PLAYING MISTY FOR ME

The mist gets a lot of bad press. It is associated with vampires, other denizens of the night, murderers and highwaymen and all sorts of dastardly deeds that are not mentioned in polite society. The mist certainly is not for the faint hearted, because the faint hearted hate mystery. This is probably the reason why the world has so many mediocre people because commonplaceness and courage are strangers.

The mist is one of the most beautiful elements in this world, diaphanous, tenuous and alluring but with a soupçon of goose pimply apprehension. It rises without warning, the concealed breath of mountains and rivers, called forth by the fading rain for the fairies to ride on. Fairies are not necessary nice people, just like all human beings aren't, and hence have a bad rap in certain circles. In Landour where my cottage overlooks a vast valley, the mist is a common visitor, an unpredictable neighbour with a habit of dropping in unwanted. It leaves the damp behind when it is time to go and the heater or the wood stove has its work cut out for the night. When I stroll through the leafy winding roads of the Cantt. road, passing friendly dogs and friendlier locals the mist can carry out a sudden ambush. It can be eerie at night, wafting through the tombstones that repose under ancient cedars and deodars, some crumbling with neglect bearing long forgotten names. An over imaginative visitor with ghoulish predilections can even spot saturnine gentlemen in formals and cloaked women with pale faces among the tendrils of mist that indolently wafts in and out of the broken Anglican windows of the ruined chapel below. But then this is the land of phantoms and lives cut short in their prime, of men, women and wee bairns. I wouldn't blame the mist for being hospitable to them.

Often people dislike the mist out of pure ignorance. It is mistaken for its disreputable cousin, the fog which is not unknown here but not a frequent and unwelcome visitor. I'm sure many of the ladies and gentlemen interred in Landour's historic inclines would have been familiar with the London pea soup and the Baskervilles fog and would actually have enjoyed the mist. It is pure, otherworldly and is the karma of the mountains. Why do people hesitate to love the mist unless they are of a melancholy disposition or their digital billet-doux are ignored and they are ghosted? The mist, which should ideally be the etymological father of mystery (from the Latin word 'mysterium'), tantalises. It never fully conceals, and partially reveals. You play a guessing game with it. Is that a loved and lost one coming through the mist walking uphill from Mullingar, once familiar features to be revealed joyfully? Is that the silhouette of God you see when you lie dying on a misty day? It leaves something worth waiting for, a Houdini of vapour and whiteness, to be revealed as a banality or something precious. When the sunlight gives it the smoky hues, a traveling nimbus, the walkers look like angels. The breeze waltzes in through the trees, and the sun goes out, and the mystery dissipates. But I am thankful for the brief visitation that has produced a small miracle, an illusion that magic exists everywhere.

In the countryside of Palghat where I grew up, the mist would roll across the vast expanse of paddy fields, through which the storks would fly like pieces of ghostly linen. It would smoke among the rough turbans of the black palmyra tress. It would languorously caress the surface of temple tarns like the silk scarves of houris. It belongs to no one but itself. It comes from the air and returns to it.

Come, walk the mist with me. Be lost in its baffling tenderness, its fine filamental embrace as transient as your first love. It is a paradox of intimacy, a closeness which carries distance.

Smoke on the water.

#mystery #mist #magic #fairies