Sunday Morning Walks with a Belizean Girl

It all began with a tring, or a tring tring perhaps. Or maybe not, because mobile phones are, sadly, not landlines. So, it must have gone ‘Mauja hi maujha’. Our tastes are profound. The author then went on to say Hi.

“Hi, my friend told me that you conduct Heritage Walks in Delhi. I would love to come,  if you are hosting one this weekend”, said the girl.

“Have you been on the Mehrauli walk?"

 “Ooh what shall we get to see there?”

"Besides the versatile spread of architectural genius of the many dynasties that comprised the Delhi Sultanate? Well, thou shall also see a massive number of love messages scratched on largely uncared for yet beautiful monuments. And some peacocks. Oh, and a few leering men, here and there."

"Only a few? Must be my lucky day"

One must always like a woman having a sarcastic sense of humour.

“Haha, don't worry. If I cannot deliver what I promise, and if we see no sign of anything that is masculine, walking on two legs and being creepy and lecherous, I shall try my best to don that role myself."

“Thank you, kind sir, you move my soul. Hey, listen, I am not Indian, FYI” 

“With that sexy (err cough).. I meant husky.. husky accent, of course you can’t be. South American?” 

"Not bad, close enough. Central American. I am from Belize. And I am sure the cocky guide hasn't heard of it." 

"Belize ooh. Belmopan is the capital, jes?"

“You know Belmopan!!! That’s the first time someone in India has known.. never mind, I mean will I be charged more, being a foreigner?”

“Tch tch, you insult me now.”

“Haha, so I shall see you at ten am tomorrow?” 

And it was hence that at 10 am the next day, an Indian boy was cursing himself for waking up late, and was riding his bikes as fast as he could on Mehrauli Badarpur road. Somewhere ahead in the distance stood the towering edifice of Qutub Minar. Unbeknownst to him, a girl from Belize was right behind in an auto, looking unhurried and unflustered, the wind in her hair, looking yonder at a fort’s ramparts and admiring the city where she had now been staying for the last one week. 

If only he would tell her then that this was exactly where Delhi had started 1400 years back in 731 AD ,when the Tomars came marching. They called it 'Dili'. In 1180, Prithviraj Chauhan renamed it as 'Qila Rai Pithora', after vanquishing the Tomars. Quila Rai Pithora – the first of imperial Delhi’s 7 cities.

A few minutes later, they met (I mean him and her, not Prithvi and the Tomars) outside the gates of the Qutub Minar complex. A thousand years back, this area became Delhi's second city - Mehrauli.

“Hello, Belizean girl!”

“Hello, Indian boy!” 

And after having greeting each other and shaking hands shyly, they ignored the tallest minar in the world, and walked down the road towards a little complex. On its outside, a board read “Mehrauli Archaeological Park”.

She stopped to click photographs of the rose garden that stood just metres ahead of the entrance , and he gazed at a group of boys playing football in a small makeshift space on his left. And then, they walked towards the first of the ‘sights’ – Metcalfe’s ‘Folly’.

"Oh I can see the Folly . It is the one on top of that hillock, right?" she asked.

"Hillock. Nice! Very Enid Blyton-ish"

“I have a degree in Journalism, dimpled boy. Let’s walk up and go inside. It does have a low roof though.”

 “Exactly the reason I chose not to grow too tall.”

 “Such foresight. Not come to commit a folly, are you? Why would they call this arched building a ‘folly’ though?”

 “ Well the British were always known for their follies. Jokes apart, 'folly' is a British architectural thing. In short, it is a new building meant to look like as if it was old. Usually set in a pretty landscape. Charles Metcalfe, after whom this one has been named, loved India. Loved Mughal palaces even more, apparently. There was a king called Akbar..”

“Akbar as in Jodha Akbar?”

“Drat, Bollywood seems to be doing my job better than me. Right, yes the same Akbar. Well, he had a nurse who had two sons – Quli Khan and Adham Khan. Quli Khan’s tomb was built in this area, and bizarrely Metcalfe bought it, maybe because it gave the best view of the Qutub. He then turned it into a rest house for honeymooners and of course charged them money to stay there. Added a little lake and boat house nearby. Should have been a businessman, I think, not a Colonial army man.”

“It looks like a nice place for a honeymoon. But I’d still prefer the sea. There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.”

“Herman Melville, right? Moby Dick. I love those lines.”

