Dehradun of an Old Man’s Dreams

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As a town undergoes transformation, stories linger over meals, bittersweet flavours of time and loss simmer, and memories stretch across generations. When growth meets nostalgic recollections of Dehradun, every corner holds whispers of a fading past. Amidst change and longing, a subtle tension brews – between roots and restless hearts, belonging and departure. What happens when home is both a place and a memory?

Lunchtime was always reserved for stories

Aspirations were talked over our breakfast

The older days, the difficult hills and their fables

But since you’ve passed, I've been eating alone at the dinner table.

You always said that you had a difficult life

The hills with its disasters were never really kind

So the valley became your new home soon

Thus, my grandfather stepped foot in Doon.

A single college was all that the town had

The air was clean but the roads were bad

Mussoorie surrounded with grace to make the valley look pretty

And as the village folk migrated, the town soon turned into a city.

You reminisced about how the city grew with you

Till it became the place your grandchildren could grow into

Now there are numerous universities and even more schools

Cafés beside colleges, professional stadiums and pools.

But while the air was still clean and water fairly pure

People left the city to make a foreign land home

They said that there was more money outside the city’s doors

Gone was the language, the culture and the treasured folklore.

You spoke with an air of sorrow; there was worry in your head

Every time you watched a grandchild of yours leave.

About the Author

Samishta Bhatt

Samishta hails from Dehradun and is currently an undergraduate student in Agricultural Sciences. Her love for nature is anything but a passing phase. Despite her appreciation for the outdoors, she can spend hours locked in her room, engrossed in anything she can read—be it novels of any genre, manga, manhwa, webtoons, newspapers, Wikipedia pages, or even subreddits.