Oct
After my sojourn in Uttarakhand, it was jarring to return to the bustle of city life. The incessant traffic, the smog-laden air, the relentless pace of urban life—all hit me with a near physical impact!It’s plain to see why people rush to the hillswhen they’ve had enough of the city. Nature is a refuge, a space to recreate and recharge yourself.
There is an irony, however, in this escape. The more people flock to these natural sanctuaries, the greater the push to “develop” these areas. Roads are expanded, new resorts pop up, and fast-food restaurants sprout along highways in an attempt to mirror the comforts of city life. This so-called luxury comes at a heavy price. We cut trees, dig away mountains, and shoo away birds and animals. The cycle of development ends up destroying the very natural surroundings that we sought.
Examples of this are rampant in Himalayan hill stations, but one of them has had enough. Recently, in Dehradun, people protested against the felling of trees to widen roads. Trees, some of them centuries old, are not just part of the landscape but integral to the city’s heritage and ecology. The citizens opposing this project made a strong statement: they had had enough. Enough of felling trees on a whim, enough of replacing green with concrete, and enough of disregarding Nature in the name of progress.
This public statement resonated with me deeply because having had enough is the theme of my next book. The message here is about being fed up. It’s about how our relentless pursuit for more—whether in our relationship with our environment or the people in our lives—takes us further from what genuinely matters. My upcoming book narrates stories and experiences on the theme of reaching a turning point in life, just as we are now reaching a turning point in our relationship with the natural world.
As I put the finishing touches to my manuscript, I reflect on those quiet mornings in Uttarakhand, the simple pleasure of plucking fruit from a tree and the serenity of communing withNature. The theme of my new book feels all the more relevant to me when I consider our ironic destruction of these hillsides. We need to quit the familiar to make space for what is better and greater. I hope that this book can prompt people to think about all the situations in their lives and our society where we’ve had enough.
