OM NAMHA SHIVAY
21.11.2006
Hello Everyone,
I am writing this because I want all my dear-ones to know about the wonderful pilgrimage cum vacation we had from 1st October to 18th October 2006. This experience we had is totally unique in the sense that no civilians can have it unless they know some body like Yogesh as closely as we know. Before starting the tour we will have to go back for 30 years in the past to understand our relation with Yogesh. This is necessary because then only you will know why we were treated with so much affection.
I was introduced to Yogesh’s Dad and Mom by Anil in Kolhapur. I used to go to Kolhapur regularly and I became quite friendly with Yogesh Rajadhyakshya’s family. Yogesh’s mama Shekhar Divekar turned out to be my friend in Thane. Soon I became very friendly with Shekhar’s entire family i.e. his parents, his three sisters, their husbands and especially their kids i.e. Yogesh and all his cousins. Yogesh has one sister, his one mawashi has four daughters, another mawshi has one son, one daughter and Shekhar has 3 daughters. Yogesh is now 39 years old and he is the senior most amongst all his cousins. These kids used to come to Thane to their mama place and they became equally attached to satish mama also. By the time Neha was about three years these kinds started visiting Ganga Bhuwan whenever they used to come to Thane. Vidya used to cook for all of them and they used to stay with us also. Soon they became attached to Vidya mami and Neha also. On a few occasions all the 11 cousins have come and stayed with us. Vidya had tough times but everything looked fine then.
In the meanwhile one of the Shekhar’s sisters with four daughters lost her husband who was in Airforce. Her four daughters became very close to us after they lost their father. Yogesh decided to join Army and he came once to say goodbye before joining NDA probably in the year 1989-90. His four cousin sisters migrated to Pune and we remained in touch with them occasionally. In 1991 I came to US and in 1993 I met with the accident. Since then there was practically no contact with Yogesh till the year 2004. In 2004, we went to Nasik to attend Yogesh’s sisters’s wedding and that was a grand reunion. All the old memories were cherished. Everything appeared to be like old times. Nothing was lost. Every thing between our relations had matured, had become more affectionate and more intimate.
Mendher is a small town about 250 KMs from Jammu towards Poonch. It could be a tourist place but presently it’s a terrorist place. When Yogesh was posted to Mendher, as a commanding Officer, (colonel) he wanted us to be there for his Raising Ceremony. Raising Ceremony is an important event in a Colonel’s life because that time he takes over the charge of the entire Unit as a Commanding Officer. We couldn’t make it then but his wife and both sons had gone to Mendhar to be a part of the function. Yogesh came out as a Second Leuftantant for the Army from NDA (National Defence Acadamy). He climbed the ladder to Colonel in the year 2005 with steps like Leuftanant, Major and Captain. He is now 39 and that’s a good achievement for his age. His next promotion could be Brigadiar and he could rise upto General in 3 more steps. Field Marshall is the maximum one can go in the Army.
He seriously wanted us to visit him and we were very keen to see his achievements and glories. Finally the dates were decided from 1st October to 18th October. Since we were going to land in Jammu I planned the pilgrimage to Vaishnodevi. As usual I started collecting members. Since we wanted a reasonable crowd, only Meena and Shradha could be added to three of us. These dates turned out to be good for us as this is the busy time for the schools and colleges before Diwali vacation. So our train was less crowded and the train journey of about 34 hours from Bombay to Jammu was very comfortable. We reached Jammu at about 5 pm. On 2nd October. We were very warmly received by two Army jawans Rajesh and Satish, deputed by Col. Yogesh. They took us to a tourist vehicle arranged by Yogesh and we straight away proceeded for Katra. Katra is about 55 KMs from Jammu and it is the base camp for Vaishnodevi. We reached Katra by about 8 pm. and checked in a good hotel. Neha wanted to go to Vaishnodevi in the night only as 90 % of the tourists normally do. But we decided to take rest in the night and start the climb early morning. Katra town is well lit and was very live in the night, as many pilgrims march to Viashnodevi in the night chanting Jai Mata Di. The view of the mountain on which the temple is built is very beautiful as the entire walkway is well built and well lit. I had started thinking about the Devi and was singing Chalo Bulawa Aya Hai Mata Ne Bulay Hai, since we got our tickets in hand, Thinking about the long walk tomorrow we all had local meal and went to bed at about 10 pm.
The night turned out bad for Meena and Neha as they started vomiting by midnight. But we all got up by 4 am. By then everybody was almost fresh. Neha because of her young age and Meena because of he determination. Shraddha had a severe joint pain in Bombay only due to some fever and she was also not in a very good shape for the climb. I told everybody to think just about Mata Ke Darshan and assured that everything will be alright. We all got ready and started for Vaishnodevi by 4.30 am on Tuesday 3rd October. Rajesh, Satish and one more Army Jawan (Shiv Shankar) with his wife were to accompany us throughout the day. You have to take a ticket known popularly here as Parchi for Darshin on a particular day and you have to start your climb within maximum 6 hrs. from the time of issue. The parchi is for the group and it is free. It was all arranged by the Army guys.
We started our ascend by about 6 am, after going through security check, verification etc. There was practically no crowd at all. The climate was very pleasant and charming. We started walking comfortably. Meena was still not good and Shraddha was already riding a horse. Meena vomited after some time and we decided to put her also on horse. The army guys were taking very good care of us. They did not let us carry even a bottle of water. The walkway is built nicely with stones. There are many well made short cuts made up by stone steps but they are more tiring and we ventured only a few of those. The distance to Vaishnodevi temple is about 13 pahadi KM and 2 KM beyond that is the Bhairav temple. From the base, charan paduka, Ardha Kumari, Hathi Matha, Sanjichat and Sadan are the popular halts. From many view points the scenery is beautiful. But cameras are not allowed for security reasons. The scenery must be different in different seasons. On the entire path the trust has constructed tin sheds at many places to protect the pilgrims from shooting stones falling from the mountain. We took number of halts and Ramat Gamat reached the sadan at around 11 am. Meena and Shraddha reached much before us because of the added horse power.
There was a reasonable crowd for the darshan, but we had to pass through a queue of hardly 100 people because of the Army arrangements. The darshan was special for us and we were allowed to stay in the cave for about 1 ½ minutes which is otherwise not even few seconds. The pujari explained us the mythology in brief. Actually there is no statue in the cave. The three Goddesses Saraswati, Laxmi and Kalimata are there in the form of three pindis. These three shaktis created Goddess Vaishnavi for well being of the universe. Vaishnavi resided in the cave as a little girl and blessed the villagers in old times. Earlier you had to crawl in water to enter the cave. Now they have constructed two full marble tunnels one for entering the cave and other as exit. The old route is preserved and is open to public on few occasions in the year. Crystal clear, chilled water continuously comes out from behind the pindis and flows throughout the entrance tunnel. I of course drank it as Teertham. There are no offerings accepted in the cave, so every thing is very clean and neat. In the queue and in the tunnel the Maata Ka Gajar reaches the peak and everybody automatically joins the Gajar.
Agle Bolo Jai Maata De
Pichale Bolo Jai Maata De
Sare Bolo Jai Maata De
Haskar Bolo Jai Maata De
Jai Maata De, Jai Maata De
I think this devotion is the driving force for the millions of pilgrims climbing the hill during days and nights, in the sun, in the rain and in the chill of the snow. This is the only holy place in the world which is open for the pilgrims all the 24 hours throughout the year. You will be amazed to see the number and type of people climbing the hill. There are very old people, young people, children, babies able people of all age groups and some disabled also. People are climbing with reebok and nike foot wear and people are walking with ordinary slippers and many decide to walk barefooted. While climbing the tough hill you are driven by the force for Darshan (Darshanachi odh – matrubhashe pudhe engraji thodi tokdi padate) in the tunnel and in the cave you feel blessed and divine but getting out of the cave makes you feel sad. That is where people start thinking about coming back to Vaishnodevi again.
We came out of the cave with heavy hearts. We were all tired and exhausted. But the divinity of the place puts you back in action. We wanted to go to Bhairav temple, which is a steep climb of another 2 KM. Neha was the first one to march ahead and all of us slowly reached the destination. Bhairavnath purposely took enmity with vaishnavi and finally was killed by her. Before dying, he managed to take a blessing from the Devi that people will worship him also along with Vaishnavi. Hence as per the mythology the pilgrimage is complete only when you go from Vaishnavdevi to Bhairv Temple. We did accordingly and started our descend. The descend is supposed to be easy. It is indeed easy. But for the heart. It is nasty for the legs. We reached Adi Kuwari, which is more than halfway to Katra. At Adi Kuwari there is a temple and cave where Vaishnavi meditated. You have to crawl in the cave and come out also crawling. It takes more than one minute for each pilgrim to do so. As per the mythology if you crawl in the cave and crawl out, all your sins are washed off and you can start love all again. Our sins are probably still not due for a wash. If you want to clean your slate, you can think of giving it a try. There was a big queue there and it would have taken us more than 10 hours for the Darshan. So we decided to just visit the temple and start our journey back. The more than one hour break at Adi Kuwari hit me real bad. It was almost impossible and painful for me to even take one step down. I was some what OK on straight path or even uphill. Everybody wanted me to take a horse. But I wanted to complete the pilgrimage by walk. I could walk very slowly and took support all the 6 KMs downhill. Both my knees almost gave away on the slopes. But I could manage to reach the base with great difficulty in severe pain. The scene at the entrance was horrifying. There were thousands of pilgrims crowding the entrance and it was a chaos. If it was so when we entered the gates in the morning, I might not have dared to go for the Darshan. That is why I strongly believe that I am blessed by the almighty for a peaceful quiet Darshan. So far so good.
WE reached the hotel at about 7.00 pm. I massaged my legs with sarson ka tel for more than ½ an hour. Then Rajesh the Army man massaged my legs with some cream. I decided to have a drink before dinner. I went for a bath. But suddenly there was chill in my entire body. My whole body started shivering like what had happened in Amarnath. I could not take bath. I could not even think of a drink. I took Tribhuvan kirty tables and lied down in the bed with two blankets and a sweater on, without any cold outside. After about an hour or so the shivering had reduced considerably and I could gather some strength to go out for dinner. You know in Katra and in the surrounding areas people don’t use onion and garlic at all. No hotels serve nonveg or food with onion garlic. Under these conditions, the thought of having a drink after Darshan was not accepted and I was not allowed to do so. I took a paracetamol tablet after dinner and went to bed. I was fine when I got up but my knees were still not working. The Army men had no signs of tiredness or pain after the hectic day. They loaded all our luggage in the two jeeps and we said good-buy to Vaishnodevi to call us again. We started our journey of about 300 KM. from Katra to Mendher via Jammu at about 9.30 am.
We passed Jammu by about 11 am. The road till Jammu and all the way upto Mendher is not all that good and the entire journey is up and down the hills on Nagmodi narrow roads like smoky mountains. The traffic somewhat reduced after Jammu. The drivers were driving very rough and it was not comfortable. Very soon we had to warn the drivers to keep the speed below 80 KM all the times. We were very promptly obeyed and never had to talk to the drivers about speeding. This happened only because we were CO’s guest. Otherwise the drivers are hard to control. Their normal driving could cause a heart attack to any weak person.
Anyway the scenary changed after Jammu. It is not as good as the other side of Kashmir. On one side of the Pir Panjal mountain range is Shreenagar, Sonmarg, Gulmarg etc. which is beautiful all the way and always. On the other side of the range is Rajori, Surankot Bhimbargali, Mendher, Poonch etc. which is not as beautiful as its counter part but once you are on a vacation, you can find beauty in every thing. One side grows apples, has thick forest and is pleasant and cold always. The other side does not grow apples has thin forest and it is pleasant for few months. It can get very hot at times. Rajouri is a big town on the way and is supposed to be busy with terrorist activities. After Rajouri the traffic really thins down and at times the journey seems barren and lonely. There is a good movement of Army vehicles of all types except tanks. We got a message from Yogesh that he will meet us at Bhimbergali (popularly known as BG) which is about 30 KMs from Mendher. He was returning from a conference and BG falls on that way also. We reached BG at about 5 pm and Yogesh was expected within 15-20 minutes. We were allowed to halt there as CO’s guests since it is a regular station for Armymen.
BG is scenically beautiful. There are two view points in two directions. Both sides exhibit beauties in Himalayas. The LOC is also visible but is at a good distance. Suddenly there was halchal among the all faujis on duty as they heard some noises of vehicles at a distance. They confirmed it to be CO’s vehicle and took their positions more properly for his arrival. We were not sure as to how Yogesh will meet us infront of all his soldiers. So we just waited for his arrival. His arrival was thrilling experience for us. As soon as his vehicle entered the campus all the army men gave him a solid salute. When he got down, the commandos with AK47 from his protection vehicle took position in all directions to cover him. He met us by hugging the normal civilian way the way we do. He asked us about the journey and other things and within five minutes instructed his boys to proceed towards Mendher. His vehicle in the front, followed by our two civilian jeeps and the LMG mounted protection vehicle with four armed commandos in the rear. Our protection began since then. You know Yogesh was more pleased and happy to see us there than what we were. We were more excited thrilled and proud to see his “rubab and thatt. Amchya dolyancha parnach fital”.
Most of our 30 KM journey now was down the hill. Just 10 KM. before Mendhar one of our civil jeeps ran out of fuel. The fleet stopped. Yogesh got down, rearranged the seating arrangement. He decided to drive his own vehicle and made me sit next to him. That was really a great proud feeling. He perfectly knows what his Mama would like and enjoy. We reached Mendher by evening. The welcome in 37 RR campus was grand. Yogesh introduced us to his staff. They greeted us, with warmth. “Manat kuthetari laaj watat hoti ki” whether we civilians deserve such a VIP treatment.
We were not allowed to touch our baggage since we got down at Jammu. Our bags reached our rooms like a 5 star hotel. Yogesh showed us the arrangements he had made for our stay. It was much beyond our expectations. He had decorated 3 suites for us. Each with a sitting room, bed room, balcony and of course a bathroom. In all the suites there was a big TV with DVD player. Yogesh had one for himself on the same floor. The toiletaries kept in each bathroom showed how much thoughtfully Yogesh must have arranged everything. The slippers, soaps, shampoos, toothbrush, toothpastes, cold cream, oil etc. was kept in all the bathrooms. The gents bathroom had a razor, shaving cream, after shave lotion and the ladies baths had a pack of sanitary Napkins in addition. You know the height of everything; Yogesh had sent a couple bath towels, napkins and a few blankets for us with his boys to Jammu. Its really worth appreciating that how minutely Yogesh thought about everything that we might need. Every small thing in the suites and his total behavior reflected the feelings he carried for us.
Yogesh asked his boys to make arrangements for our bath with hot water and went to his office down below for some work. The only thing he did not do was to tell them to give us a bath. He called us to the MESS for dinner at 8.30 pm. All of us got well dressed. I wore shoes because it was going to be our first dinner in the Army MESS. We first went to his office. I am sorry that I cannot explain how I felt when I saw him sitting in the CO’s chair. I can only say that it was a different and proud feeling which you cannot get by seeing even a topmost civilian executive sitting in his office chair. Yogesh really looked very smart and totally in command. We were welcomed in the MESS with a respect of the first order. The ladies are always special and they are taken care off first. We were offered soft and hard drinks. Starters were served till we got ready for dinner. All this is done by army men in uniform. Once we are done with drinks the CO tells the MESS is-charge to set the dinner on table. Once the dinner is set, the ceremony is worth experiencing. The MESS in-charge comes marching where the CO is sitting. He salutes him and announces. “Jai Hind. Bhojan prastut hai shriman. Jai Hind”. Salutes the CO again and marches back to his position near the dining table. This is the ritual in the MESS and it went on till our last meal in the MESS. This is done only when the CO is in the MESS. It is not done for anybody below the rank of CO or for the civilians. Yogesh told us a real joke that had happened once. A new chap took charge of the MESS. He must have practiced the ritual. On his first day he did everything right. But said “Jai Hind. Bhojan prastut hai Hanuman. Jai Hind.”
After dinner we used to take a walk inside the compound only and chat for sometime with Yogesh. Then he used to go to his office and used to work till late in the night. The nights were cool and we used to sleep with a blanket. After getting up in the morning Rajesh and Satish were at our service for every thing. Yogesh wanted us to relax for a couple of days and take things easy. He had planned few interesting things for us after that.
After morning tea on day one the MESS in-charge came to us with a note pad and asked the ladies to decide the menu, from breakfast through dinner and dessert. Neha told a few of her favorite things and we requested him to kindly decide the menu himself for the rest of the meals. Rajesh asked us about the clothes to be washed. We had lot of used clothes due for a wash. All the three suites kept their laundry clothes in a corner. He picked them up and brought them back in the evening nicely washed and pressed and kept them in the closet. We never had to tell him about the laundry again. From day two I started putting my UB’s also for laundry. I am sure, it’s a rare privilege to wear ironed UB’s and use pressed handkerchiefs. You have to be lucky to get that. It was the only such long vacation for all of us when we had no laundary to be done except for the clothes we were wearing when we reached home. All the other clothing we were carrying was duly washed and ironed.
We really relaxed for a couple of days. Yogesh called us in the MESS at about 1.30 pm for lunch. The same ritual was there for lunch also but mostly we avoided drinks over lunch. In the evening there were arrangements for playing badminton. We had to just get ready. The Armymen would put the net on and give the rackets in our hands. We played badminton almost everyday till we got exhausted. We had lot of military chats with Yogesh whenever we got a chance. Many times we had shilopyachya gappa with him. We had to relax the next day also because it was a weekly off for the ROP. ROP stands for road opening party. It is a division of a unit in terrorist prone areas only. The soldiers in this division inspect and take care of the safety of the roads in their area. They are out of their camp for the whole day. They are provided with the necessities by military vehicles from point to point. They are dropped in the morning by these vehicles at fixed points and they are picked up by them in the evening. They move with a AK47 in their area for the whole day like watch dogs. Once the ROP goes back at about 6.00 pm then the military vehicles stop moving because the terrorist become active then. Once in a week the ROP is not there and the Armymen stop their movement on road. This ROP off day is not kept fixed and the military authorities keep it changing to confuse the terrorist. There are thousands of soldiers of Indian Army doing this ROP job in Jammu and Kashmir. The local Muslims are not friendly with Indian Army and they don’t treat the ROP soldiers with respect. That makes the life of ROP Jawans more difficult.
The next day Yogesh had planned our visit to 5 Asam Unit which is posted to guard a certain portion of LOC. The LOC i.e. line of control is a imaginary line which decides the boundaries. On one side of the line is Indian Army and on the other side is the Pakistan Army. We could visit 5 Asam only as CO’s guests. Otherwise there is no civilian movement. There are 63 batallions of Indian Army posted in J and K. Which means about seventy thousand soldiers. This is besides the BSF ( Border security force) regiments, Army , Police and, J and K Police. We are paying a heavy price just to say that Kashmir is ours.
Yoesh accompanied us to 5 Asam. The journey was up hills but short. As we gained height the landscape looked beautiful. The climate was very pleasant. We were of course moving with full Army protection. We stopped at few view points and Yoesh explained us the position of his six companies placed on hillocks of the Himalayan range. Each Unit has anything between 5 to 7 companies placed at difficult locations. Each company has a company commander of the rank of captain. We were warned not to wander in the jungle because of the danger of Road Mines placed by terrorist. The welcome to 5 Asam was very warm. They were waiting for us. The CO to CO meet was like a family get together. The 5 Asam boys took us to their check post at the top and showed us the LOC and the Pakistani check posts. The entire 5 Asam is placed in a hilly area and there were only few flat grounds. The Army men had built a well equipped township by itself in the hills. The officers quarters, barracks, MESS everything was very intelligently and artistically made with lot of asthetic sense also. We observed it in all the Unit we visited. Every Unit has Mandir, Masjid, Gurudwara and Church built in common. Every thing is made nicely. After all, all of them have to spent the whole day and a few years of their life there. The Unit is their home with CO like their father without the other family members. The boys showed us the LOC with powerful telescope and explained every thing in details with great interest. We were then taken to the MESS for lunch. You know the word MESS stands for Men with Equal Social Status. The lunch was as usual like a ceremony. The army officers like to discuss various matters with the civilians but mostly avoid to give their comments about politics and politicians. Such discussions with civilians are very rare and it brings a good change for them. Otherwise the only change in their routine lives could be an encounter with the terrorists where either you kill them or get killed in the process.
The other day we visited 9 Madras Unit. 9 Madras is placed to guard another portion of LOC at a different location. Yoesh could not come with us on that day but deputed his Quarter Master (QM) with us. A CO is seconded by a 2 IC (2nd in command) and the next man in charge is a QM. The journey to 9 Madars was again uphills and not very long. But the mountains and the scenery were more beautiful. If such places were there in Europe or USA, they would have made heavens out of it and attracted tourism of the entire world. Tragically we were moving with full army protection in our own beautiful Himalays.
