MERRY GENTS OF BINSAR

Lockdown blues? PRANNAY PATHAK finds his melting away in the sweet wintering pastures of Kumaon.

- PRANNAY PATHAK

Anaphalis MARGARITACEA

I will have found out what this wildflower that speckles the slopes of Kumaon like fireflies of the day is called only later. Their fluid, buoyant grasp sucks us in every now and then, and our city knees, fresh out of a lockdown, swoon readily before their practised charms. We wade through their midst and their ensuing sighs have turned these fields all auburn.

The walk down is often a trail that curves in the manner of a solid vortex, needing jerky leaps and rounds of scurrying that leave you looking like Chaplin’s Tramp. I am growing weary, expecting Sunaoli and Govind’s house at every turn. Spending two-thirds of the year in lockdown has left me envisioning our destination as a clump of tiny rural houses donning slate roof caps and genial bovines grazing. This is despite us having taken an early coffee break.

We arrived at the Nine Furlongs Estate the previous evening, bent double and on our second changes of facemasks. The drive from Delhi to the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary was a long one, the roads once we were past the entry gates circuitous, and the six kilometres to get to the pick-up point tantalising. The good folks at the estate fixed us supper, got a nice fire going and we slept away in our luxurious forest bungalow. Earlier this morning, as I flopped on the recliner beside the glass wall, witnessing the golden sun slowly sliding over the faraway mountain slopes, I said to myself, “Boy, all bad things do come to an end, don’t they?”