A Breath Of Fresh Air

(Those aren't clouds in the background, they're mountains!!!)

I know I’ve been a little bit delinquent with my posts, but you’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been in India! Oops, I forgot to tell you I was going. I came to visit my grandparents in the foothills of the Himalayas and then to take them on a short beach vacation to Goa.

It’s always really intense coming back here, and seeing my grandparents living alone in the mountains always makes me emotional. I decided to take a hike in the mountains this morning to clear my head—up to China Peak, an 8,500 foot ascent at the top of which you can supposedly see China!

What can I say? There really is nothing like mountain air to clear the mind. Especially when the air up here is such a huge contrast to the air down in the plains where the big cities are. The air quality in Delhi and Mumbai is so bad, on smoggy days I can hardly see my hand stretched out in front of me, and my eyes, nose and throat get intolerably dry and itchy. It felt great to spend a little time away from the teeming humanity that sometimes seems literally inescapable in India.

Sadly enough, even at 8,500 ft. there was still litter strewn across the mountainside (granted it was cleaner and cleaner towards the top). My disgust at the total disregard for nature was replaced by sympathy after some consideration… in a developing country like India, people are struggling just to have food and clean water, the environment is just not a realistic concern at that point. Even the USA, which is literally decades ahead of India in terms of development, is only just getting smart about the environment and beginning to implement change. My dad told me it would be pointless, but I filled several bags with trash and brought them down anyway- if anything for my own peace of mind.

The complexity of such a beautiful and culturally rich place is only intensified by the contrast brought by globalization. Like every country in such a transitional time, conditions are rough and the environment gets compromised for the sake of “progress”. Hopefully, in time, the balance between industrial progress and social progress here will even itself out. Let’s hope it does, because the natural beauty of this place is too important to waste.