Lessons from the Mountains

How much of the Himalayas must melt before we rediscover our humanity? I have carried this question for some time. Perhaps it came from the mountains, the rain and the silence. The Himalayas feed rivers, sustain communities and carry memories of centuries. Yet their changing landscape reminds us that nature has limits. We discuss melting glaciers, disappearing water sources and climate change, but too often these remain statistics. What happens when they become part of daily life? I imagine...

min read

How much of the Himalayas must melt before we rediscover our humanity? I have carried this question for some time. Perhaps it came from the mountains, the rain and the silence. The Himalayas feed rivers, sustain communities and carry memories of centuries. Yet their changing landscape reminds us that nature has limits. We discuss melting glaciers, disappearing water sources and climate change, but too often these remain statistics. What happens when they become part of daily life? I imagine sitting on those mountains on a rain soaked afternoon, watching clouds descend and the earth being washed clean. In that silence, love arrives. Not the dramatic love we celebrate, but a quieter love that simply sits beside us. And then I ask myself: have I learned to love another human being, or only the idea of humanity? Humanity as an idea is easy to love. The person before us is different. He has fears, weaknesses, anger and wounds. To love a human being requires patience. It requires us to stay. The question stays with me. We often imagine spirituality as a journey away from people, towards mountains, forests and solitude. But perhaps the journey into the mountains is only half the journey. The other half is returning to people. Perhaps we enter the forest not to escape humanity, but to understand it better, and then return to everyday life with a greater ability to see those around us. If spirituality creates distance between us and others, what have we gained? True spirituality should make that distance smaller. It should make us more compassionate, not more detached. We can speak to someone thousands of kilometres away in seconds, but may not know what the person next to us is going through. How much of Nepal do we really reach when we admire its mountains? Perhaps Nepal represents every distant place we admire without truly knowing, every landscape we photograph without understanding, and every suffering we discuss without allowing it to change us. We can cross mountains and borders without ever truly arriving. A journey is complete only when it brings us closer to another human being. Perhaps that is where a spiritual journey becomes meaningful. And then there is violence. A missile can cross the sky in seconds. A bullet can end a life in an instant. But fear travels much faster. It moves from one heart to another and changes the way people see each other. Grief becomes anger, anger becomes hatred, and hatred makes it easier to see another human being as an enemy rather than as a person. At such moments, our philosophies disappear. The mask falls. I imagine looking beside me. I expect to find a gun. But there is no gun. There is a guitar. I do not know who placed it there. Perhaps it was love. Perhaps it was music or another human being reminding me that there is a choice. The gun represents hatred, revenge, intolerance and the desire to silence another voice. The guitar represents conversation, empathy and creativity when the world is full of noise. We can decide what we add to the world. We can add to anger, or we can reduce it. We can answer hatred with hatred, or begin a conversation. Every choice shapes society. Perhaps that is where being human really begins. The Himalayas may continue to melt. Rivers may shrink. Fear may return, and guns may continue to speak. But we still have a choice. We can add another weapon to the noise, or pick up the guitar. We can continue speaking the language of fear, or learn the language of compassion. Perhaps spirituality is making that choice again and again. Humanity begins with the person standing next to us. It could be a stranger, neighbour, colleague, or someone we strongly disagree with. The moment we stop seeing that person as another human being and begin to see something of ourselves in him, the distance becomes smaller. The mountains may teach us silence. Rivers may teach us movement. Rain may teach us renewal. But their greatest lesson is simple: we are all standing on the same fragile earth. The world will continue to change, whether we are ready or not. The real question is what we will become while it changes. Where we expected a gun, perhaps there can be a guitar. Perhaps we should begin there. We may not control the future, but we can influence the human atmosphere we leave behind. (The writer is an author and musician. Views personal.)

Selective Outrage

Correspondent

May 9, 2025

2 min read

India’s left-liberal media has long prided itself on being the torchbearer of secularism, dissent and moral rectitude. In the aftermath of ‘Operation Sindoor,’ the precision military strike launched by the Modi government against Pakistan-based terror camps, it has revealed its not a principled commitment to peace or truth, but a disturbing penchant for ideological prejudice, performative sanctimony and selective outrage.

The operation itself was a textbook display of calibrated force and geopolitical prudence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, often caricatured as ‘authoritarian’ by the ‘liberal’ English-language commentariat, chose patience over provocation. He consulted opposition leaders, held detailed discussions with defence chiefs and took key international stakeholders, notably the United States and Russia, into confidence before authorising limited military action. The symbolism of ‘Operation Sindoor’ was also carefully crafted: a pointed reminder that the attack’s real victims were Hindu women widowed by Pakistan-sponsored militants in Kashmir. The government’s briefings were also strategic and symbolic as two ranking female officers, one of them Muslim, were made the public face of the mission, underlining a new Indian confidence that blends military muscle with democratic pluralism.

But this was unacceptable for India’s entrenched ‘left-liberal’ press, steeped in academic jargon, Western validation and a knee-jerk hostility to anything remotely ‘Hindutva.’ That a Muslim officer briefed the nation on ‘Operation Sindoor’ was branded ‘tokenism’ by such commentators. Others crudely alleged that the April 22 Pahalgam massacre was the logical culmination of reported atrocities against Muslims since Modi came to power in 2014.

The semantic nitpicking over ‘Operation Sindoor’ was maddening. An editor of a prominent magazine dubbed the operation’s name as ‘patriarchal’ and coded in Hindutva tropes. In a bizarre case of moral inversion, sindoor was likened to symbols of ‘honour killings’ and gender oppression, ignoring both its cultural resonance and the cruel reality that these women had lost their husbands in cold blood. For years, India’s ‘secular’ commentariat nurtured a preordained binary: the Congress may be flawed but was at least ‘secular’ while the BJP was an inveterate ‘fascist.’ Thus, the 2002 Gujarat riots are always focused upon but the Congress-backed pogrom of the Sikhs in 1984 is either downplayed or rationalised. Terrorism in Kashmir is tragic, but state retaliation is ‘jingoism.’ A strong Muslim voice in government is ‘tokenism’ but its absence is ‘exclusion.’ Even journalistic rigour is selectively applied. When Pakistan claimed to have downed Indian jets, some Indian outlets rushed to amplify the story before verification, inadvertently echoing enemy propaganda.

Dissent is vital in any democracy. But when its becomes indistinguishable from disdain, when editorial choices are dictated by ideological conformity, then the press becomes a caricature of itself. Ironically, many of these journalists enjoy robust free speech and loudly lament India’s supposed slide into ‘fascism’ from the safety of their X handles. Yet they turn a blind eye to Putin’s repression, Erdogan’s purges or Xi Jinping’s camps. In their eyes, Modi remains the greatest threat to democracy even as they broadcast their outrage freely, without fear of censorship or reprisal. ‘Operation Sindoor’ was a statement of cultural self-confidence. That confidence has rattled those who have spent their careers gatekeeping Indian discourse. Today, their monopoly is over. The people are watching and they no longer believe that the emperor has clothes.

Lessons from the Mountains

Selective Outrage

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