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The Western Ghats: What’s Really at Stake? A Personal Reflection on Silence & Sanity.
It struck me that humans need the mountains not just for water or energy—we need them for sanity. We need them to stay human. To stay compassionate. The rivers and hills ground us. Without them, we’re just robot rats, endlessly running the treadmill.
The Western Ghats: What’s Really at Stake? A Personal Reflection on Silence & Sanity.
Wanting to escape the grind of Bengaluru, I spent a few days trekking through the closed-canopy evergreen forests of the Western Ghats near Sakleshpur, at the headwaters of the Hemavathi River.
Thinking, analyzing, and writing about these mountains (which I’ve been doing a lot lately) is not the same as being among them. Working from the comfort of home doesn’t compare to practically running through shola forests to escape the nasty, blood-sucking leeches—the one and only thing I don’t like about these hills!
But once you get past the leeches and reach the open grasslands, the mountains surround you. Their beauty overwhelms you. Once you reach the top, you can keep walking all day, as the mountains softly connect to one another.
I’ve been climbing these same mountains for the past 12 years—two to three times a year. Sometimes with fellow trekkers, but mostly by myself with a private guide. This time, it was just me, the guide, and his dog.
The guide didn’t speak, I didn’t speak, and the dog certainly didn’t speak. It was as if all of us were having a secret, silent conversation with the mountains.
And this time, I knew so much more about the mountains—reports, data, analysis, law, policy. But none of it mattered up there. The mountains commanded silence, and in that silence is the umbilical connection. A sense of belonging. A sense of calm.
And that, I believe, is what’s really at stake—not for the mountains, but for us.