“I read it as a child.”

“Haha, make that two of us then. See that huge tomb across the Mehrauli road. That is Adam Khan’s tomb. Also known as Bhoolbhulaiya – a maze - People have been known to get lost there.”

“And you being the great guide, and saviour, bring them back?”

“Sarcasm will take you places, senorita.”

“Aah, the first hint of Spanish. Well done, tour guide.”

“Again, courtesy of Bollywood. Shahrukh Khan won't be too pleased  though, that you know of Jodha Akbar and not DDLJ”

“It’s so pretty from up here. And what building is that yonder?”

  

We looked at the Jamali Kamali tomb complex, that long red building with tomb and mosque, of the Sufi saint Jamali and his friend.

And after walking together through that building full of pretty frescoes, we started back for the Qutub. But not before, we had run up the Rajaon ki Baoli, weaved our way through the Lodi Mosques and stared admiringly at Balban’s tomb. Balban, the Turk, kidnapped when he was a child and sold as a slave, was then bought by Iltutmish in Central Asia and brought up with care under the same man’s patronage in Mehrauli. Balban, the favourite slave of the Delhi Sulanate’s first Slave King, and later himself King of the same land. 

Ahead of us, two men walked, swaying their hands in each others'.

"I wonder why so many Indian men hold hands", she asked.

"I wonder if we should do something to balance the equation", I said.

“From wanting to leer, to wanting to hold hands, up ‘folly’ and down tombs, I wonder if it has been as educational a journey for you as for me, Indian boy”

Having reached their destination, they stood there under the bright morning sky, looking at, the tallest brick minaret in the world, at the legacy of the some of the finest dynasties to have ruled the capital of India, while a couple of men stood yonder just happy to walk under the sun and hold hands.

--- The End ---


You can also look at Mehrauli Heritage Walks pics here

Now Read

1) Absinthe, Barcelona and Nude Beaches
2) How I Met Lisa

The Road Trip Adventures: The World's Most Beautiful Monastery

730 am, Oct 29 ‘13: I scramble out of bed and get ready. I should have woken up earlier. Wearing my boots, I step out of the room. Outside, a few feet below the property, the Paro river glistens blue in the morning sunlight. I look up at the mountains and somewhere in their midst is my destination.
Tiger’s Nest Monastery.

I walk to the hotel restaurant. Gautam and Shaheeda, the friendly, young Mumbai couple are there already. Soon, Chetan and Pradeep join us. I like these two boys. Twenty three years old each, they are the youngest members in this Tri Nation Car Rally Road Trip.

We finish breakfast and get into Gautam’s Scorpio - Adventure 19 – and drive to the base of the mountain from where the trek will start. The route is beautiful. Through our position on the hills, we can see the entire town of Paro, those little houses down below looking like Lego pieces.

It is day 9 of our trip. After finishing our Nepal leg in Kathmandu, the Mahindra Tri Nation team drove east and stayed one night at Biratnagar, a Nepalese border town. On day 7, the convoy crossed Bihar and drove into the hilly tea estates of West Bengal. That night we stayed at the sprawling Dooars Sinclairs property in Chalsa, on top of a hill. It is such a green estate. If you are in the region ever, and have the money, stay at the Dooars.

Yesterday, we left Chalsa and crossed over to Bhutan. The border formalities in Phuentsholing took quite some time and we only reached Paro in the night.

I am back in the land of Tiger’s Nest.

It will be my second time, trekking to the monastery. Last time, it took me three hours to get to the top. Today I will not stop even once, till I reach the top. It is purely a mental game.

We cross the main town, and now there are fields on both sides of the road.  A few houses show up infrequently. There are chillies drying on their roofs. Some of the houses also have phallic symbols (penises) painted on them.

We reach the base of the mountain and park our car. Some of the other Mahindra Scorpios are already here. The others must already be on their way up. To check if they are finding the climb alright, I must walk up faster.

The previous night, when we were having dinner, almost twenty people from the group said that they would try going up to Tiger’s Nest. Many are in their forties and fifties. I wondered if everybody could.

Fitness doesn’t really get high priority in India. Once college ends and we start working, we stop playing. We go to office, return late and watch television. Unlike in the west, we do not go camping on weekends. On weekdays, we are not like Denmark, where people are increasingly bicycling to work.

