Sometimes in life you just have to say 'Yes' to something and then let the flow, flow you away. Chopta, howsoever funny the name sounds, was like out from forgotten childhood memories of watching snow-covered peaks on Discovery channel, when my office colleague, a surprisingly avid traveler, showed me snapshots of his last year's Chopta trek. Even Google images could not win over my gut - which said this place isn't meant for the corporate-sheep, but for those few gifted ones like Bear Grylls maybe.
 |
| The 'marketing' snapshot from last year's trek |
But then as life sometimes has to be, I said 'Yes' without a second thought. Behind this Yes were several variables to silently haunt this decision - my recent eye surgery, snow-storm warnings by Uttarakhand Govt, horror for parents, travelling with almost-strangers, and the list was going to grow with every passing second of course.
The week slipped through the crevices of time and soon Friday arrived for me to leave office early, rush to home, pack at lightening speed and leave for the bus. But fate had played a silly game, and so I was to leave for the bus not alone but with someone for whom this journey was made possible only in the aftermath of an almost-cancellation. It was after minutes of brainstorming on the roads and few telephonic conversations Friday morning that a 'No' was transformed to 'Yes', and a young lady could be a part of this odyssey and exemplify the richness that this experience was to gift me.
I waited with her for the bus. But before that, for friends who were to join soon - friends but strangers who were to be a part of our almost-isolated-lives for the next three days. Hiding under the pseudo-warmth of a closed mall, they soon met us and we launched forth excited intrigued and fascinated like little children on their first visit to the neighbourhood market. Amidst dark roads, we all intermingled like chemical solutions bringing new flavours to the ordinarily stupidest of conversations - the Saas-Bahu talks, Potty-Sussu jokes, then seemingly serious discussions about life, philosophy and traveling, followed by blasts of unexpected PJs totally catapulting the mood. But now as the blanket of night slowly unraveled, one by one all my friends retreated to their sleeping hideouts. But my mind was exuberant. So I stole someone away. Stole her to a different world - where we were cut off from the ordinary way of things, ordinary people, stole her to a small paradise of our own - where like young eagles you could look at the sky and spread your wings, where it was the innocence and sanctity of raw passion much unlike that of a sculptor intoxicated - as fingers intertwined, miracles of moments were born.
But it was soon time for her to leave too. She left.
I was alone facing crossroads of a choice - to return to the world I came from, go asleep like the rest, as the travel was 'tiring' and we had 'miles to go'. Or to etch these memories so deep they infect me with subtle lessons of life I fail to learn as I surrender to a post-midnight sleep.
Decision was made, and I got off to exit the bubble of silence inside. I sat on the vacant conductor's seat, as he lay wrapped up in a torn blanket on the hooded top of the bus engine. It was an almost incredulous observing how 'driver uncle' almost flew the bus over tricky roads which seemed to be cast out of perfect silence. I looked at his face - sharp in focus - maybe or maybe not unaware of the strings of several lives asleep in the section behind, that he held in his hands.
Dehradun was here, and as we exited the bus at the break of dawn, a new wave of the unknown had already consumed us. We were lead to meet our guide and to-be-friend, along with the super-driver of our Bolero. Next stop was Rishikesh where we were to pick up our mysterious sixth co-traveler. The Parathas and chai at Rishikesh were to be our first face-off with voluminous vomiting and mountain-sickness. The Bolero from now on was to be transformed to a mini-ambulance with rear seats for the not-going-to-vomit-soon, the middle ones for just-vomited and the front single seat for the elite. Meanwhile the Himalayas had already welcomed us in their embrace and the majestic beauty seemed to follow a hyperbolic pattern with every passing minute. Mountain greens, lush valleys, and powerful rivers cutting though those valleys. It was indeed out of forgotten shows on Discovery channel I suddenly remembered gaping at in stark wonder.
 |
| Sangam (Meeting point of two rivers ) - Alaknanda and Mandakini |
 |
| Wet stones in the embrace of the Holy river |
Flying through the serenity of a natural paradise, humming songs amidst unexpected blasts of laughter, we slowly moved ahead. For some like me, who's finger-tips had never known the touch of snow flakes, who's eyes had only experienced it behind the partition of a television screen or the printed sheet on a travel magazine, this Bolero wasn't driving in and to the Himalayas, but in and to childhood fantasies - of uncountable moments of innocent imagination about the peaks we read of in Geography books.
