India's Ancient Aravalli Hills Teach Us We Were Never Alone

A single tree hosts an entire world. Creepers climb its bark, insects burrow through wood, birds debate from branches at dawn, and ants march in tireless lines below.

Now imagine thousands of these living republics across India's Aravalli hills, each one connecting to aquifers that remember decades of rain and leopard corridors that cross human boundaries. These low, humble mountains are older than the Himalayas, older than our arguments about development versus nature.

Author and environmentalist Arefa Tehsin grew up exploring the Aravallis around Udaipur, where weekly family outings taught her that loneliness might be something we choose. Recent debates about whether these "low hills" are worth protecting sparked her reflection on what we lose when we sever connections with the living world around us.

The Aravallis never demanded reverence or pilgrimage circuits. They simply absorbed ecological shocks for a civilization that forgot to brake, quietly filtering air and storing water for millions of people.

Why This Inspires

Scientific theories now support what Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, and Sufism taught for centuries: shared consciousness connects all living things. When we treat mountains, forests, and rivers as dispensable, we're not asserting power but announcing how profoundly alone we've chosen to be.

The tree hosting its tiny republic was never lonely. We were.

Tehsin's message lands gently but firmly: every hillock in the Aravallis shelters overlapping worlds, and protecting them means protecting the connections that make us whole. The workers marching like ants through heat waves, the opinion-makers chirping from branches, the silent custodians holding memory in their roots all depend on recognizing we're part of something larger.

Perhaps our growing sense of isolation stems from actively severing links with land, non-human life, and memory itself. The Aravallis stand as living proof that existence doesn't need to justify itself constantly or chase grandeur to matter.

Their biggest mistake was having no interest in being impressive. Their greatest gift is reminding us that connection, not domination, makes life worth protecting.