Day 2 in kasol, the home of malana cream, Manali.

It all seems so simple, when one wakes up in wooden cabin with windows all around, opening your eyes first time in the morning to fully drawn curtains. This would normally irritate me in the city, but when the first glimpse of the morning is the earth in full glory, tall pine trees framing one of the highest spots in the world, snow colored and blanketed in clouds instead of the ugly box buildings clouded in city smog, one can only burst into an inner smile. In Kasol the sun does not slap u wake you awake and yell at you to get ready- the race starts in 15 minutes, rather it kisses you gently on the eyelids and then stand with open arms inviting you to its warm embrace. It is not a feeling of awe that natures' architecture inspires in you, unlike the architects of urban wonder cities, rather a sense of deep comfort and belonging like you are where you were meant to be.

It should be a simple choice to make, just saying bye-bye to the pretentious, unnecessarily complicated city life, get out of the race and back to life. Why then does one not make that choice? There is a sense of hesitation, pulling me back and I don’t know what it is. Could it be the "impossible dream" that was sneakily woven into the DNA of all us city dwellers, while being born in the swanky city hospitals? Like a magnetic chip that doesn’t let you get away? I think I've heard of something like that pet owners use to make sure their pets do not wander too far astray.

Going for a walk to Chalal (a small riverside village near Kasol, Manali)…come back and update…

I'm back and it was an easy, beautiful riverside, pine covered walk to a village called Chalal that’s across the river from Kasol. It’s a good walk for acclimatization, the kind that just warms up your lungs and muscles for the longer walks to Rashol, Malana or Tosh you will make if you're here for a bit. But for me it was more than that. I had to go and see some people I met in December, when I just came for a few days to meet my lovely friend Ankur (whom I visited a while ago while he did his 7 month stint at living here in the mountains). After his return to the city he missed all the friends he had made here and told me to go say hello from him. So on my walk I'm thinking about the last time I walked that path, crossed the wobbly wooden bridge, saw that house with a dog was just 3 months ago but it was so different. Winters freeze everything for me, Although I like the sense of feeling cold as compared to that of the terrible heat the rest of the year, there is something about cold that shrinks me up from inside. For this reason I always assumed I would love the sea more, and so never really travelled very often to the mountains. This experience however, changes everything. Life couldn't be simpler than what we see here without getting monotonous, and life just couldn't get more beautiful than this without getting plastic.

So in these thoughts I walked and saw the signboard of the place I was supposed to meet Noam, who left before me and had a friend who ran this café. A beautiful halt…a shanti chillum with some nice masala chai and perfect sunlight on my face. Anyway after this it was a shock that jolted me out of the beautiful daze I was drifting in, by a glimpse of foolish ugliness that I realized has also infected these lovely mountain dwelling locals, the city is reaching for them. One minute I felt like I truly could belong here, and the second it made me an alien. The brilliant company blunted the jolt though and some real conversation over chai, food, joints on the walk back made it a lovely day in a very satisfying way. Its not even over, the evening awaits, nothing to do but watch some TV, breathe in the fresh air, smoke some joints and explore the realms of one's own mind and of each other.