Riverful of night sky - I

Tripping down the memory maze,

Memories of that Shpongled gaze.

Days shone eternal bright, infinite them

revelations,

Dagger on the moon, nights bled purple perceptions.

Their spirits sublime with memoirs of the war,

Saw brimming pride, felt the fervor raw.

In the riverful of night sky, I saw stars rain,

How, when I waked I yearned to dream again.

For some are truly lost and some wanderers in fairness,

Alas, again, forever - I've been a fool for randomness.

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Now, for aeons, boys and men, of my generation, have grown to believe that the worlds greatest mountain range belongs to Belluccistan. I know a few who swear by the magnificence of the city of Malena. Ladakh, Leh'd all those claims to rest.

Ladakh, perhaps for the want of a better word, can only be described as 'pristine'. Pristine, not in the usual connotation given to the word, of the delicate, pure and untouched. But rather, pristine, in a way, and so I guess, only Ladakh can be - by being at the cusp of the delicate and the rugged. Not in a hyphenated, afterthought way, where one realm ends making way for the other, but in a juxtaposition where both exist at their very prime, forceful in their presence with the presence of each accentuated by the adjacent contrast.

This space has been my ranting board for quite a few things and a journey has never been one. There is a first for all things. And Ladakh is all about the journey, for no matter where you reach - you would be in the middle of the most picturesque routes of your life, for most part. "But no matter, the road is life.", immortal words from Kerouac resonate throughout these vast stretches, or at least in my head.

One of the meanings, to the word "destination", is "the ultimate end or purpose for which something is created or a person is destined". Perhaps, to that end - Pangong was my destination. If getting lost into the vast oblivion were a religion, this is where I'd come for my pilgrimage. I will. For this is where nothing and everything makes sense. For this is where nothing is not just something worth doing, its something worth being. For this is where being and becoming, converge. For this is truly, beyond. A meta-dimension.

(To be continued... )