Gently sliding through time and distance, at those rare moments when no one talked, you could close your eyes and experience *truly* being there amidst mystic sounds that encompassed - air flooding through that gap in the window, the gush of a young river's roar, subtle rustling of leaves and the love of our wheels for the road; the music of their embrace which kept us alive. Occasionally we'd spot humans, animals, settlements, and it was suddenly unrealistic for me to imagine myself being a part of such dream-like serenity. Back home it would be a battle of a blind race - struggle amidst dusty streets, polluted air, fatal poverty, uncertain death. But here, a glance outside the window could powerfully dissolve every single disturbance of a thought into perfect silence.
 |
| Listening to the Voice of the Waters |
Visiting the sangam of Alaknanda and Mandakini rivers was a small exception to the otherwise incessant drive. Sangam means (for the uninitiated) the point where two rivers meet and thereafter flow as one river. As I stood high up in the settlements, close to a small temple, this sangam reminded me of young passionate love - imperceptibly fusing into two souls into the permanence of one. Closer to the waters, the roar of both rivers was loud and powerful. As if it was reminding us of a natural rawness, which hides underneath it's tough shell an unadulterated virtuous purity - much unlike inside all of us human beings.
Some of us sat there with our feet submerged in the cold water, while others jumped like children on spherically defaced stones. Something that was common was an exponentially expanding ripple of curiosity in all of us. Though in the excitement of this moment, we had almost forgotten that the real destination awaited us, and so we returned to our Bolero to find our guide slightly frowning like an adamant little kid.
The drive to follow now was one which watered our seeds of curiosity further. The curvature of time seemed to expand beyond permissible levels, as every microsecond of the wait to reach our base was tickling the child inside making his imaginations more and more greedy and zealous. But all awhile a gradual incrementation in the background - one of decreasing temperature - suddenly made our breath visible as we all wrapped ourselves closer to conserve body heat possible of being stolen away by the mountain cold. Busy in our own small mini-universe of a Bolero none of us could quantifiably gauge our progress towards the mountain peaks, and so when we saw the first marks of snow on silent roadside it was a blatant dive in disbelief - an inertia of commonness, of ordinary life, being slashed forth by a new reality that this area possessed. So what seemed to be a pile of delicious milk powder was this precipitation form that for the first time in my life I could grab in my hands and feel though the outflow of heat though my fingers. And we were all pointing to it tickling the notoriety of our imagination terming it as washing machine foam, milk powder, talcum powder, flour, and what not.
The drive further uphill was much unlike childhood Toy train rides, when there is too much unbelievable to process at the same time, and so we let everything pour in all at once, while our eyes exploded into disbelief at the aura of a (prickly?) cold mountain air, stark whiteness enveloping total range of sight, dangling wet branches of ancient trees, pathways covered in the dead snow of the past. But civilization was alive. And amidst the daunting dead cold, there were walking breathing coughing instances of life. One of them escorted our troop to two green Military style tents, a little down the frozen road. I can distinctly remember the mini-paradise that was the first steamy tea outside in the small kitchen of a hut, which was smoky from all big and small crevices - evidence of life. Standing there as the evening set, watching the range of mountains with snow on their peaks like shimming gold, as I took a sip off my steel tea cup, it was an exquisite revelation that none of this would have met our senses as ordinary mortals of the plains to which we belonged. It was a privilege, one of choice, but partly of chance too.
