Two and a half days

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November 30, 2020.

2:00 pm

As I start writing this, let me describe the setting for you.

I am home, basking in the afternoon Sun. Lunch is almost ready. What is so special about lunch, you may wonder? Well, this is the first full meal I’ll be eating in three days.

I’ll start from a while back then.

You all know what this year has been like. So I wanted to travel somewhere. A few close friends know I’d been planning a trip. I also asked most of them if they’d come with me, but circumstances led me to go solo.

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Day 1 (November 27)

The first leg of my journey was a six hour bus ride from Kashmiri Gate, New Delhi, till Rishikesh, where I reached at around 5.30 in the morning.

November 27, 2020.

10:00 pm

I’ve been feeling oddly tensed all day. Like I’ve never travelled before. It feels like ages ago since I’d set foot in Spiti, and this year has gone by so fast. It’s almost to a day that I’d returned from Jaipur after recuperating from the Bonn (ordeal?) incident in 2019. Now, after a whole year, I’m setting out again.

November 27, 2020.

11:26 pm

I’m on my way, and my thoughts aren’t coherent yet. This year has been tough on us, all of us, and will this trip be all that I hope it will be? Now that I put this question, I realise that I don’t even completely understand what is it that I’m seeking from my journey. Is it just an escape? Escape from the monotony that the past months have been? An escape from the walls that close in on me at night? The constant itch to make the most of each day that has passed, with disappointment more frequent than satisfaction. An escape from having to be doing something, creating something, producing something worthwhile.

Day 2 (November 28)

November 28, 2020.

04:50 am

Haridwar. It is unsurprising how the Ganges has endured in popular belief as a deity or a mother figure if you stop to think how the mighty river is ever-present throughout Northern India, embracing so many varied cultures. She herself evolves so radically on her journey, but the emotions she evokes from societies are always of devotion.

05: 45 am

It was very windy in Rishikesh, so after having sufficiently wrapped myself to protect myself from the cold wind, I set about finding transportation for the second leg. Little did I know that this would become quite a break journey.

Private bus operators, while promising to leave for Rudraprayag at 7 am, said they’d “definitely” leave at 8 when the clock came round to 7. Not quite buying that promise, because I still couldn’t see the 20-25 passengers they needed to break even their cost of driving the route, I decided to search for an alternative.

08:00 am

My long day of travel began with a shared Bolero Maxx cab till Shrinagar, Uttarakhand. the ride was pretty rough at numerous places where big, big machines are scratching away at mountain sides to widen roads. This is the ongoing Char Dham Yojana, which I daresay is sending shivers down the Garhwal Himalayas, already prone to landslides and rockfalls. More on that later.

Reaching Shrinagar at 2 in the afternoon, I hastily switched over to a bus that would take me to Rudraprayag. Sitting beside me was a Pastry Chef who used to work in Delhi, but was currently waiting out the COVID induced economy crunch at home in Shrinagar. (Hey Sanjay!) We talked quite a bit on the bus. He told me how so many dams on the Alaknanda are choking the people downstream, and how, when the Dhari Devi idol was uprooted to make way for the rising water levels of a new Hydel power project, the devastating 2013 Uttarakhand flash floods and the indescribable loss of life occurred. I am quite ready to believe this, because for all the supposed “rationalism” and “logic” of modern science, most of us do not even begin to comprehend the immense power of the ancient temples and the Gods and Goddesses who look over us.

At Rudraprayag, I was told that the last bus for Ukhimath had left, and the best I could do was take a bus to Kund, from where I could get a ride to Ukhimath on a shared taxi. It took another hour and a half till Kund. I saw an interesting road sign on the way, and it read ” Hug your kids at home / Belt them in the car “. So yeah.

It was pushing 4 in the evening when I was dropped off at Kund. It’s just a shack shop and a general understanding that vehicles stop there on their way through.

A waiting taxi driver told me he would drop me to Chopta, which is 34 kms away, or another hour and a half ride, for 2000 rupees. Ukhimath was where I had planned to stop for the night, and my original plan involved going to Chopta only the next day. So I waited some more. So while waiting, debating, and increasingly getting worried about where to stop for the night, with the rapidly setting Sun already casting a grey pallor across the valley, what sight should greet my tired eyes but a group of fellow travellers! Ah, what relief! such comradely feelings! (Hey Sachin, Pankaj, Sharmila!)

Together, we chose to push on till Chopta that night itself, and we took the now bargained down to 1300 rupees offer for the taxi. On the way there, I marvelled at the gorgeous sunset and the first magnificent sights of the snowy peaks of the Greater Himalayas.

06:00 pm

Chopta. A glass of hot tea. Search for rooms. Dinner. Preparation for the Tungnath Trek the next morning. Cold, very cold. Wear cloths for next day and tuck yourself in under the blankets. Sleep, blessed sleep.

Day 3 (November 29)

03:30 am

Next morning. Wore the final layers of clothing to keep the cold from freezing my bones. Together, after the others eventually got up, we set off for the Tungnath trek.

05:15 am

The early morning sky was still dark with myriad stars sequined on it. The almost full moon bathed everything around us in a soft white glow.

It really is hard to describe a trek. The initial 15 minutes to an hour you’re almost ready to give up and go back, and for the remaining trek you stay focused on path and the destination. You can’t have any other thoughts. Let nobody tell you that any trek is easy. There might be relatively short treks, but none are easy.

Sunrise.

Reaching the temple is fulfilling, and words I might try to use won’t ever express what it feels like. Or perhaps I don’t want to share that. The experience is intensely personal. Everyone treks alone, and all that you feel is yours in the solitude of your self.

The Tungnath Temple.

08:30 am

On my way back down, met with a guy who’d ridden his bike all the way from Delhi. He kindly offered to let me ride pillion, and I foolishly thought I could at least get down to Rishikesh with him. And that’s the joy of travelling solo. You’re free to change company if it helps your journey.

But pillion riding on mountains with bad roads, a heavy bag on your shoulders and not enough room to sit on is very very tough and painful. I bruised my back and my spine pretty horribly. But the 3 hour bike ride was exhilarating nonetheless, and I graciously gave up the pillion seat for a bus ride down to Rishikesh at Shrinagar.

01:30 pm

Shrinagar to Rishikesh. 6 hours. Alternate bus route through Tehri and Chamba. The monstrosity of the Tehri Dam. Fresh fish shops at Chamba. Rishikesh at 7 pm. Decided to get a bus back to Delhi that night itself. Get hotel room. Wash, change, sleep. Bus at 11.30 at night.

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On my way back to Delhi, while passing through Haridwar, I was half-asleep when I looked out and saw the concrete lined banks of the Ganga again.

All the thoughts of the past days that I couldn’t pen down came all together in an epiphany.

A man asked another, what do you see when you look at creation?

A mighty river, a strong mountain. A powerful creator. Shiva, if you will. Immense. Eternal.

And what do you learn from that? What do you choose to be?

And I think the answer to this is what has been the fundamental error of the path humankind has chosen.

We have taken the wrong lessons from the Gods we’ve given ourselves. We’ve looked at the Gods who have made us, and we’ve sought to become God. Despite all the power we’ve been granted, and all the things that we make, it is not our role to bend, and scratch and distort what the Creator has blessed us with. We have forgotten that creation isn’t for us, it is there with us, just as we are.

And we are here until we are not. We are all mere moments for the eternity that is.

And this is what I have to give to you, dear reader, from my almost constant travel of over 37 hours, and this is what I have learnt. I write to you to choose wisely, I write when every muscle in my body is still sore, and every inch of me feels alive. And I ache to go back to the mountains again.