Thanks to the pandemic, I have come to appreciate tiny pockets of beauty near my hometown even more. Pune has beautiful locations around the city and monsoon makes all of them magical. The Deccan plateau and its geographical advantage of altitude has blessed Pune with one of the best weather conditions. But since the past few years, every single season is screaming “Climate Change is real”.
Another long drive led us to a location which felt right like a dream sequence of a film. We travelled a distance of ~200 kms that day and reached this fairy-tale location. I sincerely feel that we have all what it takes with respect to natural beauty (just like European tinsel towns) : we just lack the sensibility and attitude to keep it clean.
This road that we drove on felt literally like driving in Switzerland. Lush green mountains, tiny waterfalls giving us company, huge area of backwaters adorning the landscape and little droplets of rain to complete the picture.
After driving for around 30 kms on this surreal road, we realised the reason it still had remained so beautiful : there were no eateries around. No tapris, no restaurants, no chai, no corn butta, absolutely pure natural beauty and small villages nestled in the mountains. Though eating maggi and having hot chai in the mountains is fun, it is disheartening to see the mess caused due to stupid people around these eateries.
While we strolled down a pathway towards the water, we saw one of the sweetest sight of two kids sitting on an old tyre and just floating their way into the backwaters – no agenda, no mission, no rush, just a routine afternoon for these kids! I felt so jealous of them at that moment.
A side thought of always kicks me in while visiting such locations – though I really wish from the bottom of the heart to be able to live in a location like this, is it practically possible for me? Am I ready to let go of the fibre optic internet, Dunzo, Swiggy and Amazon? Is this simple countryside life the truth or is the developed lives where space exploration and bio-hacking thrives is the truth? I am suspended mid-way with two hands on both sides. What is your situation?
This location that we visited was pure bliss. It didn’t feel real till we returned to the city and back to the reality of traffic jams and honking streets. Looks like there is no escape from all of this. We have lost against our wants and greed as humans. Now the only thing remaining is to delay the inevitable. Sharing an amazing art work that I found on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change) channel.
For anyone and everyone promising to leave only your footprints there, I usually share the location at the end of such a blog. But this time, I am going to keep it to myself. If you realllllly really want to know where this is, DM me on instagram, and if I believe in you, I ‘ll think about sharing the location !
Check out my previous blogs on such mesmerizing locations!
The song that I wrote last year was humming in my mind the whole time we were there
चाहता है क्या
तू ही पूछ ये खुद से
चाहता है क्या
तू ही पूछ ये खुद से
दिल ये तेरा कहता है क्या
अनकही बातें ये कब से