The View from Valley View

If you, the uninformed observer, woke up at 4:03 this afternoon on my porch, you would have no idea where you were. The fog was so thick, so enveloping in dulled and silvering mid-afternoon light, that visibility was maybe 10 feet at best. Beyond you could be anything. The temperature was cool, the breeze was just shy of swift. For all you knew you could be looking at the sea. A sniff of cool air to the sensitive, balanced observer would connote a palpable thinness, thus ruling out the sea. The view would continue to be a mystery, hypotheticals would swirl and die and rise and fall, until about 4:08. The unfolding of the view from Valley View must be framed with beautiful, epic comparisons. Venus rising out of the sea. A silk dress falling pointedly to the floor. A rocket, moon-bound at dawn. The rise and crash of a thousand waves. The coiled strength of an Olympian. It is simply jaw-dropping. As the clouds rolled away and up the mountain, you would simply stare. Your gaze would probably first take in the first huge landscape, then move up and down the gorgeous imperfect geometry of mountain, valley and plain. The side of the mountain sloped steeply down in front of you, broken with infrequency by hotels, flat terraces, and homes, ended in a crack that reminded you of arms stretched out in a breast-stroke. This crack would be just the northern side of a cracked, irregular bowl that is probably 5 miles across. Across the bowl would be another hillside, sprinkled on top with hotels and houses, roads like some ladled sauce across and around it. Way off to the left, well beyond the western edge of the bowl, the Himalayas would rise with ominous power. On particularly clear days, like today at around 4:10, the distant glint of snow-capped mountains shines through high haze. Way off to the right, the organic sprouting of houses and small shops, and the call from the top of two small-looking distant minarets signals Mussoorie proper. Behind Mussoorie off to the east would be, to your rapidly spoiling eye, comparitively unimpressive high, forested hillside. Taking in the bowl and its surroundings, your eyes would inevitably gravitate to the distant center of your view. In the plains below the mountain range you would currently inhabit, flat brown plains would stretch on forever, meekly interrupted by tiny tan squares you would assume to be houses and dark, wriggling lines you would assume to be roads with diry diesel vehicles on them, collectively making up what you might assume to be Dehradun. But the plains... the plains stretch on and on. If this was your first time blessed with such a view, raw beauty and visual power, as well as the yielding intricacies of any passing gaze would force you to stay and just look. Eventually your analysis would stop but the brilliantly arranged light flowing into your eye would not. Time would pass, more clouds would roll in and reshroud your recently revealed treasure. You would lament the loss of such a thing, but be greedy for some break in the clouds. Perhaps after a few hours and a few quick but punishing rainshowers, you would break off the vigil for a while. You would go in and eat, play poker for valueless wooden cubes, and cheer for unknown football players trying to do their country proud. The view would be in the back of your mind, calling you like some kind of siren. Randomly you would run out to the porch, riding on a hope, and you would be well rewarded. The sun would have gone down, leaving its western tropical wake. Reflected light would still gently color the top-most layer of trees, but the landscape would be totally different. Tiny lights would dot the hills, Dehradun beyond would be shimmering. On the nearside of the bowl, two cones of light would be snaking up the hillside, giving pinpoint and momentary access to daylight color. Again you would be called to stay, your analysis fading in importance, your connection with the world more palpable and flowing. I have to say, I wish you would have been here today. It's really quite the view.