Valley of Flowers: A Travelogue Part V

Valley of Flowers: A Travelogue

Part V

A Long Way Up

At first it sounded like an airplane taking off; but as I listened, longer and more closely, I could hear a veritable orchestra of other sounds: drips, clicks, rattles, gushes and whooshes……..! Her name was Pushpavati, the river of flowers. The World Wide Web says that she was named thus because the Gods found petals of flowers floating on her bosom. That of course is mythology. I don’t know who of the mortal world gave her this name for even Frank Smythe, the discoverer of the Valley of Flowers makes no mention of this river in his travelogue. But nonetheless, no name would have suited her better than ‘Pushpavati’ or the Flower River. She is born somewhere high up in the Rataban and Nilgiri peaks of the Garhwal Himalayas and flowing through the Valley of Flowers in its entirety, she joins the Lakshman Ganga at Ghangria.

As I descended that demented path of stones (described in detail in part IV), the river’s thundering became louder. Once I was safely down, I hurried over to the bridge that was strung across her breast. It was a fairly sturdy bridge resting on strong-looking concrete pillars; but when I stood on it and faced the flow of the river, the current was so strong that for a moment I had this feeling that all would be swept off: me, the bridge, the pillars, everything. It was unsettling, so I scuttled off the bridge to the safety of the more solid ground on its banks. I stopped there for a moment to savour the wild beauty of the rain-swollen river as it hurtled down the deep gorge.

‘Why this furious speed, Pushpavati?’ I asked her.

All white foam and whiter froth, she never paused to answer.

But I knew why she raced at that breakneck speed, at that drunken haste. It was because further down in the valley beyond, the Lakshman Ganga waited to catch her his arm; and she couldn’t wait to immerse herself into him.

Ahhh, pyaar diwaana hota hai………mastana hota hai…..

I had turned a little maudlin with these thoughts, but all amour was wiped off my mind when I surveyed before me the steep grey path to the VoF stretching at an evil seventy-degree angle, topped by those demented stones. But I no other option available to get to the VoF short of growing a pair of wings; so I clenched my teeth and my loyal stick and staggered slowly up the track.

The path moved through varied backdrops: bare black mountainsides alternating with fairly thick jungles. The jungles were filled with silver birches (Bhojpatra, Betula utilis), the beige-brown bark peeling off their white smooth trunks. The bhojpatra was used in ancient times as paper for sacred texts. I also found plenty of five pronged leaves lying strewn around and mistakenly thought they belonged to Chinar/maple trees. It was later that I realised that these leaves were those of the Oriental sycamore.  As I walked, drops of rain trickled off the leaves, new moss on tree trunks glowed fluorescent green and a faint daylight dripped through the lattice of branches above, shrouding everything in a faint yellow-brown haze.

This part of the trek was, I think the most challenging. The path was long, stony and steep; and the steadily increasing altitude compounded the misery. It was also raining, a fine misty sheet that clouded my camera lens, adding to my growing unhappiness. The track at places was quite narrow, of less than two-men width and when the pitthoos rushed by, they sometimes left us cowering on the treacherous edge of the road. This was scary because the drop from the edge was a sheer thousand or more feet and a fall would have meant immediate annihilation.

I was, as I have mentioned before, the rate limiting member of the group and here too, like on the Pulna-Ghanghria route, the other girls had moved on far ahead and I was left all alone. Well not exactly. Dinesh was always present behind, reminding me of a conscientious nanny who would never abandon her charge. I will forever be grateful to Dinesh, for without his silent but reassuring presence, I don’t think I would have been able to complete the trek. All my memory-pictures of the trek up and down the Valley will always have Dinesh in the backdrop: a short, slightly built youngish man in a blue pullover, baggy track-pants and hand-me-down Quechua boots, a head of untidy close-cropped hair, a three-day stubble stippled in gray and a simple smile flashed through bad teeth crinkling his eyes into a thousand wrinkles. Like a good guide, he was unobtrusive but available when required, and his honesty was an added bonus. What I particularly liked about Dinesh was that he spoke very little and when he did, he spoke sense. Like that time when he told me of how since the Valley had been made into a National Park and the grazing by local goats forbidden, many flowers previously seen were not to be found anymore because the goat dropping fertilised the soil of the Valley. Later I also learnt that these goats grazed on weeds such as the Polygonum and when no goats were allowed in, the running-amok Polygonums were elbowing out the other less hardier variety of flowering plants. I also read that the govt was now spending lakhs of rupees in trying to weed out this weed. Well……..that’s what happens when we try to interfere in the natural course of things.

