a date with nature

Yet another weekend, yet another trek. For the first time I went in a group for trek in Iran; there were 9 of us including Mohammad and his wife, Arezoo. The team was good (read: the guys were good-looking ;-)). We were supposed to reach Mt. Kharsang (3900 m), but as usual I couldn’t summit it :-(

I have something else to say. After giving up the summit effort I came back & joined the ladies of the group to wait for the guys who had gone up the peak. We were sitting there for 3 hours, near a stream. This stream was flowing in the valley which was surrounded by mighty mountains. The place was beautiful. I walked down along the stream a bit and found a nice place to sit and relax. Serenity. That’s the word for what I felt there. All I was listening was the sound of stream flowing, all I was seeing was the mountains everywhere. The feeling was superb!! It’s beyond words (even now I feel I am insulting that very feeling by putting the boundary of words for it). I mean, I’ve been hearing these talks about meditation, how u bring your mind to one point, and think NOTHING. That was what I was doing there. I was so pleased, that I could sit there forever (well, not exactly forever, may be till they send me back to India). It was like sitting with a good friend for hours silently, and at the end of it feeling that you’ve had the best conversation. You should be really lucky to get such friends with that high comfort-level, but nature is always a good friend with open arms. The thing is you need to go back to the nature.

The mountains here aren’t eye-soothing green like our western ghats, but they got a kinda rustic beauty. The melodious sound of water flowing added just the effect needed. The whole picture looked so mighty, so supreme, and so divine. The whole idea of ‘summit assault’ sounded cheap, I enjoyed admiring the mountains more (grapes are too sour today, I know; but I mean what I said).

Few more things:

We saw this natural spring on the way. People, who think there is only oil in Iran, please change your opinion. This is quite a big spring; keeping in mind that it’s summer here now.

I saw a cow on the way in the village. For the first time I saw cow in Iran. I love cows, and was very happy to see this one.

I went around a bit in the village, and found vegetable garden near a house. They have grown pumpkins & beans. The pumpkins reminded me of home, in south canara most of the farmers used to grow pumpkins in summer, after the second crop (called suggi in tuLu). I guess this practice is vanishing now.