A Boy's Travels in the Himalayas
I was born in a small town in a house with sweeping views of the high Himalayas. You can say I was born with love of mountains in my blood. My dad moved around a lot, from one beautiful Uttarakhand town to the next, while the rest of our family settled in Dehradun. Every summer, me and sometimes few of my friends from Lucknow, trying to beat the brutal summer heat of the plains, would go stay with my dad. This was before trekking and river rafting in the Himalayas became the cool thing to do and in many places we went to, we were the only city boys.
Whenever my dad went to a new place I would ask him two questions about it: Does the place have a river and can you see the Himalayas from the house ? My dad in his efforts to entice me over, would always say yes, at times stretching the truth a bit. Sometimes the river was a couple kilometers below the house and sometimes to see the snowy peaks we had to climb up a couple kilometers. But it was always worth the visit. The places were invariably beautiful, the weather was perfect and the food was amazing... especially the mutton. In those days, goats were sacrificed routinely in temples and villages and the fresh meat was delicious.
Everything in the mountains was awesome to our little minds. We listened raptly as my father once pointed to the dense forests in the distance and said, "This is the Nanda Devi Reserve. No man has gone into some of its areas" or when my grandfather proudly told us of Nandprayag: "This is the place beyond which even the great Sir Edmund Hillary's jet boat couldn't go in his Ocean to Sky expedition". I recently read an article on the CIA's secret expedition to place a nuclear monitoring device on top of Nanda Devi to keep tabs on the Chinese nuclear programme. I had to chuckle as I remembered my Dad's words. Apparently, when he said that no man has gone into the reserve, he didn't mean the spooks of CIA. Those guys are everywhere.
My favorite place amongst all places my Dad stayed in was Ukhimath near Kedarnath. It had an unbelievable location. Traveling to Kedarnath from there became like going to the city parks in the US. Every other week we would find someone going there and tag along. The more than 10 kilometer trek was no big deal to us then. I remember distinctly the thrill of walking along a narrow path with the river Mandakini roaring below. Along the route were sadhus meditating in tiny caves searching for, well, whatever they search for. I remember the final turn after which you got the most amazing view you could see in your life: the temple framed by towering Himalayan peaks, snow lying like freshly made butter on the mountain. We would have a quick darshan in the temple and then explore the small town. There is a path which goes up to the mountains which was supposedly taken by the Pandavas when they ascended to heaven (Uttarakhand is full of such spots where geography and mythology are intertwined). We once went up this path and upto a small glacier. I promptly proceeded to slide on the glacial ice only to discover that that my brand new black jeans was colored by some cheap dye. Rest of my day was spent walking around with a white rear getting laughed at mercilessly by everyone.
Another amazing place I went to from Ukhimath was Madmaheshwar. This was a two day journey which we undertook on horses. My Dad had some official business there and baited me along, saying "Once we are there you can virtually shake hands with Chaukhamba, we'll be so close to the peak". So on we went for two days and two nights. Nothing much grows in this area so our food after a while was potatoes and some green vegetable which was described to me as "Chooha" (thankfully it was a veggie, not what the name implied). I remember one scary part of this trip: my horse or mule to be exact went nuts at one point and took off at full speed. This along a narrow path with a river a few hundred feet below. Thankfully he came to his senses before flipping me over.
After the long journey, we were finally at Madmaheshwar. You can imagine me being a little cranky after sitting on horseback for two days. My dad made me climb another hour, up a small hill, to "shake hands" with Chaukhamba. Well, after all this, the mountain didn't exactly look that close to me and I was mighty miffed. He still hears from me to this day. It reminds me of a recent trip I made with my sister's family to the Grand Canyon. My nephew, Rohan, endured this long car trip with our promises of an amazing experience. Once we were there, as everyone was admiring the massive canyon, Rohan looked in disdain and said "Is THIS what we came all the way here for? ". I laughed and remembered my reaction on seeing Chaukhamba, understanding exactly how my nephew felt.
Madmaheshwar was truly beautiful though. It was foggy almost all the time we were there. There were three humans, eight dogs and about two hundred sheep in that place. One of the humans was a swamiji who stayed there the whole year despite death threats from smugglers of Kasturi Mrigs. Swamiji hosted us very graciously and regaled us with tales of the place. I wonder if he is still there.
These are some memories of my travels in the Himalayas. There are so many more of them; too many to recount here. The amazing views from Tungnath, the haunted "dak bangla" of Dugal Bitta, the confluence at Deoprayag where Ganga starts after the serene Alaknanda and the violent Bhagirathi merge, the underground caves of Patal Bhuvenshwar where a portal to moksha was introduced in the form of a dark, foreboding cavern opening: I can go on and on. Uttarakhand has wonderful scenery, amazing beauty and countless stories to excite the young mind. Ruskin Bond in his writings captures the essence of the place as I experienced it. As an adult, I now think that things might not have been easy for the residents of these tall, harsh mountains, but to a kid it was wonderland.
I long to return to places of my childhood in the mountains. Time constraints, however, prohibit this from happening. Perhaps I'll return for good some day, for I fully agree with Kipling when
he said "the last puff of the day-wind brought from the unseen villages, the scent of damp wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Himalayas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that man will at last, forgetting all else, return to the hills to die."
posted by Pahadi in Detroit @ 9:14 PM
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