I was lagging behind, and while I did manage to catch up with DD occasionally as she was being victimised by the altitude, the other two Tenzin Norgays had zoomed off ahead and now even their designer rain-cheaters were not visible. I told myself that by now they would have reached the Valley. But surprise of surprises, at the next uphill bend, I found all three of them huddled on a rock, munching almonds and egging me on upwards with their smiles. 

“Tum log aage gaye nahin?” I asked, feeling nice that they hadn’t.

“Oh no….! We would never enter the Valley alone without you, Aibee……………!” They chimed.

A warm feeling crept up my throat and settled there. Of course, they wouldn’t. How could I have thought that they would.

A little later, Dinesh announced, “We are almost there. A little charai, then a little ‘down’ and then flat, flat…..!” He smiled at us.

I looked ahead. I could see his little charai. After what I had crossed below, that little charai was truly ‘little’. Enlivened I got ready to move. Ahead, there was what looked like a landslide of grey stones and boulders.

“What’s that?” I enquired.

“A sliding zone. It’s a place where rock falls are common. We must cross it fast.” Dinesh cautioned.

But before we could move, we spotted a young man standing amidst the rocks, on a high stone taking selfies.

“Hey!” Dinesh yelled, “Please move.”

I yelled along with him helpfully, “Helloo, helloo……..!”

But the young man was too interested in his selfies to heed us. Shiny turquoise jacket, slick gelled hair and a fair face framed by a Shahid Kapoor beard.

‘Punjab da munda. Totally lawless.’ I grumbled, shaking my head. We crossed the rockfall zone quickly, past the munda still engrossed in selfies and clambered up the little charai. It was now a ‘down’ as Dinesh had promised, down all the way till a cute gushing mountain stream bridged by a single battered tin sheet of a bridge. Across the bridge, a few metres ahead was the green and red Forest Department board that announced, “You are now in the Valley Of Flowers.”

Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The four of us clung together in celebration of our victory (for it was nothing less than battle that we had won) and belted out our dear old school anthem at the top of our tuneless voices,

 “To East and West…….”

I don’t know what people around thought of a gang of four bedraggled middle-aged women with flying black ponchos and waving hiking sticks singing some strange angrezi song in a stranger angrez accent….but who cared? None of us did. It was exhilarating singing that well-loved song and we would have continued, enthusiasm undimmed had it not been for a pitthoo who shooed us out of the way unceremoniously, thus putting an end to our stellar performance. Fortunately, Dinesh had offered to record our little show and I can remember distinctly his highly amused but indulgent smile behind the camera as he filmed our performance.

Dinesh herded us all under a huge black rock and advised us to first have our lunch. It was raining, and everything was wet and cold and that lunch of soggy parathas is not something I remember with much fondness. On top of that, that rock was the only shelter for the truckloads of hikers who had swarmed into the Valley that day and we kept elbowing each other within its narrow confines.

I was chomping on my paratha when suddenly, an elderly gentleman standing before me toppled in slow motion on to his side. It appeared as if he had been leaning against the pitthoo chair and had slid down, throwing him off balance. But he propped himself up immediately, goofy smile on his face , all the while assuring everybody that he was alright. However, after barely a minute, he fell again. This time he was caught by a person from his group. While in this man’s arms, I saw with horror that he had fainted again.

