t’s just water flowing down a rock,” said my brother as we stood beside the mighty 180-ft Manthoka Waterfall in Skardu. It took a few moments for my brain to register the complexity of the sentence. In fact, not the complexity of the sentence — that was pretty simple — but what such plain comprehension had done to the whole situation. It felt like a massive mental earthquake had jolted all romantic notions.

It was summer, and like everyone else, our family too had eyes on Northern Areas. It wasn’t the first time I was visiting Skardu. The north is mesmerising; it beckons you, again and again, to visit the unexplored and drench yourself into something that seems unreal to the eye. No pictures can do justice to the real-life visions in front of you and my brother’s words somehow managed to do it justice.

Try and ponder over it for a moment. Because what he said was so true for my existence. In literal terms, a waterfall is actually just water falling from a high place. He didn’t stop there; he went on to say, “Can you believe it? We travelled three hours just to see water falling from some height.” I glanced at the surroundings and how so many people had travelled the same distance for the same reason. It all felt mundane.

We pondered over that thought some more, the simplicity of it. It was something so ordinary that we had hyped up in our heads. After introspection, I hesitantly came to correlate it with how love blinds us, and how we begin to value something so simple and put ordinary people on a pedestal which is sometimes beyond what they actually are. No wonder they say love is blind; you sometimes stop seeing the person for who they are, rather what you’ve ‘imagined’ them to be.

As it happens in love, I put into perspective the simple idea of water falling from a rock and put my love goggles back on to marvel at the wonder of nature.

We often draw a false image of people we’re infatuated with, and with that, we do a disservice not only to ourselves but to them as well. How on earth will they fulfill your expectations if, in the very first place, you’ve built them up to be something they are not? You rob them of their true identity and give them an identity of someone you want them to be. It’s bound to landslide like a mountain with too much weight (expectations) put on it.

Slowly and gradually, if one has the strength to, one can put that person in a place of their comfort, a place they should’ve been all along, and then wonder how that false image caused you to shower them with love and admiration. Actually, you were just trying to turn a fantasy into reality.

As it happens in love, I put into perspective the simple idea of water falling from a rock and put my love goggles back on to marvel at the wonder of nature. How the water took years to carve the landscape and find its way only to fall from a rock, just like us, who also fall into love unwillingly.

The writer, an ex-serviceman, is a freelancer. He can be reached at shaafayzia@gmail.com