From our spot at the base, the monastery looks like a colourful dot on a big, brown mountain. To reach the top, we must make our way through a hilly forest, rocks and uneven terrain.

We start walking. I know Gautam will take care of Shaheeda, so I go ahead. Pradeep keeps pace with them. Chetan joins me. The two of us make a pact to not stop at all.

The forest is full of blue pine trees. There are no signboards, no stalls or wrappers or plastic lying anywhere. When Jigme Wangchuck, Bhutan’s fourth and most loved king, made Gross National Happiness a law, its definition specified that economic development and environmental preservation should go hand in hand. He has also made it a law that Bhutan should remain under 60% forest cover for all times to come. Such foresight.

Chetan and I move ahead and soon two small Buddhist temples come in sight. A stream of water flows out from one of them and passes through a brown, cylindrical wooden tube before falling onto the earth. The tube has been fashioned to look like a penis, foreskin et al.

The walk is directly uphill from here. A narrow strip cut from the hills is our path.

For someone who does not climb often, the first one hour is usually the toughest. You feel out of breath, and want to stop often. The more you stop, the more tired you feel a few minutes after resumption. If Chetan is tired, he does not express it verbally. Only a slight grimace gives him away. A lean, tall boy, he keeps steady pace and walks a step or two ahead of me constantly. We keep moving ahead at decent pace.

A steady breeze hits our chests. Forty five minutes later, we spot some of the group members directly above us. We leave the path, and scramble up the hill, through the trees, like two goats. In a minute, we are by their side, huffing and puffing with the extra exertion. They greet us with cheers and smiles.

We reach the café at the halfway point. Chetan and I want to keep walking, but everyone is laughing, talking and ordering tea and biscuits, so we decide to spend a few minutes with them.

I chat with Vivek Naidu, a 46year old man from Hyderabad. In the convoy’s radio conversations, he always stands out as the most polished speaker. Here, he keeps teasing me that he would thrash me in a race to the top. It is all playful banter.

He and Pankaj leave immediately after finishing their teas. Ten minutes later, Chetan and I set out too. We cover ground quickly. We pass an old woman, probably seventy years old. I smile at her but she does not reciprocate. She looks tired, and is holding onto the arm of her local guide. Together they walk at a painfully slow pace.

Soon we catch up with Vivek. He looks out of breath and is sitting on a rock. His face is covered with sweat. One look at him, and I know he won’t make it to the top. I stop next to him, and urge him to keep walking. Pankaj and Chetan look on. We walk fifty metres more and Vivek stops again. He is getting very tired.

I have no idea why I decide to change my script. Till now, I have wanted to reach the top first, reach it under two hours and prove a point to myself. Now, I feel like walking with him. I don’t know why.
Chetan wants to stop too. But at least one of us should do it non-stop, so I persuade him to go ahead. Vivek and I resume again, and walk slowly. Whenever he feels like stopping, I ask him to take five more steps. And after those five, five more.

Pankaj walks ahead, slowly and steadily, stopping every ten minutes to see if we are following his trail.

I don’t want to give up on the race yet. I keep telling Vivek we shall still be the first to get to the top.
He is panting a lot. His breathing is hard. The man’s exhausted. To egg him on, I resort to locker room tactics. I chide him, tell him to take it like a man, urge him to fight it out, roar at him that it is all about mental strength.

The man’s got spirit. He does not give up. He knows that my shouting is a farce, that it is all a bid to make him keep walking, and he pulls out enormous reserves of will to push himself.

As we go up, foreigners keep passing us, on their way back from the monastery. Every time they do, Vivek greets them pleasantly, cracking a joke or two, being the perfect gentleman. It surprises me.
Not that he can’t, just that he is up on a mountain, spent and exhausted more than he has ever been. Most people would be irritable when they are tired. This man is breathing so hard that I can almost hear his heartbeat, and yet he never stops being pleasant to strangers and keeps gushing about the views and the vegetation. I love his attitude. It speaks of the man’s character.

I now know why I want to walk with him to the top. We keep walking.  We stop only when he is ready to fall. I still taunt him, he still smiles.

Finally Takstsang is at the same height as we are. At the last turn of the hill, Chetan is waiting for us. From here, there is a 500 metre decline, at the end of which is a waterfall. After that begins the last hundred metre ascent to the monastery.

