Mussoorie is beautiful round the year, but the hill-town looks spectacular during the monsoon season. Picture yourself taking a walk down a quiet, silent street with trees on one side and a valley on the other. You are surrounded by clouds, there are no vehicles in sight – and hardly any people too! It’s not raining..yet, but you can feel the moist air and smell the wet mud around you.

You observe the hills at a distance for a while, but can’t see much because of low visibility due to the dense mist. A drop of condensed water falls upon you from a tree you are standing below. You walk ahead – and then on your right, you see a big, black gravestone. An unmissable, beautiful sight that makes you take your eyes off the hills and the misty valleys.

That is the Chitambar family gravestone, which stands out while you’re taking a walk on this road. There are about 50 other graves around it. Some from the late 19th century, but most from the early to mid-1900s. There are graves of different shapes and sizes. Some of them covered by weed and wild grass that grow there. Some are placed higher up, others right on the edge. Some graves have big tombstones, others don’t have any. Some graves have epitaphs with biblical verses, others unmarked, unknown.

These graves are overlooking the valley. Mountains across the valley are surrounded by a necklace of clouds. There are more graves of some early settlers of the town if you go down a rocky trail which takes you downwards, right across the main cemetery.

While you stand there, observing these magnificent graves, envious of those who get to be buried here as their final resting ground, a bark distracts you. You look around and there’s a big, furry dog. However, there’s no reason to worry as the dog barks at you from behind a locked gate. It reads ‘No entry without permission’. Suddenly the barking stops and turns into yelps of bewilderment as the dog begins to chase around butterflies fluttering over the graves.

You forget about the graves and take this opportunity to enjoy the dog chasing the butterflies. It is almost 6 and it looks like it is going to rain. You must head home now, envious of the dead who get to stay there. Forever.