.......Hic!!

While I am preparing for a very quiet entry into 2006, I couldn’t help but smirk at the photos we clicked on Christmas Eve. One of us (the siblings) brought home a bottle of red wine. While our parents were speaking to us on the phone, one of us opened the bottle. Glasses clinked, laughter rang, the cake consumed. Within minutes, the wine had traveled straight into my head.

End result? Me doing a ‘Macarena’!!

Happy New Year!!

Greetings!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas!!

GOD Bless!

Life is Beautiful!

I Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient and kind;

love is not jealous or boastful;it is not arrogant or rude.

Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

Acapella

April is unbearably hot. She was left wide-eyed on seeing a whole regiment of men in fatigues bustling about in the platform and the cloakroom, clothed in heavy jackets and snow-boots. Red-faced and sweaty, many of them rolled up their beddings and some of the furry jackets they were wearing. Not a single one crossed 5’5” in height. They are genetically short in stature. An odd moment or two, one of them would catch her staring at their activities. She looked away feeling guilty for some unknown reason. Probably guilty of intruding their world where it was supposed to be a snowy April.

“Gorkha Rifles. They must have just got off from that train,” he explained while easing into his chair. “It’s cold up there in Kashmir. I wonder how I am going to survive my winter this time.”Her mouth curled in a waning smile. He offered her water from the bottle he just unsealed. While she tipped her head backwards to gulp a few mouthfuls, he watched her in silence. A newspaper folded to show an almost-complete crossword puzzle, in her hand. She was dressed in ethnic Indian wear. She wore danglers, rings and bangles. And an upside-down smile.

“Doesn’t this hurt?”
She shook her head in negation.
“I meant your heavy dangling earrings, Swee’Pea…” he weakly attempted to change the topic.
And while she explained that even though those earrings look heavy, they aren’t, and while she explained that she wore them because it was supposed to be lucky for her, and while she absentmindedly picked on the water bottle cover, he reached out for her hand. Cold. She stopped her mindless chatter.

“You do know that this is the last time we are meeting, right?"
She shook her head again. This time, in affirmation.
She reminded him that they already had had this discussion the last time they met.
“Look, Swee’Pea…I…”

She faced him, and he fumbled for words. A female voice announced the arrival of his train when he attempted to resume his explanation. She reminded him that it was his train. They took his baggage and walked toward the bogie. Exhaling black smoke, sighing, and waiting. He got inside, identified his seat, placed his baggage and looked at her from here.

She drew her mind’s confusion out on the hard cement floor, with her toe. There were half-moon-shaped nail marks in her palms. Tightly clenched fists. Her vision of the grey floor was marred with a brief appearance of his shoes. She looked up to see him asking for a hug. They hugged. They kissed too. He turned around and walked back into the bogie that pulled off the station almost instantly. No one stood by the doorstep waving back at her, so she walked towards the exit door.

‘Acapella’, she thought, ‘that was for 18Across: unaccompanied’. She wiped off his moisture that had lingered on her neck, tossed the paper in a ‘use-me’ and tried to hail a cab. She wept in silence, amidst the bustling din.

Virtue or Vice?

Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as virtue.

-- Ambrose Bierce

Wild Flowers - V

Early next morning, we packed our bags and checked out of the hotel. We were to leave by eight. But once we reached the check post, we came to know about the regulations. The route was one-way, and to regulate traffic, the authorities had fixed timings for vehicles to go to and from Gangaria. We had ample time before the barricades let our vehicle pass through.

Walking about kicking tiny pebbles, I clicked a few snaps, captured a few moments, and then got bored. We found a tiny shack where they sold piping hot soup and noodles. Exorbitantly prized, of course, but tasty, nevertheless. We sat about discussing a recap of the entire trip. We were a day too late. The route was so treacherous and slippery, and the trek was too strenuous that we simply had to stretch it to yet another day. We rummaged through and finalized on the excuses we would need to convince folks back in the city, for our delay.

The road trip was interrupted by only hunger and short pit stops. The roads were damper and more difficult to drive through. There were remnants of landslides that had taken place. All the way down the hills, we got to traverse through piles of rubble and rocks. The vehicle wore it out. We were tired with hardly any sensation on legs. Most of us slept through the return trip.