The four of us reach the waterfall. Clambering over the rocks, I rush to the water. I love waterfalls. Chetan keeps yelling that his shoes are slippery but finally he is up on the rocks too. Soon, there are others from the group who catch up with us – Rajat and his wife Neha, Akash and Vishesh. They all come up, gingerly holding on to the rocks and moving on the wet moss slowly till they reach under the fall. The water is icy cold and drenches us within seconds. 

Once we get back, we climb up to the monastery. When we reach, I look at Vivek. His eyes reflect all the emotions that he feels at the moment. There is an overwhelming sense of triumph. He is almost shaking with joy. In his victory, I find my own.

Just like last time, a sense of peace and calmness engulfs me as soon as I enter. No other religious place does that to me. We flit silently through the rooms, and a guide explains the monastery’s history, and the stories of the paintings to us. Later, I wander by myself. I need my own little space here.

We leave an hour later. On our way back, I walk alone. I still don’t know what is it that overwhelms me about the monastery – is it the exertion of the walk and the triumphant feeling at the end of it all? Or is it the magnificence of its location – on a cliff edge at the very top of the mountain, only trees and hills all around, nothing but the roar of water breaking the silence?

At the waterfall, I meet the old lady we crossed earlier. She is still on her way to the monastery, still holding on to her guide’s hand. I am pleasantly surprised to see her come this far. She is 72 and from New Zealand. I ask her how she finds the view now that she is at the top. She smiles quietly. I look at her guide, and he tells me something in a low voice. The old lady is blind.

I am stunned. I look at her and what she has just done and I hug her out of love, out of shock. She laughs and asks me to describe the view to her and I say what I can. Then, the two resume their journey. When I see her last, she’s still walking slowly, holding to her guide’s arm, talking to him.
I walk down the hill, but I don’t know what to think. I just feel so happy that she went up. Taktsang’s aura lies in its awe inspiring location. Yet, she went up, with no eyes, no strength, only faith by her side.

What is it about Taktsang. When I reach to the bottom, my mind’s still a maze of thoughts.
The next day, the convoy leave for Thimpu.

In retrospect, I have a lot of fond memories from that day. We stayed in a beautiful resort, Tashi Namgay, by the river, had a bonfire dinner party, and even had time for shopping.

It was a day that a lot of people bonded with each other in the 5-6 hours it took them to go up and down the mountain. We had spent most of our earlier days either driving, or visiting tourist attractions. In Paro, we learnt to be travellers. To just keep walking.

Chetan and I became close that day, I guess. 

Still, I shall remember our ninth day of our trip, above all, for only two things. The joy on Vivek’s face when we reached the monastery, and the faith of the little lady who held on to her guide’s arm and talked to him, the entire time it took her to climb up the most beautiful monastery in the world.

 Now Read:

1) The Road Trip Adventures: A Prologue 
2) About Neeraj Narayanan 
3) One Night with a Croatian Backpacker

---

                          

The Road Trip Adventures: In the House of the World's Only Living Goddess

Day 4: On the morning of 24th October, the lead Thar car drove out of the gates of the Pokhara Grande and behind that rolled the twenty participant Scorpios cars, two media cars, the support vehicles, and lastly the sweep car that brought up the rear. We were on our way from Pokhara to Kathmandu.

We were driving on the Prithvi highway, that runs through the mountains offering a fascinating view of the rural countryside, terraced fields and rivers.

Soon Bijoy Kumar’s (Chief of Adventure Initiatives, Mahindra) voice could be heard over the radio and he asked the participants to describe their previous day’s experiences.

As everyone recounted, and others cracked jokes, we passed over deep river valleys and landslide prone terrain. Overloaded buses sped in either direction, swerving and braking on the turns, and inviting muttered curses. At Mudling, the bridge over the raging Narayani river groaned and sagged as the convoy drove over it, and the river hissed anticipating a mishap. It was in such environs that camaraderie was built over a faithful radio that connected every car of the Mahindra Rally.

I had two car mates. Agasti was a Top Gear car tester and writer, and also my roommate in this trip. Here on assignment, he would always be looking for locations from where he could take good pictures for his magazine. The moment he would sense a pretty locale coming up, Agasti would pull out of the convoy, pick up enormous pace, speed ahead and reach a point from where he could capture great shots of the convoy. Never once, through the hurtling pace, or even the 90 degree bends, did I feel unsafe with Agasti.  The boy knew how to steer a car.

