Sushmita Sridhar: June’26

The Path to the Mountain

I reach the path. It is edged with prayer flags that stretch along its perimeter, from pole to pole, fluttering and casting sharp shadows on the white concrete path. Clods of brush like wiry grass lie dug up, as if by some alpine mole. I trudge across the yellow unruly rough growth, narrowly missing patches of murky slush that could have dragged me down, down this wiry hillock of yellow-green gold between the barren craggy mountains and the frozen green lake.

The road to the mountain is paved with the spiraling shadows of prayer flags. Out in the distance, white and vertical, another set of vertical flags flutter quietly in the breeze. The lake is calm and still, as if time itself is held in frozen suspension. It feels timeless, and also outside time. I cannot remember being conscious of my body except when I clutch at my garments or tuck my hands into my pockets to keep warm. I feel as light a white prayer flag, capable of simply being blown away in the wind.

The path seems to lead nowhere, but wherever I pause while walking its length and circling the perimeter of the lake, it seems to point to the mountain. My shadow mingles with the prayer flags that flap and flutter harshly in the mountain wind. I expect them to come loose and tear away from their string, be blown away onto the gray rocky outcrops that surround me.

Shadows flutter and fly like brown geese on a frozen lake, hedged in, honking out their prayers to anyone who will listen. A flash of white wings, and they stir themselves again, only to fly around in a swirl before landing on the lake again, before all is still.

The shadows seem more substantial than the flags themselves, their myriad prayers a whisper in the wind.

The mountains around us close like a fist in the palm of which is held the frozen green lake, its farthest edge unseen. I peer over the railings at the frozen edges, clutching on to my cap. The surface is translucent and crystalline, and muddy brown rivulets meander, cold pale water flowing thin and vigorous over the gravelly soil beneath. Brown and white geese honk, sitting on the water in the middle of the lake, perching on the black jagged stumps of lopped pines that stand up like a wedge of nails.

My mind flies to the far side of the lake, one that I cannot reach by foot. What might lie there? It hangs frozen into a rocky abyss like an icicle dangling from a craggy hand, between finger and thumb, an inverted point of sharp ice. And what of these clods of earth all lumpy and clustered together, held in knots of tufty yellow grass, windblown, wiry, with bits of hidden green that flash out only to me?

Even the name of the lake is a riddle: one I cannot spell right. I stumble over its many versions, confused in the cold, my mind as scattered as the wind is sharp. I am a cluster of impressions of stillness and colour, I cannot seem to hold the unfamiliar letters in the order in which I see them. I try many times before I give up and take a picture for later.

The streaming prayer flags and their shadows spiral and curve around the lake, spilling colour onto the white path. They feel sharp like cloth, whipping multi-coloured prayers into a mountain wind. It is a feast of textures-rock, grass, concrete and cloth, all hanging together suspended in a few moments like breath snatched from the biting wind. I am astonished, in spite of myself, of the chill and glad of my sub-zero jacket. Others venture onto the frozen lake, but I stay away, hanging back along one edge.

What might the couple who walk towards me holding hands be thinking? A stranger greets me, and I return the courtesy with a smile. I quicken my pace however and shy away, lest he break the spell the lake has cast, by starting a conversation.