There is something peculiar about me. I can’t sleep for long in moving vehicles. And if there is the radio station playing or something, then I can stay awake without much effort. Creating mental pictures of the moments that were slipping by, trying to capture them in words in my mind, I traveled back from the sedate hills and the wild flowers, down Gangaria, down Joshimath, down Byasi, down Rishikesh, down Haridwar… back to the potpourri called Delhi.

“You must write about this some day…”
“I surely will…”

Dham to Ghat

We were back in Govind Dham by two in the afternoon. We collapsed on the lunch table and gorged on whatever was served. We knew that the trail left ahead of us was no easy task. We had to reach Govind Ghat by nightfall. If we lagged behind in time, then it would become very difficult to trek downhill. None of us carried a decent torch with us. None of us smoked, so there were no lighters either. This was the plan. We would all set off together. But no one was to stop and wait for any of the others. The idea was to race down and book a room for the rest of the team.

Setting out on a happy and light note, we went off in good speed. But as time passed, the gap between “pace-partners” widened. So much so that, the first team was forced to stop and wait for the second. We sat in a tea-stall that was seven kilometers far from where we had started off. The pace at which we had come downhill made sure that we were sweating profusely in spite of the sleet and the chilly drizzle. We sipped strong Garhwali tea and watched mules go past carrying tired pilgrims.

Mowgli declared that if we did not catch up with his pace, he would make sure that we are seated on mules the rest of the way. I protested vehemently. I hated the idea of being ridden downhill by a struggling wheezing mule. Slippery-cobbled paths, and dung filled turns. Later on, when Little One came to know about this decree, she hit the roof. “I am NOT going to travel on a mule!”

Two hours later, in the dark, I was sitting atop a mule. So was a sulking Little One.

Warm Safe Happy

Late evening. Golden lights reflected bright streams on Ganga. We were on the other side of civilization. We were about to cross a bridge that would end our journey through the wilderness. Walking past the bustling evening market, we tried to find our old guesthouse. Wet and bedraggled, we managed to find some unwanted attention. One freak followed the two of us until we reached the guesthouse. He went away when the guy behind the reception counter glared at him. After fixing a price for the room, we sunk into the warm sofas and waited for our fellow trekkers.

An hour later, when I had just begun to worry about them, Mowgli literally exploded into the room. Yelps of joy and squeals of relief; moans of dull aches and bustle for hot water.

‘Chai?’
‘Yes, please!’
‘Where’s the other guy??’
‘He must be on his way!’
“Waddaya mean, on his way?!’
‘We argued that we are man enough to fend for ourselves, so we spilt on the way.’

While we pondered over this, the fourth VoF trekker made his entry. He had his own set of adventures to recount. We settled down and waited for the remaining three to come from the Gurudwara. Here too, a maalishwala materialized out of nowhere. We ordered for dinner for all the seven of us. Took warm baths, sat around sharing notes from the trek. We showed each other gruesome bluish nail-less toes and ‘tsk’ed in sympathy. But when we saw the condition in which the remaining three came in, we instantly knew that we had fared much better.

They came at 2245 hrs. They took three extra hours to reach our guesthouse. They had a far worse trek than we had fathomed. A cacophony of seven trekkers trading notes simultaneously, ensued. The chaos soon settled to a quieter equilibrium. Dinner eaten, medications taken, balm applied, we slept fitfully. How fitfully? This would be a highly questionable affair, for there were moaning and cringing every time someone shifted in the bed, or changed positions. I vehemently denied all accusations of making any noise until one of them cornered me and shot me down with a, ”You were the loudest! Every time you shifted in bed, you cried, Oh Jesus! Oh Mary! Oh Joseph!”

Just picture that.
Thine cup of mirth brimmeth over.

Farewell to Wilderness

The return journey was oddly treacherous. Probably it was the hunger that had begun to make its presence strongly felt. We suddenly weren’t much in awe of the glacial valley that gave Smythe more than two hundred botanical species, anymore! All we wanted to see was the green checkpost that signaled the entrance/exit of ‘Phoolon Ki Ghati’ (Valley of Flowers)…

Damp, blue toenails began to pain with every step I took. Mowgli offered free classes on how to step on stones with minimal damage. He encouraged others to pick up speed by rattling out the menu of our proposed lunch once we are out of the wild valley.

