"Uncle ko hataao.. Aunty ko bitaao aur popcorn khaoo...!!" wailed the young boy who sold popcorn in a sack that could carry him.. He had the looks of a Bollywood hero's child character.. Cute looks, long hair, dialogues more mature for his age and an anger hinting at a dreadful flashback.. By the time the chuk-chuk reached the station the boy would step out of the train as a tall lanky handsome hero with a lucrative business of smuggling gold in the shape of popcorn...

My trite imagination is brought to a grinding halt as the train starts to slow down bringing the boy back to his age as he and his life moved on carrying the popcorn sack to make a living.. Popcorns, chanas, trite imagination are common place in a sleeper class compartment as the train chugs its way past the urban jungle into the lush green high parks.. The nasty metropolitan setting where time is relentless and races well ahead of nearly every other thing and life trudges along trying to keep pace.. The urban life gets spent in pubs and congested traffic doing the same thing swaying to loud music or blaring horns and sucking hookas or silencers.. A respite was imperative an escape from the tangles of traffic from the massive structures of concrete that changed shape with the blink of an eye to a distant place where colossal structures stood unyielding to the tantrums of time and life had a laid back attitude embracing everything..

Unlike the concrete structures that boomed in a short span of time, the grandeur that we witnessed here never dropped into existence in a momentary glimpse of time as if an artist filled a void with a single stroke of the brush. It took immense eons of time for evolution to decide the perfect blend of pastels to be pasted on the august mountains that stood testimony to a multitude of life forms evolved, thrived, survived and gone extinct. The majestic mountains draped in various hues of green, wearing the clouds as their crown and bleeding milky white streams that ran helter-skelter making space through the thickets of greenery with an intent to attain peace.. just like every mango man's (aam aadmi) dream to settle down, find stability.. the white stream ultimately finds it under the feet of its creator and settles down clear, blue and serene mirroring the sky..

Atop the mountains one not only gets to see the dazzling display of rains intensifying the beauty of the landscape but also feel the presence of the birth place of the rains. Rendezvous with the rainmaker at his prime weaving tiny sparkling droplets ready for its descent. The cold and polished touch of the freshly woven raindrops kissing the naked and receptive skin. The shuddering, goosebumps inducing brush of raindrops against the skin, the misty smell of freshness running up the nostrils into the olfactory senses triggering memories, the panoramic view frozen behind the eye lids shut tightly closed to contain the grandiose, the arms taking the shape of wings spread apart ready for the ascent, the head rising upwards.. experiencing a heightened sense of emotions reaching its pinnacle, the emotional ascent taking one to the top of the world and a fleeting glimpse of that ever lasting moment is framed into a camera and the rest ad infinitum etched into the memory..