Rajpur is an old town resting against the mountains above the Doon Valley. There were a sprinkling of bungalows when my parents first bought a home here, just below Kipling Road. Cocooned away from the Old Mussoorie Road that skirts Malsi forest, we enjoy long walks up the mountain above us, sometimes turning towards the ravine below where a tranquil winter stream turns into a dark angry river, ripping up mud, trees and boulders in the monsoons. The quiet walk at daybreak, down a narrow lanes with old homes, many crumbling and abandoned, leads to a hearty breakfast and a panoramic view halfway down to the market below. New homes have begun to mushroom along old village roads in Rajpur, some quaint, others just a slow souless journey towards gentrification.

 

It's been pouring. Everything feels heightened but the sky will clear, the sun will set and a rainbow will mock my faithlessness.

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~ NRM