Hungry, damp and blue, 4000 meters above sea level… I wondered how the Gurudwara teams fared.

~~~ * ~~~

At a few more meters above the Valley, three of our trekkers were on their way to the Gurudwara.

The place of worship does not allow the pilgrims to stay there beyond two in the afternoon. The air is too light and staying overnight is not permitted. Most people suffer from altitude sickness here. Many devotees take a dip in the holy lake in the freezing conditions. Some say that there is a thin layer of ice on the surface of the lake that is melted with the body heat of the bathers. Deaths due to hypothermia and severe weather conditions are normal. The path is slippery and prone to landslides.

Among our three trekkers, one of them dared to take a dip in the water. She came out frozen. They said that their trek uphill was so treacherous that when they finally reached their destination, they broke down to tears of relief, men and women alike. While one delighted at the sight of greenish-yellow Brahma Kamal, another was at peace for having made this journey at least once in his lifetime.

Grave Concerns

Having gone as far as we could, we decided to turn around. There was a tinge of regret because we couldn’t see the famous grave. Very few visitors venture beyond two kilometers into the Valley. The cobbled paths meander and fade into wilderness. The grave was somewhere in this carpet of flowers, hidden among flowers that stood as tall as us.

This was the legend:
In 1939, Joan Margaret Legge, a botanist from the Kew Botanical garden in London, was collecting floral specimens in the Valley when she fell to her death. A memorial was erected in her honour. Etched in English and Hindi into the white marble of the gravestone is a line from Psalm 121 which reads "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence commeth my help."

We had lost our way trying to find the grave. Later on, we came to know that we were hardly 500 meters away from Margaret’s grave when we had turned to go back.

Not So Close Encounters

It was August 15th. While India was celebrating her 58th year of freedom, we were reveling among the wild flowers and the mossy boulders. The sun was out for barely a few hours. That was when we got to see the valley at her best, when the fog lifted. While one of us rested on the boulders thinking of piping hot dishes of Paneer, another took time to photograph whatever he saw around him. One of them lay on the grass, squinting at the pleasant sun, trying to catch a nap. I wandered about in the vicinity.

Two men. One was frail and seemed as though he was made of glass. You would think twice before shaking his hand, lest he chipped off. Such was his fragility. He owned a glorious piece of instrument that he addressed with a menial word—‘Camera’. While he adjusted the focus, the other man held a flower in his palm. He had not plucked it, simply held it in the soft of his hand. He seemed of Iranian descent. Sweater sleeves rolled up to reveal milky-white hands. Blue veins showed through his translucent hairless skin. Wrinkles striped his forehead while he concentrated on his task. Rucksacks lay strewn in the wet grass. Shoes tossed about. They were in a world of their own.

Never talk to strangers, said a voice from within. Heck. I disobeyed and ventured, “Are you professionals?” They turned out to be two timid botany students who were researching on some rare species of flowering plants. Kashmiri origin. Amateur photographers. Been to the Valley umpteen times.

Cordial greetings and happy smiles were exchanged later on, when we bumped into each other downtown in the town’s hubbub.

Wild Flowers - IV

We started off early. By now, it was clear who all will be going to the Valley and who will go to the Gurudwara. Both the teams would return back to Govind Dham and yet, not wait there for long. We planned to meet down below in Govind Ghat. That meant a good 20 kilometers trek downhill for both the teams.

Over breakfast, we contemplated that the trek downhill would be much more easier than what it was like, uphill. But that was soon proven wrong. While you trek uphill, you heave and ho a lot, and the pressure is on your heart. It thumps so loudly in your ears that you can’t hear yourself talk. But the trek downhill takes a toll on your feet, if you don’t know how to minimize the pressure on your toes. Most of us step on something with our toes first. But while trekking downhill, if you learn to apply the pressure in the curve of your foot, it will ease the tension to a great extent… or else, be happy with blisters and a blue toenail.