Our third car mate was Priyanka, a fitting recruit of the Mahindra Adventures PR team. A happy go lucky kid, she was always game for anything sporting. More importantly, Priyanka was the critical link in our car as the originator of all conversation. She made sure that she did her Psychology Honours graduation justice, by showering us with questions that would pick at our brains and souls. With her the drives became more fun and also quite ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’.

We reached our Kathmandu hotel, Godavari Village Resort, around 730 pm. It was a sprawling property built on a hill slope, with landscaped gardens, trees and a swanky pool. I wondered how much extra money the Mahindra guys were spending in maintaining the convoy cars and providing such luxury hotel stays. It now dawned upon me that this trip was not intended to directly draw in business. It was in fact an experiential branding exercise. How better to make your customers love you, than to create great trips and do every single thing possible to make it a success.

With dinner came drinks and the first official dance party of the trip. It would have remained an obscure affair had it not been for our enthusiastic doctor.  In his simple world, dance meant doing violent pelvic thrusts. Some of his thrusts were so powerful that three metres away, I could feel powerful winds almost lifting and toppling me over.

We danced till the wee hours of the night and hopefully at the end of it all, our dear doctor’s pelvis and neighbouring organs were still part of his body.

Early next morning, the group members reached Kathmandu airport, for the 45 minute Everest flight. The twenty seater rickety Buddha Air plane did not inspire any confidence.

After a shaky start, the plane was soon flying above the mountains. Everyone was given a window seat. The airhostess passed us sheets depicting the list of the mountains we’d see. And then slowly , they all loomed out of the clouds, out of the fogs, those beautiful mountains that so many men had been seduced by, those sinister mountains that so many had tried conquering. One by one they all came out, Lhotse, Nuptse, Makalu, Chamlang, Manasalu.

And then came the mother of them all. The beast. The Chosen One.

Mount Everest.

The hair on our skins prickled as we saw the magnificent mountain. 29,035 feet above sea level. This was what those brave men George Mallory and Andrew Irvine had tried summiting in 1924.

By 1920, man had already reached Antarctica, the North and South Pole.  Everest, ‘the third pole’ as it was also known, was now the one unconquered frontier. After two unsuccessful attempts in 1920 and 1922, British explorers returned in 1924. It was in this trip that Mallory and Irvine crossed 27,000 feet after which there was no sighting of them. They then disappeared. Mallory’s body was found 75 years later in 1999, at 27,750 feet. Found a hundred metres below his ice axe, with his arms outstretched, it is assumed that he had desperately tried to cling to anything that came his way as he fell down the ice.

The pilot called us all, one by one, into the cockpit to absorb the view.

In 1933, Douglas Hamilton and David MacIntyre made a bid to fly to Mount Everest on a modified bi-plane from India. Flying at 30,000 feet, at 140 mph, in freezing conditions in an open cockpit, with unsophisticated oxygen material, the brave tried to capture as many photos as they could. It would later assist climbers to find a route to the top of the world. They tried to see any signs of Mallory or Irvine’s bodies but found none. Some oxygen pipes cracked, and the men shivered bitterly, but finally they came back alive.

Eighty years later, here we were looking at the same mountain.  The effort of all those men must not go unheard. We, the story tellers, have a duty to tell as many as we can.

After a few minutes of viewing, the plane turned and we were on our way back. After one last look, we left, in silence, in awe.

Once back on ground, we headed for the royal palace, the site of one of the most brutal royal massacres in recent history. As the story goes, crown prince Dipendra shot nine members of his family in a fit of rage, before shooting himself. Some believe that it was all a set-up and the killings were masterminded by the king’s brother Gyanendra and his son Paras, who then went on to become the rulers of Nepal. Bullet marks can still be seen on the garden walls where Dipendra allegedly shot his mother Queen Aiswarya.

From the palace, we walked down the road to Thamel, the busiest market in Kathmandu. A vibrant, loud, colourful area, Thamel was full of shops selling mountain gear, clothes, antiques, khukris and just about everything else. We crossed hippies and quaint cafes, and both added a lot of flavour to Thame’s charm.

And then, as we walked through the market, through the people, through the deafening noise of it all, we suddenly came into another land. Durbar Square.

