The rooftop was my kingdom. At eleven years old, most of my free time was spent up there, lost in games that only made sense to a boy with an endless imagination. But as the day wound down and the sun began its journey toward the west, my games would pause, and I would find myself drawn to the edge of our rooftop, gazing toward the distant shape of the Simlipal mountain range.
In my class 6 school textbooks, Simlipal came alive through black and white photographs — elephants with their trunks raised, exotic birds perched on ancient branches, tigers moving like shadows through dense forests. Those images fascinated me, but they were just echoes of something real I had experienced once, when I was seven years old. That single visit to Simlipal had left an imprint on my young mind that four years couldn't fade. So there I would stand each evening, watching the sun disappear behind those familiar peaks, remembering the sounds of the forest, the smell of earth and leaves, the sense of being surrounded by something wild and wonderful.
“Do you think the elephants remember you?” Neighbour Sahu Badmaa would call out from her courtyard below, having noticed my daily ritual of staring westward. “Do the birds wonder where that little boy went?” Her words would make me smile and wonder. Did they remember the seven-year-old who had walked among them? In my heart, I believed they did.
Sundays brought a different kind of hope. “Manu Dada,” I would say, “can you take me to Simlipal on your scooter? Just to the entry point — it's only thirty kilometers.” Week after week, I would ask, knowing the entry point was so tantalizingly close, yet somehow always out of reach. Manu Dada would listen patiently to my requests, sometimes promising to consider it, but the trips never materialized.
I used to play with Sal flowers that floated down and came in huge numbers to our rooftop. The delicate, pale yellow blossoms would drift on the evening breeze, and I would catch them in my cupped hands, watching them spin and dance. As I held these flowers, I used to wonder — since Simlipal had so many Sal trees, how magnificent the sight must be in early summer when countless Sal flowers came cascading down, rotating through the air like nature's own celebration.
In my dreams, I would find myself walking through those very forests. I could see it so clearly — thousands upon thousands of Sal flowers floating down through shafts of golden sunlight, creating a gentle shower of petals around me. Deer would move gracefully between the falling blooms, their steps silent on the flower-carpeted forest floor, while rabbits nibbled on the ones that were still fresh and green, their whiskers twitching with contentment. The air would be thick with the sweet fragrance of blossoms, and I would spin around with my arms outstretched, trying to catch as many flowers as I could.
“Won't you go to school?” Maa's voice would break through my dream, gently shaking me awake. Even in school, I would find my mind drifting back to that beautiful morning dream, smiling to myself as I remembered the magical scene.
Come March, it was the Simul trees' turn. Their cotton-like flowers would come floating in the wind to our rooftop, soft and white as tiny clouds. My young mind, seeing those white tufts scattered across our terrace, would wonder how rabbits might be hiding among them — their white fur blending perfectly with the Simul cotton, invisible until they moved, like living secrets of the forest waiting to be discovered.
Still, the longing remained. Every evening, after the games were finished and the rooftop grew quiet, I would stand facing west, feeling connected to those distant mountains. They seemed to call to me across the kilometers, reminding me of that magical day when I was seven, promising that someday I would return.
Only when evening tuition time arrived would this spell be broken. “Come down,” someone from the family would call, “Sadhangi sir is here.” Reluctantly, I would leave my post, climbing down from my rooftop kingdom to face the world of books and lessons. But part of me always remained up there, gazing toward Simlipal, keeping alive the memory of a place where a boy had once walked among elephants and wondered at the vastness of the wild.
Those evenings taught me that some places claim us in ways we don't fully understand. Simlipal had claimed me during that single childhood visit, and from our rooftop, thirty kilometers away, I kept faith with that connection, one sunset at a time.