~~~ * ~~~

There were four takers for the Valley.
I will give an account of this trek because I was part of it.

The Valley of Flowers is situated about three kilometers beyond Govind Dham. Reaching there isn’t the tough part. It is the trail inside the park that gets tedious. We wore light raincoats. There was a constant drizzle, but it was so light that you wouldn’t feel the droplets on you. However, after some time, these droplets would freeze into ice on your hair and face.

The tracks inside the valley were cruder. But it was lesser slippery to walk upon. There were no mules to share the trail with. So, no dug to watch out for. Once inside the national park, you wont be able to get even a bottle of packaged water. And this was one thing we weren’t carrying. All we had with us were some candies and a few biscuits.

We crossed a couple of creaky bridges made out of mossy logs. There was one major bridge, which signaled the beginning of the valley. As we continued to walk, the trail got narrower. We took a break after two hours of non-stop walking. Our team leader was ruthless. “We have to make it back in good time!” he would remind us when we asked for a break. When we rebelled, the leader had to give in and allow us to rest.
We sat on smooth, round rocks. It was misty and wet all around. We had, quite obviously, chosen the wrong day to trek out to the Valley. On clear and sunny days, you would get to see different hillocks covered with different coloured flowers. There were two graves down here in the valley. The legend about how Smythe and his wife found this place to be nothing less than heaven and how they wanted to be buried here, side by side, were already narrated and passed around, while we were at Ghat.

~~~ * ~~~

I felt very thirsty. There was no water left in the bottle and there was not a stream in sight.
“Do you know how people in the olden times survived in the forest when they wanted water?”
“How?”
“Like this—“ Saying this, one of them went over to a flowering plant and shook a dew-laden flower.
“You mean, sip droplets from the flowers and leaves?”
“Yeah! Try it!”
I found a suitable, seemingly harmless looking flower and encapsulated it with my mouth, stalk sticking out like a lollipop stick. One suck and I felt wetness down my parched throat.
“Didn’t the pollen grains affect those people in the olden days? No allergies, nothing?”
“That we will come to know in case YOU burst out into itches and rashes!”

Hmm.

~~~ * ~~~

From where we stood, I saw what looked like a massive area of salt deposits. One of them pitched in to say that it’s ice. I argued that the temperature had not dipped that low that the river would freeze to ice. It really wasn’t that cold, and there simply wasn’t an explanation for that yellow-white mass to be ice. We decided to walk over and find out who’s right.

A few hours into walking down the valley, the four trekkers were completely silent. The jokes had died down and hunger had begun to set in. We still had our raincoats on. It was drizzling and the fingers had begun to get a bluish tinge. Little One was totally exhausted. “I don’t really care to know if it is salt or ice, you know…” she had almost given up when Mowgli took a stick, ran down the valley a little further. He thrust the stick into the ‘salt deposit’, broke a piece, washed it in the stream and handed it over to her. “Ice… Salty ice!”

Now, there’s an argument completely settled.

Games at Twilight

“There can’t be phones up here… can there?” Little One asked doubtfully. We decided to explore the possibilities. Considering the fact that Mowgli had got himself a masseur to massage and oil him on this scantily populated hill, a telephone cannot be completely ruled out.

“There can’t be phones up here… can there?” Little One asked doubtfully. We decided to explore the possibilities. Considering the fact that Mowgli had got himself a masseur to massage and oil him on this scantily populated hill, a telephone cannot be completely ruled out.

We walked up a little distance and found that the path ended where a long bustling queue began. We were standing a couple of meters away from a phone booth. Everyone who spoke on phone took ages. Well, that is what it seemed to us, from that distance. The reality became clearer when we neared the booth. A number, once dialed wouldn’t be connected instantly. The man sitting at the booth would have to try and retry at least a couple of times before the line finally gets connected. A connection is no guarantee that you get to talk. For often, you end up hearing static at the other end, and yet get charged for it.

