Valley of Flowers: A Travelogue Part III

Valley of Flowers: A Travelogue

Part III

prologue

Not many people these days read what I write. But does that dissuade me? Nyet. I am shamelessly relentless, like the Poem-Writer:

……Who knows who sees......
Who knows who feels........
......but I write. Still.
In spite of.
And writing, I dream. Day dream-
Of my words upon your breast: hard-bound, upturned.
I dream-
Of my words’ wake
Humming you to sleep.

But since you are reading this right now, let me put in a request. Leave a word, for without a reader’s reaction, a writer (or for that matter anyone creating anything) is a blind man blundering around in a darkroom.

If you liked what I’ve written, let me know.

If you didn’t, let me know regardless, without words minced.
If you’re undecided, give me the benefit of your indecision and say it’s nice, just to be nice.

All feedback is essential, valuable and welcome.

Thank you!

THE TEA TREK: JOSHIMATH TO GHANGRIA

             Up at five, we were ready well in time for the next part of our adventure, the hike from Pulna to Ghanghria. Ghanghria is the base for many treks up into the Bhyundar valley viz. the relatively easy Valley of Flowers and Hemkund Sahib as also the serious ones to Tipra Kharak, Bhyundar Khal, Gupt Khal and of course, to the majestic Rataban Glacier. This camp (it’s not a village, for no one has a home here) comes alive in the month of May when the road to Hemkund Sahib is opened. It stays alive till October when the snows begin falling and Hemkund Sahib is closed for the long hard Himalayan winter. Ghanghria is at an altitude of 10003 feet; and from Pulna, the closest village, it is a climb of ten km with an altitude gain of about 4000 feet. Previously the hike to Ghanghria was about fourteen km from the last motorable point called Govindghat; but the local administration has now allowed vehicles up to Pulna because of which the distance has shortened by a whopping four km. It is now a comfortably rotund figure of ten.

             Petrified of altitude sickness, I had advised, cajoled and then finally bullied the other three, all non-believers (of Allopathic Medicine) into swallowing one pill of Diamox the night before. This exercise was to be repeated with fanatic regularity over the next four days, morning and evening and the kind of response that I received from the three had all the elements of high drama associated with the times Mimie my lab had to be fed some medication. I think the girls swallowed the pills purely out of affection for me and not out of any belief in my medical skills or the effectiveness of the medicine I practised. But I couldn’t care less, for I was sure of what I was doing. I was to be vindicated soon, but that will be revealed in the next episode.

             The clock hands were touching half past seven when I finally finished re-distributing my possessions between the rucksack, the sling-bag and the duffle-bag (for the tenth time)! I peeked outside to see if the others too were done, where I found them in an animated discussion with two fellas: one a spectacled, intellectual types with salted hair and the other a tall, athletic chap in OGs with cute almost buckteeth. It seems they too were headed to Ghanghria but since the third member of their group had developed cold feet after self-diagnosing himself with AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) at 6000 feet (sic!) and had to be evacuated to Rishikesh in their car, they were now without transport to Govindghat. BB of course offered them a lift in our Jumb-Bus which they accepted with much relief and gratitude.

             Over that short fog encrusted twenty km from Joshimath to Ghanghria, over paratha rolls and biscuits, we became better acquainted with each other. Salt-hair was AK, a businessman from Kolkata who though a Marwari, spoke Bong so fluently that it was a delight to converse with him in our common tongue. He had a bustling camera business back home and was an almost-professional photographer who never posted his photos online since he did not want to be a competition for his camera patrons. He was also an avid traveller who had travelled the world and regaled us with stories of his varied escapades, from the lava fields of South America to the 2004 Tsunami at Koh Samui. He had such a youthful air about him that I automatically assumed he was younger to us. It was a shock to know he was on the wrong side of fifty and abashed, we quickly shifted to addressing him as AK 'Da', that very Bong epithet of respect.

             The other fellow was a young Indian Army officer from the Artillery and a Kolkatan. Fortunately, since we had correctly deduced his age (the right side of thirty), we escaped making any more faux pas and were also spared the need to ‘Da’ the chap. The girls seemed thrilled to have a real soldier amidst them and derived great pleasure in addressing him, Yankee style, ‘Hey Major, Hiya Major’ which I found extremely amusing. The Major and AK Da were friends, bound together by their common love of photography and they had made this trip specifically to capture the Valley and Hemkund Sahib through their lenses.

             After a very brief stopover at Govindghat, we left our dear Jumb-Bus behind and boarded a Tata Sumo that delivered us over a bridge on the Lakshman Ganga, into Pulna. Here we loaded our heavier bags onto a mule and after warily dodging a whole taxi-stand of these animals swatting flies with their tails and fertilising the trail, we took our first tentative steps towards Ghanghria and our ‘One Great Adventure’.