We had a great welcome by 9 Madras boys. The LOC is closer from 9 Madras check posts and the view is beautiful. We could see houses and people on the Pakistan side with the help of binoculars. The life of people in Pakistan near the LOC looked comfortable. There are no bomb blasts and no terrorists there, whereas in India there are no civilians near LOC. The Army had to push back the local Muslim civilians because they would help the Pakistan Army otherwise. The local Muslim civilians are pushed back beyond an actual barbed wire fence away from the LOC and now they help the terrorist. The Government and the Indian Army help all the locals in every possible way. For the poor in Kashmir, the Govt. gives cycles, stitching machines, wheel chairs etc. free. There is no income tax, no house tax, no electricity or water bills for them. The army gives them their grocery at subsidised rates. In spite of all this most of the local Muslims are not at all trust worthy. They will not go to Pakistan but keep on helping the terrorists. You can see and feel the hatred in their eyes for you, me and the Indian army. The kids are taught to be anti Indian under the name of Jehad. The terrorist are given shelter by the local muslims and young girls are made to sleep with the terrorist under the name of Jehad. Wherever there are terrorist activities in the world there is definitely a local support extended to them under the name of Jehad for Islam and money. In the beauties of Himalaya, this was the darker side of our vacation.
Anyway we had a grand lunch and an excellent day with 9 Madras boys. We returned home in the evening. We had started feeling like members of 37 RR family and suddenly we realized that only 5 more days with Yogesh are left now and half the vacation is over. That evening we played badminton. We called for drinks and dinner in Neha’s suite and then we had a long session of singing. Myself, Yoesh, and Neha were the main performers.
The next day Yoesh had planned our visit on the firing range. All of us were not allowed to go there for security reasons. We moved in a group of about 20 armed men lead by a Major. It was a walk of only 30 minutes uphill but it was like a operation for them due to our safety precautions. We were all the time kept in the middle of the group. When we reached the range 5 to 6 six of the Jawans scanned the hills and took positions at heights and in the trees to guard us. The major then explained the working of AK 47 and the LMG ( Light Machine gun) and told us about the rules to be followed on the firing ranges. He said he might, be rough with us if we don’t take it seriously and don’t follow any of the instructions. We were to be given a chance to fire AK 47 and LMG, only in the lying down position as it is the safest for civilians like us. A live demonstration of each activity was given to us and we were asked to lie down on ground with AK 47 in our hands. After taking proper position, we were given a magazine loaded with 10 rounds which we mounted in the belly of the gun. The magazine otherwise can take 30 rounds. The guns have a safety catch mode, single round mode and automatic mode. Four targets were placed at about 60 yards distance. Once we were ready, we put the guns on single round mode, aimed at the target and fired. The sound made by the shot is not very friendly and the recoil is considerable for us civilians. The AK 47 is supported on both hands and the accuracy depends on the firmness of your grip. The magazine of the LMG is on the top side of the gun and the front portion of the gun is mounted on a tripod. The accuracy of LMG is therefore more as it is some what independent of your grip. We had a few shots by both the weapons. Some of our shots hit the target also. After that the major fired ten rounds and all were in the bulls eye. The army men are taught like that and they are supposed to hit the target only. The terrorist don’t require such hard work and efforts as they have to kill everyone in the front without aiming, in the name of Jehad for money first and then Islam.
For us firing was a most thrilling and unique experience and we had a great time. Thanks to the Armymen and Yogesh who allowed it. We started winding up and the operation was called off. We thanked personally each and everyone of the group who gave us such a wonderful experience. On our way back we saw a house of a local Kashmiri Muslim farmer. After seeing my desire to visit the farmer, the Major thought for a while and agreed for it. He first sent his four commandos with AK 47 to search the house and the surroundings. They did so and took positions on the roof and elsewhere. Then we went to the house with the Armymen. The guy was a typical poor farmer. But he had probably more than one wife and lot many children. We met all of them and saw the house. The house was small and it was like any other poor Indian farmers house. One of the ladies was making hot make di tan door rot. They were very glad when I asked for one. We all tasted it. It was really good. The Armymen didn’t taste it as they have lost faith in the local Muslims. The local muslims have extra khoonnas for the Armymen. We shook hands with the farmers family members after having a little chat with them. They were nice with us for the 10 minutes we spent with them but I will never be able to say whether the look in their eves was friendly or not. I can say that the look would be different anywhere in India.
The next day Yoesh had some work. So he planned our visit to Budhe Amarnath. It is about l 100 km. from Mendher towards poonch side. Yogesh deputed his Quarter master to accompany and protect us. We moved with full Army protection. Our every outing was like an operation for the Army boys. We could start only after ROP clearance which is at about 8.30 am. The journey to Budhe Amarnath was long and tiring because of bad hilly roads. As per mythology Parvati insisted to know everything about immortality ( Amartwa). Finally, out of love Bholebaba agreed to it and marched towards Budhe Amarnath. In a place made totally lifeless he started narrating the secrets of immortality. By mistake a pair of pigeons happened to be there. Bholebaba didn’t like that and he went with Parvati to the more famous Amarnath cave near Pahelgaon. But nobody other than Shivji is supposed to know the secrets of immortality. So Parvati felt asleep while listening and so on. According to tradition people first go to Amarnath cave and then come to Budhe Amarnath to complete the pilgrimage. I was destined to complete the pilgrimage as per the tradition, after six years. That is really fortunate.
We reached the temple by about 12.00 pm. The temple is totally under Army management. The temple is beautiful and very nicely maintained. The place is scenically very beautiful and there is a huge Swayambhoo marble Shivalingam. You are supposed to go to the temple wearing a Nazi type cap. The pujari was waiting for us. There was nobody else in the temple, other than our group. We had a Sagra Sangeet Pooja and Abhishek. The Darshan was completely satisfying and soothing. Yogesh had instructed the QM to reach the base by 6.00 pm and we started our journey back soon. On the way we had another warm and affectionate welcome as Col. Yogeshe’s guests. This time it was by the 40 RR boys. We had another excellent lunch in the company of young charming army officers of 40 RR Unit. I had a bet with the CO of 40 RR. He was saying Afzal Guru ( A nasty terrorist) will be definitely hanged on 20th Oct. 2006 as decided. I said in our country a terrorist belonging to the so called minority community will never be hanged. We are known today for releasing terrorists against hostages who are related to politicians. I have already won the bet. But I would have been happiest in loosing this bet. Because the efforts of the Armymen in arresting the terrorists by risking their lives would then be fruitful.
40 RR is located on the banks of a nice river. We saw the natural beauties and the beautiful things made by 40 RR boys. But we had to wind up the good times with 40 RR as we had to reach Mendher before the ROP calls it a day. Otherwise the QM would get a bad scolding from Yogesh. We reached KG (Krishna Gali) before sunset. We had some time to take a quick look at the beautiful Himalayan range and the LOC. But Yogesh had to talk to the Army officer at KG for granting us the permission to proceed to Mendher. We somehow managed to reach Mendher before dark and the QM got relived of the of the responsibility of bringing us home safely.
We took it easy the next day. We went to Ram Kund which is an ancient temple about 10 km from Mendher. The site is beautiful and you can feel the ancientness. Ram, Laxman and Sita are supposed to have stayed here during their Wanvas. They could stay their without protection but we were all the time moving with full military protection.
The only outing remaining now was visit one of Yogesh’s company. Yogesh chose Echo company which is placed on a scenically most beautiful mountain. It was about 50 KM drive from Mendher. After BG the journey was through mountains having very thick forest. It was about 50 km drive from Mendher. After BG the journey was through mountains having very thick forest. It was pretty cold in the forest. We reached there by 11 am. Captain Gautam of 37 RR was the company commander. We had a extra warm welcome because we were the guests of his own boss, the CO of 37 RR. Echo is placed on the highest peak of the mountain range to guard the surrounding areas. Echo is composed of about 130 soldiers and is spread over 2 Acres of land. The land is owned by a local muslim and the army pays a handsome rent to him. He stays just next door. In spite of this the Army cannot have faith in him and cannot have cordial relations with his family as good neighbors. The Echo company location is more beautiful than any other hill station I have visited so far. As a tourist I envied Gautam and his boys for getting a chance to stay at such a lovely place. But I am sure Gautam and his boys must be having tough time in staying there on Army duty. We roamed around the area with Gautam, again under protection of commandos. Gautam, showed us villages below the mountain where they had killed few terrorist in encounter recently.
We captured the beauty of the mountains, the forest and the snow covered peaks of Himalaya into our eyes and filled our lungs with fresh, crisp air. Gautam’s quarter was a neat, small tidy beautifully made room. Gautam offered drinks to all. My self and Gautam had beer in the chilly weather. We had some good time, dancing and singing with the 37 RR boys. The lunch served was exclusive in that remote place. We didn’t feel like leaving the place and Gautam also wanted us to stay overnight. But the CO won’t like it and we had to reach Mendher before the ROP calls off. The parting was sad on both sides. We knew that we may not be seeing these beauties again unless the Kashmiri muslims give up terrorism and take themselves as Indians. Gautam and his boys knew that they have to go back on duty and such light moments are not going to come again because even if an Army officer like Yogesh, wants to invite somebody on a vacation, 37 RR Mendher is not going to be the venue.
We reached home in time before sunset. Yogesh had to go for a meeting the next day. The drive was about 6 hrs. so he had planned to cover half the distance and stay overnight in one of his companies and proceed for the meeting the next day morning. The CO’s sometimes travel in night with protection which is a calculated risk. Yogesh always moves without wearing a bulletproof jacket. We asked him why he is taking such a fatal risk ? He said Satishmama, my boys around me are more than a bulletproof jacket for me. You know the faith shown by Yogesh in his boys is the driving force for them. They work with an aim “Hum Hamare Saab Ko Kutch Nahi Hone Denge”. I was asking Yogesh to start early and reach the company by 9 pm. He said Mama we will have a cup of tea together and then I will start. We were all sitting in the varandha over a cup of tea. The day was closing and suddenly his mobile phone rang. One of his guards on the check post on a hill had spotted some suspicious movement near a masjid in Mendher. All the checkposts are equipped with powerful night vision cameras. Yogesh was immediately provided with two handsets and his flow of instructions started right away. He first asked four soldiers from the hill to rush towards the masjid. He then asked a group of his commandos from base to rush to the masjid. Yogesh has two groups of twenty commandos on the base. They are supposed to get armed and ready for charge in less than 7 minutes. Anybody taking more than 7 minutes is transferred immediately. Yogesh was continuously in touch with his groups. He used to say 15 calling Charlie, 15 calling Alfa and would receive information from them. By this time all of us smelt seriousness of the matter and we started becoming tense. Yogesh asked major Shrikant to charge to the site with his group from another direction. In less than 30 minutes the three groups surrounded the mosque from a distance. The movement first spotted was two guys digging in the field in darkness.
By the time the soldiers reached near the mosque, they could not see anybody in the fields. Yogesh asked Shrikant whether he needs illumination. Sometimes illuminating the area could be dangerous for the soldiers as they also become visible. Once Shrikant ensured that all his men are secured he demanded illumination. Illumination is like a fireball fired in air by a mortar gun. It could go upto about 3 km distance. Every evening the mortar gun used to be mounted in the ground in front of our rooms. Yogesh asked the boys to fire. We were shaken by the big thud of the gun. The sky, away from us got illuminated. Shrikant asked for another shot 300 meters towards north. Another shot was fired accordingly after CO’s instructions. That was right on target and it illuminated the site. When the soldiers captured the site, few muslim ladies came in front and vouched that there is nobody. These ladies probably gave cover to the terrorist and helped them flee before the Army reached. The Armymen are warned by the politicians, not to touch the civilians, even if a soldier is killed. The Armymen are supposed to shoot only a terrorist with weapon.
Yogesh soon called the operation off. The whole thing went on for two hours. We were sitting speechless, tense and in a shocked state of mind. The whole experience was most exciting and thrilling but disturbing. Yogesh cancelled his night march and invited us for dinner in the MESS. We were not comfortable till Shrikant and his boys came back. Once Shrikant came we could see a sorry feeling on his face because he missed the catch. He was sure that the operation failed because of the muslim ladies. Yogesh said it happens many times and success is very rare because of the support extended by the local muslims to the terrorists.
We had a peaceful dinner and went to bed as Yogesh had to start early next morning. We prayed for success of Indian Army and prayed god to eradicate terrorism and Jehad from muslims all over the world. We relaxed the next day after Yogesh went for work. Rajesh forced me to have a military hair cut and massage. The Barber, Dhobi, tailor and cooks are all part of the unit and their job is as important as anybody else in the Regiment. We spent maximum time with Yogesh after he came back. The next day was going to be our last day with Yogesh in Mendher. A grand vacation was coming to an end. The packing was easy as there was no shopping done and all the clothes were nicely pressed. None of us was in the best of our moods and nothing much happened on that day. We had our last dinner in the MESS and went to bed. We got up early and were all ready for departure to Jammu by 8.30 am. We shook hands with all the soldiers, thanked them and said good bye. Saying good bye to Yogesh was really tough and all of us including him were in tears. Finally we parted and left Mendher by 9.30 am. We were escorted by Rajesh, Satish, Bhushan and other soldiers till we boarded the train, next day morning. We were standing in the door and waving hands to them. We had never said such a long time good bye to any body.
During the train journey we were thinking about 37 RR boys. We became quite attached to Rajesh, Satish and Bhushan who were all the time serving us or escorting us. Bhushan happens to stay near Jammu. You know the height of every thing; he brought homemade food for all of us, to last throughout our journey. We were really touched by their caring for us. We were associated with Shrikant and Joginder Paul also. All of them were really nice. But if you think of their life, its very tough. If you take it as job versus job, still it is nasty. We may have hard work but our lives are not at stake while working. They cannot survive without dedication and devotion to the country and to the boss. We may not bother about the boss and the country could be too far for us. They don’t have a weekly off. They are not on duty for 24 hours but are there for duty all the 24 hours. They have only 80 days leave in the year without weekly off and with irregular working hours. They spend all their free time inside the campus as it is not safe to move out. They are not handsomely paid but are still loyal to the boss and the unit. We cannot survive all this. We are surviving and enjoying life here because they are protecting us from the enemies of the nation and of the religion.
No wonder the tendency to commit suicide is increasing amongst the Armymen all over the world. There are incidences when a soldier has killed his boss and then killed himself. Reason. Leave not being sanctioned. May the almighty give divine strength to the hearts, minds and souls of soldiers all over the world to eradicate enemity and bring peace and happiness to mankind. I have written all this in details to the best of my ability so that you can have a feel of the wonderful moments which we actually lived.
JAI HIND
JAI MAATA DEE
Friday, February 10, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Call of the Goddess.
Call of the Goddess
Jai Maata Dee
I am writing this because I have realised that it is the divine power which arranges to fulfill your desires when the right time comes. There is no doubt about it. The way I am being pulled to visit all the divine, beautiful Holy Places demonstrates it. This has started happening after I recovered from the fatal accident I met with in July 1993.
Since 1998 arrangements are being made by the Almighty for my visits to the Holy Shrines in temples, Gurudwaras, Churches & Mosques all over the country. From 1998 to 2003 I was made. Research Council member of CECRI Karai Kudi. During my several trips to KaraiKudi I could take Darshan in all the famous or not commonly known deities in various Temples, Churches & Dargas. Pilgrimages to Amarnath, Kailas-Mansarovar, Muktinath were planned for me. In spite of difficult & risky situations, pilgrimages to Hemkund Sahib, Patthar Sahib (Ladakh) Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Bhavishya Badari could be successfully completed only because of some divine arrangements from the head quarters. Several other very famous pilgrimages were planned for me by the almighty in a very easy & comfortable fashion. I went near the foothills of Vaishnodevi in the past but the time for Darshan had not come then. A comfortable Darshan was arranged in Oct. 06, when Yogesh invited us to Mendher. So far so good.
I always thanked the almighty for planning all my pilgrimages. It was never only planning, but a comfortable, crowdless Darshan was always included in the package. I will tell you the height of it now. I had heard about Jwaladevi a few years back & thought about a trip there. When we went to Vaishnodevi I gathered all the information about the place but the next vacation was no where in sight. We came back to Bombay on 18th Oct. & I got an invitation to present a paper in Chandigarh on corrosion in Chemical Industry. The invitation was no doubt prestigious but I knew it’s a call from Jwaladevi. The connections must have been made when we went to Vaishnodevi.
I reached Chandigarh on 13th Nov. By the time I checked in the hotel it was 5 pm & the evening was free. I booked a car & went to Mansadevi which is hardly 5 km. from Chandigarh in Manimajra town. A Rajput landlord owned this place during Akbars time. Akbar had imprisoned the landlords who were not paying taxes. By the grace of the Goddess the landlord won the case against Akbar & he prospered afterwards. He built a temple of Mansadevi on a nice hill. The site is very beautiful & the area is being developed further. Big fairs are organized during Navratri & the place is very crowed then. People have a strong faith that Mansadevi fulfills the desires of the devotees.
The presentation on 14th was excellent & was highly appreciated. The next day was free. I rented a car & started for Jwaladevi at 6.30 am. Jwaladevi or Jwalamukhi is about 215 km. from Chandigarh. As the mythology goes there are total 51 Shakti peeths of the Aadi Shakti. Out of these 9 are more famous & in them Vaishnodevi is taken as a major one. Amongst the reaming eight are Jwaladevi, Chintapurni, Vajreshwari, Mansadevi, Nainadevi, Chamunda devi, Shakumbhari devi & Kalikadevi. Chandigarh happens to be a access for many of them & I was invited right there.
After starting the journey we reached Sau Lakhiyan Gurudwara first. Gurudaras are always a pleasant site. We had a cup of tea & Prasad in the Langer which goes on for the 24hrs.of the day. We reached Jwalamukhi by 11.30 am because of the fairly good roads. It’s a small climb upto the temple. The temple was closed for Arti when we reached. So I scanned the entire area which I had become conversant because of a informative book with maps. There are two places to be visited on different hills. Both the hills are a good climb again. One is Lal Shivalaya which is a very ancient temple & the other is Bhairav temple. Both are beautiful. Actually wherever Adi Shakti appeared Lord Shiva made his abode in one form or the other. There is a very very ancient cave which pandavas used during their exile. Lord Shiva is supposed to have meditated here. I always feel divine while entering such places & worshiping the lord. I was fortunate to get a chance to sit in the cave all by myself & say my routine prayers.
By the time we came back to Jwalaji there was a big queue. It took us 15 minutes to enter the temple. The temple is made afterwards, otherwise its solid rock all over. In about 9 places in the solid rock, there are blue flames coming out which are like cooking gas. ONGC & others have tried to trace the source of it to hunt for a big natural gas reserve but so far there is no clue. I am not going into the details but as per the mythology Sati ( Shiva’s wife) appeared in different forms in the shakti peeths. Akbar wanted to stop the pilgrimage of Dhyanu Bhakt to Jwaladevi. He challenged the powers of the Goddess & flooded the flames with water first & then covered them with steel. The flames pierced both water & steel & appeared again. On hearing this Akbar repended on his deeds. He went on foot to Jwaladevi & affered a 50 kg solid gold chatra to the Goddess. It was not accepted by the Goddess & it turned out into a metal like brass. It is still kept there & you can see it. Akbar then begged the Goddess & prayed her to forgive him. This is all written in his Bakhar.
Anyway I had a good Darshan with the Crowd. We then had some food in the Langar & came back to the temple. There was nobody in the queue. I went inside again. I was alone in the temple & observed the flames & the rock for good 15 minutes. That is when I think I am fortunate for good Darshan & am blessed for more time with the deity.
The next place to be visited was Chintapurni Devi which is about 1 hr. drive from Jwaladevi. After reaching there, it is a good climb upto the temple. There was no rush in the afternoon. The Goddess gave Darshan to Mayidass in his dreams in the form of a divine girl & asked him to built a temple near a tree underwhich she was resting as a pindi. The Goddess made all arrangements for his food, water & shelter to complete the temple. The present temple is right there & that is why the Goddess is called Chintapurni.
About 10 km. from here in the deep mountains there is a stream of water, the source of which is unknown. This is called as Dhauli Dhara. It is supposed to have originated from the feet of the Gooddess. Baba Vadbhag Singh in search of water, found this. He meditated here. Now there is a Gurudwara here known as Dera Sahib. People take a bath in the water & then go to the Gurudwara. We reached there in the evening & it was pretty cold. I did not take a complete bath due to cold but did a bath like thing. Only myself & the driver were there in that place which is designed to handle a big crowd. The Gurudwara is nicely built & lot of construction work is going on. In the near future Dera Sahib is going to be a very beautiful & famous place.
We started from Dera Sahib by evening for Naina devi which is a small diversion from highway to Chandigarh. The small diversion turned out to be a good distance & we reached the base after a long ride in the mountains. For the first time since I came to Chandigarh, my winterjacket had to come out at Naina devi. It was very windy & chilly. It became more & more windy as we gained height in the steep climb. There are about 700 very steep steps & the climb is quite tring. There was nobody in the temple & I could do Arti by sitting inside for good 15 minutes. A milkman named Naina used to bring his cattle here. One of his cows used to do milk abhishek at one place everyday. Naina was given Darshan by the Goddess in the form of a pindi where the cow was milking. Naina found the pindi there & built a temple which has now become popular as Nainadevi. The place is extraordinarily beautiful. In the evening the mountain with the lights on, looks like a gold ornament with glittering diamonds all around & in between. While descending I stopped at few places & stored everything into my eyes.
