PINDARI - 1

PROMISE OF PARADISE

The curtain of moss suspended from a little overhang of rock fascinates; the drops of water running about it in two directions on their way down mesmerise. I cup my hand to drink a little bit of the miracle.

For eight days, I drink from almost every little spring, stream, rivulet, waterfall and dripping moss curtain that we walk by or cross. The water is sweet in a way never experienced before. Much of the way the Pindar River rages and roars nearby; and I drink from her, too. Sometimes her roar drowns our voices and numbs our thoughts; at other times she is a distant rush that could be mistaken for wind in the trees, and the mind rejoices in reaching out to her. She is kind, she is fair, she is just, she is all heart; and she is beautiful. All of us sit and listen to her at some time or the other; most of us even speak back.

Small streams tumbling down the mountains greet us even before we start walking, and once we stop our cars to drink. Away from the cities, we drive through a few small towns and leave our vehicles in a little hamlet called Saung. It strikes true in each heart that we can safely leave two cars by the roadside for eight to ten days with no worries. Yes, we have left the cities far behind.

We walk. It is short but steep. The weight of the rucksacks is new upon our shoulders and the climb new to our muscles. The children are excited. They are brothers, sisters and friends, between the ages of 14 and 20. Fourteen year old Jashan leads up the steep path like a mountain goat. The expression on her face and the way she carries herself allays the doubts of us elders. A proud parent is quick to flash her photo on the Facebook! In the days to come, she will prove to be among the sturdiest and always be in the leading group.

A hill woman passing by hands a little branch full of wild berries to the slowest one of us. The tangy bitter-sweet taste refreshes and infuses a burst of energy.

Wooden bridges over singing brooks. Sheep that answer when Younger Raunaq calls. Stone houses. Smiling women who reply in voices that could carry far across the valleys like the ring of cowbells. Excited camera-wielders. Elder Raunaq posing for a ‘natural’ photo with two little boys perched on his broad shoulders. Two friendly men who are our guides. Two old brothers feeling reassured that we did the right thing by planning this trip.

The children gel as they never have before. They need only a few minutes before they start playing and running around.

The next morning’s group photo at Loharkhet shows happy faces rearing to go.

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A long, stiff climb. The path is cobbled, and one wonders at the effort put in to pile up flat stones for kilometres on end. It serves the small villages and settlements. Halfway up a grassy slope, a weathered woman sells tea and Maggi noodles with a smile and gentle conversation. She walks more than seven kilometres to be at her little shop and goes home in the evening. It is the best Maggi we have ever had. The children explore and play around. Jannat practises how to play a flute. Barkat has a hunting knife that keeps him busy.

Water flows in thin rivulets, sometimes branching out into a web, then coming together again. One stoops to drink from the ground, bends to drink from the mountainside, and looks upwards in wonder. The highest point of the hill seems to be in sight, and it is lush green, so where is the water coming from? One wonders at the intricacies of the rock shelves below that guide the water in and out of the ground.

By the time we reach the stone marker for a German trekker who died here, we see that the rhododendrons, tall trees with big red flowers that grow brightly on the lower hills, are stunted and spread more widely. The annual winters are severe and they grow afresh when the snow melts.

“PETER KOST (GERMANY) *IO.08.1944 +03.06.2000 YOUR PARADISE IS HERE THANK YOU FOR ALL”

The idea of seeing paradise starts to take germ in our minds.

Lizards, flowers, insects, trees, meadows, wooden bridges. The top of the hill is an elusive goal that gives way to another top and then another and so on forever. A tough, steep climb; a little temple at the top and then down down down to Dhakuri nestled away in a vast patch of rolling green luxurious grass. Everyone collapses on the grass, till the insects start stinging and we get on with settling down. Barkat cares so much for his little sister. And Afzal coolly leaves Naba to Judde Tayaji, the eldest of the group, and as patient as all the generations of farmers who have looked skywards for rain.