It really felt like another land. Suddenly the market abruptly ended, and we stepped into another era.  A moment ago we were staring at the giant modern edifice of ‘North Star’ – the premier mountain gear selling brand in this region. A moment later, we were staring at palaces built in the tenth century, the spectacular architectural work of Newar artists and craftsmen. A moment ago I was in the twenty first century, a moment later I felt that I had stepped back ten centuries. I closed my eyes.  In my own mind, all the noise of the street was now blocked out and I could see the Newar men carving under the sun.

Ahead, we stopped at a building called the Kumari House. When Priyanka told me its story, I was stunned. We were supposedly standing in the abode of the world’s only living Goddess.

Every ten years or so, Nepal selects a new, real life incarnation of Goddess Taleju (Durga). Picked only from the Shakya caste, she must possess 32 specific attributes – ranging from eyelashes like a cow, body like a banyan tree, and skin that is golden, tender and that has never been scratched nor bled. As Durga is considered fearless, the child is then made to go through several tests. In one, she is left alone in a room full of severed heads of animals, with masked men dancing furiously all around. Only a girl who remains calm and serene through these tests can go on to become the Goddess. The Kumari.

Once selected, she is separated from her family, moves into the Kumari house and lives there away from the public eye. Her only companions are her caretakers and servants. Her feet almost never touch the ground. She comes out only once a year, to bless the public during the festival of Indra Jata, bedecked in red, her eyelashes painted long, a third eye painted on her reddened forehead. As she sits in a golden palanquin carried by her servants, thousands throng the streets and the king himself comes to kiss her feet.

The rest of her time as Kumari, no one can meet her.

In ten years’ time, when she hits puberty, she is replaced by another girl as the new living Goddess. From God one day, to nothing the next, just like that. Tradition demands she does not marry ever.

We entered the red brick, three storey building, designed in the style of the Buddhist Viharas.
The walls of the courtyard where we stood had ornate workmanship on them. There were about twenty people inside, including us, and a group of Europeans led by a local guide. Suddenly, we heard some movement, and saw an old lady, the Kumari’s caretaker, at a window on the third floor. It had slits in it, and we could just about see her looing down grimly. She said something to the guide in Nepali, and he turned to the crowd excitedly. The Kumari was going to come to the window to bless the crowd.

Every eye stared at the window waiting for the little girl to make her appearance. The guide asked us to keep our cameras away.As we waited, I wondered just how much responsibility the little girl carried. Brought away from her family, sitting in a captive house all day for ten years, not allowed to have any friends, not having any books or school to go to, not allowed to play. And yet pampered, looked after, worshipped by an entire country, her parents made rich and receiving a new respect. But did she want that life? Did she ask for it? Was it right? Was it wrong?

And suddenly just like that, she came to the window. A gasp went up from the crowd, and then turned into a hushed silence. We looked at her, waiting for her to do something, to give us some sign. I could see a number of people bowing their heads in reverence and praying. Was it right, this belief of theirs? Was it wrong, this faith of theirs? I looked on, trying to find some emotion in the little girl’s face. All I could see were the large eyelashes painted black. The next instant, she left her seat and was gone. It was all over in less than half a minute.

I turned to look, and everyone was smiling. In my own heart, I felt special, to have seen a living Goddess. I wonder if it was right of me, to feel special.

That night, I found it difficult to sleep. A hundred thoughts flitted through my head. Good things somehow had a way of coming to me, ever since I started traveling five months ago. I would be at a place, stranded, and a stranger would help me. I had fallen in front of a bull in Spain, and yet it chose not to attack me. After leaving Bhutan, I had prayed that I find a way to get back there soon. The very day I reached Delhi, there was a mail lying in my inbox saying that Mahindra Adventures wanted to take me to Bhutan. And today, I had stepped into the Kumari House for five minutes, and the little girl had chosen those very moments in the entire day to come to the window. How, why were these things happening to me.

I slept dreaming of mountains, and me climbing them. Some of them were real, some just symbolic.

Image Credits: Prakash Mathema (at Indra Jat festival)

Now Read:

1) The Road Trip Adventures: A Prologue
2) The Good Men of India: A story at 17,000 feet above sea level
3) A Fishy Affair

The Road Trip Adventures: The Mountains of Pokhara

3 June, 1950. Both men are spent, their breathing hoarse and every step  now a battle against the conditions. The snow scatters as the ice axe strikes the earth again. The temperature is well below freezing point, and visibility is low. There will be a storm soon. It is but a regular day in the life of a mountain 8000 metres above sea level.