By the time we reached Anandpur Sahib, it was almost 10 in the night. It is about 70 km from Chandigarh. Anandpur Sahib is one of the biggest Gurudwaras I have ever seen. You can feel the richness everywhere. Initially it was a fort constructed by Guru Gobind Singh. He stayed there for about 16 years. His birth place is nearby & he was blessed by Kalimata. Now the fort is converted into a fabulous Gurudwara. Mattha Tek kar we had some food in the langar & we started our journey back. Doing revision of the whole days activities I reached the hotel by 12.30 & called it a day.
I knew I could not visit two shakti peeths namely Chamunda devi & Vajreshwari in the same region. These places are total eight hours diversion from Jwaladevi & I had no time. Which means I am still on call & Maata Ka Bulawa Anepar I will have to go back.
Jai Maata Dee
Jai Maata Dee
I am writing this because I have realised that it is the divine power which arranges to fulfill your desires when the right time comes. There is no doubt about it. The way I am being pulled to visit all the divine, beautiful Holy Places demonstrates it. This has started happening after I recovered from the fatal accident I met with in July 1993.
Since 1998 arrangements are being made by the Almighty for my visits to the Holy Shrines in temples, Gurudwaras, Churches & Mosques all over the country. From 1998 to 2003 I was made. Research Council member of CECRI Karai Kudi. During my several trips to KaraiKudi I could take Darshan in all the famous or not commonly known deities in various Temples, Churches & Dargas. Pilgrimages to Amarnath, Kailas-Mansarovar, Muktinath were planned for me. In spite of difficult & risky situations, pilgrimages to Hemkund Sahib, Patthar Sahib (Ladakh) Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Bhavishya Badari could be successfully completed only because of some divine arrangements from the head quarters. Several other very famous pilgrimages were planned for me by the almighty in a very easy & comfortable fashion. I went near the foothills of Vaishnodevi in the past but the time for Darshan had not come then. A comfortable Darshan was arranged in Oct. 06, when Yogesh invited us to Mendher. So far so good.
I always thanked the almighty for planning all my pilgrimages. It was never only planning, but a comfortable, crowdless Darshan was always included in the package. I will tell you the height of it now. I had heard about Jwaladevi a few years back & thought about a trip there. When we went to Vaishnodevi I gathered all the information about the place but the next vacation was no where in sight. We came back to Bombay on 18th Oct. & I got an invitation to present a paper in Chandigarh on corrosion in Chemical Industry. The invitation was no doubt prestigious but I knew it’s a call from Jwaladevi. The connections must have been made when we went to Vaishnodevi.
I reached Chandigarh on 13th Nov. By the time I checked in the hotel it was 5 pm & the evening was free. I booked a car & went to Mansadevi which is hardly 5 km. from Chandigarh in Manimajra town. A Rajput landlord owned this place during Akbars time. Akbar had imprisoned the landlords who were not paying taxes. By the grace of the Goddess the landlord won the case against Akbar & he prospered afterwards. He built a temple of Mansadevi on a nice hill. The site is very beautiful & the area is being developed further. Big fairs are organized during Navratri & the place is very crowed then. People have a strong faith that Mansadevi fulfills the desires of the devotees.
The presentation on 14th was excellent & was highly appreciated. The next day was free. I rented a car & started for Jwaladevi at 6.30 am. Jwaladevi or Jwalamukhi is about 215 km. from Chandigarh. As the mythology goes there are total 51 Shakti peeths of the Aadi Shakti. Out of these 9 are more famous & in them Vaishnodevi is taken as a major one. Amongst the reaming eight are Jwaladevi, Chintapurni, Vajreshwari, Mansadevi, Nainadevi, Chamunda devi, Shakumbhari devi & Kalikadevi. Chandigarh happens to be a access for many of them & I was invited right there.
After starting the journey we reached Sau Lakhiyan Gurudwara first. Gurudaras are always a pleasant site. We had a cup of tea & Prasad in the Langer which goes on for the 24hrs.of the day. We reached Jwalamukhi by 11.30 am because of the fairly good roads. It’s a small climb upto the temple. The temple was closed for Arti when we reached. So I scanned the entire area which I had become conversant because of a informative book with maps. There are two places to be visited on different hills. Both the hills are a good climb again. One is Lal Shivalaya which is a very ancient temple & the other is Bhairav temple. Both are beautiful. Actually wherever Adi Shakti appeared Lord Shiva made his abode in one form or the other. There is a very very ancient cave which pandavas used during their exile. Lord Shiva is supposed to have meditated here. I always feel divine while entering such places & worshiping the lord. I was fortunate to get a chance to sit in the cave all by myself & say my routine prayers.
By the time we came back to Jwalaji there was a big queue. It took us 15 minutes to enter the temple. The temple is made afterwards, otherwise its solid rock all over. In about 9 places in the solid rock, there are blue flames coming out which are like cooking gas. ONGC & others have tried to trace the source of it to hunt for a big natural gas reserve but so far there is no clue. I am not going into the details but as per the mythology Sati ( Shiva’s wife) appeared in different forms in the shakti peeths. Akbar wanted to stop the pilgrimage of Dhyanu Bhakt to Jwaladevi. He challenged the powers of the Goddess & flooded the flames with water first & then covered them with steel. The flames pierced both water & steel & appeared again. On hearing this Akbar repended on his deeds. He went on foot to Jwaladevi & affered a 50 kg solid gold chatra to the Goddess. It was not accepted by the Goddess & it turned out into a metal like brass. It is still kept there & you can see it. Akbar then begged the Goddess & prayed her to forgive him. This is all written in his Bakhar.
Anyway I had a good Darshan with the Crowd. We then had some food in the Langar & came back to the temple. There was nobody in the queue. I went inside again. I was alone in the temple & observed the flames & the rock for good 15 minutes. That is when I think I am fortunate for good Darshan & am blessed for more time with the deity.
The next place to be visited was Chintapurni Devi which is about 1 hr. drive from Jwaladevi. After reaching there, it is a good climb upto the temple. There was no rush in the afternoon. The Goddess gave Darshan to Mayidass in his dreams in the form of a divine girl & asked him to built a temple near a tree underwhich she was resting as a pindi. The Goddess made all arrangements for his food, water & shelter to complete the temple. The present temple is right there & that is why the Goddess is called Chintapurni.
About 10 km. from here in the deep mountains there is a stream of water, the source of which is unknown. This is called as Dhauli Dhara. It is supposed to have originated from the feet of the Gooddess. Baba Vadbhag Singh in search of water, found this. He meditated here. Now there is a Gurudwara here known as Dera Sahib. People take a bath in the water & then go to the Gurudwara. We reached there in the evening & it was pretty cold. I did not take a complete bath due to cold but did a bath like thing. Only myself & the driver were there in that place which is designed to handle a big crowd. The Gurudwara is nicely built & lot of construction work is going on. In the near future Dera Sahib is going to be a very beautiful & famous place.
We started from Dera Sahib by evening for Naina devi which is a small diversion from highway to Chandigarh. The small diversion turned out to be a good distance & we reached the base after a long ride in the mountains. For the first time since I came to Chandigarh, my winterjacket had to come out at Naina devi. It was very windy & chilly. It became more & more windy as we gained height in the steep climb. There are about 700 very steep steps & the climb is quite tring. There was nobody in the temple & I could do Arti by sitting inside for good 15 minutes. A milkman named Naina used to bring his cattle here. One of his cows used to do milk abhishek at one place everyday. Naina was given Darshan by the Goddess in the form of a pindi where the cow was milking. Naina found the pindi there & built a temple which has now become popular as Nainadevi. The place is extraordinarily beautiful. In the evening the mountain with the lights on, looks like a gold ornament with glittering diamonds all around & in between. While descending I stopped at few places & stored everything into my eyes.
By the time we reached Anandpur Sahib, it was almost 10 in the night. It is about 70 km from Chandigarh. Anandpur Sahib is one of the biggest Gurudwaras I have ever seen. You can feel the richness everywhere. Initially it was a fort constructed by Guru Gobind Singh. He stayed there for about 16 years. His birth place is nearby & he was blessed by Kalimata. Now the fort is converted into a fabulous Gurudwara. Mattha Tek kar we had some food in the langar & we started our journey back. Doing revision of the whole days activities I reached the hotel by 12.30 & called it a day.
I knew I could not visit two shakti peeths namely Chamunda devi & Vajreshwari in the same region. These places are total eight hours diversion from Jwaladevi & I had no time. Which means I am still on call & Maata Ka Bulawa Anepar I will have to go back.
Jai Maata Dee
Call of Gangotri The Glacier
†Öê´Ö Ö´Ö: ׿־ÖÖµÖ
OM NAMAH SHIVAYA
CALL OF GANGOTRI
THE GLACIER
It all started when I casually asked Pramod in the corridor whether he has any plans this year for Trekking in Himalayas. This was in the first week of May 2007. Pramod Denghale is my collegue working in the laboratory. He is fond of trekking & has done many treks with his wife & son. He said ‘Kalindi Pass’ was his dream trek since 1987 & he is planning for it this year. He knew that I also had been in Himalayas several times. He didn’t know that I am not a trekker like him. Still he asked me whether I am interested in joining him for the ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek. I didn’t have the slightest idea about ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek. In fact I hadn’t even heard about it till then. I brought Pramod to my office & he briefed me about the ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek. From whatever he told me, I could understand that this trek means going from Gangotri to Badrinath on foot, up & up in the Himalayan range & touch an altitude of about 20000 feet enroute. I told him, it sounds interesting & very casually said, let us see how it works. We met number of times after that. But nothing concrete happened & ‘Kalindi Pass’ remained on the background only.
One fine morning Pramod came to my office with all the maps & booklets about ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek. He also had the proposed itenary of the trek given by the tour organizer. For the first time there was some seriousness in our discussion. I was thinking about the trek all these days but things were not shaping up. I had recently done Chardham yatra which covers both Gangotri & Badrinath. But I could not go to ‘Gaumukh’ because of bad weather that time. Gaumukh is the place from where ‘Ganga’ is seen emerging out. Visiting ‘ Gaumukh’! Could be it a sufficient enough reason for me to go to ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek? I was not getting convinced. Normally people take the holy water from ‘Gangotri’ or ‘Gaumukh’ & offer it to ‘Kedarnath’ & ‘Rameshwaram’. That’s the tradition.
A strange thought struck my mind. Ganga originated when the Devas (Gods) washed Lord Vishnu’s Charankamal (feet) in Swargalok (Heaven). The Devas wanted to bring this holy water on the prithwilok (Earth) for the wellbeing of mankind. To control the speed of ‘Ganga’ Lord Shiva held the ‘Gangamaiya’ on his head. In his Jatasambhar. King Bhagirath meditated & requested Bholebaba to release the ‘Ganga’ slowly for the wellbeing of every one. This is how the mythology goes. I thought of offering the Ganga water originating from Lord ‘Vishnu’s Charankamal & coming out from Bholebaba’s Jata at Gaumukh, back to Lord Vishnu at Badrinath. This strange thought & the thoughts of chanting ‘Vishnuahastranam’ at Gangotri & Badrinath started firming up the ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek in my mind.
Myself & Pramod started working seriously on the trek. Because of my reconstructed left knee there was lot of resistance from my family members, relatives & friends. I was also not very sure about my abilities & there was lot of confusion in my mind. But for some known & more unknown reasons, the decision was taken. Myself & Pramod decided to go to Gangotri & walk to Badrinath. Our tour organizer Mahaveer Rana from Joshimath said a group of 7 to 8 people would be ideal but he can accommodate 10 to 12 members also. Because I was not knowing the seriousness I casually started asking people whether they are interested in joining us. Everybody thought its a tough pilgrimage. The thought of touching 20000 feet was very exciting & thrilling. I thought of gathering a group of about 10 members. I asked many friends & youngsters and felt that the crowd might exceed 12 members. But as more & more information bout ‘Kalindi Khal’ poured in, I realized that we had made a mistake by considering it merely as a trek. For amateurs like us it was more than an expedition. Our tour organizer Mahaveer also insisted that we should include medically fit members who are exposed to high altitudes & who are in touch with trekking in Himalayas’. Even I could barely fit into these requirements. I rather got myself qualified as the ‘Sankalp’ was already made.
After a serious thought I had to cancel almost all the names I had put on the list as likely candidates. I freshly started looking for members. I called Praful Malode who works in Tata Power Company. Praful is a friend of mine & was my companion in my Amarnath trip. He was planning to go to Ladakh on vacation with his family. He was quite surprised with a proposal for ‘Kalindi Khal from a legally disabled person like me because he very well knew what ‘kalindi Khal; means. He immediately came to me. We had a long discussion & after seeing my intentions he canelled his Ladakh vaction to join me. Praful joined me so instantaneously because he had missed ‘Kalindi Khal’ trek twice in the past for some family problems. I don’t know whether his wife is cursing me or not for being a cause in cancellation of their family vacation. Any way our member no. 3 got confirmed. Still the expedition wanted more members.
I then called Anant Kamath. Anant was my colleague in RCF. He is a good friend of mine & was my companion during my Kailas-manas & Chardham trips. He wanders in Himalayas like a monk. Coincidently he was also planning a vacation in Ladakh with his family. He took some time to cancel his vacation but decided to join me. Wife No. 2 to curse me but member no. 4 for ‘Kalindi Khal’ confirmed. Now there was no come back.
I then called Shankar Sapre. Sapre works in the plant & we once spent a couple of days together on official tour. That time I had told him about my number of visits to Himalayas. He was quite impressed with my experiences & had told me that whenever I plan my next trip to Himalayas he will be interested. When I asked him about Kalindi Khal expedition, he immediately agreed to join us. Sapre was the least experienced & least exposed member of the group. He was totally innocent about trekking in high altitudes. But he is a strong man.
Now the five men army was all set. Initially our tour organizer said last week of August will be fine to start the trek. But the dates were changed again & again due to expected bad weather as per the forecast. Finally the date was freezed in the 2nd week of Sept.07 & we booked our tickets to Delhi by Rajdhani Express for 7th Sept.07 . After booking our tickets one month in advance, the preparations started in the real sense. We started meeting often to plan for the journey & to prepare a list of things to be carried by every one. Based on every body’s past experiences & the instructions from Mahaveer I prepared a list of things to be carried & gave a copy to everyone.
We decided to carry three luggage items individually. One 30 litre capacity personal back pack, one bag for the trek, to be carried by the porters & one bag required for the return journey things. One very good waist pouch is a must for all the treks.
We were supposed to carry a rain protection popularly known as poncho or Barsati in the trekking language, sweater, monkey cap, hand gloves, snow goggles, spare socks, dry fruits, water bottle & glucon D for a days survival, medicines, camphor, torch, swiss knife etc. in the personal sack & waist pouch. In Himalayas at high altitudes the climate is highly unpredictable. You may feel like removing your hand gloves & jacket in bright sunshine & the next moment the sun goes behind the clouds or there is a strong breeze & your fingers could get numb instantly. While walking in a group due to some reasons you may lag behind or loose the track & if the climate goes rough then your back pack & pouch should be your survival kit till you are rescued. Now a days there are exclusive shops where you could get all the goods required during trekking. We got all the things as per our list in Great outdoors at thane. A telescopic metallic walking stick proved to be a good buy for me.
The bag to be carried by the porters contained one spare pant, one shirt, two underwears & banians, two extra pairs of socks, one thin towel, antifungal powder & cream, some food items like laddus, khakra, chiwda, chikki, pickle, chatni etc. All the things other than this & not required during the trek were supposed to go back to Joshimath. Even though there are porters to carry extra luggage, one has to understand that they are also humans. It is really stupid to carry any unrequired thing on such treks. At high altitudes a swiss knife could also become a luggage by itself.
All our purchases & preparations were almost completed. We had sent our two passport size photographs & copy of residence proof to Mahaveer for getting the most necessary innerline permit. This is required as we were going to move in the most isolated high altitude regions full of different types of risky situations ( Not known to us in details) while trekking in areas sometimes close to the India-China border. The Indian mountaineering foundation authorities at Delhi told us that no permit is required if we were gong to start the trek from Gangotri. Some people start the trek from Gangotri. Somepeople start the trek from Mana village near Badrinath & walk upto Gangotri via Kalindi Pass. According to IMF authorities, the permit is required only if you are starting from Mana. The permit is issued by the District Mgistrate at Joshi Math or Uttarkashi. In spite of IMF’s advise we decided to obtain the permit & instructed Mahaveer accordingly. We did not know that the permit is going to be a crucial document for concluding the trek.
Just four days before our schedule departure Jagasia called me & said that he wants to join us. Mohan Jagasia is a very old friend of mine. He works with me but in administration. He was with me during the chardham Yatra. He is a very pius person & is very witty also. He has a good stamina for walking. I had asked him earlier about the trek but he had some problems about his leave. I personally felt happy because he could come with us. We jointly approved his arrival in the group. Everybody felt nice because six is a reasonable & convenient crowd. The list of goods was already prepared & everything could be easily arranged for Jagasia within a couple of days. This is how the most heterogeneous group of six of us was all set to march ahead for the Kalindi Khal trek. I knew all the members very well but the rest of them met each other for the first time during our meetings. Everybody’s intentions & goals were different. Pramod & Praful were coming because Kalindi Khal was the most challenging and prestigious dream trek for them. Kamat was coming because he is crazy about Himalayas. Sapre was coming just to have a new experience. Jagasia decided to come mainly because I insisted & he likes pilgrimages. My intentions were different. I wanted to collect the Holy water of Ganga at Gaumukh & offer it to Lord Vishnu at Badrinath. Secondly I wanted to chant comlete Vishnu Sahastranaam at Gangotri, Badrinath & everywhere in the Land of Lord Shiva. I was instrumental in gathering this indifferent group & this group was going to be instrumental in fulfilling all my desires enroute.
Just two days left for departure & the countdown started. There were restless moments & the nights became sleepless. The thoughts of the trek crowded our minds. We were showered with good wishes & blessings by all the known. In old times people used to go on tough pilgrimages after winding up every thing & breaking all ties. They considered the possibility that they may not be able to come back due to health failure or due to adverse climatic conditions. We did not know that Kaindi Khal was the expedition where there is every possibility of various mishaps. So we eagerly waited for the arrival of the departure day. Sixth Sept. was my last working day. I wound up & handed over the jobs on hand but I could hardly concentrate on work. All my officemates wished our group best luck for the expedition. I had increased my daily walking from 45 minutes to 90 minutes as a preparation for the expedition. I was also practicing yogasanas & pranayam for fitness. That day, I went for my routine walk in a lonely area inside the factory premises in the evening. I was lost in the thoughts of Kalindi Pass trek & suddenly two garden lizards ran over my feet. I stopped for a while to let them pass & just happened to look in the front. There was a cobra sitting upright right in the middle of the road about five feet away from me. I stared at the cobra for a few minutes. The cobra was also very steady. I then lightly banged my foot on the ground & the cobra went into the nearby bushes. I took it as a blessing from the Lord for my trek & returned to the office. After reaching home that day I checked all the luggage and ensured that all the required things are there. Finally the D day arrived. I did all the packing in the morning. Friends, relatives & family members wished me good luck. Everyone thought, I am going on some different pilgrimage because Kalindi Khal is hardly known by commoners like us. It remains a dream only for professional trekkers.
I took a taxi to Bombay central & picked up Praful at Chembur. Every one else was to come on his own. Myself, Praful & Pramod reached the platform by 4.15 pm. Rajdhani leaves Bombay at sharp 4.40 pm. Till 4.30 the Kamat, Sapre and Jagesia could not reach the station. Jagasia somehow managed to reach the station by 4.35. Kamat & Sapre were stuck up in a nasty traffic Jam. At first their local train got delayed because the Motormen went on strike. All sorts of such things happened & finally they missed the train by a few minutes. Fortunately there is another train to Delhi within an hours time & luckily they could get tickets for the next train. We prayed God and thought that if such problems come in the beginning then our planned journey ahead will be smooth & that is what was planned by the almighty.
Kamat & Sapre reached Delhi a few hours after us & we immediately proceeded to Hrishikesh by jeep. Even though we had planned to carry minimum luggage our total luggage was quite a lot & it was a job by itself to carry it. We reached Hrishikesh in the evening. We spent the night in a good hotel & started for Utterkashi early next morning by Jeep. It was fun traveling on the same route second time & every thing looked familiar. We reached Uttarkashi in the afternoon & checked in in a good hotel. We met our tour organizer Mahaveer there. He introduced us to the Sherpas who were to accompany us as guides, cooks & porters. They looked very fresh & charged up for the expedition. Mahaveer still hadn’t got the permit & he was processing for it. He checked everybody’s luggage personally & rejected many things which we had thought of carrying on the trek. These things went back to Joshimath. Mahaveer kept only those things really necessary during the trek. Every one need not carry a separate toothpaste. Common things like that are to be carried in common. The weight to be carried for the trek has to be cut down to that extent. It’s good for everyone.
