Uttarakhand’s hills waiting for its sons

Nestled in Uttarakhand’s mountains, my village was once a sacred haven of simplicity, culture, and nature’s abundance. There were no paved roads, no electricity, no clinics to soothe a fevered child’s cries. Schools were far off — depending not just on geography but how far a child dared to dream. Yet, life was full, not with luxuries, but with meaning. The air was crisp with the scent of pine and wood smoke.

In those days, women, the unshaken pillars of our homes, had their lives carved out of hardship. But their spirits knew no surrender. They carried water on bent backs from faraway springs, crushed grain on stone with hands roughened by time, and churned butter in clay pots with a grace born of patience. They were the silent strength behind every family, every meal, every prayer.

Men, on the other hand, journeyed to cities, where they toiled to survive. Their earnings returned as money orders’ thin slips carrying the warmth of sacrifice. This “money-order economy” kept our villages alive but emptied homes of laughter.

Yet somehow, miraculously, our hills remained vibrantly alive — bursting with festivals, songs, stories… that held our dreams. We ate simple but blessed food, drank scarce but sacred water, and aged with a dignity that seems impossible in today’s world. My father, 93 years of mountain strength, still reads newspapers without spectacles, a living testament to what we once were.

Then came the year 2000. Uttarakhand became a new state. Paved roads arrived bringing development and dreams dressed in cement. Slowly, the exodus began. Not just men, families drifted away. I was one of them. Cities welcomed us — our labour, our children, our roots torn from soil. Today, Pahadi children wear blazers and speak fluent English, but our bones ache in hospital queues. The irony is cruel — our migration sustains the city’s glow, while our hills are falling into darkness.

Narendra Singh Negi’s haunting ballad “Dehradun ka rahne wala hun” cuts through this tragedy with biting truth, mocking our pride, while the homes of our ancestors collapse. Fields lie barren. Nature reclaims what we abandoned, though not with joy but like a mother mourning her forgotten child.

But the deepest wound lies in the silence where our language once lived. Garhwali is now mocked as backward and primitive. Our folk songs die unsung, our dances performed only for tourists, our stories becoming myths even our own children cannot understand. When language dies, identity becomes a ghost haunting empty room.

Every return to the hills pierces me with longing. The mountains stand still — majestic, grieving, waiting. For our hearts to remember. For our souls to return home.

Tirath Singh Rawat, Dehradun

Uttarakhand