By Pooja
The North News
Solan, December 9
The moment the hills appear, something inside me loosens. It is not dramatic, not even visible, but it is there — a quiet untying of the knots I carry when I am away. As the bus winds towards Solan, my hometown in Himachal, I feel myself returning not just to a place but to a version of me that still feels whole.
I belong to these forests. And, in some indefinable way, they belong to me.
The fresh air hits me first — sharp, clean, almost sweet. Then the dense green of the pines, the glimmer of river water slipping around stones, the tiny seasonal rivulets that arrive and disappear like secrets shared only with those who know how to listen. These things are not scenery for me. They are my heartbeat. They are parts of me I cannot carry to Chandigarh no matter how hard I try.
I didn’t fully understand this until I left home four years ago for my first job. Everyone told me leaving would make me stronger, more independent. Maybe it did. But it also made me realise what I had lost — mornings where I woke to birdsong instead of alarms, evenings that smelled of pine instead of traffic, days shaped by walking rather than scrolling.
When I return now, even for a weekend, it feels like drinking water after being thirsty for too long.
The closer I get to Solan, the more alive I feel. Sometimes I sit by the bus window and watch the landscape change, each turn bringing a familiar curve of road or cluster of trees. By the time we reach the outskirts, I am already someone else — someone lighter, someone who remembers how to breathe without effort.
There is a strange oneness here, a feeling I cannot explain but always recognise. As if the hills absorb all the parts of me I forget in the city. As if the air knows my name.
I think back to how I grew up — waking with the chirping of birds outside my window, the distant murmur of the river, the crisp cold air that felt like a friend. On my walk from school, I counted trees as if they were companions lining my path. I could tell which bird was calling just by the tone. I didn’t realise then that I was learning a language — the language of belonging.
We walked everywhere as a family. Long paths to visit relatives, feet on earth, conversations rising and falling with the slopes. Nothing felt rushed. Nothing needed to be captured or posted or shared. Life happened slower, and I think I was happier without knowing why.
In Chandigarh, everything feels louder — the roads, the people, even the silence. I catch myself spending hours on my phone, scrolling without purpose, searching for something I already have waiting for me back home.
That is why I return as often as I can — weekly, sometimes every two weeks. I tell people I come for the break, but the truth is simpler: I come to find myself.
Because when I am in Solan, I feel rooted. I feel seen. I feel held. The forests, the rivers, the shifting light — they remind me that my life began here, shaped by things that ask nothing of me except my presence.
Here, I am not trying to keep up. Here, I am simply me. And that is enough.