Moments later, the first man lets out a cry. Maurice Herzog has become the first man in the world to climb Annapurna. Louis Lachenal scambles up the last few metres and both men raise their hands in triumph.

At 8091 metres, Annapurna is the first mountain over 8000 metres that man conquers.

22^nd October 2013: We are ready for our second day’s drive. The Mahindra Tri Nation Adventure Car Rally day 2 schedule reads – Shivpatinagar to Pokhara (200 kms).  Shivpatnagar is a small UP town near the Nepal border. Actually, I like the place where we are staying – the Royal Retreat. Once upon a time the hunting lodge of Raja Shivpati Singh, it is now a heritage hotel.  We reached here the previous night after driving 850 kilometres from Delhi on day one. The property has huge gardens, a lake in a wooden glade, and mango orchards.

The convoy rolls out as per schedule and we cross the Nepal border at Sunauli. We stop briefly at the Mahindra showroom where we are welcomed warmly. The cars move again soon and we cover an easy 24 km straight stretch before stepping into the mountains.  We drive up the Terai region and here begins a 35 km long brake-testing ascent to Butwal. This relentlessly turning and twisting road to Pokhara is the Siddhartha Highway. After leaving behind the landslide prone stretch near Butwal , the convoy passes through the highest point on the highway. Soon we are crossing over the Kali Gandaki river at Ramdi Ghat - a site for many caves. The road descends by the steep gorge and we are almost parallel to the river floor.

Sixty three years ago, the French Alpine Club puts together a mountaineering team. Louis Lachenal, Lionel Terray and Rebuffat, three skilled professional mountain guides form the nucleus of this team. Maurice Herzog, the lone amateur, is made the leader of the group as per the amateur ideals of mountaineering. Together, they go up the Kali Gandak valley in April 1950, probably on the same mud where today road stands and our convoy is driving through. They try to examine the Dhaulagiri (another 8000 plus metres mountain) from the north and eastern face, and after Herzog declares it “fiendishly difficult”, the expedition turns its attention towards Annapurna, previously unknown.

The highway starts to go up the mountain again and once we near Syanja village, the hills rear up spectacularly and the scenery is dramatically beautiful. By late evening, we reach the Pokhara Grande Hotel and retire to our rooms. Our room is nice and spacious, and after covering  1100 kms in two days, I am glad to lie in the hot bath tub.

I come face to face with Annapurna early next morning. 

It is by chance that I wake up around 6 am, and walk out groggily to the reception. A few members of our group are standing outside looking at something and I join them. I stagger when I look at what stands in front of me. Straight ahead, the Annapurna range looms high in the sky.  Five peaks, Annapurna I,II,III,IV and Machu Puchre (Fish Tail) stand out from the rest.

While climbing Annapurna, Terray and Herzog are the strongest and acclimatise to it best but when the supply chain stalls, Terray gives up his shot at the peak in favour of pushing supplies. From camp IV, Lachenal and Herzog are the two who will attempt conquering the  summit.  As they plod on, without supplementary oxygen, Lachena is terrified as his leather boots don’t offer sufficient insulation. Afraid that he might get frostbitten, he asks Herzog what the latter would do if he chose to turn back. A disgusted Herzog replies that he would continue come what may. “Then, I’ll follow you” replies Lachenal. On June 3, they conquer the summit. An ecstatic Herzog stand there blithely while Lachenal prepares to come down. As they descend, Herzog takes off his gloves to open his rucksack and watches in horror as the gloves fall down the mountain. He will pay for the mistake dearly.

The descent turns out to be a terror. In freezing conditions, Herzog and Lachenal try to find their way. Terray and Rebuffat climb up to help them. Terray finds Lachenal lying in the snow, desperately trying to get to the doctor at a lower camp. As afternoon turns to night, a storm takes over the entire mountain and they spend an agonizing night in a crevasse, lost and weak. When the storm loses its vigour, Terray and Rebuffat try to find a route in the blanket of white and suffer from snow blindness.

Both men, Lachenal and Herzog, suffer from frostbite and their toes are amputated once they reach lower altitudes. As Herzog lost his gloves, all his fingers too are amputated. How much more can a man pay for a mistake.