The evening was a little free. We all went to the Kashi Vishwanath temple & took blessings from the Lord. Then we were briefed about the trek by Shri.Himalaya Sherpa. That’s his name & he is a known figure in the trekking world. We got lot of useful tips about walking on the boulders, walking on the glacier, river crossing, dealing with the cold & high altitudes etc. His talk was serious & that was the first time when we got a good idea about what we are supposed to do in the next two weeks. Next day morning we met Himadri Bandopadhya from Durgapur over breakfast. He had planned for Kalindi Khal trek with his two friends. His two friends had to cancel their reservation last minute due to some family problems. His tour organizer Shri. Himalaya Sherpa & our tour organizer Mahaveer asked Himadri to request us to accommodate him. He & his family had no hopes that six strangers from Bombay will agree to take Himadri with them for the trek & he was prepared to go on some other trek since he had already reached Uttarkashi. We were taken by surprise when Himadri requested us to include him in our group. He had a valid inner line permit & we apparently found no reason to say no to him. The six of us thought for a while & told him that he can join us. Other arrangements were to be done by the tour organizers. Himadri could not believe his own ears. He expressed his gratitude in all the possible ways. He said we were like Gods to him because Kalindi Khal was his dream & unless we said yes, there was no chance of his dream coming true. Along with Mahaveer we also tried for our innerline permit that day. Very soon we realized that its not an easy job & could take some more time. We wrote letters to the District Magistrate, Divisional forest officer, superintendent of police & intelligence unit office giving them our personal details & informing them about our itenary for Kalindi pass in details.
Uttarkashi is at about 3300 ft altitude & now there was no point in wasting time there. Mahaveer asked us to proceed to Gangotri for acclamatization. He was to get the permit, arrange for all the goods & follows us next day. Uttarkashi to Gangotri is about 100 kms by road. We started for Gangotri. in the afternoon. On the way we stopped at Gangnani where there are hot water springs. We had plans to take a bath there. But by the time we reached there, it started drizzling. We didn’t want to take any chances with the weather. So we cancelled the Bath plans & straightway reached Gangotri just after the sunset. Gangotri is at about 9700 ft. altitude & we felt a sudden chill in the atmosphere as soon as we got down from the Jeep. It was so cold that we had to put on our sweaters & jackets immediately. We checked in in hotel Mandakini. We had a view of Ganga water flowing freely & its sound was continuously there as background music. We walked around for some time, had dinner & retired in our rooms. The next day was for acclamatization. We got ready early next morning & went to Gangotri temple to take blessings from Gangamaiya. Afterall we were going to walk along the river till Gaumukh & then go far beyond Gaumukh all along its rivulets which carry the water up to Gaumukh as a never ending mission.
From the temple we went for a practice trek towards Gaumukh. Acclamatization means not only staying there but you have to tune up your body by walking at high altitude in the cold weather. We must have walked about five kms one way. The walk warmed up our bodies & it was bright sunshine when we returned to Gangotri. We gathered all the courage & took bath in the ice cold chilled water of the Holy Ganga river. I then sat on the steps & chanted complete Vishnu Sahstranaam in front of Gangamaiya. It took about one hour & the sun all the time protected me from the cold weather. My first desire was so completely fulfilled by the Lord.
In the afternoon Mahaveer arrived with all the Sherpas & all the luggage in a truck. Unfortunately he could not get the permit. But he said he will get it from Uttarkashi after seeing us off & ensure that it reaches Ghastoli where we were supposed to land after the trek. So we were not going to get held up for that. We saw all our sherpas loaded with all the luggage like tents, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, jackets, kerosene, cooking oil, rice , dal, atta, tea, sugar, salt, snacks, stoves, spare burners etc. etc. We pitied them but there was no way we could help them. After all, that is their job & they were coming with us on duty.
In the evening we went to Swami Sunderanandji’s Ashram. Luckily there was nobody & we had a privilege of having a long chat with him. He is about 80 years old & is staying at Gangotri for the past more than 50 years. He is the author of the book Himalaya through the lense of a Sadhu & has virtually scanned Himalaya thoroughly. He told us how some lakes have disappeared & how some plants & flowers have become extinct in front of his eyes. According to him this is happening because of Global warming but the increased traffic in the region is equally, responsible for it. Once when he was doing the Kalindi Pass’ trek, he had fallen in a deep crevice in freezing waters. You can understand what is a crevice only after seeing it & walking over it. He could be rescued only after a struggle of 2 to 3 hours. Surprisingly his experience did not scare us but we decided to take utmost care while walking. We touched his feet while leaving. He blessed us & wished good luck & success for our trek.
In the evening Mahaveer gave us final instructions & asked us to start early next morning. In the real sense, tomorrow was going to be the Day 1 of the trek. In our group of seven, only Pramod ( 45 yrs.) & Himadri ( 38 yrs) were younger. Rest of us were 50 plus. Now we had some idea about what we were supposed to do in the coming days. You can know it exactly only after doing it. So we asked Mahaveer whether oldies like us will be able to do it or not? Whether we are on the right trek or not? He had seen our enthusiasm for the last 2-3 days & he said we are all fit people & we will definitely complete the trek. He & the sherpas had not liked our taking bath at Gangotri in the afternoon. According to them such bath could make you sick during high altitude trek. But they also encouraged us & said that under any circumstances they will ensure that we complete the trek successfully. We got somewhat relieved with their words & went to bed early after dinner.
We were all set with our personal sacks & ready to go early morning next day. We decided to prey the Lord with the rising sun before starting & we religiously followed this ritual every day. Mahaveer reminded us of the important instructions. He asked us to use the walking stick & asked us to start the day as early as possible. Starting early & reaching the destination early every day is very important while trekking in Himalayas for two reasons. As the sun rises the snow melts faster & it could become difficult or sometimes impossible to cross even small water streams which are other wise causal. Secondly if the climate goes rough & you are stuck up, then you have more of day light to escape when you start early. Things could be very difficult if the tents are not ready before night falls.
After our prayers Mahaveer said final goodbye to us & we took our first step with slogans of Bum bum bhole & Ganpati Bappa Morya. We were seven members & 17 sherpas were accompanying us. Our target for day 1 was to reach Bhojwasa by about 3 pm. Bhojwasa is at about 12500 ft. altitude & is about 15 kms. from Gangotri. These are the Pahadi Kilometers & in reality the distance might be much more every where. According to me walking one pahadi km. at high altitude could be equivalent to walking 5 kms at ground level. The walk was pleasant initially as we were fresh. The mountains look beautiful & Gangotri temple says good bye to you for a long time. After about 3 kms there is a forest office. Our guides completed the formalities with them but nobody asked us about any permit. There is a distinct pathway & there are a few tea stall enroute. We were slowly gaining height as we walked ahead. After chidwasa there are no tea stalls and the greenery also reduces drastically. Sept. & October are lean months for tourist in these areas & mostly people going to Gaumukh & Tapowan, and trekers like us are only seen during this period. We marched ahead walking along the mountains & inbetween the mountains. We were taking small steps. The talking with each other automatically reduced & we took few minutes rest frequently to restore the breath. The long walking of Day 1 slowly came to an end & we reached Bhojwasa by 3 pm. We didn’t feel the cold while walking but Bhojwasa was extremely cold and we had to put on all the gears for cold. Bhojwasa has one big temple with many rooms, there is one Gadhwal Nigam hotel & there is one good set up of Hydrology department of Rourkela. They study the behaviour of Gangotri Glacier for six months. The other six months the area is all snow covered. Their present study tells that the Glacier is receding or melting at the rate of 20 meters per year. We were quite shocked with the information. We did not know that we were going to see the phenomenon with our own eyes for the next few days.
Our sherpas were yet to come, so myself & Jagasia went in the temple to protect ourselves from the cold. I took permission from the priest there & did my Vishnu Sahastranaam prayer for full one hour. We then went to the camping site. By that time all the members & the sherpas had reached. The tents were being set & dinner preparations were going on. There was another group camped near us. They were going for summit to Bhagirathi peak. We went for a walk on the river nearby. We examined the tents after coming back. We were not satisfied with the tents. The jackets we were wearing were also not giving very good protection from cold. The tent was certainly going to be uncomfortable for my height. The idea of spending 12 nights in those tents was scary & I was totally disappointed. We realised our mistake of not inspecting everything provided by Mahaveer at Uttarkashi. You could get a chance to correct such mistakes at ground level but we had no chance to make any corrections at Bhojwasa. We were already one day ahead towards loneliness & no civilization zone. Jagasia’s state of mind was worst than mine. We decided to sleep in the temple to reduce one night in open & in the tent. Praful also joined us.
Even in that remote place they served us good hot food as Prasad at 7 pm only. We killed some time after dinner & went to bed. The cold was bad & we could hardly sleep. We were discussing about the tents, the cold & the long trek ahead. We thought our decision to come for such a expedition was wrong. Finally out of frustration myself & Jagasia decided to go back home from Gaumukh. Praful tried to change our mind but finally agreed to what we were saying. The morning was pleasant. Myself & Praful went to our camp site early monrning. Jagasia stayed back in the temple. Everybody felt sad with our decision to go back. Right from the sherpas every one tried to convince me. Himadri offered me his tent which was a little longer & a little taller. I went inside the tent & actually slept inside for five minutes. All the tents were for two persons & I thought I could manage in that tent. I came out from the tent with a smily face & everybody had a sigh of relief. I was not going back home. All of us then went to the temple & tried to convince Jagasia. We brought him to the camp site & everyone tried to tell him that he can do it. But for some unknown reasons none of us could change his mind & he remained firm on his decision to go back from Gaumukh.
All of us had some breakfast & got ready for the Day 2 walk. After the prayers we started our walk at about 8 am. The sherpas used to give us a lead of about one hour everyday. They would take their breakfast, clean the utensils, pack everything and then start.They would comfortably catch up with amateur oldies like us within a couple of hours. The walk upto Gaumukh is quite long & by the time you reach Gaumukh the greenery almost disappears. The looks of Gaumukh are not very pleasant as you see cracks in the melting ice which appears like rocks & not like ice. We saw Ganga emerging out from the bottom of the melting glacier. Seeing the holy river originating silently like this gives a divine pleasure. We didn’t venture a bath there & just took a refreshing wash in the comparatively silent chilled water. We did our pooja & prayers & took blessings from the holy river.
The flow of water in this region is not very rough & the amount of water is also not huge. As the river travels ahead more & more streams merge into it and the current becomes strong & rough. After all it has to carry the soil with it & erode the mighty rocks on its way. By the time all the sister rivers reach Haridwar as Gangamaiya the flow is very rough, strong and scary. We sat there for some time wondering about this wonderful phenomenon. We took our lunch break there. Our cooks had given us packed lunch. We again tried to convince Jagasia over lunch. But we failed miserably. Because of the extreme cold & exhaustive walking Jagasia decided to turn back from Gaumukh. With a heavy heart & a strange feeling we said final Goodbye to him. Our guide went with him upto Bhojwasa. Meeting Jagasia again was totally in the hands of the almighty now.
I collected the holy Gangajal at Gaumukh to carry it all the way to Badrinath. Our walk was routed from behind Gaumukh for about 100 miles. We had to walk on boulders. In the sherpa language they call it a morain walk. The walk on the morain is difficult, tricky & tiring. The sherpas with so much luggage were walking much more easily. Because of the boulders the distance between the two steps can not be maintained. Sometimes you have to take small steps, sometimes long steps & sometimes you have to jump. After climbing or jumping you have to take rest to restore the breath. A small plain walk after one range of morain is little relaxing. There are many picturesque sites enroute but we could not take pictures everywhere. Taking out the camera from the sack & take a video shoot or a photo becomes an activity by itself & at high altitudes you are totally engrossed in taking care of your walking & your breath. Watching the beauty of Himalayas & storing it in the CPU becomes a full time job on such expedition for amateurs like us.
On our way we had to walk on the glaciers & cross many water streams. The water was very cold but very clean. We were instructed not to drink the cold water directly. We used to hold the sip of water in the mouth for some time to increase the temperature & then gulp it down. Actually till Uttarkashi we drank bottled water but from Gangotri onwards, through out our trek & till Haridwar we consumed the available stream water. Fortunately by the grace of God none of us had any water related stomach problems.
We reached Nandanvan late in the evening. There was a platoo for our second night halt. The sun was about to set & we were totally exhausted. The group of expert trekkers going for Bhagirath 2 summit was next doors to us. Surprisingly they were also totally exhausted & we were keeping pace with them. Nandanvan has big & small white stones spread all over & in between them, on the ground there were colorful tiny leaves & flowers. It looks like a beautiful Rangoli made by the mother nature. Our sherpas quickly set the tents & started preparing dinner. They served us a three course dinner, starting with hot soup, then the main course followed by a dessert. They never forgot to serve us hot bournvita drink before we went to bed. They served us like this every single day throughout our trek. Their dedication towards us as members was unique of its kind.
The night was chilly & the wind chill factor makes it worst. With some piece mill sleep the night came to an end & we came out of the tents early morning as per the instructions of our guide. There was thick frost on the tent & all over the ground. The sherpas gave us hot water for brushing the teeth. But brushing the teeth no more remained a ritual because of the cold & we did it irregularly.
We were instructed to consume more liquids & less solid food. We used to have a glass or two of warm water before starting tea drinking. The water was of course stream water & it was not clean always. We asked the sherpas to filter it but they rarely did so & convinced us that what they were serving us was good drinking water. We had no choice & fortunately we had no problems also. After water we used to have a couple of glasses of hot tea. We must have drank about 1 ½ litres of tea every day during the trek. After tea they served us good break fast. But to their disappointment we used to have very little of it. Our appetite had reduced a lot & we could consume hardly 1/3rd of food as compared to what we consume at sea level. After breakfast we got ready for the 3rd day walk. Ramprasad as usual told us that the first two days were very tough & things will not be as bad as that. Very soon we realized that he said it just to boost up our morals. The walk was from Nandanvan to Vasukitaal. Which is about 10 kms. & Vasukitaal is at about 14500 ft. altitude. The walk was on the morain & we were asked to halt where the route was confusing. We never took any chances & waited for the sherpas to arrive whenever there was confusion. We couldn’t afford any extra steps at high altitudes. Every step was precious & we had to conserve our breath. When breathing becomes difficult camphor helps a lot. All of us had kept camphor very handy. Surprisingly the sherpas don’t need such things. They become fresh to walk after a few minutes rest. They will probably get suffocated while crossing a road in Mumbai in a traffic jam.
We were walking on huge boulders, rocks,& loose soil. Some times uphill & sometimes downhill. The so called pathway in the loose soil track on the hills was very steep sometimes & was barely wide just to accommodate one foot step. On one side was the loose mountain wall & on other side was deep valley. After the valley we could see rough river water flowing amongst the boulders. Almost all our walk up & down the hills throughout our trek was like this. On whatever we were walking, beneath that there was millions of years old ice, somewhere getting exposed & somewhere protected. The sight of such old ice melting at dangerous rates in many places was definitely threatening our own future.
The landscape of most of our journey was that of a gigantic stone quary beyond the imagination of human beings. I thought like that in my earlier Himalaya trips also but our this journey from Gangotri to Badrinath via Kalindi Pass confirmed that Himalaya is nothing but Lord Shiva’s Stone quarry & water supply department. Whatever goes up has to come down & that is happening all over the world. We were within the tallest & huge mountain range in the world. What we observed every moment was mass destruction of the sky scrapping mountains. The sun, the rain, the snow & the wind all these agencies are assigned this job & they all are working as per the schedule. The global warming is accelerating the process but our every step & every breath in the brittle mountains was also helping the destruction. The tough ice which the sun is not able to melt because of the cold is given a beating by big & small stones falling from great heights. The surface is cracked & chipped off. The destruction must go on. You can see several channels of erosion in the huge mountains made by flowing water during monsoon & melting ice water during summer. The snow which slides after loosing the anchoring is more damaging to the mountain than the flowing water. Such sliding snow is a live glacier. An avalanche.
After a never-ending difficult walk on the debris on top of hard ice we reach the foot hills of a huge mountain of more debris. We missed a heart beat with the thought of climbing that mountain on 70 degree up hill slope on a narrowest possible path. According to Ramprasad, few years back the route was not so bad. The melting ice & the sliding mountains had made it the worst. The guide & few sherpas climbed the mountain & set up a rope all the way for us. When we watched them climbing, we realized that it was a challenging job even for expert trekkers. For us they would call it a foolish, life threatening adventure. But we were there. We pushed ourselves one by one towards the rope. Most of us were going to do climbing with rope for the first time in our lives & the mountain before Vasuki taal is certainly not a place to learn climbing with a rope. The steps towards the rope were definitely not exciting. In fact we were scared. The sherpas took all our luggage & supported each one of us. Every step on that about 200 mtrs. long path was risky. The climb was one at a time on the rope. We were feeling short of breath every step & we had to stop frequently to restore the breath. All of us had a couple of accidental swings on the rope while climbing & we thought we are going to fall on the glacier. Some how we managed to cling to the rope. Like gulping down a drink I gulped the last few meters of the climb to finish it off. That was a mistake & I had to lie down flat on the top for ten good minutes before I could restore my breath. After every body reached the top, it was a kind of celebration for us.
Few of the sherpas had marched ahead of us & already set up the kitchen tent. From the top where we were standing the tent looked like a small dot on a huge screen. That meant we had to walk so much further to reach the day 3 camp. But it was all down the hill & was a pleasure for us after the terrifying climb. We must have reached the Vasuki Taal camp at about 4 pm. Vasuki Taal is a small shrunken lake. We remembered Sunderanandji’s words that many lakes are shrinking & disappearing slowly. Just before the camp site we had to cross a small water stream which was merging in the lake. The stream was full of small & big stones & we could cross it on the stones without wetting our feet. The frozen ice between the stones gave us a good idea of the night temperatures. That stream was our source of water & all our camp sites were chosen closer to a good source of water or sometimes ice. We had so far not taken out our Thermal wear but we were advised to start using the Thermal even during daytime from Vasuki Taal onwards. Thermal is a very thin pure wool two piece inner wear.
The sherpas very quickly set the tents & started serving us. There was one more tent of Bhagirath 2 expedition next to us. We understood that the members could not start from Nandanvan as one girl in the group was badly sick. The extremely tired girl entered the sleeping bag in the tent immediately after the walk to Nandanvan & fell sick. After hearing that we always forced ourselves to rome around outside the tent till bed time after dinner. So far none of us had experienced any serious high altitude sickness besides headache & occasional bleeding from the nose. Still we decided to rest at Vasuki Taal for one day just to get acclamatized. Vasuki Taal is at 14500 ft. altitude & we were advised to get well acclamatized before proceeding further. The idea of not getting up early next day was relaxing but not very exciting. Getting up from a very good sleep is not pleasant but at high altitudes getting a very good sleep is a rare experience.
We took shelter of the sleeping bag after an early dinner & got up early as usual. Getting up early & taking some pictures of the snow covered peaks in the first sunlight was a treat. The oldest man in the group, Anant was always the first one to get up & he never missed the first sunlight. He used to get up before sunrise & wake us up. Some of the pictures taken with the first sun rays falling on snow peaks are the most beautiful pictures & they are the best pictures of our trek. We were not in a hurry that day as there was no set target. We lazied for some time & then got ready for Ganesh Poojan as it was Ganesh Chaturthi on that day. Anant always carries a brass Ganesh idol with him during such pilgrimages. He asked me to give bath to Lord Ganesh in Vasuki Taal. I did so in the chilled water & then we brought the idol in a so called small temple. We took some wet soil & prepared a Shivling & placed the Ganesh idol in front of it. Then we performed pooja & Arti as you were doing it back home. All the sherpas joined us for the Aarti. They made sheera for Prasad. Cadbury, dryfruits & tiny local leaves were also offered to the lord. During Aarti an unbelievable thing happened. We were a crowd of about 20 people clapping for the Aarti & a mouse came from behind the shivling & ate the Prasad in front of Lord Ganesh. The mouse stayed there for a few minutes, came down & climbed on my left foot. I watched the mouse for a few seconds till it was gone. We were all spellbound & there were tears in our eyes. The sherpas said, it is highly unlikely that a mouse could survive here. We took it as blessings from the lord for the tough journey ahead. The sherpas were also surprised with the incidence, but felt happy when we explained them the relation between Lord Ganesh & the mouse.
After Aarti we went for a long walk on the next day route. Walking for 3 to 4 hours instead of 8 to 10 hours is called a rest day when you halt for acclamatization at high altitudes. We returned by lunch time. In the afternoon we changed all our clothing. We dry cleaned ourselves after four days. Thinking of a bath or even a wash for the next six seven days till we reached Badrinath was out of question. And even if any of us had guts to take bath, the sherpas would disapprove of it. According to them a bath in the cold at high altitudes could make you seriously ill & we did not want to take any chances.
