EXPLORE HIMALAYAS

When I was just going through my old diaries and write-ups today, I saw something that beguiled me. It was a travelogue that I wrote 6 years back and had completely forgotten. Well, but I wouldn’t forget that trip and in fact it was the finest two weeks I ever had in my life. I thought why not blog it.

I did not know how and why I gave my name to the squad for students who were to leave for Himalayas for trekking. “It would be fun”, claimed some of my friends. Probably I too thought the same and gave a try.

It was ‘Thiruvonam’ day and as usual I was the last to reach the railway station. Actually we didn’t have any idea about our destination. Then our staff said, “We are going to New Delhi now, from where we will be proceeding to Mussoorie, a beautiful hill station, where all of you will go for trekking”. Mussoorie! I have heard of this place. Yes! It struck me later as it’s the place where the great writer Ruskin Bond lives. I have heard about this place only in his books and now I am going to see it and I was all excited. After a long and tiring journey we reached New Delhi. Next day we planned to see the capital city, though it was not there in the original agenda. The first place to visit was the Lotus temple. Baha’i house of worship, the Lotus Temple is open to all regardless of religion, or any other distinction, as emphasized in Baha’i texts. The temple was marvelous. Pin drop silence prevailed inside the temple and nobody was allowed to take photographs. But we could not resist the beauty and thus the authorities snatched our cameras. We got our cameras back but had to leave that place the very moment. Next we went to Connought place and passed some time there in the name of shopping.

That night we left Delhi and after 8 hours of journey we reached Paonta Sahib a small town, which was founded by the tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh. This town was situated on the banks of Yamuna River in Sirmour district of Himachal Pradesh. The adventure and trekking organization ‘Explore Himalayas’ is situated here. Mrs.Sharma, a charming, plump lady in her fifties greeted us. She happens to be the head of this organization. We were given rooms there and for the breakfast we were given ‘Alu paratha’ with curd. Now imagine a South Indian eating this, that too in the morning. Moreover the parathas were so horrible that I didn’t break the fast. Then we said goodbye to Paonta and got seated in a Qualis and started to Mussoorie.

On the way to Mussoorie we visited a Buddhist spiritual institution and the monks explained facts about Buddha and the institution. Nah! That’s all lies. All we did was stare at this Spiritual haven that had a locked gate. A student monk came running to see us and he threw an apple and said they tasted the best. And yeah, he was right! Taking a bite from the apple we continued our journey to Mussoorie. When we reached Mussoorie we were all shivering with cold. One of my friends loved this place immediately because he didn’t need to waste his money buying cigarettes and he made some smoke circles with his virtual cigarettes, we too repeated the same. Since the temperature was too low than expected we dropped the idea of staying in tents and moved to a lodge, which had a rocking name, ‘Rocky’. For the first time after leaving Calicut we had good food in a restaurant named ‘Hotel Green Vegetarian’. But the hotel wasn’t faithful to its name. They made great Omelets there.

At 5’o clock next morning, our trainer Mr.Thakur, a balding, short and a macho fellow gave us instructions. His instructions had a touch of army discipline and I hated him right away. He explained all our training programs in Mussoorie and that included an early morning jogging which all of us loathed. We had to run about 2-3 kilometers, but after 500 meters we all struggled for breath like asthma patients. One day we bunked this morning jogging and Thakur busted us for this and as a punishment he made us jump like frogs around the streets. We abused him calling, ‘nayinda mon’, ‘pulayadi mon’, ‘thendi patti’ etc (meaning: 'son of a dog', 'bastard', 'street dog', in that order).

This was an advantage we carried. He didn’t know our language and we were well aware of his Hindi. But just then he started speaking a language we never heard anywhere. May be he was abusing us back. Later I understood that the language he spoke was ‘Pahadi’. Pahadi is a language that is spoken by the ‘Pahadis’ who are found in the mountains of the Himalayas (Preity Zinta and Kangana Renaut are Pahadi speakers who are mostly found in the plains).

Later that day we were taken to a place 2 kilometers away, where Mr.Thakur demonstrated the rock climbing. At first we failed to do it, but we tried hard and made it. Next day we were introduced to a new activity called Rapling, where we had to descent from a mountain or a hill using ropes. Looking down the hill, we saw nothing but clouds and fog, which made us all panic. At last, like a brave man, praying all the Gods, I descended. Though I stumbled here and there, I made it quite easily. What made it difficult was the panicky and that little vertigo we all had in the beginning. Next day we went for trekking. We had our backpacks ready with a bottle of water and some salts to keep the leeches away. We had to trek about 24 kilometers through small forests and rocky places. Here we were not to make any noise, otherwise we may not recognize the avalanche. The thick fog made us to wait at some places till it disappeared.

At this point of time an incident took place, which I will never forget in my life. A man with his fully loaded donkey was passing through the narrow passage we were trekking. A deep valley overlooked us at the other side. Mr.Thakur told us to give way for the donkey. I moved a bit for this animal to pass and was dangerously at the edge. Without any provocation the donkey made a deliberate hit at me as it passed. I fell and rolled. At the nick of time one of my seniors showed the presence of mind to pull me up and I was saved. I thanked him a lot and showed my middle finger to the donkey, the man next to it and to Thakur as well.

The day passed like that and the next day we were to trek again, but this time through the concreted roads to Landour. Ruskin Bond fans do not need any intros on this place. Landour is where this simple man is putting up. This was all I wished for just to enjoy the beauty of Mussoorie. Yes! Mussoorie was certainly the best place I’ve ever seen. At one point we saw ‘Pari Tiba’(fairy mountain), standing like a picture on a canvas. Later that night we had the beautiful sight of Mussoorie glowing with all the lights of the town. That was something ‘see it to believe’ and my ordinary words wouldn’t do that. On the last day we caught a ‘birds eye view’ of Mussoorie through a ropeway. Looking at the beautiful sight down I felt like staying there forever. Leaving Mussoorie was a very hard affair, but we left and bid farewell to this paradise on earth. In six hours we reached Dehra Dun. Here we saw the Indian Military Academy. But couldn’t go inside as the gates were closed. In Dehra, we did monkey crawling as a part of our programme. We had to crawl like our ancestors from one end to the other through a rope. We left Dehra that evening and were back to Paonta Sahib, where we visited the famous Gurudwara and a shrine on top of a hill.

That night we had our farewell ceremony. Some of them sang songs that eventually turned into lullabies. In the end we danced to some rock music and gave an end to this great expedition. We reached back to Delhi and visited Rashtrapathi Bhavan. We all wanted to see President A.P.J Abdul Kalam but unfortunately that day President went away to a place named Calicut in Kerala! Then we saw India gate, luckily this time the gates weren’t closed. We went back to our room and packed our bags, which felt much heavier now. Then the train came, we fought for the window seats and that’s it we were back home and the boring schools continued.

18 days passed like lightning. I still recall the days in Mussoorie. And then I reassured myself that I would be back here for my honeymoon. And I have to thank the Kendriya Vidyalaya sangathan for arranging this trip for a rate cheaper than Calvin Klein trousers and I think this is the only one good thing they have done so far.