Learn from the humanism of forests

The oak forest stretches in front of us, the path between the trees rising and falling like the back of a camel.

- Neha Sinha

Friday, 3pm, Uttarakhand:

Friday, 5am, Delhi: The city had been lashed by a furious storm. Rainwater has fallen like bullets, pooling on the streets. Trees have crashed to the earth, never to live again. Cars have stalled, like they are holding their breath.

In the mountains too, unexpected May showers have rushed down the slope. As we enter the forest in the last of the afternoon, the sun is beginning to break out through the trees, its golden shafts sharp and stinging. It has rained for a few hours and the birds are hungry. They emerge from the leaves, moving across the trees with the energy of ants on their hill, irrepressible and at home.

A Himalayan woodpecker, coloured in a pack-of-cards scheme of red-white-black, begins tapping at an oak. A Grey-winged blackbird pair excavates mounds near the base of trees for the treasure of caterpillars, their heads bobbing to keep track of us. A Grey-headed canary-flycatcher bursts into exquisite song, showing us note after note why it's referred to as a canary. The last rhododendrons of the year cling to the trees, wet and pink and tender, with a "I don't want to leave, mummy" sentiment.

Or maybe I am being sentimental.

The border is tense. The future seems desperate, as uncertain as the coming of climate-change storms. My heart flutters in my chest—is it the climb, or fear for the future? I walk, I gasp; the mountains carry on as they always do, implacable. They have a sternness I have come to love, promising an experience that always puts the onlooker in her place.