Shhh...

An account of my experience on evening on the banks of river Kameng in Bhalukpong, Arunachal Pradesh, this summer. This is the closest I could have come to describing it in words...I am sitting by the river staring at the water. Its flowing away to someone else. The white rocks on the river bed shine like giant dew drops perfectly round. And there is silence…It is a silence I haven’t known in a long time. No people talking, no TV blasting, no vehicles honking. Just a silent gushing of the river. A faraway bird calls from the trees on the other side. For a moment I try to place it in an encyclopaedia, in a bird book, in my mind. Almost immediately I give up, chasing away every thought. A strange thought-free floating state. And there is silence…There are people around me, who like me are hearing the silence. I lie down to move them out of my sight and to stare at the sky, free from human beings. A blue canvas spread across my eyes, till a cloud floats in to interrupt the monochrome. And there is silence…As I lie there, for a moment, I experience the rawness of being alive. For a moment, I have a sudden realization that I am but a part of the landscape, a part of the web, and my senses absorb it all. My clothes, shoes, watch, backpack….all seem alien, like they are distancing me from nature. And then, in my mind, for one moment, the boundaries begin to blur and I feel a sort of sinking, like I am melting into the rocks, becoming a part of them. For one moment I am no longer human, just alive, as alive as could be. And the moment is gone, And there is silence…