Munnar, a place of raw natural beauty, is situated in the Western Ghats some 5200 feet above sea level and only around a three hour drive from Kochi. I visited the place with a friend from my student days. I wasn’t concerned that it rained heavily and when it didn’t, a thick fog obscured the idyllic charm of its undulating hills and tea plantations. Our conversation somehow took precedence over the weather.
My friend was grappling with an existentialist question:
“Who am I and what is it that remains if I were to shed, layer by layer, everything that constitutes me?”
Sadly, in growing old, I had stopped pondering such philosophical conondrums. However, my interest was rekindled very quickly and we debated endlessly standing in the balcony, ignoring the thick fog within a few feet of us. The trill of invisible mountain birds gave us a sense of our location. We were aware of our surroundings, but only just.
As we tried to express in words what defies expression, the fog cleared partially showing us a glimpse of the delightful scenery beyond, a perfect metaphor for our conversation and its fleeting insights. The fog returned matching our abstruse discussion with its opaqueness.
The strange thing was neither of us complained about not receiving full value for our money by way of missing out on the scenery. Each other’s company and friendship was somehow sufficient to shine a beam of bright sunlight through the low lying cloud.
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