There was an elaborate placard listing out the call rates:
Half min: 15 rupees
One min: 30 rupees
*10 rupees if the call gets connected and then jumps

Govind Dham can get pretty expensive. It was the same with the piping hot Gulab Jamuns and sweet milk we feasted on, that night. The normal analgesics that you take for aches and pains cost a fortune. Trinkets in plain metal rattled out prices as though they were melted out of gold. All said and done, the prices for the rooms we stayed in simply got cheaper and cheaper as we went higher, altitude-wise. “We probably could stay for free in the Valley!” quipped a smart-Alec-trekker.

~~~ * ~~~

It was around nine, but most of us were drooping with sleep heavy on our eyes. The long trek and the heavy food almost had a therapeutic effect on us. While there were blisters and cramps to be taken care of, most of us popped some analgesic and hit the bed. Mowgli’s knee was in a bad shape and he applied balm on it in wincing silence. I offered to play Florence Nightingale and tied the crepe bandage.

Lights out.
Then, some shuffling from the guys’ bed.
“What’s up?”
“Err… nothing!”
Someone shone a torch in the direction of the feeble “Err… nothing”

I toppled over with mirth when I saw Mowgli sitting up and re-doing the bandage. He said it was tied a little too tight; that he couldn’t bend his knee at all. I saw that the lower portion of his leg had turned blue, but the fellow didn’t as much as open his mouth and tell me about it.

“What if you felt bad?” A wide-eyed question.
Nobody fired me. I played nurse right till the end of the trek.

Odds and Ends

The sun softened as it was preparing to set and be off for the day. It was getting dark and the fog was setting in when we walked into a hamlet. We had reached Dham just in time. Govind Dham was indeed a town of its own! While some of them went in search of a good place to stay, the rest of the trekkers sat on the roadside. I settled after buying a tube of balm, fully aware that we would need this tonight. After all, the trek was just no joke for a novice.

Among the many strangers who walked past us on the road, one person stood out. I could see him walking up to where we were sitting. Wiry-haired, a constantly surprised look in his eyes, and completely geared for a long trek. He looked awfully familiar. He smiled in recognition. “S! What a surprise!” I exclaimed when realization dawned (Finally!) Well, what are the odds of that—I was talking to a guy who used to work in our office. Up, on top of the Dham I get to know that he has quit our office and joined a new firm. We exchanged more pleasantries and S was on his way. It got crazier, when, after another whole day’s travel, I met him once again, in the wilderness of the Valley of Flowers. Just what are the odds of that happening?

~~~ * ~~~

We watched curiously as Mowgli carried on an effortless conversation with him. The ‘him’ in question is a teeny tiny man. A masseur by profession. He is now rapidly clapping his palms on the back of Mowgli’s neck. Mowgli is delighted. Then, they set to work on Mowgli’s troublesome knee.

“So… is this what you do for a living?”
“Haanji…”

More clapping and thumping follows and Mowgli can’t talk for a while. Conversation is resumed soon.

“Where are you from? Do you stay in these parts?”
“Kya baat keh rahe ho, bhai sahib? This whole place is blanketed in snow by this time next month! I am from M…”
“You are from M?? Heard of that famous park there? A lot of maalishwallahs sit there…”
“Saabji! You know that park? I work there during winters!”

And so the conversation continues to delight the both of them, while the others watch on with a tinge of envy and a lot of amusement. Mowgli gets a massage done in half the price they had agreed upon earlier. All this, while the masseur doesn’t feel fleeced one bit.

Quite a smooth talker, that Mowgli.

Wild Flowers - III

All of us found our own “pace-partners” during the trek. Some of them were nothing short of nimble-footed mountain goats. All they lacked were hoofs and horns! While some others were snail-paced yet resilient. They believed firmly in what the tortoise had said ages ago, “Slow and steady wins the race”. One preferred solitude. One wanted frequent breaks. One simply wanted to stop and lap up the beauty of the place. With the others way behind him, Mowgli (let’s call him that since he had the agility of a jungle boy!) would sit under a shady tree and wait for the breathless city dwellers to catch up.

The trek was not strenuous when it began. The sun was still not at its best. There was a slight chill and we were all wearing our warmers. We were chatty and cheerful. Soon enough, when the sun shone right above our heads, we shed layers. Today, we were supposed to cover thirteen kilometers uphill in the lower Himalayas. From Govind Ghat to Govind Dham.