I stuffed my half-drunk Frooti into DD’s hands and rushed forward.

“Make him lie down. Make him lie down! I yelled, but nobody seemed to be paying heed to my words. Exasperated, I yelled “I’m a doctor!” But in that weird black poncho with rain slithering across my wet face and lank hair, I probably looked more like one of Macbeth’s witches than a doctor and it was difficult getting the people around to listen. I kept insisting that they lay him down flat on the ground but maybe because the ground appeared muddy and dirty, they hesitated. I told them to raise his legs, thinking it probably was a simple fainting spell. As someone, raised his legs, I fumbled around in that crowd for his wrist and was reassured to feel his pulse. The man by now had recovered consciousness and was protesting, “I’m ok. I’m Ok!” But his pulse was fast and weak, and I wondered whether those fainting spells were related to something more sinister than a simple fainting attack precipitated by altitude. He was sweating a little and that scared me even more. But his tour guide was nonchalant.

“Kuch nahi hua. I’ll give him ORS and he’ll be Ok.”  

I was like “ORS????????????”

“Get him down to Ghanghria, partner. Pronto!” I hissed through gritted teeth. But the guide did not heed my words. He was busy making his panacea of ORS and refused even to bring out his bottle of oxygen. Maddened, I caught hold of the man from his group, the one who had caught the patient as he fell and asked, “Who’s he travelling with?”

The man pointed to an elderly lady napping on a pitthoo chair.

“Jesus!” I thought. “What do I tell her? That her husband was probably having a heart attack and it would take two and half to three hours to get him to Ghanghria?”

She had woken up with all that commotion and seeing her husband lying on the pitthoo chair, she tottered forward.

I asked her, “How old is he? Does he have some chronic illness?”

“No!” she waved me away. “Nothing. He is sixty-two.”

My eyebrows touched the roof.

What was the need for a sixty-two year old to ascend to 12000 feet ? Did he think it was a joywalk in Mughal gardens? Couldn’t they remain happy at some luxury Mussoorie hotel sipping green tea and eating pakodas or holiday at some Goan beach-resort with a gaggle of grandchildren? What was the senseless need to go traipsing up to 12000 feet riding piggyback on another man over a track of demented stones, all to see some silly flowers hiding in the mist?

Sixty-two!!!! Hey Bhagwan!!!

I grasped the group member by his shoulder.

“Listen,” I told him. “Get him down on a pitthoo before something terrible happens. Heed me, for God’s sake. I’m a doc. Don’t listen to your ORS drunk Guide.”

Saying that I moved away.

Advice given readily and free of cost has zero value. This is something I’ve learnt over the years and rarely do I distribute advice freely. But the man had looked ill and because three episodes of syncope (fainting spell) at an altitude of 12000 feet without acclimatisation in an elderly man should never ever be taken lightly, I had been forced to intervene. Now I had done my bit and it was now up to the group to act as they deemed fit.

I moved away. Better things were waiting.

The flowers were calling………………..

(To be continued)

PS: Later Dinesh informed me that they had evacuated the gentleman down to Ghanghria by pitthoo.

Valley of Flowers: A Travelogue Part IV

 I

The Flowers are Calling

“Dilli aur kitna duur?” I enquired of Dinesh. He was standing a few feet ahead of me, one leg propped on a black rock, chewing a stalk of grass. At my question, he pointed up. “Abhi hai Madam. Upar jana hai.” No little white lies this time, only hard cold facts, all uphill.

Throughout those nearly eight hours, I was to enquire of him the distance to the Capital an infinite number of times and each time he would smile that special smile of his as he answered me, tailoring them to the prevailing situation, sometimes assuring, sometimes blunt with the bare tritb and sometimes with his trademark sweet, little white lies.

My insides groaned.

