ALL THE STARS I COULDN'T FATHOM

 

"If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it’s lethal"   - PAULO COELHO

YEAR OF 2019 

So this is a backpacker with one of her backpacking stories. It was well into chilly December and I went for a rock climbing expedition for the first time. Can’t tell I was any short of surprised ‘hawws’ and ‘woahs’ throughout. Keeping it real and unfiltered, it was some struggle but at the end of the escapade, the kid finally learns! Every other day paved a new dawn for us and every way we hiked through was welcoming yet thorny, new but looked like the one we travelled through yesterday. Well folks that is the beauty of a forest isn’t it? Every road winding through the bushes and trees giving a major deja-vu but you know its just your urban spirit who isn’t used to it. Nevertheless! The part I will be sharing today is a teeny tiny chunk of the 4 days stay. Also trigger warning ahead! If you’re not a fan of starry nights (not Van Gogh’s) I meant literally, if you are not a fan of a starry night, in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity around then you might find this article a little provoking and the ones who are all for it, you might want to escape to this place and this article might be a little too provoking. Gear up folks. 

If my memory serves right, then it was a little later after 5:30 or 6 pm when we had come back from our field training that our star watching expedition was to begin. It was basically watch stars, make out the constellations and find your zodiac. Well we kinda took the last part upon ourselves just for silly fun. We start out with just a few torches and anyone carrying a cellphone were trolled, practically. Now keep in mind it was all dark cause first its a village second it was at the foot of a mountain with no settlement nearby third it was in north Bengal and heckin’ cold and lastly there was no electricity. Don’t even get me started on bathrooms! Anyways so what we did was we linked our arms and chained ourselves with each other for safe passage and our trainer leading the pack. From where we were camped, we walked 10 min further into the fields and it was unbelievably dark. We like blind fools just walked and walked and walked without even looking up even for a bit. Not sure why though, couldn’t see anything anyways. The field was rough with unusual bumps and holes and we had to watch our steps. After a lot of noisy budging steps and letting every wild nocturnal animals know that a bunch of bothering humans have come to intervene their lovely party, we came to a halt.

 The next thing that I witnessed made a mark on my soul forever and I’m not sure if anything else can top it. As we looked up, it was a story, a story unfurling itself in the sky, the sky a vast page and the story a hundred thousand stars, that seemed to have no end. Like a blanket of stars, it tucked all of us under it. Believe you me, it was scary. It was scary and I was awestruck. Tell me how would you feel if you see tiny infinite glowing dots of different shades of white undertone trying to consume you whole, those tiny dots so large in number you cannot fathom into imagination, so many tiny dots that you feel so little, so not deserving, I felt like that. Small, low, and meagre. 

But as I stood there trying to follow the signs and making out the constellations and zodiac, it felt more real. I was shivering not of the cold but because I found taurus and as I kept on gawking at the sky, it seemed like I was being watched and this gaze wouldn’t even leave my shadow, the bull with its bright eyes was watching me, towering over me and I was consumed into its huge vaccum. Never in my life have I seen so many stars before and the first experience I had was enigmatic. I was transfixed, I was engrossed and it was liberating. Yet I felt caged. I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad but possibilities at that point seemed endless, dreams seemed boundless and life cosmic. 

I don’t think I have done justice to the picture that I still have in my head of the gigantic sky full of stars but I hope I could give glimpses of the adventure I had ventured into that night. Thanks for sticking around with me. Good day and adios!

    TEAM OF 2019 ARETE MOUNTAINEERING INSTITUTE