Our expedition was still a mystery to all but a few. And that made it more exciting. Exciting, but risky and tough. Tough because there was so much to come we'd not be prepared of. And as we began our first steps to a destination, unknown to me and the one I walked along, there was a reservoir of latent curiosity bubbling with activity already. Much unlike what is commonly said, our first steps were the easiest. Walking on rigid ground would soon be a luxury that we still didn't give enough respect to. The predominant dark wet brown of compressed algae was gradually replaced with everything milk-white, as we climbed on. First there were crevices from where this algae peeped though, then they became a mystery to look for, and later got extinct, and were easily forgotten in allurement of all what surrounded. Abandoned huts on the way suddenly spawned imagery of livelier times when kids might run around a home-made bonfire, the shrillness of their voice melting the constance of a persistent cold around, their parents smiling, with cheeks red of a different natural happiness they'd instinctively know, for which we had travelled miles to explore. The wrath of winter cold - unpredictable snow, hail and storm - had temporarily forced them to migrate to the more 'settled' Earth below. The contrast in the color of their gates, windows, walls caught my eye. It was supremely photographic, and an excuse valid enough to catch a breath and suddenly realize that despite the chilling cold outside, beneath those layers of clothes our body was ferociously manufacturing heat, that the perspiration inside soon would force us to shed several skins of cloth that we began with.
The sun still shone brilliantly somewhere above our heads, and on our left, the same shimmering-golden peaks stood as distant audience to this feat of ours to reach the top. Tungnath, the highest Shiva temple in the world, was what lay ahead at 12,073 feet altitude. I didn't know this number then, and so we kept moving forward hoping that round the corner we would suddenly stop and say 'Viola, we are here'. We kept moving forward with lips cracked, cheeks numb, eyes paining of the glare, every step pulling us deeper than before into snow that penetrated into our shoes like parasites biting into the heat of our toes making them insensate and heavy. Little did we appreciate that with every increasing step, these feet we've forever rested on without much acknowledgement, will claim their recognition and we'll be dragging them like wet stones tied to our legs. It was soon almost enough for a few of us, when a strange, almost forgotten sensation hit my face - the first rays of mountain sunlight - it felt sharp on the cheeks, slicing their way though a probably thinner atmosphere, my Physics kicking in murmured, but it's touch was a the most welcome surprise that morning. Our skin exposed now, like instant silicon we were all solar-charged. We looked up to the skies, to the beautiful reflection of a dead white snow transformed to gold that you would grab in our hand and throw at your friends as a momentary childish distraction. We walked on the edge, at times holding railing that appeared out of nowhere, but for us was like an old man's stick.
Though howsoever sublime our climb had been, the last leg of trek was most excruciating. I remembering pushing on without a shred of thought up my mind except that I need to keep walking. That there is no scope to stop now, and that we were so close. That although the depth of snow sucked us to volumes inside itself, and that I was now no taller than a 5th grader standing on the snow surface, the bells Tungnath suddenly got visible, and through a criss-cross meadow, the path was suddenly clear. Excruciating, but achievable. A huge metal bell hung at the entrance. We floated though fresh soft ice like pilgrims seeking shelter at divinity. Shelter, both mental and physical. The first vibrations of the temple bell pierced in through my nerves, like almost instantly waking me up - not just in body, but in consciousness and spirit.
There stood Tungnath, held high in pride, protruding from a failed attempt of the snow around to camouflage the fire of spirituality, which lay alight amidst footsteps of travellers, Spiritual seekers, and commonplace humans as us, to received much more than they had bargained for.
The way down was a beginning of a new end. And paradoxically, an end to a new beginning too. I remember the freedom with which I could strangely not just comprehend but express a few pages of my life with a dear friend, and effortlessly absorb a bit of her too. The last two striking memories from there were to watch the golden peaks slowly fade into the background, like being concealed from the 'real' world we were returning to as our Bolero sped downwards, and moments of innocent reflections, effortless smiles, a few micro-momentary relationships we 'friends' shared on our train journey back to our point of origin.