I followed his fingers to where they were pointing. Up, right above my head I could see the path zooming forward with people trying to keep up. But that was not all. Much above that path immediately over my head, I spied bits of pink, orange, red and blue as they peeked from between the intervening trees. More trekkers in brightly coloured windcheaters and raincoats, but what chilled me was they were much, much above me, maybe hundreds of feet, appearing like little specks of fluorescent light at that immense height.

“Wahan? Baap re!!!”

I looked back at Dinesh for succour. I got none. There was for me only his smile of affirmation.

Hell! Hell! Hell!

But of course, there was no turning back for the flowers were calling and I had a rendezvous to keep. I took a swig of water, gritted my teeth, pulled the backpack tighter and continued the painful plod uphill.

As I climbed, my heart beating like a mad bull and my breath blowing like a steam engine, something flashed across my mind, something from a long, long time back, read as a child: a saying from a Russian folk tale.

“How do you make a long road short?”

I knew the answer to that.

“By song!”

But of course. 

I fumbled in my pocket and retrieved my earphones. Thankfully, some songs downloaded in the past were still available on YouTube, even without an internet connection. I turned the volume on full blast. Runa Laila’s soulful voice flowed in warm swathes over me “Ranjish hi sahi, dil hi dukhane ke liye aa ……”

And so I continued the relentless ascent, slowly and arduously; the long road kind of shortened by the heartbreakingly beautiful ‘Ranjish Hi Sahi’, Tagore’s soulful ‘Mone Robe Kina Robe Aamare’, and the lively ‘Mere Rashke Qamar’ played in turn, again and again and again (for I had only these three stored in my phone) till the cell battery succumbed, to exhaustion or heartbreak or perhaps to just boredom.

II

That Demented Track

Waking up at the crack of dawn, packing and repacking backpacks, checking raingear and water supplies, slathering on sunscreens and day creams and what nots all happened in a whirl of suppressed excitement that morning. Dinesh was there dot at six to pick us up. We moved with him from our guest house to Ghanghria proper, a distance of one km. It was a gentle climb but as I climbed, I realised that even walking 10 feet was making me breathless. I knew it was the altitude and the early morning nip in the air did not help.

Dinesh asked, “Madam, gloves chahiye?”

Knowing that the moment we walked a bit more we’d start feeling warm, I refused. But I was a little apprehensive about the altitude and made a mention of it to the other three, but they paid me scant attention. ‘Ignorance is really bliss,’ I snickered in my mind, testy at being ignored. Though sore, I didn’t pursue the matter for I had full faith in my trusted little Diamox ki goli which I had stuffed up the girls’ throats last evening and today morning.

We slowly walked up a track that snaked between colossal deodar trees, to the tiny hamlet of Ghanghria. Ghanghria is a nightmare of mules, their brusque owners, ramshackle shops and hundreds of trekkers and pilgrims all jostling one another in a giant cauldron of steaming mule droppings. It was horrible, but it was where we were to have breakfast. The stench notwithstanding, some hot tea, bread-butter and poha soothed us to some extent, and immediately after Dinesh gathered us all up and quickly herded out of that stifling cauldron, out into the open. Here the track crossed the handsome Lakshman-Ganga over a strong iron bridge and then bifurcated, the one on the right shooting straight up to Hemkund Sahib and the one on the left meandering around lost for a few hundred metres till it arrived at the Forest Check post which was also the entry to the Valley of Flowers.

          One was supposed to buy tickets at the entry point and enter names into the guard’s register. As Dinesh helpfully took care of all these tiresome formalities, we spent the time looking around. There were two large posters of flowers strung across the walls of the guard post and I snapped a picture of them, thinking they would help me identify the flowers I hoped to see in the Valley.

