how free I was there in the dry darkness of the
open grounds which changed colour from morning till dusk. Pinks, blues, greens,
browns, blacks, purples; there was nothing shady, nothing colour-filled,
nothing at all, yet, there was every colour, alive, like it had never been
before on the canvas. There was no life on that isolated planet, but everything
seemed lively and happy in the deadness of the seclusion. From the deadliest
routes, to the most beautifully unexpected roads on earth, I had tears in my
eyes as I left that parched heaven. Tears of joy, accomplishment and separation;
I got freedom in the breathless air; I got warmth of life in the cold desert.
