30th August 2017
The hair on my chin and upper lip are growing back. Not yet noticeable if you’re at an arm’s distance. But I can see them. I’m conflicted. I think I’m ready to go back to home base. But I’m not done with Ranikhet either. PMSing in Ranikhet is not very different from PMSing in Gurgaon. Just a few days of being hypersensitive to pretty much everything. Pointless conversations are more pointless than usual.
That elusive grasshopper in the room is driving me mad with its super high-pitched wing rubbing. It needs to be hunted down and shut up. I’m hoping Dad will lead the hunting expedition.
I haven’t spoken with the boy in five days and it has started bothering me now. The first five days were blissful with a quiet head. The voices were taking a break. They’ve returned with a vengeance now. Combined with a messed-up Thyroid gland, I’m feeling hot under the covers but my head is freezing. I’m tossing and turning at night. Doesn’t bode well for the remaining 3-4 days of this vacation. It seems like I’ve already done whatever needed doing in Ranikhet this year.
Morning walk with the parents was nice. The Golf Course is being checked out for a picnic plan. Then we’re headed to our favourite ValleyViewHomeStay.com for lunch. The eyes have soaked in a lot of green. After my first trip to the sunset-view location, I’ve been going pretty much every day. Today’s sunset was beautiful too. Bathed in warm yellow light, everything was hyper-saturated. I had to lower saturation when editing images.
A 48 hour Monsoon-alert advisory has been issued for the Uttarakhand region. Probably the only reason I’m grateful for TV and a very spotty mobile phone network. Landslides and flash floods are common in Uttarakhand. While we have nothing to worry about here in Ranikhet, we can’t make plans to return to Delhi as we’d initially estimated. Might have to delay by one day. Also, the next two days at least look like we’re going to be indoors and not going out much.
An extra day added to the holiday means we will be stopping over at Jas uncle’s farm on our way to Delhi. We will stay the night, a much welcome reprieve from driving non-stop. The drive back to Gurgaon will be shorter and I will have one more chance to exhaust myself with the camera. I feel like a greedy, scheming photographer, trying to capture everything that’s beautiful and colorful, just for my camera. Maybe the social media sharing, then, is a form of redemption? Allaying my guilt of freezing time and beauty by sharing them with others who can’t see it in-person?
Even writing this down feels difficult. Unable to formulate a single coherent thread today. Aberrant flow. Maybe the theme is “incoherence”? Life is incoherent. For now, there’s a lot of green and colorful flowers and food and wine to keep me busy, till I get back to Gurgaon and existential angst.
Stories from Ranikhet from our previous visits can be found under the #NAINAxRanikhet tag.
All images photographed on the Google Pixel XL.