We had lot of spare time every day. We were carrying playing cards & a tape recorder. But we never used them. We spent all the spare time fighting with the cold, appreciating the creativity & destructivity of the mother nature, doing revision of the previous days walking & imagining about tomorrows mountain range. The mobile phones were all dead from day one. There was no life in the mountains & we had lost contact with the live outside world. We did not even know when we stopped thinking about the family, the office & the routine civilian life. Our thoughts had become channalized only towards our fitness & walking through the great Himalayas. All this had happened without any special efforts or meditation. No wonder our great Rishis and even the Gods came to Himalayas for meditation. In Himalayas our routine was to walk a lot everyday. But we were welcome every step & every day by different & beautiful scenery. There was no repetition. In our day to day life we see the same cars on road, meet same people, do the same work & get exhausted at the end of the day because we live in the man made materialistic world. In Himalayas you imagine and wait for a beautiful tomorrow blessed by the mother nature.
We entered the sleeping bags at around 8.30 pm after an early dinner. As usual Ramprasad told us that tomorrow is going to be an easy day. We got convinced for that because they were not going to give us packed lunch but prepare lunch after reaching the destination. Still we got up early & got ready for the walk. We had so far seen Shivling, KedarDome, Bhagarath I, II, III & Vasuki peeks. We captured the visible peaks in the camera & started our walk after the prayers. Anant asked me to chant the Vishnu sahastranaam silently while walking. He said that will be my vitamin V. I ofcourse, said it for every one & it became the vitamin for the entire group. After all our prayers are for the well being of everyone & not for the individual.
The walk from Vasuki Taal to Khada Patthar was about 12 kms. We were not to gain much height that day. The distance was comparatively less but the walk was tiring as we were continuously on the boulders, on the morain. There was very fine sand somewhere & there were huge boulders of the size of the room you are sitting in. There were huge rocks sitting on small piece of ice in the river. The water cuts the ice or the ice melts & the rocks would move. The water cutting the huge hard rocks reminded us of a lathe machine on which a big metal piece is being cut slowly by the tool. The stone quarry was live. Myself & Anant think on similar wave lengths. We were all the time wondering about the mechanism which was breaking the sky scraping mountains into all possible sizes. There were heaps of stones of different sizes ready for dispatch to Bay of Bengal. There was no dynamite used & there was no heavy duty earth moving machinery in operation. The breaking, sizing & transportation was all free of cost without any pollution.
We were wandering in the Shiva stone quarry which was like a Art Gallery with beautiful mountain paintings on both sides. The display of colors in the sky & on the mountains was amazing & you need an eye to appreciate it. Then we were thinking from day one why we are there? People say marriages are arranged in heaven. People also say that children are the gift of God. I would go a fews steps ahead & say that such pilgrimages, such strips are very well planned in heaven. Thousands of people visit Amarnath & Char Dham every year. We were fortunate to be amongst them a few years back. Then we were invited to Kailas Mansarovar where only a couple of thousand people are able to go every year. It was our promotion. We were more fortunate. But the mountains in which we were wandering now was a rare privilege. Not even hundred people are able to do so in an year. It was no more a promotion for us. It was the ultimate elevation for us. We cannot create divine things. So the mother nature, the Almighty, invites the loving ones to show what the PARMATMA has created. A trailor of how it is going to be destroyed is a part of the creation. You have to realize it, understand it & appreciate it. And appreciation is nothing but the highest & purest form of love. It comes free. It asks for nothing & gives everything.
By now the Manasik Jaap of OM NAMAH SHIVAY’ & ‘VISHNU SAHASTRA NAAM’ had become a reflex action & it happened whenever I was alone. We reached Khada Patthar camp site by 2 pm. There is a huge boulder standing alone on the mountain in front of us. That is why the name Khada Patthar to the camp site. The sherpas were already there & lunch was almost ready. There was no plain ground anywhere & the tents were on the stones only. It was going to be a good acupressure treatment for us in the night. We told the sherpas that in Bombay people pay money for such treatment & here it was going to be free for us. We did not know, that we were going to get the same rough treatment for the next few days.
We had a long afternoon & evening to spend after lunch. The sherpas were in good spirits & they sang some local songs in Gadhwali language. We also sang songs & Bhajans. We had a good time in the kitchen tent. The kitchen tent was a good shelter for us & we always spent a lot of time there. After dinner we as usual entered the sleeping bags early in the night. We could hear the noise of trickling water from the melting ice of the glacier beneath our stone bed. It was somewhat scary but an unique experience of our lives & we had it for a couple of more nights.
The next day started early. We had to walk from Khada Pathar ( Also known as Surala) to Sita. The distance must be about 15 kms. & Sita camp was at an altitude of around 17,000 ft. We started walking with our packed lunch by 7.30 am. The walk was all morain morain on the ice. We saw many small lakes with thin ice on top. From the side walls soil, rocks & ice slabs were falling in the lakes. We curiously witnessed such small land slides. The process of destruction which is nothing but change of form, started from huge mountains much above was continuing here & would continue till sea level. Near one of such beautiful small lake formed by crystal clear melting ice water, we could not resist & took a halt there. We took a mini wash with the chilled water in the bright sunshine.We prayed the Lord by offering the chilled water to him wilh Gayatri Mantra Jaap. We played with the lake by throwing small stones & ice slabs in the lake. After coming to Bombay when expert trekkers saw our pictures & film doing this they were shocked. According to them it was a stupid, silly mistake. Everything & every body there is on ice. Any slab of ice beneath could crack with your own weight & you might be in freezing water, not to be seen again. In the history of trekking, there are incidences when huge boulders on the verge of falling have fallen just because of a loud human noise, resulting into destructive landslides. After hearing all this, a chill ran through us & we got scared to death. But like all other days so far we survived that day also & reached sita camp site at about 3.30 pm.
The camp site & the entire vicinity of the camp was only rocks of different sizes & shapes. We were in the middle ‘on the rocks’. At some distance in the front there was snow white Sita glacier on the right side & there was similar Kalindi glacier on the left side. Both the glaciers were stretched very long & looked extremely beautiful like rivers of snow. Our camp site had a water front in the form of a small pond of crystal clear water. We slowly settled down at Sita camp observing the beauties of the mountains, glaciers & rocks all around. We were looking at a tall mountain & suddenly a big waterfall started from the middle of the mountain as if somebody had opened a valve. The water was carrying soil, mud & rocks but everything was not reaching the foothills of the mountain in the valley.It would wait there for the final push and let the water trickle.
The sun was bright & sky was clear because the clouds were below us. So far we were gifted to have the pleasure of watching the azure blue sky every single day. In the polluted cities you never get to see it. Sitting above the clouds on big rocks gave us a heavenly feeling. I don’t know from where I got the inspiration but I chose a rock like a Sinhasan & decided to chant Vishnu Sahastra Naam. I was facing the sun & I prayed the Lord to keep the sun out till I am done with my Prarthana. Otherwise the wind & cold won’t let me site out like that for one hour. My prayer was granted & my desire was fulfilled. Everyone else listened to me patiently. Sitting above the clouds at 17000 ft. height & saying Vishnu Sahastra Naam gave me a feeling that I am doing something absolutely divine which probably no human being has done. Even while talking normally we were feeling short of breath & here at 17000 ft. height I could chant Vishnu Sahastra Naam non stop. That was a miracle. And the strength to do so must have come only through the appreciation & gratitude for the Almighty who is the purest form of love himself.
As usual after an early light dinner we slept early & got up before sunrise. Our water front lake was totally frozen & the waterfall which started in the afternoon yesterday was no more there. It was also frozen. The valve was closed. Today we were to march from Sita to Klindi base camp, the last camp before summit at an altitude of 18000 ft. Very soon we left the Sita glacier behind & started walking on morain morain from the right side of Kalindi Glacier. The walking was becoming more & more difficult everyday due to lack of oxygen. The SLR digital camera we were carrying was quite bulky for a expedition like this & we had no energy to take it out from the sack many times when we felt like taking pictures. With a small pocket size digital camera we would have definitely taken more pictures than what we could do.
We were not supposed to sit down every time for taking rest. If you sit down immediately after a tiring walk the joints could get stiff. So most of the times we took rest while standing only. We took a halt from where we could see Kalindi river. The view of blue water flowing full, from under 3 to 4 ft. thick snow cover was breath taking. The meaning of the instructions given by the sherpas, not to step on the glaciers became crystal clear in our minds. After a long exhaustive walk we reached the Kalindi base camp at about 4 pm. The camp site was once again rocks & stones on ice beneath. The count down had begun & there were four nights left in the freezing cold and in the sleeping bags. Kalindi base camp at 18000 ft. was going to be the highest altitude location where we were going to stay for the first time in our lives.
The next day’s instructions were being repeated again & again. We were to start walking tomorrow at sharp day break to reach the pass at the earliest. Everything is like the sooner the better at high altitudes. The climate can change within a couple of minutes & snowfall, snowstorm or ‘whiteout’ could not only make you stranded where you are but threaten your life also. Whiteout means thick clouds could cover the entire region making the visibility almost zero. The sherpas were worried about such natural calamites. They asked us not to worry & said that if time comes they will carry us on their backs but see to it that we make the pass successfully. After the pass they said we have to cross the caravaas. Like morain we heard this word for the first time. In sherpa language, caravaas is miles of ice on slope & on the plain. There could be cracks in the ice. The cracks could be few inches to few feet in width. The depth could be few feet to several feet & these could be filled will chilled water. If you fall into such a gap you may not be seen again. That is why Ramprasad warned us to follow the footsteps of the sherpas in the snow or on the caravaas. We were not supposed to create our own pathway. Caravaas is so deceptive that after walking on the ice for few hours you may reach the spot from where you started. For all these reasons Ramprasad wanted us to start earliest & cross the caravaas with lot of daylight to spare. He warned us not to spend more than 15-20 minutes in the pass because at 20000 ft. you could fall sick badly & that is the last thing to happen.
Was it really our job? What we were doing in the great heights of Himalayas at this age? Whether we will be able to do the pass ? Such thoughts crowded our minds but we gave no room to them. We were at a point of no return. Going back from here looked more scary because we knew the route. Kalindi pass & beyond was still unknown & was more inviting. We prayed the lord for good climate & good health & entered the sleeping bags after an early dinner.
We got up real early next day & forced ourselves with a good breakfast. After preparing packed lunch Ramprasad reviewed the quantities of food, oil & kerosene. We had 3 more nights to go to see civilization. Everything was calculated for the remaining days & nights. Whatever was in excess was to be left at Kalindi base camp. From base camp to pass is the most crucial journey & it should be done with minimum possible load. We used minimum plastic throughout the trek & took utmost care not to throw even chocolate wrappers in the virgin mountains of Himalayas. But we left our excess food items at the base camp, well wraped in plastic bags. It might be somebody’s survival kit in the future.
We had a look at the Kalindi Pass & the route on which we were to march. It all looked easy & very close. But it was not going to be so. According to Ramprasad it would be atleast four hours with our speed. We started walking at 6.30 am. Half an hour delay from the schedule. We were a little tense because of the delay but there is no way you can make up by walking fast. The sherpas soon caught up with us. Now they were not letting anyone of us alone. For the last few days Praful & Sapre were lagging behind the group by about 1 hour but they were accompanied by one or two sherpas. Todays walk was very strenuous & all of us needed their support many times. At about 9.30 am we reached the snow covered foothills of the Kalindi pass. Now we were supposed to walk together. But Praful & Sapre were far behind. Sapre because of stamina & Praful because of blisters on his foot. There were two sherpas with them. The rest of us decided to march ahead. We were waking some distance in snow & then going on morain on left side as per the instructions. When in snow, we were stepping in the footstep of the sherpa in front. Every foot gained was like a summit for us. We were asked not to look at the pass uphill. But whenever we had a glimpse, it looked an impossible task. We were inching forward & finally the 1800 ft. gain came to an end within four hours since we started.
We were there! We had done it ! We were in Kalindi pass! We could not believe ourselves. What Mount Everest was for sherpa Tensing & Edmond Hillary, Kalindi pass was for us. Our breath was not full but our eyes were full of tears in gratitude for the Lord.
The sherpas threw their luggage down. It was all celebration for everyone. There was bright sunshine & the sky was azure blue like the rest of the days. Everything around was snow covered. After reaching the top everything looks like Rohtang pass near Manali except for the higher altitude, very thin air & no tree line. We lightly played in the snow, took lot of pictures & did some video shooting also. From a few steps below the highest point in the pass the snow white mountain & the blue sky seem to meet each other. It looks like the end point of the planet. It is difficult to describe the beauty in words but easy to capture in the camera.
Sapre & Praful were nowhere in sight & that was a matter of concern. The allotted time in the pass was already over & it was going to be atleast another hour till Praful & Sapre could make it. Ramprasad asked us whether we were interested in doing a summit at Klindi Peak called as pinnacle. We were tempted for a second but then realised that it was not our job. We were not great mountaineers. Climbing another 600 ft. from 19800 could be fatal for us. Secondly we had not started our journey with such intentions. When the entire route of the expedition is full of risks, trying something unplanned & more risky could have been disastrous. We told Ramprasad that we were more than happy to have reached kalindi pass. Now let’s just go down safety.
After a long wait Praful & Sapre came in site. They finally made it with great difficulties. It was celebration again. We did Ganesh Poojan again & paid our sincere homage to the Lord. Lalit from Tata Power had given us chocolates, to be opened only if we could make it to Kalindi Pass. With a great pride we offered the chocolates to the Lord first & then tested the sweetness of it. From the top we could get a birds eye view of Tibet & that of our downward route in the motherland. By now it was past 12 in the noon. Ramprasad sensed some clouds at a distance & he asked every one to pack up. We had comfortably spent about two hours at 19800 ft. where normally the mountaineers spend only 15 to 20 minutes. We were still fine & there were no signs of any sickness, probably because of the triumphant feeling. After thanking the GOD once again for everything we said good bye to Kalindi Pass and took our first step beyond.
We were all in good moods. We were thinking that we have crossed the hurdles & next three days down hill will not be as bad as the morain uphill. Ramprasad changed our ideas. He said all of us have to Rope up now. According to the other guide it was necessary but Ramprasad insisted & started the operation. We had earlier experienced climbing with a rope & it was certainly not enjoyable. Roping up means all 19 of us were tied at waist height to one single rope, keeping a distance of about 10 feet between everyone. Ramprasad ensured that there are sherpas for help in between & no two members were tied next to each other. By the time all of us got roped up the surroundings became foggy. Fortunately for us, it was not total white out. Very soon the walk in soft snow came to an end. Ramprasad was leading in the front of the line. He was taking almost every step after checking the ice with ice axe & we were following his foot steps. Waking on the soil ice mixture was really very difficult & very soon we realized that Ramprasad was dead right in his decision of rope up. Even after taking utmost care we used to skid on ice, fall down with a thud & slide. It happened with the sherpas also sometimes. After every fall, all 19 of us had to halt till the fallen one recovers. I myself must have fallen at least 10 times during the walk on the caravas. There were innumerable halts because of everybody’s falls. Once again by the grace of GOD all of us escaped without any injury from the falls. Some of the jumpings over the cracks were highly dangerous. We could see what we had heard. The cracks were sometimes not very wide but very deep. The edges of the cracks were brittle & if you fall in the crevice, the chances of survival are very remote. That is why we were roped up. So if somebody falls, the others can pull him out.
The sun was not bright & after walking like this for a few hours we thought we are directionless. Even the guides were confused on few occasions. Finally that never ending tiring walk on the caravas came to an end. The only good part of it was that we were not feeling short of breath as we were now loosing height. After the caravas we were on a narrow mountain top. There was a opinion to take an unscheduled night halt as we were totally exhausted & the thought of going down that steep mountain was not very pleasant. There was few hours of day light still left & after some rest we decided to march down. Ramprasad didn,t want to take any chances & he put a rope for going down. First climbing up with the rope before Vasuki Taal, then roping up on the caravas & now getting down with the rope for Raj Padav. Everything was new for us & we were learning such tough lessons in the risky mountains at high altitudes. There was a straight fall down hill in the beginning only. The mountain was nothing but loose soil & rocks heaped together. With our style of stepping lot f soil & rocks used to slide down. We were accelerating the destruction process scheduled by the mother nature. We were slowly understanding the difference between us & the sherpas.
The sherpas were fearless & very much conversant with the mountains. Their steps rarely resulted in sliding of the soil & rock. Our every step was with a fear of falling & sliding with the mountain & that is what used to happen. It is difficult to learn their style of walking & it is more difficult to learn fearlessness.
After getting down the huge tall mountain with the help of the rope & the sherpas we again took a good rest. After walking on plain for some time we came on morain again. It was uphill & down hill & very tiring. While walking on the huge boulders & rocks we experienced classic examples of wrong judgment. The boulder which we used to think must be stable because of its position & size used to tilt with our load putting us off balance many times. It rarely happened with the sherpas. Here also our walking style was incorrect & the fear factor plays an important role. We were slowly learning mountaineering. After climbing a hill on morain we decided to camp there. Firstly because we were totally exhausted & secondly because there was less than an hours day light left. We were still far away from the scheduled camp site of Raj Padav.
The tents were as usual on rocks & pebbles set for acupressure treatment. Just three more nights left including the night at Raj Padav. The temperatures were not that bad because of good weather & because we had come down quite a bit. We had huge rocks like a Thorn to sit like a king. We felt like naming this camp site also as Raj padav. The water source was not very close as we were camping on an unscheduled place. While cooking the dinner, there was frantic search for salt in the left over grocery baggage. In the process of reducing the gross weight at kalindi base camp all the salt was left back by mistake. There were six more meals left in the trek till we were going to see civilization. We told the cooks, its no problem & we can live without salt. But Ramprasad & all others were really upset for the mistake. He decided to walk upto Ghastoli, get some salt from there & join us at the next camp site. That would be walk of about 40 kms for a pinch of salt. Going back to Kalindi Base camp could be shorter but highly risky & was ruled out altogether. That entire evening till dinner was spent on discussion about salt. We were trying to convince him not to do so. All of us were deeply touched with his gesture, his dedication & his concern for us. We had a salt less meal & we really had no complaints. Everything in such treks is lot more difficult than having a meal without salt.
Next day we had to cross a river. We didn’t have the slightest idea about how it is going to be. We only knew that river crossing has to be done at the earliest in the morning before the sun melts all the ice in the quota for that day. The worst part here could be, if the water rises above safe levels then there is no chance that it will come down the same day. You have to wait for the night to freeze some water & then cross the river earliest in the morning. We got up early for a safe river crossing . Before we had a glass of tea Ramprasad & Nandan left for Ghastoli to get salt. We failed to stop them. The thought that these people were going to walk 40 kms to get some salt for us made us sad. A feeling of guilt filled our hearts & minds. But that didn’t stop anything & very soon we also followed them.
The walk was on morain, uphills & down hills. But it was not threatening. Probably because the mountains had started becoming friendly to us. After a long trek we saw the regular camp site of Raj Padav. It was definitely more comfortable & plain than the site where we spent the night. But it would have been impossible for us to reach there previous evening. By 10 am we reached the river. The river was in the form of several big & small streams spread over a huge long plain. The small streams would get swollen & connected as the sun rises & the bigger ones won’t let you cross. With everything in action it could be a ferocious river.
We removed our shoes & socks & folded our pants well above the knees. The sherpas had already crossed the river. They dumped their luggage on the other bank & some of them came to help us. They carried our shoes on shoulders by tying them together & gave us a helping hand. We could jump over some small streams. It took lot of courage to enter the chilled water finally. The first touch of that water made our feet numb. There was no sensation left but the sherpas pulled us ahead and out of that stream. The thought of entering the water few more times froze our feet in the warmish sand. The water was not deep but the current was strong. The sherpas were ready to carry us on their shoulders. But by the grace of God we could push ourselves in & out of the water to reach the other side. It was bright sunshine once again & we dried our feet in the dry sand & generated the lost sensation. We sat on the boulders & thanked our feet with mustard oil. There still was a long way to go to Arwa Taal. By the time we were having our Roti jam lunch, to our surprise Ramprasad & Chandan came back. They found some salt left by some body much earlier. We really felt happy for them & the guilt feeling in our hearts reduced considerably.
As we marched ahead the greenery which had totally vanished for the last whole week made its appearance once again. That was a pleasant sight & was indicating that we were coming down in oxygen rich regions. But that feeling was gone abruptly after seeing the tall mountain which we were supposed to cross. Ramprasad thought of putting up a rope but there were too many ups & downs. We started climbing without rope. The climb was very steep & there was hardly any room to walk. There was sufficient oxygen to breathe & we were not on the glacier. Still I would rate it as one of the most difficult & risky climb we had so far. After a long struggle we were on top of the mountain. We were surprised to see the morain ahead full of the largest size boulders. We wondered once again about the gigantic Shiva quarry & appreciated the forces of the almighty which could perform such a marathon task. It is needless to mention that these same forces which move the rocks, the boulders, the mountains & the water kept us moving in Himalayas in their miniature form. It’s a sorry state of affairs that we don’t realize this in our routine lives.
