My daughter Sharanya and I look down at the Alaknanda river. “Let’s go,” I say and we begin the hard climb down an uneven, slippery section of the hillside. At one point, a Mango tree, felled by a storm the previous night, lies across the trail. We just edge around it and keep going.
Reaching the river, we settle down on one of the grey boulders strewn along the banks. The sky is a clear blue and we can still smell the earthy fragrance that follows a shower.
A younger Sharanya might have balked at the threat posed by the difficult descent, but she is now a teenager. Mindful of the fact that I might slip, I have left my camera in the hotel room. That’s when it strikes me: both of us have changed.
There was a time when I would have neither bothered about my safety nor gone anywhere without my camera.