The government made the roads for tourists’ convenience. They spend a great amount and labour trying to maintain them. Every year, tonnes of tourists can be witnessed in their polluting vehicle marching up and down the hilly roads, risking their lives, just to get a glimpse of a well-known lake which contained water only for a certain period in the whole year. The toils of the local people can be realised in the very rubbles of the previously fallen boulders. The song of nature can be heard in the rumblings of the clouds hovering upon the mountains.
Amidst all these painstaking efforts to give a pleasant experience to the tourists alongside maintaining the serenity of the very mountains, the lives of the local people often go unnoticed. As it always is the case, any place is known for its beauty, but always it is remembered by the people who inhabit the place.
When people were busy in their vacation from their daily jobs appreciating the nature only to forget it upon their return, the locals chose the desire path for their daily jobs, collecting wood, nurturing tea gardens and preparing steamed food in their shops for the resting tourists.
Being a tourist one can know the beauty of the place, but looking at the same place from a residence’s point of view, one can realise the place much more than any prolonged tourist can. To work, make a living, raise a family amidst the uncertain weather and roads, are the things that make life really challenging and unveils the true nature of nature. The extreme at which it could go is beyond the predictability of mere mortals.
So next time, we visit any hill station or any other mountainous place, along with appreciating the nature, we also need to keep in mind the people who make this place what it is. We can talk to them, know their culture, their problems. We don’t have to bring them up from their drudgery, but at least we can take some time to appreciate them. For without them, the place won’t be the same.
