This is a story about a boy who has never seen snow.
No,
He has seen fallen snow but he has somehow never seen the falling snow.
He lives in a small village in Himachal and that's where he has spent most of his life.
There were many mornings in the winter when he got out of his house and suddenly realized overnight whatever was there is not there anymore.
The grey yard outside his house,
Dog droppings,
Tire tracks on frozen mud,
The broken lawn chair you forget to take in the last fall.
All this has disappeared overnight and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home which is no less shimmering by the way and it is white because it has just fallen.
Earth is covered with it and it is still falling in some place but not outside his house because this boy is the unluckiest boy in his village.
It roughly snows 10 times a year in the village and somehow he misses it each time.
Sometimes he is not in the village,
Other times he is sleeping inside and doesn't realize when it snows.
The thing about snow is when it is falling it is almost quiet.
It makes no sound whatsoever and he never realizes when it snows.
He has tried everything in the book to catch snow.
Sometimes he told his mother to wake him up but then she forgets in everyday things that she does.
Once he had put an alarm clock of 2 in the night because Google had predicted it is going to snow at 2 in the night.
In fact he had set up an alarm clock for 1.
55 but guess what when he got up it was really cold but it wasn't snowing.
That's his luck.
He waited for 15 minutes.
Did snow.
Nothing changed except he sneezed a couple of times.
So he realized he better should go back to his bed.
He has tried this a few times but snow always manages to escape him.
Snow doesn't fall like cats and dogs.
Snow falls like snowflakes.
And he has no idea what it feels to have snow on your head or on your shoulder.
Does it have weight?
Does it hurt when it falls?
How does it feel?
He has no clue and he has just one dream.
Like every other child in his village he also wants the snow to fall on his head.
This time he made a fool proof plan.
He decided he is going to put an alarm clock half an hour after the snow is predicted.
Because last time when he got up at 2 it didn't snow till 2.
30 and next morning when he had gotten up everything was white.
This time the snow is predicted at 3 am.
So he got up at 3.
30.
He waited but there is no snow again.
Well,
This time he is going to make a change.
He has decided he is going to keep walking uphill till he finds snow.
So he starts walking uphill.
From one hill to another to third to fourth he kept walking and walking for days now,
For months.
And he hasn't found snow but he managed to make it to the local newspaper because he is the first lad from his village to scale Mount Everest.
He walked so much to catch the falling snow that he managed to reach Mount Everest.
But as luck would have it he hasn't still experienced falling snow.
So blessed are those who have seen snow falling straight on their heads.
It is growing cold.
Winter is putting footsteps in the meadow.
What whiteness boasts that sun that comes into this wood.
One would say milk coloured maidens are dancing on the petals of orchids.
How coldly burns our sun.
One would say its rays of light are shards of snow.
One imagines the sun lives upon a snow crested peak on this day.
One would say she is a woman who wears a gown of winter froth that blinds the eye.
Helplessness has weakened me.
Viantering has varied my legs.
The more I see the less I know.
I think a lot of snowflakes are like and I think a lot of people are like that too.
Snow.
Every autumn now my thoughts return to snow.
Snow is something I identify myself with.
I am a snow person just that I haven't seen snow.
Falling snow.
One of my favourite author once wrote,
Snow was falling so much like stars,
Filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine.
Its reasons for being was nothing more than prettiness.
And today as that young boy from this Himachali village,
I have seen snow falling through my favourite poet's poetry.
Enjoy your snow.