We are afforded a view that makes one’s heart soar towards the distant snows; a wide sweep of the Greater Himalayas. A memorial stands to climbers who lost their lives on that distant clearly visible face of Maiktoli peak. One of the deceased was the ‘ustaad’ or guru, the teacher, of our guide, Alok. New respect.

We are joined here by a black Bhutia dog. The breed has a reputation for ferocity, but he is gentle. The kids feed him and play with him. Tayaji names him ‘Kaalu’. Down in the plains, Poorva would jump onto the nearest piece of furniture to get away from a dog, here Kaalu teaches her to shake hands.

Like the previous evening, the kids go out to explore, then get back to handstands, running around and push-ups. Abhay and Prateek wrestle each other to the ground. We lied to Abhay; he wanted to stay home and watch FIFA, we told him it was just a 6-day trip. It would actually be a couple of days more.

No electricity. Batteries and range in cell phones die out, and we are relieved of hanging on to them all the time.

Night falls. Dumb charades. We experience the first night of awesome tales told by Naba. She introduces us to a concept called ‘basu babes’.

The morning group photos try to capture the distant snows in the background. They include Kaalu.

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Kaalu joins us as we start out on a gentle walk till the last village on the way up, and remains with us till we get back to our cars. Wooden bridges with the previous decayed rafters still lying below them span streams that flow clear and gentle. We stand behind a small waterfall and try to catch the spray.

From everywhere, we drink.

The cobbled path ends when we cross the village. The surrounding wilderness beckons. An abundance of water from little brooks everywhere. We heat it on a wood stove and everyone bathes. A lamb is bought from the village Khati. The children watch it being butchered, and get a new perspective about the meat on their plates.

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We follow the riverbed. The Pindar dances and frolics and rushes beside us. Little streams and rivulets join it at every few paces. We are farmers, and we feel a deep sense of well-being at the water perennially rushing down to the plains and the paddy fields and filling the ground from below with unseen lakes and rivers. It is no less than a miracle.

When the river bends to flow on our side, we have to climb steeply up the mountainside, cross screes and slides over trails a few inches wide, and climb down to the river when it has crossed over to the far side again. They are trying, these sojourns up and down over dangerous ground. But they are thrilling, too.

The river invites play. At one place it cuts in a wide arc and leaves a sandy beach on our side. We are drawn to it irresistibly. We drink from the river and run along. Later, on the way back, the kids will find quicksand at the edge of the water here and make videos that will enchant everyone for life.

Water on the opposite hill comes down in a series of falls for a thousand feet. The stream we are crossing must also surely look the same from the opposite hill. It is fulfilling, it inspires Faith, faith that all is well and the Master-Plan is awesome. A realization of completeness dawns, and today one feels that it would be alright to move on, having been thus exposed to the Master’s handiwork; everything is as it ought to be and the world can easily get along.

Our guides, Manoj and Alok, have carried lunch for all, and we have it in the company of one of the cascades of water.

Two rivers tumbling down from glaciers meet, and one must be crossed over a bridge which is two planks wide and is supported by a couple of logs. Gazing at the water below might just make one giddy and lose balance. I cross over, take off my pack, and stand on a rock downstream, ready to plunge into the rapids in the remote chance of a mishap. It makes me smile, this uncaring abandon towards life.

We come back to the rivers after leaving our things at the night halt. We hear them, we talk to them, we feel them, we respect them, we photograph them, and then we go up again.

The view affords a peek at Nanda Devi. The children discover Thapa, in his forties, with a physique and an exercise regime that leaves them open-mouthed. He was a state body-building champion once. He has quit the world below to be in the mountains he loves. Our next morning picture includes him. It also includes a young man whom we call Saurabh, for a likeness back in school, who served us so well at Dwali. He even ran a generator to let us charge our phones and cameras.

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.............The story is continued in the next post, PINDARI - 2.

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