Walking on Clouds

By- Sneha Prasad

Photos by- Sneha Prasad

Edited by- Diksha Sharma

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In Shillong, snuggled between the mountains and hills, every Sunday felt like a frame from a Ghibli movie.

The kongs (the Khasi word for “sister”) would sell flowers on the side of the road on Sunday because it was time for Mass. We'd wake up to the sound of the church bells, with gospel songs in our ears, while my friends and I zealously devoured the best momo in the world outside of our school.

There was a saying in our town that one can experience all four seasons in a single day in Shillong. We'd wake up to the sun hugging us, only for it to turn into storms by mid-afternoon. With evenings lined with falling leaves from the jacaranda trees, and the nights ending with warm coffee from Jeve's and blankets, even in the summer.

No matter how ordinary a Sunday was, at the end of the day, a beautiful sunset was always on the horizon to make up for it. Shillong is a dreamscape, like someone stitched the clouds and cherry blossoms right into my bones; it was whimsical and, for a long time, the only reality worth knowing.

Shillong is beautiful, not because some valleys and corners seem like someone deliberately painted them by hand, but because of the way it makes space for pause, for a breath, for life.

As a woman, I could go for a walk at nine and not feel as though my life was at stake. It was a place where cooking was a basic human skill and not a gender norm. Where a stranger named Hilda would tell me on my morning walk, "Make sure you build your own life."

Shillong teaches you to choose your own colour palette and realize that maybe you don't hate pink, not when the sky looks like the universe is endless — and yet, somehow, right here.

On Sundays, I would go to the cathedral in the evening and try to find traces of myself in the stained glass. The twilight would melt every reality I'd ever known, and I never wanted to be anywhere else but in Shillong.

It's Sunday again, and I'm in Delhi, but my hometown is woven into my skin, with the seams of every Sunday I had spent there throughout my life interlaced with my memory and identity. The trees in Delhi don't talk to me, but the ones back home screamed me into existence.

Sundays were the smell of pine trees, church bells, and realizing I didn't hate pink, not when the sky had stretched and reached into its depths, when the place had unfurled its ribs, like a mother to make room for wonder and life.

For love that lingers...

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