Tawang: Where Serenity meets Turmoil

“Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery”
For the first time in my life, I went on a New Year’s trip. My friends said, “Let’s go to Tawang.” I said, “Okay, yes,” thinking it would be like any other hill station I visited in the past.

31st Dec 2024:
Ahhh, why is it taking so long to reach our hotel? It’s still 5 PM in the evening, but it is as dark as 10 PM at night. Makes sense, I am in East India.
I could hear the water running in the valley but could not see anything. I could only imagine how pretty it would be in the morning. How lucky are these people to live here.
They could get lost in the nothingness of nature. It’s like taking therapy, where your mind is your therapist. After all, it works best when in peace. My rented room is also my safe place, but somehow my mind wanders at night if I have my 150th pair of jeans yet to be washed, which I missed in the previous round. I wish I could live here forever.

Reached the hotel, saw this kid playing around the bonfire, dancing to “Teri baaton mein aisa uljha jiya.” But wait, how does this kid get an Indian map for his homework in Social Studies? I would cry all night if my craft project was not complete because my nearest stationery shop closed early the other day. How do girls get their favorite mascara for the wedding they have to attend the next day if the old one expired? They don’t have “Zepto Fashion.”
Ahhh, not again Tanya, don’t go into a spiral, you are on vacation. Good night 🙂

1st Jan 2025:
Early morning, it was chilling. The mountains were curvy, and I felt something in my stomach, going round and round in these mountains. Everything is so pretty. These people would not need a gym; they are doing incline walks pretty much every day. We stopped at the road, and there was this pretty frozen lake.
Do I enjoy walking on this frozen lake more or having Mama’s made “Gajar ka halwa” on New Year’s? Well, this is adventure, and that is home, peace, comfort. You do leave comfort to find adventure, to discover yourself, and then again come back home to your people. This is that trip. My own self-discovery, in between all the beautiful captures that my friends took, finding my own meaning of every pitstop we take.

Chloooo, it’s Sela Pass, Height: 13,500 ft. Why are my lips so chapped, but my heart so full? It’s windy, chilly, yet everyone is happy. Missing their families, wishing them to be here. Thinking about the next trip they would take with their parents and how they wish they could give the world to them if possible. Our driver bhaiya said, “Meri ek photo lelo please.” I took out the camera and started to find the perfect frame, but in the lenses, I saw the emptiness of a father who lost his daughter. Maybe he was wishing for her to be here. That hit me with the question of peace and turmoil. Is this place really for us to find peace? Or is it filled with the turmoil of every youngster who wants to have a sea-facing bungalow like SRK because their dreams are of significance like these mountains? The turmoil of those mothers who have to rush to the nearest city hospital whenever their kid gets sick. The turmoil of a soldier posted on the Indo-Chinese border, who could not notice the curves of the mountains but keeps on thinking about his wife’s jhumka, which he could not feel, could not kiss her the last time they met. Of a son hiding on the valley top of the “Line of Action Control” because of some border dispute, thinking about the Gajar ka Halwa he would have on New Year’s on his terrace. That’s his serendipity. That’s his adventure. That’s his life.

How they find strength in this turmoil is the question that will keep me in awe forever… But that is for some other day’s musing 🙂