We have a rest day in Pokhara. Everybody has their own plans on how to spend the day. We form a group of ten and take two cars to Sarangkot, which is supposed to have spectacular views of the Himalayas. We pass Pokhara Taxi stand and go up the hill. When we reach the view point, we see the road still continuing forward, so we decide to pursue it. The road worsens ahead, it is all mud and rock now with huge depressions.  As our Scorpios bounce up and down the uneven terrain, I stare at the gorge plunging hundreds of metres down,  just a foot or two away from our car.  Although not planned, this is our first offroading experience in this trip and I like this new flavour. The Tri Nation road trip is not just about driving for long hours, it is also about driving through every possible variety of terrain, and about testing our skills.

Finally after a horrendous three four kilometre stretch, we reach the outskirts of a village. A pond, a small school, and a few small houses dot the road. We stop near a large patch of grass and get out of our cars. One can see the whole valley below from here. The Phewa lake glimmers below in the morning sunlight.

As we walk back to the cars, I look fascinatedly at two women. One is a European girl of twenty, the other is a sixty year old Nepalese local. One is in harem pants and a tee that doesn’t look washed in days, the other is in the traditional dress of the community.  One has messy hair that somehow add personality to her appearance, the other has neatly tied her dark hair ina bun. The girl sits on the outside wall of a house rolling a joint, and the old lady stands next to her. Together, they smoke it turn by turn and I can’t help but smile.

Sarangkot, or the village yonder still lives in a slow world, a world very different from ours’ in the cities.

We drive back to the view point. The guide books were right, the view is spectacular. In silence, we all sit, and look at the five main peaks of the Annapurna range. Fish Tail, or Machu Puchre as the locals call it, is lovely, jutting out and looking very different from the rest.

When Herzog returned to France, he became a national hero in a country struggling with the after effects of World War 2. As he lay in hospital for months, plunged in depression, he dictated what would eventually become the most bestselling mountaineering book in history. The title? Annapurna. When The Paris Match magazine shared the picture of him on the summit, it broke all sales records for them. They went on to call Herzog France’s “number one national hero” while Lachenal did not get a single mention. Herzog went on to become minister of sport and youth while Lachenal died an unknown figure five years later in a skiing accident.

The sky is full of paragliders. They are like big colourful blobs, flying with the thermals, soaring with the birds. A number of our group members try it and tell us later that it is a fantastic experience, to be flying like that, with the mightiest Himalayan peaks right in front, and a lush valley below.

I love Sarangkot, it's slow life, the little pond where everyone gathers in the evening. The men smoke after a hard day's work, the women discuss what they did the whole day. Boys throw stones in the water to see who can throw the furthest and hence is strongest. They want to catch the eye of the girls their age, it is their biggest reward. Everywhere in the world, we have our own ways of wanting affection. There is no hurry in Sarangkot.

We click a lot of pictures of the mountain range, and then have a late lunch in the restaurant below the view point. It is 430 now and we plan to drive down to Phewa lake to catch the sunset.

In the sixties, Nepal, and consequently Pokhara, was one of the main destinations of the Himalayan Hippies Trail. Hippies from Europe would come over land to India and Nepal via Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan. They used the cheapest travel means available, hitchhiking, bus rides to cut costs and extend as much time away from home as possible. In Nepal and India, they found solace, they found innocence and they found lands which were still away from the tourist glare. They also found a lot of weed. Pokhara was no different.

However, as we drive down to Phewa Lake, a lot has changed from then. There are bright cafes, hundreds of shops selling mountain gear, and dance bars. Tourists walk everywhere. Nepal, much like India, has changed a lot. I like this little town, but I wonder how much more prettier it would have been forty years back.

At the lake, there are multi coloured boats ready to take tourists to a small temple island lying just ahead. There is a large evening crowd, so we just walk by the river. In the falling sunlight, we bond and laugh.

We spend some part of the night by the pool talking and getting to know each other. It is still early days in this trip and as is obvious in any large group, here too people are finding their way with new friends. The Tri Nation road trip is also about the relationships that get formed along the way.

The next day, our convoy leaves for Kathmandu. I look out of the window as we see the Annapurna for the last time. I want to return next year to do the base camp trek and some day I want to climb to the very top, just like two men did in 1950.

Three years after Herzog and Lachenal became the first men to summit an 8000 plus metres peak, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed Mount Everest and became living legends. In the ten years of the fifties, thirteen of the fourteen highest mountains in the world were summited, and the fourteenth was summited soon after in 1964. Just how much impact did a French alpine team make in that summer of 1950, on mountaineering, on the world itself.

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