THE LOST PICTURE

Starting out about an hour before the break of dawn. The cold draught hits one like a wall as one steps out of the stove-heated room at the headquarters. Instantly, the eyes turn watery, and within minutes the tip of the nose goes numb. The cold is fresh, refreshing, sweet. It’s fun to be out. One steps out with a spring.

The walk is about 2½ hours. The sentry at the upper end of the hollow that harbours the base is not allowed to let any solitary trekker past at any time, and no one at all before the day lights up. One pulls rank with a disarming smile and friendly banter. Tough chaps respect toughness, and understand a little madness. One walks on, reasonably sure that the early hour and solo walk will not be accurately mentioned in the daily report of movement.

It has been snowing all night, and a strong wind blows huge flakes in swirling gusts. A few yards away from the sentry post, and one is alone. A little tug at leaving some sense of security behind, a greater pull of subdued excitement at venturing out into the vastness. Switching on the flashlight is of no use; it shows the swirling snow in an unreal light and limits one’s perception of one’s surroundings; rather, the visible swirl confuses. One has been over the trail many times, in all kinds of weather. Moreover, the hand that holds the light would rather be snug in the pocket of the knee-length army coat parka.

The path is perceived rather than seen. The fresh snow is soft underfoot, crunching only when the foot bears full weight, if then. The deceitfully slippery rocks are buried deep tonight, and one has to have a care only for sudden softly filled potholes where one sinks in sometimes till halfway up the thigh. It is an easy and immensely satisfying trek.

Soon the breath is laboured. It takes about half an hour to start feeling the icicles hanging on the upper lip from one’s moustache. They are sweet to taste, nectar must be like that.

Large swirling flakes give way to small gently floating ones. The wind has died down. Whether it is the glow of the oncoming day, or the lessening of the snow, or whether one has just melted and fused deeply into oneness, a lightness is sensed.

One is perspiring inside the parka. A pause to catch one’s breath, let the sweat dry and to blow little clouds of vapour at the hills and the heavens. Daybreak has come. It shows the picture of heaven so often seen.  It stopped snowing some time ago. One stands as a black spot in an endless expanse of white; ethereal, untouched, pure, gentle, magical. Jannat. It fills one’s heart. One almost wishes one were not there as a black spot; and raises one’s hands to throw back the hood from one’s head. It is laden with snow, as are one’s shoulders, upper arms eyebrows and beard. With a thrill of satisfaction at being part of the whiteness, the black spot is banished from the picture.

One trudges on. The changing light brings more detail to the panorama, the beauty has flooded, overwhelmed and benumbed one’s senses. One is part of it, not a separate being at all.

Water drips under an overhang of rock. Directions forbid drinking without boiling it. Who cares? One has tasted it on almost every passing.  It is full of the force that drives life.

The trail runs along just below the crest of the mountain. It has merged with the expanse today. In order not to slip down the steep slope, one looks out keenly for the wooden stakes holding the field telephone cable that runs along the trail. The stakes stand almost man-height out of the ground, but today only a few inches are visible, that too topped with snow; the black cable is buried.

Another hundred yards of almost level walking parallel to the crest, then a steep climb where one must pull oneself up with the help of guide ropes. Half an hour on the outside.

Just before the climb starts, on the upper side of the path stands a huge boulder, maybe six times man-height, and about the same width, curiously flat on the nearer side. Usually, one feels dwarfed in its shadow. Today one glances up as one approaches, and stops dead in one’s tracks! The jaw drops, the breath stops!

No words!

It has been snowing heavily all night, and a fierce wind has been blowing the snow against the rock face. The Rock is covered on the path side with a jungle of protrusions of snow ranging from a few inches to almost arm-length, something like the scenes of skyscrapers of New York or Gotham or wherever it is that Supe and The Bat and Spidey fly around, only jutting out from a vertical plain and inhabiting the earth horizontally, and made not of sombre concrete but the stuff that angels seem to wear.

It is a sight I know I’ll never see again! It is a sight to die for! I must capture it!

My Pentax with a lovely wide angle, fully manual, always loaded with film roll, is lying in my bunker atop the remaining climb. If I pull myself up by the ropes fast enough, I’ll probably make it up in 20 minutes, if I don’t kill myself breathing hard in the high altitude, and slip and slide back in 10. I dash forward, leaving my heart at the base of The Rock.

The rays of the morning sun are piercing, my clothes are stifling. I tear off the muffler from around my neck. The arms pulling at the guide ropes are suddenly laden, the breath comes in short gasps; and the sun shines brighter.

I panic.

In a daze, I stagger up to the piquet camp. The morning soldiers think that something is gravely wrong; I wave at them weakly and rush into my bunker, and out almost immediately slinging the camera around my neck. They relax.

I slip and slide and bruise my bare hands on the rope. My throat is parched. Why is the sun so hot today?

I fall on my knees in the snow as I get into camera range. I look up.

A moan rises from my soul. My soldiers’ eyes moisten. Vision swims. I brush off a tear of frustration.

The sun has conquered the kingdom-of-those-perpendicular-to-the-vertical. Nothing juts out more than two or three inches. Water drips. Ice falls. I mourn.

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Twenty five years have passed. That picture lives fresh in my mind. We spent the rest of the day digging up and repairing telephone cable damaged by the weight of the snow.

Most of the pictures that Pentax captured are lying in albums buried somewhere at the fringes of memory. A number of fellow soldiers have moved on, many have died. The Pentax has died. Youth is a fond memory.

But that picture lives! The Rock lives! At its most astonishingly beautiful moment, The Rock lives in my heart and soul and my innermost being, captured as I looked up in a moment of awe!

And I ask you, all my sons and daughters, my glowing ones, my ‘Mitthre Mayvay’, to live life fully. Fear not, think not that you will lose what has gone by, brood not. Love! For what you have loved, what you have dissolved in, what you have melted into, is yours! Forgotten old albums and moth eaten suitcases can never hold these pictures. The best pictures are in the heart, and no one can take them away!

THEY ARE YOURS! The magnificence stays. What you have loved once is yours forever.

For having loved them, for having been overwhelmed by Wonder, they are YOU.

They are the inner glow.

One of the earlier snows in paradise, just a few inches deep and not yet covering the rocks. Ahh..., but look at God's kingdom in the background!