Up

Everything in Mussoorie feels like it's perched precariously somewhere between up and down.   The plains end in Dehradun and a narrow, winding road holds for dear life to the raw edges of this himalayan hillside. I am tense through each blind corner, trying to block my awareness of how everything falls away below a small guard rail on our left. Above us the town is visible. Clusters of life have negotiated some ancient agreement with gravity and lay claim to their space between earth and bright blue sky. The air is cooler and clearer. We bypass the main bazaar. The price of the short cut is an impossibly steep grade that makes me grab Naths hand and lean forward in the illusion that it will somehow help the straining engine. We arrive at the tiny home my parents rent and walk the last 300 meters up steep uneven steps through pine and deodar forest. Like almost everything in Mussoorie it sits anchored to the hillside over looking the dun valley a few thousand meters below.   Inside I'm immediately met by a smell so familiar that I'm caught off guard. A combination of whitewash and the insidious mildew of a hundred monsoons, scrubbed away but lingering on. It's an ancient smell but somehow not a bad one.  And I know immediately that it's identical to the smell of my first homes here. Smell is said to trigger memory and I realize how true this is. India is full of smells, for better or for worse,  and I'm curious to see what else will be unlocked in my memory through them.