The Hills Are Alive….



No, I am not referring to the song from ‘The Sound of Music.’ This weekend, I had two conversations both pointing me towards The Hill. First, let me take a step back about two other hills.

Growing up, Phantom comics were a big part of my life. There was something quite amazing about the aura around the Phantom. Phantom took me on a journey to exotic lands – one such being Walker’s Table in the Mesa desert in the US. Walker’s Table was quite an exotic location – bare and isolated.




And then there was the famous hill made out of mashed potatoes. Yup, am referring to Richard Dreyfus maniacally replication an image stuck in his head in Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’




Yup, these two hills indeed look very very similar. Not sure why, but these images have stuck in my head. So, over this weekend, when my uncle Madhurai GS Mani and Prof. Muthukrishnan both referred to their strong association with Shri. Ramana Maharishi, these images came floating into my head. Why? The spiritual guru Ramana spent most of his life at the foothills of the Arunachalam hill. This hill is now revered as a centre of spiritual power and perambulating it is considered very auspicious. I have done so once a couple of years ago. The conversations with these two evolved souls has inspired me to visit the Ashram soon and I am sure will lead to another 14 km walk around this hill.



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