             Our guide was Dinesh and he had joined us from Joshimath itself. He was local, a Garhwali from Rishikesh and a trained mountaineer. Quiet, soft-spoken and terribly polite, he guided us up that steep relentless climb with limitless patience and good humour.

             The track from Pulna to Govindghat is of course kaccha, carved from the mountain side and paved with uneven stones; but it is not at all difficult, not even for someone like me who is overweight and plagued by creaky joints and torn ligaments. But it is without doubt pretty steep and in the beginning,  I found myself completely breathless after the first fifty meters itself. But I had tutored myself that I would not rush it but that I would not give up; so, I hiked, slowly at my own snail’s pace, not stressing my lungs nor my heart nor my locomotor system. I stopped frequently, without shame and rested to get my breath back, using these stops to photograph the flowers which had already began revealing themselves. The girls too moved at their own individual pace: BB leading the way. I spotted her way ahead, flitting over the uneven cobblestones like a gazelle in red and promptly named her the Flying Marwari. DD was next, in a beautiful purple jacket followed by CC in a sexy florescent blue one. I was the straggler and Dinesh walked behind me protectively, ready to catch me in case I toppled. While we struggled up the incline, our breaths coming in laboured gasps, Dinesh sauntered up the gradient as if the track was a Travellator at the Palam T3. In fact, I swear I heard him whistling in his mind as he ambled up.

             The track, as I have described previously was cut into the mountainside on our left and on our right, the Lakshman Ganga flowed in a deep gorge. On the other side of the gorge rose huge mountains whose lower reaches were naked razor-edged stones and whose middles were covered with dense jungles that looked like clumps of giant broccoli. At one point, we spotted a pretty waterfall on the opposite mountain and we stopped to take snaps. I tried to fathom where it originated from and so kept tilting my head backwards; till I realised that I could tilt no further and had still not spotted the waterfall's origin. The peaks of the mountain were shrouded with clouds and from somewhere within those clouds, I could make out the faint outline of the fall as it tumbled down. It kind of reminded me of legends of the Ganga descending to earth from the depths of the matted locks of Shiva. It actually gave a feeling as if the water was descending directly from the heavens above. It was an indescribable feeling and when I tried verbalising it in so many words to Other Half back home, he observed:  Like Jack’s Beanstalks!

Touché. I couldn’t have put it better.

I tried snapping a picture, but the head of the waterfall was lost in the clouds and my lens could not quite capture the mystery. 

             If you want to see the maximum number of flowers in the Valley, August is the month. On top of that, 15 August was close by and it was no surprise that the trail was crowded with numerous travellers. Some like us, had come purely for the Valley; while others were pilgrims to the Hemkund Sahib. All along the hike to Ghanghria, we crossed hundreds of Sikh devotees of all ages making their way up or down the trail. There were young fresh-faced, fit Sikhs who sprinted up the path, there were panting and wheezing older ones who moved only on the strength of their faith and there were still others, the old and infirm and the ill who either rode the ‘Ghodas’ or were carried on palanquins or on the backs of porters called Pitthoos. Occasionally we encountered young, hefty and perfectly able-bodied persons riding on palanquins and pitthoos. Seeing them made me feel good about myself braving that walk on my own two feet, however sore. This kind of self-satisfaction I know is not a good thing. But at that moment, every  little ego-boost served to flag up my morale and fuel my aching lower limbs.

             A thing I noted as we moved ahead on the track, was that smiles were given out so readily on those difficult paths. Complete strangers bestowed each other with wide un-hesitant smiles and sometimes even little words of encouragement. I realised that there is nothing that bonds people together more than a common adversary and a common goal, in this case the difficult road and the common destination, Ghanghria.

             The scenery of course, was magnificent: sky reaching mountains with beards of clouds, thick olive jungles and numerous waterfalls, some fat, some thin; all rushing down the slope in madcap abandon, fuelled by their need to embrace the river below. While the macro vista was undoubtedly breath-taking, the micro vista i.e. the flora was incredible too. I was stopping at every turn because I had spotted one wildflower or the other; and after some time, Dinesh who had taken position behind me because I was the group’s rate limiting member, realised that I was a flower buff. He began pointing out flowers to me, telling me whatever little he knew about them; and had it been not for him, I would have missed a few intriguing beauties. He showed me a yellow dogflower and to my intense delight, pointed out an anemone, a flower I had only read about in Enid Blyton books. I snapped tiny forget-me-nots, the colour of autumn skies and spied a variant of the dolonchampa. I am well acquainted with the dolonchampa, a pristine white canna like flower that has the most divine fragrance. The dolonchampa always reminds me of our Phoolwallah delivering packets of flowers every Wednesday for my mom who used them as offering during the Thursday Lakshmi puja. Occasionally within the usual hibiscus, marigold, frangipani and white champa, I would discover reposing, one or two fragrant dolonchampa. All night it would exude its typical perfume and I remember falling asleep lulled by its sweet fragrance. The one I saw here was an orange- yellow variant, with thinner petals but it too had a pretty fragrance. Returning, I researched the flower and found out that it is the Heychium spicatum. I do not know what variant the one I saw was, but I believe it is a close cousin of the Kapoor Kachri or spiked ginger lily and the rhizome is used as shampoo. I also spotted the jewel of the day, a resplendent Roscoe Lily, shining amidst the new grass like amethyst set in emerald.