We reached Arwa Taal camp site by 4.00 pm. The sherpas had already set the tents. After a long time the tents were on plain earth. It was very windy & chilly. I remember spending the whole evening in the shelter of a huge boulder. We asked the sherpas to serve the soup before dinner in our new shelter only. By now the wind & the frost in the night had damaged the zips of few tents & the kitchen tent was no more a protection from wind & cold. The zips of few feather jackets were also not working. Ramprasad as usual had a survey of the next days route & declared that tomorrows river crossing has to be done early morning before the sun comes up too high.
We started at day break & reached the river crossing venue very soon. We had to cross only two streams today but there was lot of water & the current was very strong. We very well knew that the sherpas won’t let us drown in the river. We just had to gather courage to enter the freezing water. We could do it better than yesterday & the whole team was on the other side within a couple of hours. There was no more any major river crossing now & that relived us of the frozen tension within. We were at descent heights now & were walking amongst scattered water streams, boulders & some green patches of grass & wild flowers. On one side were sky scraping mountains & on other side was the river. The beauty was poetic & artistic. This is the place where all the poets, artists, painters & writers could spend their lives but you see only rare mountaineers & amateurs like us coming for threatening adventure or spiritual growth.
There is a competition all over to decide the seven wonders of the world. The choice is limited. And here we lived with thousands of such wonders for 10 days. The choice is unlimited. Amazing beauties were created millions of years back & more of them are being created in destruction of the previous ones. There is never any repetition either in creation or in destruction by the mother nature. Every piece of art is unique. I sincerely felt, why only a handful of us, everyone should get an opportunity to live with the wonders in Himalayas. On our way we met two French couples. They had camped at a beautiful scenic location & were going to stay there & rome around for a week. That’s the way to appreciate the nature & enjoy life. We had already done it & we marched ahead to Ghastoli after having a cup of tea with them.
We reached the Nag Taal camp site near Ghastoli at about 5 pm. The ITBP ( Indo Tibet Border police) post was about 30 minutes walk from Nag Taal. Our food supplies & Kerosene were barely enough for the night. Myself & Ramprasad went to ITBP to seek some help from them. They offered us a cup of tea & a chair to sit. After sitting on the chair I suddenly realized that it was a great comfort for me. After all we had not sat properly for 10 good days.
Unfortunately our inner line permits had not yet reached the ITBP authorities. They said, none of us can cross the post without the permits. That came as a shock to us. The mobiles still did not have the range. Ramprasad decided to go to Badrinath immediately to catch hold of Mahaveer for the permits. I had thought of getting some different food & a good bed to sleep in the ITBP campus. But because of some problem ITBP guys could not help us in any way. I felt totally drained & had no energy to return to the camp site. I was offered a shelter by one Mr. Negi from PWD in his hut. By that time the sun had gone down & it had started drizzling. Even if ITBP would have offered us shelter, I don’t think my other friends would have walked any further in that atmosphere.
Mr. Negi offered me good food & offered me a bed, when I was prepared to sleep on the floor. I was overwhelmed with his gesture. The warmth in the hospitality of such kind hearted people is what GOD is. We unfortunately & ungratefully fail to feel him most of the times. Later on I came to know that many people had experienced the kind heartedness of Shri. Negi. Sleeping on a bed in a blanket was a luxury for me after 10 nights in tents & sleeping bags on the rocks.
The campsite was cleared & everyone reached the ITBP post by 8 am next morning. Mr. Negi prepared parathas & tea for all of us. The ITBP officers were real harsh on us. After several requests & pleading also, they were not ready to let us go. We desperately wanted to reach Badrinath on that day & did not want to waste our day at Ghastoli. Finally by 11 am after lot of negotiations we surrendered our identify proofs to them & kept Himadri as hostage till they receive our permits. After learning mountaineering now we were learning the hostaging business. Luckily we were keeping a hostage with our own supposedly friendly police department & not with the Chinese army next door.
Our last day walk of the expedition commenced like this by 11 am. with the fastest member of the group missing in action. The landscape here was totally different but the tree line was still missing. We were walking amongst the largest boulders we had seen so far. After walking for a couple of hours we saw two gangs trying to break one of the huge boulder with compressors, for construction purpose. With so much force, noise & pollution, they were able to chip of a tiny piece of the huge mass.
The Army officers we met at the site were very polite & they congratulated us for safely & successfully coming back from Kalindi Pass. One of the officers offered a lift up to mana but we missed it by few minutes as we reached late & the vehicle had already gone. After walking for some more time we reached a place where lot of labors were working to build a wall to control land slides. We saw a few dumpers there. These dumpers were in operation for transporting the stones as well as the labors. One such dumper was to leave after some time & we hoped to get a lift in that for a few kilometers. While we were waiting for the dumper, we saw Himadri coming towards us. We were surprised to see him so soon but felt very happy to have him back in the group. Mahaveer had managed to send the permits to ITBP with Army people on ponies. The hostage was set free after seeing the permits. The dumper was ready to go within a short while after Himadri reached.
We were stuffed in the dumper with the labors & luggage like a close packed atomic structure. The driver was very rash & he was driving on the narrow sharp turning downhill roads very roughly. All the forces were against us. Those who were sitting could only feel it & some of us who were standing could see death every turning. It was like a journey in the dumper without brakes. We were dumped down the dumper with luggage after that deadly drive of 6 to 7 kms. For a long time we were thinking that walking would have been a better choice. Fortunately all our spare parts were in tact & we were fit to walk the remaining 4 to 5 km distance upto Mana. The sherpas took us by short cuts straight downhill. To our surprise we did well & could come down comfortably. Finally we learned to become friendly with the friendly mountains when we were going to go away from them.
We reached Mana early evening. Mana is a small but mythologically very important village just 5 kms away from Badrinath. It is also the last village on Indian side before the China Border. Mahaveer was ready with vehicles to receive us. We didn’t waste much time & reached Badrinath before sunset. After reaching the hotel everybody wanted just to lie down on the bed. Nobody was willing to take a bath & go to the temple. Myself & Himadri decided to go to Badrinath. First we took hot water bath in the Tapt kund for more than an hour. The body wanted a hot bath in the cold after ten good days. The water was so hot, that we had to keep it in a bucket for sometime before we could use it. There was nobody around. I completed my Vishnu Sahastra naam while bathing. Himadri was a patient listener. After bath we had a good pooja & Darshan of Badri Vishal as there was no much crowd.
In the night, it was now our turn to treat the sherpas with dinner in a good hotel. We took them to a good hotel & thanked them a lot. We expressed that, it was only because of them, we could complete the pilgrimage cum expedition & come back safely . They didn’t like it much. They held our hands & said, its nothing like that & they are surviving because we are there. At that point all of us including the sherpas became sentimental. The art of love & appreciation for each other was complete from both sides. We felt relieved of their debt. Some of them were to start their onward journey early next morning. We might see them again only if destined. We said good night to them & parted like close friends.
Next day was my Birthday & my eyes opened at 5 am after hearing Vishnu Sahastranaam being played at Badrinath temple. It was a divine way to start the day. After everybody got ready, we went to Badrinath. I was going to perform the act of offering the Gangajal from Gaumukh to Lord Vishnu for which I had taken so much efforts. After a nice hot bath, all of us went to the temple for Darshan. There was no crowd at all, but to our surprise the temple doors were closed. The temple was going to remain closed for the whole day as lord Vishnu goes to see his mother in Mana village on that particular day. Its probably the mother’s day for the Gods. We were totally nervous with the news.
Myself & Himadri had a very good Darshan the previous evening but the others were going to be deprived of it. I was not going to be able to offer the Gangajal on the feet of Lord Vishnu from where Ganga is supposed to have originated. May be it was not supposed to be so as per the Shastras. It was probably not an acceptable ritual. But my desires were not totally turned down. I could offer the Gangajal on the foot steps of the temple & chant Vishnu sahastranaam there in bright sunshine. The lord blessed me with Darshan the previous evening but did not allow me to do something against the tradition. Thinking that the Lord wants to call us again for Darshan on some other time, we returned to the hotel, packed our baggage & started for Joshimath in the afternoon. For the first time there was a feeling of starting our return journey. There were no plans now & there were no desires left.
We visited all the good temples in Joshimath & had a relaxed evening. That night India won the 20-20 world championship & we witnessed a grand celebration in the town. The next day morning started with rains & we had to cancel our ropeway visit to Auli. We had planned to stay in Joshimath that day & then visit Tunganath on the way next day as we had a couple of days to spare. On TV we saw that the climate had gone very bad in Himalayas from where we had come down. The group which started 4 days after us for Kalindi Pass could not make it & they had to be rescued by the rescue teams. We had no words to express our gratitude for the mother nature. Only the tears in our eyes could express our feelings.
The rains gradually increased & the climate in Joshimath also did not remain good. The bright sunshine was gone. The Almighty was telling us that I have fulfilled all your desires, protected you like children during your expedition & given you success. Now go home without mixing up issues. Let me continue with my job. We got the hint, got the message & started immediately for Rudraprayag. Fortunately we reached Rudraprayag late in the evening without seeing any major land slide. Small land slides here & there are very common in this region.
It was pouring throughout the night & the picture was scary in the morning. We could not even visit the famous Koteshwar temple & had to start for Haridwar immediately to avoid traffic jams due to massive landslides. By evening we reached Haridwar. The expedition was over. We had the ropeway rides & could visit all the temples in Devlok before we went to Delhi for our return journey to Bombay.
Now its more than a month since we are home. Our mind is still wandering in the great mountains & glaciers of the Himalayan range. Every time I came back from Himalayas, I thought the trip was ultimate and I may not be called again. It might be somebody elses turn as my body may not be able to take the hardships anymore. But this time its different. We are missing the mountains, like you miss your dear ones after a vacations with them. God willing, we may plan our next trip within a couple of years.
Everyone of us will remains grateful to the Almighty the rest of our lives for taking us like children to show his creations & bring us back home safely. We will always pray the lord for the well being of everyone & for providing such opportunities to more & more people.
It will be ungrateful not to thank everyone in my 35 years old group of friends & their families who made some fake, ugly & cruel allegations on me on 28th April 2007. The frustration, the agony & the heart burning deserted feeling arising from the shock of the incidence was definitely instrumental in giving the final push for taking the decision of going to the life threatening expedition to Kalindi Khal.
! Jai Mata Dee !
OM NAMAH SHIVAYA
CALL OF GANGOTRI
THE GLACIER
It all started when I casually asked Pramod in the corridor whether he has any plans this year for Trekking in Himalayas. This was in the first week of May 2007. Pramod Denghale is my collegue working in the laboratory. He is fond of trekking & has done many treks with his wife & son. He said ‘Kalindi Pass’ was his dream trek since 1987 & he is planning for it this year. He knew that I also had been in Himalayas several times. He didn’t know that I am not a trekker like him. Still he asked me whether I am interested in joining him for the ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek. I didn’t have the slightest idea about ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek. In fact I hadn’t even heard about it till then. I brought Pramod to my office & he briefed me about the ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek. From whatever he told me, I could understand that this trek means going from Gangotri to Badrinath on foot, up & up in the Himalayan range & touch an altitude of about 20000 feet enroute. I told him, it sounds interesting & very casually said, let us see how it works. We met number of times after that. But nothing concrete happened & ‘Kalindi Pass’ remained on the background only.
One fine morning Pramod came to my office with all the maps & booklets about ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek. He also had the proposed itenary of the trek given by the tour organizer. For the first time there was some seriousness in our discussion. I was thinking about the trek all these days but things were not shaping up. I had recently done Chardham yatra which covers both Gangotri & Badrinath. But I could not go to ‘Gaumukh’ because of bad weather that time. Gaumukh is the place from where ‘Ganga’ is seen emerging out. Visiting ‘ Gaumukh’! Could be it a sufficient enough reason for me to go to ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek? I was not getting convinced. Normally people take the holy water from ‘Gangotri’ or ‘Gaumukh’ & offer it to ‘Kedarnath’ & ‘Rameshwaram’. That’s the tradition.
A strange thought struck my mind. Ganga originated when the Devas (Gods) washed Lord Vishnu’s Charankamal (feet) in Swargalok (Heaven). The Devas wanted to bring this holy water on the prithwilok (Earth) for the wellbeing of mankind. To control the speed of ‘Ganga’ Lord Shiva held the ‘Gangamaiya’ on his head. In his Jatasambhar. King Bhagirath meditated & requested Bholebaba to release the ‘Ganga’ slowly for the wellbeing of every one. This is how the mythology goes. I thought of offering the Ganga water originating from Lord ‘Vishnu’s Charankamal & coming out from Bholebaba’s Jata at Gaumukh, back to Lord Vishnu at Badrinath. This strange thought & the thoughts of chanting ‘Vishnuahastranam’ at Gangotri & Badrinath started firming up the ‘Kalindi Pass’ trek in my mind.
Myself & Pramod started working seriously on the trek. Because of my reconstructed left knee there was lot of resistance from my family members, relatives & friends. I was also not very sure about my abilities & there was lot of confusion in my mind. But for some known & more unknown reasons, the decision was taken. Myself & Pramod decided to go to Gangotri & walk to Badrinath. Our tour organizer Mahaveer Rana from Joshimath said a group of 7 to 8 people would be ideal but he can accommodate 10 to 12 members also. Because I was not knowing the seriousness I casually started asking people whether they are interested in joining us. Everybody thought its a tough pilgrimage. The thought of touching 20000 feet was very exciting & thrilling. I thought of gathering a group of about 10 members. I asked many friends & youngsters and felt that the crowd might exceed 12 members. But as more & more information bout ‘Kalindi Khal’ poured in, I realized that we had made a mistake by considering it merely as a trek. For amateurs like us it was more than an expedition. Our tour organizer Mahaveer also insisted that we should include medically fit members who are exposed to high altitudes & who are in touch with trekking in Himalayas’. Even I could barely fit into these requirements. I rather got myself qualified as the ‘Sankalp’ was already made.
After a serious thought I had to cancel almost all the names I had put on the list as likely candidates. I freshly started looking for members. I called Praful Malode who works in Tata Power Company. Praful is a friend of mine & was my companion in my Amarnath trip. He was planning to go to Ladakh on vacation with his family. He was quite surprised with a proposal for ‘Kalindi Khal from a legally disabled person like me because he very well knew what ‘kalindi Khal; means. He immediately came to me. We had a long discussion & after seeing my intentions he canelled his Ladakh vaction to join me. Praful joined me so instantaneously because he had missed ‘Kalindi Khal’ trek twice in the past for some family problems. I don’t know whether his wife is cursing me or not for being a cause in cancellation of their family vacation. Any way our member no. 3 got confirmed. Still the expedition wanted more members.
I then called Anant Kamath. Anant was my colleague in RCF. He is a good friend of mine & was my companion during my Kailas-manas & Chardham trips. He wanders in Himalayas like a monk. Coincidently he was also planning a vacation in Ladakh with his family. He took some time to cancel his vacation but decided to join me. Wife No. 2 to curse me but member no. 4 for ‘Kalindi Khal’ confirmed. Now there was no come back.
I then called Shankar Sapre. Sapre works in the plant & we once spent a couple of days together on official tour. That time I had told him about my number of visits to Himalayas. He was quite impressed with my experiences & had told me that whenever I plan my next trip to Himalayas he will be interested. When I asked him about Kalindi Khal expedition, he immediately agreed to join us. Sapre was the least experienced & least exposed member of the group. He was totally innocent about trekking in high altitudes. But he is a strong man.
Now the five men army was all set. Initially our tour organizer said last week of August will be fine to start the trek. But the dates were changed again & again due to expected bad weather as per the forecast. Finally the date was freezed in the 2nd week of Sept.07 & we booked our tickets to Delhi by Rajdhani Express for 7th Sept.07 . After booking our tickets one month in advance, the preparations started in the real sense. We started meeting often to plan for the journey & to prepare a list of things to be carried by every one. Based on every body’s past experiences & the instructions from Mahaveer I prepared a list of things to be carried & gave a copy to everyone.
We decided to carry three luggage items individually. One 30 litre capacity personal back pack, one bag for the trek, to be carried by the porters & one bag required for the return journey things. One very good waist pouch is a must for all the treks.
We were supposed to carry a rain protection popularly known as poncho or Barsati in the trekking language, sweater, monkey cap, hand gloves, snow goggles, spare socks, dry fruits, water bottle & glucon D for a days survival, medicines, camphor, torch, swiss knife etc. in the personal sack & waist pouch. In Himalayas at high altitudes the climate is highly unpredictable. You may feel like removing your hand gloves & jacket in bright sunshine & the next moment the sun goes behind the clouds or there is a strong breeze & your fingers could get numb instantly. While walking in a group due to some reasons you may lag behind or loose the track & if the climate goes rough then your back pack & pouch should be your survival kit till you are rescued. Now a days there are exclusive shops where you could get all the goods required during trekking. We got all the things as per our list in Great outdoors at thane. A telescopic metallic walking stick proved to be a good buy for me.
The bag to be carried by the porters contained one spare pant, one shirt, two underwears & banians, two extra pairs of socks, one thin towel, antifungal powder & cream, some food items like laddus, khakra, chiwda, chikki, pickle, chatni etc. All the things other than this & not required during the trek were supposed to go back to Joshimath. Even though there are porters to carry extra luggage, one has to understand that they are also humans. It is really stupid to carry any unrequired thing on such treks. At high altitudes a swiss knife could also become a luggage by itself.
All our purchases & preparations were almost completed. We had sent our two passport size photographs & copy of residence proof to Mahaveer for getting the most necessary innerline permit. This is required as we were going to move in the most isolated high altitude regions full of different types of risky situations ( Not known to us in details) while trekking in areas sometimes close to the India-China border. The Indian mountaineering foundation authorities at Delhi told us that no permit is required if we were gong to start the trek from Gangotri. Some people start the trek from Gangotri. Somepeople start the trek from Mana village near Badrinath & walk upto Gangotri via Kalindi Pass. According to IMF authorities, the permit is required only if you are starting from Mana. The permit is issued by the District Mgistrate at Joshi Math or Uttarkashi. In spite of IMF’s advise we decided to obtain the permit & instructed Mahaveer accordingly. We did not know that the permit is going to be a crucial document for concluding the trek.
Just four days before our schedule departure Jagasia called me & said that he wants to join us. Mohan Jagasia is a very old friend of mine. He works with me but in administration. He was with me during the chardham Yatra. He is a very pius person & is very witty also. He has a good stamina for walking. I had asked him earlier about the trek but he had some problems about his leave. I personally felt happy because he could come with us. We jointly approved his arrival in the group. Everybody felt nice because six is a reasonable & convenient crowd. The list of goods was already prepared & everything could be easily arranged for Jagasia within a couple of days. This is how the most heterogeneous group of six of us was all set to march ahead for the Kalindi Khal trek. I knew all the members very well but the rest of them met each other for the first time during our meetings. Everybody’s intentions & goals were different. Pramod & Praful were coming because Kalindi Khal was the most challenging and prestigious dream trek for them. Kamat was coming because he is crazy about Himalayas. Sapre was coming just to have a new experience. Jagasia decided to come mainly because I insisted & he likes pilgrimages. My intentions were different. I wanted to collect the Holy water of Ganga at Gaumukh & offer it to Lord Vishnu at Badrinath. Secondly I wanted to chant comlete Vishnu Sahastranaam at Gangotri, Badrinath & everywhere in the Land of Lord Shiva. I was instrumental in gathering this indifferent group & this group was going to be instrumental in fulfilling all my desires enroute.
Just two days left for departure & the countdown started. There were restless moments & the nights became sleepless. The thoughts of the trek crowded our minds. We were showered with good wishes & blessings by all the known. In old times people used to go on tough pilgrimages after winding up every thing & breaking all ties. They considered the possibility that they may not be able to come back due to health failure or due to adverse climatic conditions. We did not know that Kaindi Khal was the expedition where there is every possibility of various mishaps. So we eagerly waited for the arrival of the departure day. Sixth Sept. was my last working day. I wound up & handed over the jobs on hand but I could hardly concentrate on work. All my officemates wished our group best luck for the expedition. I had increased my daily walking from 45 minutes to 90 minutes as a preparation for the expedition. I was also practicing yogasanas & pranayam for fitness. That day, I went for my routine walk in a lonely area inside the factory premises in the evening. I was lost in the thoughts of Kalindi Pass trek & suddenly two garden lizards ran over my feet. I stopped for a while to let them pass & just happened to look in the front. There was a cobra sitting upright right in the middle of the road about five feet away from me. I stared at the cobra for a few minutes. The cobra was also very steady. I then lightly banged my foot on the ground & the cobra went into the nearby bushes. I took it as a blessing from the Lord for my trek & returned to the office. After reaching home that day I checked all the luggage and ensured that all the required things are there. Finally the D day arrived. I did all the packing in the morning. Friends, relatives & family members wished me good luck. Everyone thought, I am going on some different pilgrimage because Kalindi Khal is hardly known by commoners like us. It remains a dream only for professional trekkers.
