The Mountains Are Still Calling

Chronicles of a heartsick traveller yearning for the mountains

I am heartsick for the mountains. I am heartsick for the gentle breeze that sends chills down your spine, for the conifers that stand silent sentinel on the distant hills for bygone eras, for the rivers gushing down below with a rage, carrying with them the remnants of last winter’s snow.

I am heartsick for the sheep grazing on endless pastures, for the weak sunlight filtering in through the canopies of clouds overhead, for the mountain passes that wind through dangerous hillsides and precarious edges.

Once, I strove to be normal. Once, I wrote, I’d rather live a life of mediocrity and peace, than go all out; I’d rather live a quiet, fulfilling life than a loud one, peppered with unpredictability.

But normal isn’t enough anymore. Mediocrity does not satisfy me anymore. Waking up to my familiar four walls and my books make me claustrophobic. I cannot focus on my upcoming finals when my soul still yearns for the mountains.

I miss going to sleep in a strange bed and waking up not knowing what scenic views the morning would bring. I miss the few hours of sputtering WiFi we had to rely on. I miss being able to forget my phone, to forget about having to check my socials, to forget what the world was up to. I miss the harried breakfasts, the last-minute packing, the hustle and bustle of the moment of departure as our luggage is loaded back into the bus — the shouts, the exclamations, the anxiety as someone realizes they had misplaced the gas cylinder.

I used to watch Instagram reels and yearn for places unattainable. These days, I watch my own videos and mourn for places already explored.

The precarious hanging bridge of Hunza, its wooden planks set wide apart, is no longer a dream, no longer a wondrous thing that I marvel at through Instagram reels — I have crossed it, first with uncertainty and fear, then with renewed confidence and excitement. The zip line next to it, from one river bank to the other, is no longer terrifying — it was a daring adventure that I keep retelling, that I would keep retelling, forever.

The snowy, slippery trek that led up to the peak of Ganga Choti tested my endurance and my courage like never before — and if not for my friend’s friends, I would not have made it to the top. It takes one small misstep, one embarrassing stumble, at the beginning of a dangerous hike for you to lose all of your confidence… because, before then, engulfed in the adrenaline of the moment, you think you can never fall.

Often, we’re caught up in nostalgia for bygone days. We relive moments that bring us joy, and we re-imagine uncomfortable scenarios to make them seem less unpleasant. Often, we are like the rivers that carry with them the wrath of a forgotten winter — we are rivers that carry with us the wrath of fading memories.

But what I miss the most — the moments that come back to me often — are the 2 AM conversations. After a long day of adventuring, we would make chai and discuss the status of the world, about how to make it more liveable, about how to make the future seem brighter. Our discussions would be peppered in by random bouts of laughter, as someone cracks a joke out of whatever serious issue we were talking about.

There is something so magical about these conversations at 2 AM — something that transcends space and time — with people you’ve only just met, sitting around a table beneath a tent flooded with warm yellow light, sipping our cups of chai leisurely, and talking about corrupt politics, nationwide pollution, and neglected education. Something so magical, when the wind rages and you hug yourself in the cold, and the sound of the rushing river nearby creates a powerful hum, magnified during the brief pauses in conversation…

Your bones are creaking as you shift in your chair; your muscles are stiff; your joints ache, and your brain feels sluggish — all the aftereffects of having slept in uncomfortable positions on a moving bus. The chai cups you’re holding on to for warmth soon empty out, but the conversations still keep pouring in.

… something so magical, when you know you can only get a few hours of sleep but you don’t want this moment to end, when you want it immortalised in your memory forever.

I haven’t travelled much before I left home to study abroad. But I always loved travel and adventure, even if I spent most of my time holed up in my room, consuming books upon books upon books. But perhaps that was my escape; perhaps that was the only way I could travel back then.

My sister reminded me — as she saw the pictures from my latest travels — of my obsession with collecting travel magazines as a teen. It had slipped my mind until that moment, but I remember now how I would fight with her for the sole ownership of those magazines as she tried to cut off the recipes from the back. I would fight with the ferocity of a wild cat (I was a lot like that those days, and that part of me still emerges occasionally, albeit more subdued); I would fight with the desperation of a dreamer whose only salvation were those breathtaking pictures printed on the magazines.

“Today,” my sister tells me fondly, “you can fill up those magazines with your own photographs.”

I will heal, I know, if I go back to the mountains; if I stuff my backpack with all that I need and disappear into the unknown.

The mountains are calling for me.

This reminds me of the song sung by Poppy Proudfellow from The Rings of Power: “This Wandering Day” —

The sun is fast fallin' beneath trees of stone The light in the tower, no longer my home Past eyes of pale fire, black sand for my bed I trade all I’ve known for the unknown ahead Call to me, call to me lands far away For I must now wander this wandering day Away I must wander this wandering day

I know all this is fleeting; I know that I will gradually fall back to my old routine and find comfort in it; I know that I will start loving the normal and the mundane once more — so much so that any plans to go out would have me grumbling and complaining, so much so that I’d hate parting with my books. But until then — as long the memories are fresh — I will have to suffer.

This is how it is, I think, with all of us. After every small adventure that comes our way, we suffer momentous consequences. Change is a wild thing — you yearn for it before, and you yearn for it after. We drown in nostalgia for things that were, and we are consumed with a longing for things that can be.

There is no in-between. Or, if there is, I haven’t discovered it yet. Until then, let me immerse myself in the world of quantum mechanics and computational physics, and wait, impatiently, for my next adventure.