            
           

As we gained height, breathing was not as easy anymore and fatigue fell fast. Our blood, used to the ample oxygen of the plains, protested at the deficient air we were supplying it. We now were forced to take more frequent stops, incl the Flying BB. But I noticed that after each stop, the body regained its breath and lost its fatigue pretty fast; till the next 50 to 100 m after which we had to take another pit stop. But resting was fun because it gave us time to catch up with each other, compare notes, snap a selfie and crack those inane but vital jokes that kept us going. at these stops, CC coddled us with little snacks she extracted out of her sling bag, an almond here and a namkeen there. I knew where she got that Mom-Mantle from (she was the mother of an only teen daughter). She easily slipped into the ‘Mommy’ avatar when the need arose, and for me (spoilt rotten by a mollycoddling Other Half all my adult life) I really relished all that Mommying she did over me.

             The trek from Pulna to Ghanghria is often referred to as the Tea Trek. That’s because its pretty easy and also because the trail is lined by numerous shacks selling nimbu paani, paratha and of course tea. Some of them even have little ragged benches lined by worn out kambals where you can lie down and take a nap. We stopped at a few of these and drank liters of nimbu paani and tea as AK da plied us with story after story of his travel travails. He was a great storyteller, blessed with a gift of words and of humour and we listened enthralled, reliving his wild and wonderful experiences as he spoke.

             At one point, I found myself walking abreast with the Major and couldn’t stop myself from asking a question that had be nagging me for a while now.

I said to him:

The teenage son of a childhood friend of mine, born and brought up in a foreign land had remarked - Mom you people take this patriotism thing too seriously. As for myself, I am not obliged to be patriotic.

This view held by a child disturbed me greatly, for patriotism was an emotion I thought was the most sacred, one that was beyond tampering, beyond questioning. I told my friend that though a child had the right to question, it was her duty as a parent to guide him towards the right emotions, beliefs and value systems. Many argued against my opinion and accepted the young man’s point of view. But I feel disturbed by their reasoning. Tell me, Major does it make you feel let down ?

Ma’am, he said simply, I’m doing a job. A job for which I have been employed. Just like the government staff who are doing theirs. Or you are doing yours. Nothing more. People are entitled to their opinion and that doesn’t affect me in any way.

             Don’t know why, but the Soldier’s matter-of-fact point of view, articulated quietly, sans hype, hoopla and drama filled my soul. Sipping my Frooti, I watched him oblige my three wide-eyed pals good naturedly when they pestered him for stories of Siachen. He told his stories simply too, without theatrics, without machismo and without any threads of covert or overt bragging. He talked also of his love of photography and of athletics and as I listened to him talk, in that typical Bong coloured English, he reminded me terribly of Tublu, the soldier protagonist of my story “And a Soldier Wrote. ( if you haven’t read it, do.)

            
             Though the climb became steeper towards the fag end, Dinesh kept our spirits up by his little white lies, “bus yeh last km hai…………..”

             So we plodded on, up and up, in tired silence except for the rain pattering upon our heads till at last we came upon a clearing, a circular valley surrounded by hills on all sides and ringed by the Lakshman Ganga roaring somewhere on the far left. In that half light of dusk, nothing much was visible except for silhoettes of the hills, the flat shadow of the helipad and the few sparse lights of the tourist tents at one end.

             We were, needless to say, dog-tired. Though we did pile together onto one cot under four massive quilts and initiated some some spicy gossip, most of us kept drifting off mid-sentence. Thankfully dinner arrive soon and after we had managed to stuff some nourishment into ourselves, we collapsed onto our respective beds and promptly drifted off into a dreamless, desperately needed sleep.

                I too slept almost uninterrupted till that one time when the CFL bulb in the room unexpectedly lit up, all on its own. The sudden white light flooding the hitherto absolutely dark room jolted me wide awake. But I was too bushed to get out of bed to switch it off and just pulled the quilt over my head to keep out the glare. Thankfully, it extinguished itself soon, again on its own volition and I told myself that it was probably because they had switched on the generator and then switched it off. But my reasoning sounded hollow even to my own self and I couldn’t help remembering stories of those fairies that live in the Valley of Flowers. Would they take the trouble to hike/fly down 2000 feet in the middle of the night to play silly pranks on four dead to-the-world women? Unlikely, but then fairies are whimsical creatures (that is why they are fairies) but too tired to even contemplate further, I promptly drifted back into my deep dreamless sleep.


PS To be continued.

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