The Blue MOUNTAINS

I am surrounded by the silence of blue mountains. My fluid gaze meets the solidity of these mountains, and for a second there, my heart forgets to beat.


Islamabad and its enveloping northern hills extending as far as the eyes can travel cast a bewitching spell. They hold you hostage. The mystery, the aura, the cool breeze interspersed with rain (at times) puts you right in front of raw nature. There was a time (not that long ago) when I couldn't understand the utter fascination of this city's residents with a few hills, especially the Margalla Road that parallels them. Why was everyone enthralled by it and why couldn't they stop raving about its view, its trees, its beauty? simple answer being - they didn't have anything else to boast about. I was never more wrong.

Mountains, being alien to me (Karachi being flat and totally flat) scared me a little. Since childhood I was literally afraid of the height, the curves, thin ledges, and drops amounting to thousands of feet. I hated travelling to these high places. Ironically mountains to me were gagging, inhibiting, almost obstructing the horizon and depriving me of clear view of a vast skyline. I found them closing in on me, about to crush me with their approaching ever increasing size. I felt I would never be able to get off them, I wanted FLAT land, expansive, plain, devoid of any tree or other markings. To me in short they were menacing.

After being in Islamabad for over two years my fears have been replaced by sheer admiration and love for the same mountains. My mornings and evenings are marked by the changing faces of the Margalla hills. The hills are green, spotted by a lush growth of trees that can be seen individually on a clear day. At other times the sky is merely traced softly by the outline of the Margallas as thought they have suddenly been moved a very great distance. The horizon keeps shifting, and the world around me varies with it.

The blue mountains are slowly becoming my centre of permanence, they tell me how grounded life is and ought to be, while their vastness urges me on to new frontiers, to unexplored vistas both in real and in my imagination....