From here the path spread gently upslope. It was not raining but the sky was over-cast and I could see clumps of clouds sitting atop the dark hills that ringed the valley. The trail was narrow but had railings at certain portions and I found the slope very congenial. The flowers had already begun to show themselves, lining the path and my happiness was complete. I began snapping picture after picture and soon the girls had left me straggling, far behind. But I was not in the least bothered because Dinesh was there right behind me, bringing up the rear. He pointed out flowers to me, just like he had done on the road from Pulna to Ghanghria:

“You remember the Anemone we saw? See Madam, this one’s a Sunnymone!”

“That bright maroon flower? It’s a Potentila.”

“These are dog flowers, these pink ones.”

I was clicking as fast as possible.

But the trail was crowded, people jostled against one another and often I was pushed as I tried to take pictures. I found myself wishing it was a little less crowded. At one point, we came across a huge human traffic jam. Impatiently I peeked ahead but could not quite make out what had caused the roadblock. Alas, little did I know that the start to all my woes was just two feet away. Slowly, as the jam cleared, and I moved up, I saw with a shock what lay ahead and was responsible for the sudden slowing of the trekker-train. The trail now sloped, sharply downwards at nearly ninety degrees and instead of the expected smooth flat paving, it was composed of stones of all shapes and sizes that had been placed at weird angles, their sharp uneven edges pointing skywards.

I turned askance at Dinesh, “Where do I put my foot?”    

                      

In answer, Dinesh flitted across those jagged stones as if he was a ballerina on Kajaria tiles, leaving me feeling like a fool. But of course, that was just him giving me a demo of how to negotiate those stones for he immediately climbed back and put out a hand helpfully. But, as I later remarked to CC, my ego is bigger than my as# and of course I wouldn’t take his hand unless as the last resort. So after careful estimation of the angles of the paving stones, their coefficient of friction, their surface area to the tenth decimal point and other such applicable trigonometry and geometry and laws of physics, I gingerly placed one foot on a stone surface. I expected to immediately slip, lose my footing and plunge headlong into the Lakshaman-Ganga, but surprisingly, my foot held. Kind of relieved and again after another set of detailed calculations, I placed my second foot on another stone. Dinesh, I think must have taken a short nap in the interval between these two footsteps of mine. This entire routine of calculation and estimation and foot placement, all undertaken in Bollywood slow motion was to continue throughout the entire trek and only someone with Dinesh’s infinite patience could have borne my scaredy-catness with such good-humoured patience. 

The entire track in the Valley of Flowers, right from this point on, was made exactly in this same manner. It was if the mason/road builder had sculpted an unintelligible abstract stones sculpture, instead of a track. It was crazy how the stones were laid, all higgledy-piggledy: some with tips like the point of a spear, some at obtuse angles, some at right angles, some at acute angles and some with such treacherous gaps between them that I was certain to suffer a tri-malleolar fracture if my ankle got caught within their confines. And all this madness was at a sharp, nearly ninety-degree gradient. Because the route to the Valley was uphill, this crazy track was still do-able as I had no problems clambering up. But all the while as I negotiated that demented track, I shuddered to think what I would be facing on the way down. I have since that day taken a decided umbrage to stones irrespective of shape, size and composition and am also eagerly waiting the day I am able to get my hands on the chap who laid that track. I have for him the choicest tortures described in Hell, boiling oil and red-hot spears being only some of them.

I'll end this edition with a note of gratitude. Throughout this extremely uncomfortable and not-so-easy hike, three things stood by me steadfast: my hiking stick, my Quechua high ankle boots and of course my three songs (the ones I have mentioned previously). I grew to depend so much upon that little stick that later, walking on flat land without it, I found myself feeling empty, as if something vital was missing from my outfit. And as for my boots, they were without question, worth every naya paisa of that whopping five grand that I had paid for them. One thing that I am petrified of is slipping and these boots never let me down in this regard even once through those eight long hours. Additionally, they were completely waterproof and kept my feet warm and dry through all that rain and walking through streams. I was also glad that I had bought the ones with ankle support for they kept  my brittle bones and lax ligaments safe right through the trek up and down those deadly stones, licensed to fracture………..

To be continued...

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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