Essay: The Beautiful Valley

A simple literary essay written a few years back by me, depicting how a varied our perception can be depending on what our thoughts think the whole time.

The Beautiful Valley


                At leisure he sat under the shade of an enormous tree, whose long slender branches twisted and turned like arms united to form a thick grey shadow in the vastness of the shining golden-green grassland. As he looked up, deep in thought born out of the book in his hand, his eyes feasted upon the beauty of the vista before him. He smiled at the regal guarding mountains that came down slanting from both sides of the valley. Faraway to the horizon, where the sky fell into the misty Earth, he could see nothing but a snowy peak that rose out of the grey haze, and shone golden-white, majestic above all visible. How breathtaking and “beautiful” the panorama was for the reader…!
              
                Had the reader a telescope, he would have seen, faraway on the snow-capped summit, a man clad in heavy clothing, struggling to remain in his feet. The strong snowy wing swept continually against his face like the slashes of a sword, and chilled every drop of his blood. On the shining sliver blanket, over which he hopped to remain abreast, there were no holdfasts, except for some grey jagged stones that stuck out as spears. Yet, in the face of this deadly peril, facing the fury of the hostile peak, which he regarded as the “beauty” of nature, the hiker felt happiness…!
             
               But the hiker had no time to spare for the car that just drove into the valley far beneath and behind him. Out stepped a man draped in black, who surveyed the green cradle between the mountain feet, amid which stood the majestic tree. Absorbing the splendid “beauty” of the shining grass, he heaved a sigh of satisfaction. As he sat down on his car’s fluffy seat, he told his comrade joyfully that the site was “beautiful” enough to construct a resort…!
            
                He drove off fast, joy in his heart, impervious to a pair of youths wearing glasses. They sat, not far off from the tree, on a shining gray flat slab of stone, still slippery with the morning dew debating the geological facets of the origin of the valley. Still a few rocks ahead sat another couple thinking aloud to decide the class to which the tree belonged. Both these pairs found joy and happiness investigating the beauty of nature…!

                Unaware they were of the boy jumping up and down the hill, for they were immersed in the beauty of the valley. This boy had nothing on his mind, but the frantic clicking away of his digital camera, for he seemed set on the task to view this single view with a thousand views…!

                But through the open grassland walked an old bearded man, cloaked and hooded, leaning on his staff. As his eyes fell on the panorama, he paused for a moment, his eyes scanning the captivating collection. Were somebody near, they would surely have heard him draw his breath and look towards the sky, and his time torn lips let out the words:

“Our Lord! Thou createdst not this in vain. Glory be to Thee! Preserve us from doom of Fire!” (Surat Aal-e-Imraan, Verse 191)

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