I took a taxi to Bombay central & picked up Praful at Chembur. Every one else was to come on his own. Myself, Praful & Pramod reached the platform by 4.15 pm. Rajdhani leaves Bombay at sharp 4.40 pm. Till 4.30 the Kamat, Sapre and Jagesia could not reach the station. Jagasia somehow managed to reach the station by 4.35. Kamat & Sapre were stuck up in a nasty traffic Jam. At first their local train got delayed because the Motormen went on strike. All sorts of such things happened & finally they missed the train by a few minutes. Fortunately there is another train to Delhi within an hours time & luckily they could get tickets for the next train. We prayed God and thought that if such problems come in the beginning then our planned journey ahead will be smooth & that is what was planned by the almighty.
Kamat & Sapre reached Delhi a few hours after us & we immediately proceeded to Hrishikesh by jeep. Even though we had planned to carry minimum luggage our total luggage was quite a lot & it was a job by itself to carry it. We reached Hrishikesh in the evening. We spent the night in a good hotel & started for Utterkashi early next morning by Jeep. It was fun traveling on the same route second time & every thing looked familiar. We reached Uttarkashi in the afternoon & checked in in a good hotel. We met our tour organizer Mahaveer there. He introduced us to the Sherpas who were to accompany us as guides, cooks & porters. They looked very fresh & charged up for the expedition. Mahaveer still hadn’t got the permit & he was processing for it. He checked everybody’s luggage personally & rejected many things which we had thought of carrying on the trek. These things went back to Joshimath. Mahaveer kept only those things really necessary during the trek. Every one need not carry a separate toothpaste. Common things like that are to be carried in common. The weight to be carried for the trek has to be cut down to that extent. It’s good for everyone.
The evening was a little free. We all went to the Kashi Vishwanath temple & took blessings from the Lord. Then we were briefed about the trek by Shri.Himalaya Sherpa. That’s his name & he is a known figure in the trekking world. We got lot of useful tips about walking on the boulders, walking on the glacier, river crossing, dealing with the cold & high altitudes etc. His talk was serious & that was the first time when we got a good idea about what we are supposed to do in the next two weeks. Next day morning we met Himadri Bandopadhya from Durgapur over breakfast. He had planned for Kalindi Khal trek with his two friends. His two friends had to cancel their reservation last minute due to some family problems. His tour organizer Shri. Himalaya Sherpa & our tour organizer Mahaveer asked Himadri to request us to accommodate him. He & his family had no hopes that six strangers from Bombay will agree to take Himadri with them for the trek & he was prepared to go on some other trek since he had already reached Uttarkashi. We were taken by surprise when Himadri requested us to include him in our group. He had a valid inner line permit & we apparently found no reason to say no to him. The six of us thought for a while & told him that he can join us. Other arrangements were to be done by the tour organizers. Himadri could not believe his own ears. He expressed his gratitude in all the possible ways. He said we were like Gods to him because Kalindi Khal was his dream & unless we said yes, there was no chance of his dream coming true. Along with Mahaveer we also tried for our innerline permit that day. Very soon we realized that its not an easy job & could take some more time. We wrote letters to the District Magistrate, Divisional forest officer, superintendent of police & intelligence unit office giving them our personal details & informing them about our itenary for Kalindi pass in details.
Uttarkashi is at about 3300 ft altitude & now there was no point in wasting time there. Mahaveer asked us to proceed to Gangotri for acclamatization. He was to get the permit, arrange for all the goods & follows us next day. Uttarkashi to Gangotri is about 100 kms by road. We started for Gangotri. in the afternoon. On the way we stopped at Gangnani where there are hot water springs. We had plans to take a bath there. But by the time we reached there, it started drizzling. We didn’t want to take any chances with the weather. So we cancelled the Bath plans & straightway reached Gangotri just after the sunset. Gangotri is at about 9700 ft. altitude & we felt a sudden chill in the atmosphere as soon as we got down from the Jeep. It was so cold that we had to put on our sweaters & jackets immediately. We checked in in hotel Mandakini. We had a view of Ganga water flowing freely & its sound was continuously there as background music. We walked around for some time, had dinner & retired in our rooms. The next day was for acclamatization. We got ready early next morning & went to Gangotri temple to take blessings from Gangamaiya. Afterall we were going to walk along the river till Gaumukh & then go far beyond Gaumukh all along its rivulets which carry the water up to Gaumukh as a never ending mission.
From the temple we went for a practice trek towards Gaumukh. Acclamatization means not only staying there but you have to tune up your body by walking at high altitude in the cold weather. We must have walked about five kms one way. The walk warmed up our bodies & it was bright sunshine when we returned to Gangotri. We gathered all the courage & took bath in the ice cold chilled water of the Holy Ganga river. I then sat on the steps & chanted complete Vishnu Sahstranaam in front of Gangamaiya. It took about one hour & the sun all the time protected me from the cold weather. My first desire was so completely fulfilled by the Lord.
In the afternoon Mahaveer arrived with all the Sherpas & all the luggage in a truck. Unfortunately he could not get the permit. But he said he will get it from Uttarkashi after seeing us off & ensure that it reaches Ghastoli where we were supposed to land after the trek. So we were not going to get held up for that. We saw all our sherpas loaded with all the luggage like tents, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, jackets, kerosene, cooking oil, rice , dal, atta, tea, sugar, salt, snacks, stoves, spare burners etc. etc. We pitied them but there was no way we could help them. After all, that is their job & they were coming with us on duty.
In the evening we went to Swami Sunderanandji’s Ashram. Luckily there was nobody & we had a privilege of having a long chat with him. He is about 80 years old & is staying at Gangotri for the past more than 50 years. He is the author of the book Himalaya through the lense of a Sadhu & has virtually scanned Himalaya thoroughly. He told us how some lakes have disappeared & how some plants & flowers have become extinct in front of his eyes. According to him this is happening because of Global warming but the increased traffic in the region is equally, responsible for it. Once when he was doing the Kalindi Pass’ trek, he had fallen in a deep crevice in freezing waters. You can understand what is a crevice only after seeing it & walking over it. He could be rescued only after a struggle of 2 to 3 hours. Surprisingly his experience did not scare us but we decided to take utmost care while walking. We touched his feet while leaving. He blessed us & wished good luck & success for our trek.
In the evening Mahaveer gave us final instructions & asked us to start early next morning. In the real sense, tomorrow was going to be the Day 1 of the trek. In our group of seven, only Pramod ( 45 yrs.) & Himadri ( 38 yrs) were younger. Rest of us were 50 plus. Now we had some idea about what we were supposed to do in the coming days. You can know it exactly only after doing it. So we asked Mahaveer whether oldies like us will be able to do it or not? Whether we are on the right trek or not? He had seen our enthusiasm for the last 2-3 days & he said we are all fit people & we will definitely complete the trek. He & the sherpas had not liked our taking bath at Gangotri in the afternoon. According to them such bath could make you sick during high altitude trek. But they also encouraged us & said that under any circumstances they will ensure that we complete the trek successfully. We got somewhat relieved with their words & went to bed early after dinner.
We were all set with our personal sacks & ready to go early morning next day. We decided to prey the Lord with the rising sun before starting & we religiously followed this ritual every day. Mahaveer reminded us of the important instructions. He asked us to use the walking stick & asked us to start the day as early as possible. Starting early & reaching the destination early every day is very important while trekking in Himalayas for two reasons. As the sun rises the snow melts faster & it could become difficult or sometimes impossible to cross even small water streams which are other wise causal. Secondly if the climate goes rough & you are stuck up, then you have more of day light to escape when you start early. Things could be very difficult if the tents are not ready before night falls.
After our prayers Mahaveer said final goodbye to us & we took our first step with slogans of Bum bum bhole & Ganpati Bappa Morya. We were seven members & 17 sherpas were accompanying us. Our target for day 1 was to reach Bhojwasa by about 3 pm. Bhojwasa is at about 12500 ft. altitude & is about 15 kms. from Gangotri. These are the Pahadi Kilometers & in reality the distance might be much more every where. According to me walking one pahadi km. at high altitude could be equivalent to walking 5 kms at ground level. The walk was pleasant initially as we were fresh. The mountains look beautiful & Gangotri temple says good bye to you for a long time. After about 3 kms there is a forest office. Our guides completed the formalities with them but nobody asked us about any permit. There is a distinct pathway & there are a few tea stall enroute. We were slowly gaining height as we walked ahead. After chidwasa there are no tea stalls and the greenery also reduces drastically. Sept. & October are lean months for tourist in these areas & mostly people going to Gaumukh & Tapowan, and trekers like us are only seen during this period. We marched ahead walking along the mountains & inbetween the mountains. We were taking small steps. The talking with each other automatically reduced & we took few minutes rest frequently to restore the breath. The long walking of Day 1 slowly came to an end & we reached Bhojwasa by 3 pm. We didn’t feel the cold while walking but Bhojwasa was extremely cold and we had to put on all the gears for cold. Bhojwasa has one big temple with many rooms, there is one Gadhwal Nigam hotel & there is one good set up of Hydrology department of Rourkela. They study the behaviour of Gangotri Glacier for six months. The other six months the area is all snow covered. Their present study tells that the Glacier is receding or melting at the rate of 20 meters per year. We were quite shocked with the information. We did not know that we were going to see the phenomenon with our own eyes for the next few days.
Our sherpas were yet to come, so myself & Jagasia went in the temple to protect ourselves from the cold. I took permission from the priest there & did my Vishnu Sahastranaam prayer for full one hour. We then went to the camping site. By that time all the members & the sherpas had reached. The tents were being set & dinner preparations were going on. There was another group camped near us. They were going for summit to Bhagirathi peak. We went for a walk on the river nearby. We examined the tents after coming back. We were not satisfied with the tents. The jackets we were wearing were also not giving very good protection from cold. The tent was certainly going to be uncomfortable for my height. The idea of spending 12 nights in those tents was scary & I was totally disappointed. We realised our mistake of not inspecting everything provided by Mahaveer at Uttarkashi. You could get a chance to correct such mistakes at ground level but we had no chance to make any corrections at Bhojwasa. We were already one day ahead towards loneliness & no civilization zone. Jagasia’s state of mind was worst than mine. We decided to sleep in the temple to reduce one night in open & in the tent. Praful also joined us.
Even in that remote place they served us good hot food as Prasad at 7 pm only. We killed some time after dinner & went to bed. The cold was bad & we could hardly sleep. We were discussing about the tents, the cold & the long trek ahead. We thought our decision to come for such a expedition was wrong. Finally out of frustration myself & Jagasia decided to go back home from Gaumukh. Praful tried to change our mind but finally agreed to what we were saying. The morning was pleasant. Myself & Praful went to our camp site early monrning. Jagasia stayed back in the temple. Everybody felt sad with our decision to go back. Right from the sherpas every one tried to convince me. Himadri offered me his tent which was a little longer & a little taller. I went inside the tent & actually slept inside for five minutes. All the tents were for two persons & I thought I could manage in that tent. I came out from the tent with a smily face & everybody had a sigh of relief. I was not going back home. All of us then went to the temple & tried to convince Jagasia. We brought him to the camp site & everyone tried to tell him that he can do it. But for some unknown reasons none of us could change his mind & he remained firm on his decision to go back from Gaumukh.
All of us had some breakfast & got ready for the Day 2 walk. After the prayers we started our walk at about 8 am. The sherpas used to give us a lead of about one hour everyday. They would take their breakfast, clean the utensils, pack everything and then start.They would comfortably catch up with amateur oldies like us within a couple of hours. The walk upto Gaumukh is quite long & by the time you reach Gaumukh the greenery almost disappears. The looks of Gaumukh are not very pleasant as you see cracks in the melting ice which appears like rocks & not like ice. We saw Ganga emerging out from the bottom of the melting glacier. Seeing the holy river originating silently like this gives a divine pleasure. We didn’t venture a bath there & just took a refreshing wash in the comparatively silent chilled water. We did our pooja & prayers & took blessings from the holy river.
The flow of water in this region is not very rough & the amount of water is also not huge. As the river travels ahead more & more streams merge into it and the current becomes strong & rough. After all it has to carry the soil with it & erode the mighty rocks on its way. By the time all the sister rivers reach Haridwar as Gangamaiya the flow is very rough, strong and scary. We sat there for some time wondering about this wonderful phenomenon. We took our lunch break there. Our cooks had given us packed lunch. We again tried to convince Jagasia over lunch. But we failed miserably. Because of the extreme cold & exhaustive walking Jagasia decided to turn back from Gaumukh. With a heavy heart & a strange feeling we said final Goodbye to him. Our guide went with him upto Bhojwasa. Meeting Jagasia again was totally in the hands of the almighty now.
I collected the holy Gangajal at Gaumukh to carry it all the way to Badrinath. Our walk was routed from behind Gaumukh for about 100 miles. We had to walk on boulders. In the sherpa language they call it a morain walk. The walk on the morain is difficult, tricky & tiring. The sherpas with so much luggage were walking much more easily. Because of the boulders the distance between the two steps can not be maintained. Sometimes you have to take small steps, sometimes long steps & sometimes you have to jump. After climbing or jumping you have to take rest to restore the breath. A small plain walk after one range of morain is little relaxing. There are many picturesque sites enroute but we could not take pictures everywhere. Taking out the camera from the sack & take a video shoot or a photo becomes an activity by itself & at high altitudes you are totally engrossed in taking care of your walking & your breath. Watching the beauty of Himalayas & storing it in the CPU becomes a full time job on such expedition for amateurs like us.
On our way we had to walk on the glaciers & cross many water streams. The water was very cold but very clean. We were instructed not to drink the cold water directly. We used to hold the sip of water in the mouth for some time to increase the temperature & then gulp it down. Actually till Uttarkashi we drank bottled water but from Gangotri onwards, through out our trek & till Haridwar we consumed the available stream water. Fortunately by the grace of God none of us had any water related stomach problems.
We reached Nandanvan late in the evening. There was a platoo for our second night halt. The sun was about to set & we were totally exhausted. The group of expert trekkers going for Bhagirath 2 summit was next doors to us. Surprisingly they were also totally exhausted & we were keeping pace with them. Nandanvan has big & small white stones spread all over & in between them, on the ground there were colorful tiny leaves & flowers. It looks like a beautiful Rangoli made by the mother nature. Our sherpas quickly set the tents & started preparing dinner. They served us a three course dinner, starting with hot soup, then the main course followed by a dessert. They never forgot to serve us hot bournvita drink before we went to bed. They served us like this every single day throughout our trek. Their dedication towards us as members was unique of its kind.
The night was chilly & the wind chill factor makes it worst. With some piece mill sleep the night came to an end & we came out of the tents early morning as per the instructions of our guide. There was thick frost on the tent & all over the ground. The sherpas gave us hot water for brushing the teeth. But brushing the teeth no more remained a ritual because of the cold & we did it irregularly.
We were instructed to consume more liquids & less solid food. We used to have a glass or two of warm water before starting tea drinking. The water was of course stream water & it was not clean always. We asked the sherpas to filter it but they rarely did so & convinced us that what they were serving us was good drinking water. We had no choice & fortunately we had no problems also. After water we used to have a couple of glasses of hot tea. We must have drank about 1 ½ litres of tea every day during the trek. After tea they served us good break fast. But to their disappointment we used to have very little of it. Our appetite had reduced a lot & we could consume hardly 1/3rd of food as compared to what we consume at sea level. After breakfast we got ready for the 3rd day walk. Ramprasad as usual told us that the first two days were very tough & things will not be as bad as that. Very soon we realized that he said it just to boost up our morals. The walk was from Nandanvan to Vasukitaal. Which is about 10 kms. & Vasukitaal is at about 14500 ft. altitude. The walk was on the morain & we were asked to halt where the route was confusing. We never took any chances & waited for the sherpas to arrive whenever there was confusion. We couldn’t afford any extra steps at high altitudes. Every step was precious & we had to conserve our breath. When breathing becomes difficult camphor helps a lot. All of us had kept camphor very handy. Surprisingly the sherpas don’t need such things. They become fresh to walk after a few minutes rest. They will probably get suffocated while crossing a road in Mumbai in a traffic jam.
We were walking on huge boulders, rocks,& loose soil. Some times uphill & sometimes downhill. The so called pathway in the loose soil track on the hills was very steep sometimes & was barely wide just to accommodate one foot step. On one side was the loose mountain wall & on other side was deep valley. After the valley we could see rough river water flowing amongst the boulders. Almost all our walk up & down the hills throughout our trek was like this. On whatever we were walking, beneath that there was millions of years old ice, somewhere getting exposed & somewhere protected. The sight of such old ice melting at dangerous rates in many places was definitely threatening our own future.
The landscape of most of our journey was that of a gigantic stone quary beyond the imagination of human beings. I thought like that in my earlier Himalaya trips also but our this journey from Gangotri to Badrinath via Kalindi Pass confirmed that Himalaya is nothing but Lord Shiva’s Stone quarry & water supply department. Whatever goes up has to come down & that is happening all over the world. We were within the tallest & huge mountain range in the world. What we observed every moment was mass destruction of the sky scrapping mountains. The sun, the rain, the snow & the wind all these agencies are assigned this job & they all are working as per the schedule. The global warming is accelerating the process but our every step & every breath in the brittle mountains was also helping the destruction. The tough ice which the sun is not able to melt because of the cold is given a beating by big & small stones falling from great heights. The surface is cracked & chipped off. The destruction must go on. You can see several channels of erosion in the huge mountains made by flowing water during monsoon & melting ice water during summer. The snow which slides after loosing the anchoring is more damaging to the mountain than the flowing water. Such sliding snow is a live glacier. An avalanche.
After a never-ending difficult walk on the debris on top of hard ice we reach the foot hills of a huge mountain of more debris. We missed a heart beat with the thought of climbing that mountain on 70 degree up hill slope on a narrowest possible path. According to Ramprasad, few years back the route was not so bad. The melting ice & the sliding mountains had made it the worst. The guide & few sherpas climbed the mountain & set up a rope all the way for us. When we watched them climbing, we realized that it was a challenging job even for expert trekkers. For us they would call it a foolish, life threatening adventure. But we were there. We pushed ourselves one by one towards the rope. Most of us were going to do climbing with rope for the first time in our lives & the mountain before Vasuki taal is certainly not a place to learn climbing with a rope. The steps towards the rope were definitely not exciting. In fact we were scared. The sherpas took all our luggage & supported each one of us. Every step on that about 200 mtrs. long path was risky. The climb was one at a time on the rope. We were feeling short of breath every step & we had to stop frequently to restore the breath. All of us had a couple of accidental swings on the rope while climbing & we thought we are going to fall on the glacier. Some how we managed to cling to the rope. Like gulping down a drink I gulped the last few meters of the climb to finish it off. That was a mistake & I had to lie down flat on the top for ten good minutes before I could restore my breath. After every body reached the top, it was a kind of celebration for us.
Few of the sherpas had marched ahead of us & already set up the kitchen tent. From the top where we were standing the tent looked like a small dot on a huge screen. That meant we had to walk so much further to reach the day 3 camp. But it was all down the hill & was a pleasure for us after the terrifying climb. We must have reached the Vasuki Taal camp at about 4 pm. Vasuki Taal is a small shrunken lake. We remembered Sunderanandji’s words that many lakes are shrinking & disappearing slowly. Just before the camp site we had to cross a small water stream which was merging in the lake. The stream was full of small & big stones & we could cross it on the stones without wetting our feet. The frozen ice between the stones gave us a good idea of the night temperatures. That stream was our source of water & all our camp sites were chosen closer to a good source of water or sometimes ice. We had so far not taken out our Thermal wear but we were advised to start using the Thermal even during daytime from Vasuki Taal onwards. Thermal is a very thin pure wool two piece inner wear.
The sherpas very quickly set the tents & started serving us. There was one more tent of Bhagirath 2 expedition next to us. We understood that the members could not start from Nandanvan as one girl in the group was badly sick. The extremely tired girl entered the sleeping bag in the tent immediately after the walk to Nandanvan & fell sick. After hearing that we always forced ourselves to rome around outside the tent till bed time after dinner. So far none of us had experienced any serious high altitude sickness besides headache & occasional bleeding from the nose. Still we decided to rest at Vasuki Taal for one day just to get acclamatized. Vasuki Taal is at 14500 ft. altitude & we were advised to get well acclamatized before proceeding further. The idea of not getting up early next day was relaxing but not very exciting. Getting up from a very good sleep is not pleasant but at high altitudes getting a very good sleep is a rare experience.
We took shelter of the sleeping bag after an early dinner & got up early as usual. Getting up early & taking some pictures of the snow covered peaks in the first sunlight was a treat. The oldest man in the group, Anant was always the first one to get up & he never missed the first sunlight. He used to get up before sunrise & wake us up. Some of the pictures taken with the first sun rays falling on snow peaks are the most beautiful pictures & they are the best pictures of our trek. We were not in a hurry that day as there was no set target. We lazied for some time & then got ready for Ganesh Poojan as it was Ganesh Chaturthi on that day. Anant always carries a brass Ganesh idol with him during such pilgrimages. He asked me to give bath to Lord Ganesh in Vasuki Taal. I did so in the chilled water & then we brought the idol in a so called small temple. We took some wet soil & prepared a Shivling & placed the Ganesh idol in front of it. Then we performed pooja & Arti as you were doing it back home. All the sherpas joined us for the Aarti. They made sheera for Prasad. Cadbury, dryfruits & tiny local leaves were also offered to the lord. During Aarti an unbelievable thing happened. We were a crowd of about 20 people clapping for the Aarti & a mouse came from behind the shivling & ate the Prasad in front of Lord Ganesh. The mouse stayed there for a few minutes, came down & climbed on my left foot. I watched the mouse for a few seconds till it was gone. We were all spellbound & there were tears in our eyes. The sherpas said, it is highly unlikely that a mouse could survive here. We took it as blessings from the lord for the tough journey ahead. The sherpas were also surprised with the incidence, but felt happy when we explained them the relation between Lord Ganesh & the mouse.
After Aarti we went for a long walk on the next day route. Walking for 3 to 4 hours instead of 8 to 10 hours is called a rest day when you halt for acclamatization at high altitudes. We returned by lunch time. In the afternoon we changed all our clothing. We dry cleaned ourselves after four days. Thinking of a bath or even a wash for the next six seven days till we reached Badrinath was out of question. And even if any of us had guts to take bath, the sherpas would disapprove of it. According to them a bath in the cold at high altitudes could make you seriously ill & we did not want to take any chances.
We had lot of spare time every day. We were carrying playing cards & a tape recorder. But we never used them. We spent all the spare time fighting with the cold, appreciating the creativity & destructivity of the mother nature, doing revision of the previous days walking & imagining about tomorrows mountain range. The mobile phones were all dead from day one. There was no life in the mountains & we had lost contact with the live outside world. We did not even know when we stopped thinking about the family, the office & the routine civilian life. Our thoughts had become channalized only towards our fitness & walking through the great Himalayas. All this had happened without any special efforts or meditation. No wonder our great Rishis and even the Gods came to Himalayas for meditation. In Himalayas our routine was to walk a lot everyday. But we were welcome every step & every day by different & beautiful scenery. There was no repetition. In our day to day life we see the same cars on road, meet same people, do the same work & get exhausted at the end of the day because we live in the man made materialistic world. In Himalayas you imagine and wait for a beautiful tomorrow blessed by the mother nature.
We entered the sleeping bags at around 8.30 pm after an early dinner. As usual Ramprasad told us that tomorrow is going to be an easy day. We got convinced for that because they were not going to give us packed lunch but prepare lunch after reaching the destination. Still we got up early & got ready for the walk. We had so far seen Shivling, KedarDome, Bhagarath I, II, III & Vasuki peeks. We captured the visible peaks in the camera & started our walk after the prayers. Anant asked me to chant the Vishnu sahastranaam silently while walking. He said that will be my vitamin V. I ofcourse, said it for every one & it became the vitamin for the entire group. After all our prayers are for the well being of everyone & not for the individual.
The walk from Vasuki Taal to Khada Patthar was about 12 kms. We were not to gain much height that day. The distance was comparatively less but the walk was tiring as we were continuously on the boulders, on the morain. There was very fine sand somewhere & there were huge boulders of the size of the room you are sitting in. There were huge rocks sitting on small piece of ice in the river. The water cuts the ice or the ice melts & the rocks would move. The water cutting the huge hard rocks reminded us of a lathe machine on which a big metal piece is being cut slowly by the tool. The stone quarry was live. Myself & Anant think on similar wave lengths. We were all the time wondering about the mechanism which was breaking the sky scraping mountains into all possible sizes. There were heaps of stones of different sizes ready for dispatch to Bay of Bengal. There was no dynamite used & there was no heavy duty earth moving machinery in operation. The breaking, sizing & transportation was all free of cost without any pollution.
We were wandering in the Shiva stone quarry which was like a Art Gallery with beautiful mountain paintings on both sides. The display of colors in the sky & on the mountains was amazing & you need an eye to appreciate it. Then we were thinking from day one why we are there? People say marriages are arranged in heaven. People also say that children are the gift of God. I would go a fews steps ahead & say that such pilgrimages, such strips are very well planned in heaven. Thousands of people visit Amarnath & Char Dham every year. We were fortunate to be amongst them a few years back. Then we were invited to Kailas Mansarovar where only a couple of thousand people are able to go every year. It was our promotion. We were more fortunate. But the mountains in which we were wandering now was a rare privilege. Not even hundred people are able to do so in an year. It was no more a promotion for us. It was the ultimate elevation for us. We cannot create divine things. So the mother nature, the Almighty, invites the loving ones to show what the PARMATMA has created. A trailor of how it is going to be destroyed is a part of the creation. You have to realize it, understand it & appreciate it. And appreciation is nothing but the highest & purest form of love. It comes free. It asks for nothing & gives everything.
By now the Manasik Jaap of OM NAMAH SHIVAY’ & ‘VISHNU SAHASTRA NAAM’ had become a reflex action & it happened whenever I was alone. We reached Khada Patthar camp site by 2 pm. There is a huge boulder standing alone on the mountain in front of us. That is why the name Khada Patthar to the camp site. The sherpas were already there & lunch was almost ready. There was no plain ground anywhere & the tents were on the stones only. It was going to be a good acupressure treatment for us in the night. We told the sherpas that in Bombay people pay money for such treatment & here it was going to be free for us. We did not know, that we were going to get the same rough treatment for the next few days.
We had a long afternoon & evening to spend after lunch. The sherpas were in good spirits & they sang some local songs in Gadhwali language. We also sang songs & Bhajans. We had a good time in the kitchen tent. The kitchen tent was a good shelter for us & we always spent a lot of time there. After dinner we as usual entered the sleeping bags early in the night. We could hear the noise of trickling water from the melting ice of the glacier beneath our stone bed. It was somewhat scary but an unique experience of our lives & we had it for a couple of more nights.
The next day started early. We had to walk from Khada Pathar ( Also known as Surala) to Sita. The distance must be about 15 kms. & Sita camp was at an altitude of around 17,000 ft. We started walking with our packed lunch by 7.30 am. The walk was all morain morain on the ice. We saw many small lakes with thin ice on top. From the side walls soil, rocks & ice slabs were falling in the lakes. We curiously witnessed such small land slides. The process of destruction which is nothing but change of form, started from huge mountains much above was continuing here & would continue till sea level. Near one of such beautiful small lake formed by crystal clear melting ice water, we could not resist & took a halt there. We took a mini wash with the chilled water in the bright sunshine.We prayed the Lord by offering the chilled water to him wilh Gayatri Mantra Jaap. We played with the lake by throwing small stones & ice slabs in the lake. After coming to Bombay when expert trekkers saw our pictures & film doing this they were shocked. According to them it was a stupid, silly mistake. Everything & every body there is on ice. Any slab of ice beneath could crack with your own weight & you might be in freezing water, not to be seen again. In the history of trekking, there are incidences when huge boulders on the verge of falling have fallen just because of a loud human noise, resulting into destructive landslides. After hearing all this, a chill ran through us & we got scared to death. But like all other days so far we survived that day also & reached sita camp site at about 3.30 pm.
The camp site & the entire vicinity of the camp was only rocks of different sizes & shapes. We were in the middle ‘on the rocks’. At some distance in the front there was snow white Sita glacier on the right side & there was similar Kalindi glacier on the left side. Both the glaciers were stretched very long & looked extremely beautiful like rivers of snow. Our camp site had a water front in the form of a small pond of crystal clear water. We slowly settled down at Sita camp observing the beauties of the mountains, glaciers & rocks all around. We were looking at a tall mountain & suddenly a big waterfall started from the middle of the mountain as if somebody had opened a valve. The water was carrying soil, mud & rocks but everything was not reaching the foothills of the mountain in the valley.It would wait there for the final push and let the water trickle.
The sun was bright & sky was clear because the clouds were below us. So far we were gifted to have the pleasure of watching the azure blue sky every single day. In the polluted cities you never get to see it. Sitting above the clouds on big rocks gave us a heavenly feeling. I don’t know from where I got the inspiration but I chose a rock like a Sinhasan & decided to chant Vishnu Sahastra Naam. I was facing the sun & I prayed the Lord to keep the sun out till I am done with my Prarthana. Otherwise the wind & cold won’t let me site out like that for one hour. My prayer was granted & my desire was fulfilled. Everyone else listened to me patiently. Sitting above the clouds at 17000 ft. height & saying Vishnu Sahastra Naam gave me a feeling that I am doing something absolutely divine which probably no human being has done. Even while talking normally we were feeling short of breath & here at 17000 ft. height I could chant Vishnu Sahastra Naam non stop. That was a miracle. And the strength to do so must have come only through the appreciation & gratitude for the Almighty who is the purest form of love himself.
As usual after an early light dinner we slept early & got up before sunrise. Our water front lake was totally frozen & the waterfall which started in the afternoon yesterday was no more there. It was also frozen. The valve was closed. Today we were to march from Sita to Klindi base camp, the last camp before summit at an altitude of 18000 ft. Very soon we left the Sita glacier behind & started walking on morain morain from the right side of Kalindi Glacier. The walking was becoming more & more difficult everyday due to lack of oxygen. The SLR digital camera we were carrying was quite bulky for a expedition like this & we had no energy to take it out from the sack many times when we felt like taking pictures. With a small pocket size digital camera we would have definitely taken more pictures than what we could do.
We were not supposed to sit down every time for taking rest. If you sit down immediately after a tiring walk the joints could get stiff. So most of the times we took rest while standing only. We took a halt from where we could see Kalindi river. The view of blue water flowing full, from under 3 to 4 ft. thick snow cover was breath taking. The meaning of the instructions given by the sherpas, not to step on the glaciers became crystal clear in our minds. After a long exhaustive walk we reached the Kalindi base camp at about 4 pm. The camp site was once again rocks & stones on ice beneath. The count down had begun & there were four nights left in the freezing cold and in the sleeping bags. Kalindi base camp at 18000 ft. was going to be the highest altitude location where we were going to stay for the first time in our lives.
The next day’s instructions were being repeated again & again. We were to start walking tomorrow at sharp day break to reach the pass at the earliest. Everything is like the sooner the better at high altitudes. The climate can change within a couple of minutes & snowfall, snowstorm or ‘whiteout’ could not only make you stranded where you are but threaten your life also. Whiteout means thick clouds could cover the entire region making the visibility almost zero. The sherpas were worried about such natural calamites. They asked us not to worry & said that if time comes they will carry us on their backs but see to it that we make the pass successfully. After the pass they said we have to cross the caravaas. Like morain we heard this word for the first time. In sherpa language, caravaas is miles of ice on slope & on the plain. There could be cracks in the ice. The cracks could be few inches to few feet in width. The depth could be few feet to several feet & these could be filled will chilled water. If you fall into such a gap you may not be seen again. That is why Ramprasad warned us to follow the footsteps of the sherpas in the snow or on the caravaas. We were not supposed to create our own pathway. Caravaas is so deceptive that after walking on the ice for few hours you may reach the spot from where you started. For all these reasons Ramprasad wanted us to start earliest & cross the caravaas with lot of daylight to spare. He warned us not to spend more than 15-20 minutes in the pass because at 20000 ft. you could fall sick badly & that is the last thing to happen.
Was it really our job? What we were doing in the great heights of Himalayas at this age? Whether we will be able to do the pass ? Such thoughts crowded our minds but we gave no room to them. We were at a point of no return. Going back from here looked more scary because we knew the route. Kalindi pass & beyond was still unknown & was more inviting. We prayed the lord for good climate & good health & entered the sleeping bags after an early dinner.
We got up real early next day & forced ourselves with a good breakfast. After preparing packed lunch Ramprasad reviewed the quantities of food, oil & kerosene. We had 3 more nights to go to see civilization. Everything was calculated for the remaining days & nights. Whatever was in excess was to be left at Kalindi base camp. From base camp to pass is the most crucial journey & it should be done with minimum possible load. We used minimum plastic throughout the trek & took utmost care not to throw even chocolate wrappers in the virgin mountains of Himalayas. But we left our excess food items at the base camp, well wraped in plastic bags. It might be somebody’s survival kit in the future.
We had a look at the Kalindi Pass & the route on which we were to march. It all looked easy & very close. But it was not going to be so. According to Ramprasad it would be atleast four hours with our speed. We started walking at 6.30 am. Half an hour delay from the schedule. We were a little tense because of the delay but there is no way you can make up by walking fast. The sherpas soon caught up with us. Now they were not letting anyone of us alone. For the last few days Praful & Sapre were lagging behind the group by about 1 hour but they were accompanied by one or two sherpas. Todays walk was very strenuous & all of us needed their support many times. At about 9.30 am we reached the snow covered foothills of the Kalindi pass. Now we were supposed to walk together. But Praful & Sapre were far behind. Sapre because of stamina & Praful because of blisters on his foot. There were two sherpas with them. The rest of us decided to march ahead. We were waking some distance in snow & then going on morain on left side as per the instructions. When in snow, we were stepping in the footstep of the sherpa in front. Every foot gained was like a summit for us. We were asked not to look at the pass uphill. But whenever we had a glimpse, it looked an impossible task. We were inching forward & finally the 1800 ft. gain came to an end within four hours since we started.
We were there! We had done it ! We were in Kalindi pass! We could not believe ourselves. What Mount Everest was for sherpa Tensing & Edmond Hillary, Kalindi pass was for us. Our breath was not full but our eyes were full of tears in gratitude for the Lord.
The sherpas threw their luggage down. It was all celebration for everyone. There was bright sunshine & the sky was azure blue like the rest of the days. Everything around was snow covered. After reaching the top everything looks like Rohtang pass near Manali except for the higher altitude, very thin air & no tree line. We lightly played in the snow, took lot of pictures & did some video shooting also. From a few steps below the highest point in the pass the snow white mountain & the blue sky seem to meet each other. It looks like the end point of the planet. It is difficult to describe the beauty in words but easy to capture in the camera.
Sapre & Praful were nowhere in sight & that was a matter of concern. The allotted time in the pass was already over & it was going to be atleast another hour till Praful & Sapre could make it. Ramprasad asked us whether we were interested in doing a summit at Klindi Peak called as pinnacle. We were tempted for a second but then realised that it was not our job. We were not great mountaineers. Climbing another 600 ft. from 19800 could be fatal for us. Secondly we had not started our journey with such intentions. When the entire route of the expedition is full of risks, trying something unplanned & more risky could have been disastrous. We told Ramprasad that we were more than happy to have reached kalindi pass. Now let’s just go down safety.
After a long wait Praful & Sapre came in site. They finally made it with great difficulties. It was celebration again. We did Ganesh Poojan again & paid our sincere homage to the Lord. Lalit from Tata Power had given us chocolates, to be opened only if we could make it to Kalindi Pass. With a great pride we offered the chocolates to the Lord first & then tested the sweetness of it. From the top we could get a birds eye view of Tibet & that of our downward route in the motherland. By now it was past 12 in the noon. Ramprasad sensed some clouds at a distance & he asked every one to pack up. We had comfortably spent about two hours at 19800 ft. where normally the mountaineers spend only 15 to 20 minutes. We were still fine & there were no signs of any sickness, probably because of the triumphant feeling. After thanking the GOD once again for everything we said good bye to Kalindi Pass and took our first step beyond.
We were all in good moods. We were thinking that we have crossed the hurdles & next three days down hill will not be as bad as the morain uphill. Ramprasad changed our ideas. He said all of us have to Rope up now. According to the other guide it was necessary but Ramprasad insisted & started the operation. We had earlier experienced climbing with a rope & it was certainly not enjoyable. Roping up means all 19 of us were tied at waist height to one single rope, keeping a distance of about 10 feet between everyone. Ramprasad ensured that there are sherpas for help in between & no two members were tied next to each other. By the time all of us got roped up the surroundings became foggy. Fortunately for us, it was not total white out. Very soon the walk in soft snow came to an end. Ramprasad was leading in the front of the line. He was taking almost every step after checking the ice with ice axe & we were following his foot steps. Waking on the soil ice mixture was really very difficult & very soon we realized that Ramprasad was dead right in his decision of rope up. Even after taking utmost care we used to skid on ice, fall down with a thud & slide. It happened with the sherpas also sometimes. After every fall, all 19 of us had to halt till the fallen one recovers. I myself must have fallen at least 10 times during the walk on the caravas. There were innumerable halts because of everybody’s falls. Once again by the grace of GOD all of us escaped without any injury from the falls. Some of the jumpings over the cracks were highly dangerous. We could see what we had heard. The cracks were sometimes not very wide but very deep. The edges of the cracks were brittle & if you fall in the crevice, the chances of survival are very remote. That is why we were roped up. So if somebody falls, the others can pull him out.
The sun was not bright & after walking like this for a few hours we thought we are directionless. Even the guides were confused on few occasions. Finally that never ending tiring walk on the caravas came to an end. The only good part of it was that we were not feeling short of breath as we were now loosing height. After the caravas we were on a narrow mountain top. There was a opinion to take an unscheduled night halt as we were totally exhausted & the thought of going down that steep mountain was not very pleasant. There was few hours of day light still left & after some rest we decided to march down. Ramprasad didn,t want to take any chances & he put a rope for going down. First climbing up with the rope before Vasuki Taal, then roping up on the caravas & now getting down with the rope for Raj Padav. Everything was new for us & we were learning such tough lessons in the risky mountains at high altitudes. There was a straight fall down hill in the beginning only. The mountain was nothing but loose soil & rocks heaped together. With our style of stepping lot f soil & rocks used to slide down. We were accelerating the destruction process scheduled by the mother nature. We were slowly understanding the difference between us & the sherpas.
The sherpas were fearless & very much conversant with the mountains. Their steps rarely resulted in sliding of the soil & rock. Our every step was with a fear of falling & sliding with the mountain & that is what used to happen. It is difficult to learn their style of walking & it is more difficult to learn fearlessness.
After getting down the huge tall mountain with the help of the rope & the sherpas we again took a good rest. After walking on plain for some time we came on morain again. It was uphill & down hill & very tiring. While walking on the huge boulders & rocks we experienced classic examples of wrong judgment. The boulder which we used to think must be stable because of its position & size used to tilt with our load putting us off balance many times. It rarely happened with the sherpas. Here also our walking style was incorrect & the fear factor plays an important role. We were slowly learning mountaineering. After climbing a hill on morain we decided to camp there. Firstly because we were totally exhausted & secondly because there was less than an hours day light left. We were still far away from the scheduled camp site of Raj Padav.
The tents were as usual on rocks & pebbles set for acupressure treatment. Just three more nights left including the night at Raj Padav. The temperatures were not that bad because of good weather & because we had come down quite a bit. We had huge rocks like a Thorn to sit like a king. We felt like naming this camp site also as Raj padav. The water source was not very close as we were camping on an unscheduled place. While cooking the dinner, there was frantic search for salt in the left over grocery baggage. In the process of reducing the gross weight at kalindi base camp all the salt was left back by mistake. There were six more meals left in the trek till we were going to see civilization. We told the cooks, its no problem & we can live without salt. But Ramprasad & all others were really upset for the mistake. He decided to walk upto Ghastoli, get some salt from there & join us at the next camp site. That would be walk of about 40 kms for a pinch of salt. Going back to Kalindi Base camp could be shorter but highly risky & was ruled out altogether. That entire evening till dinner was spent on discussion about salt. We were trying to convince him not to do so. All of us were deeply touched with his gesture, his dedication & his concern for us. We had a salt less meal & we really had no complaints. Everything in such treks is lot more difficult than having a meal without salt.
Next day we had to cross a river. We didn’t have the slightest idea about how it is going to be. We only knew that river crossing has to be done at the earliest in the morning before the sun melts all the ice in the quota for that day. The worst part here could be, if the water rises above safe levels then there is no chance that it will come down the same day. You have to wait for the night to freeze some water & then cross the river earliest in the morning. We got up early for a safe river crossing . Before we had a glass of tea Ramprasad & Nandan left for Ghastoli to get salt. We failed to stop them. The thought that these people were going to walk 40 kms to get some salt for us made us sad. A feeling of guilt filled our hearts & minds. But that didn’t stop anything & very soon we also followed them.
The walk was on morain, uphills & down hills. But it was not threatening. Probably because the mountains had started becoming friendly to us. After a long trek we saw the regular camp site of Raj Padav. It was definitely more comfortable & plain than the site where we spent the night. But it would have been impossible for us to reach there previous evening. By 10 am we reached the river. The river was in the form of several big & small streams spread over a huge long plain. The small streams would get swollen & connected as the sun rises & the bigger ones won’t let you cross. With everything in action it could be a ferocious river.
We removed our shoes & socks & folded our pants well above the knees. The sherpas had already crossed the river. They dumped their luggage on the other bank & some of them came to help us. They carried our shoes on shoulders by tying them together & gave us a helping hand. We could jump over some small streams. It took lot of courage to enter the chilled water finally. The first touch of that water made our feet numb. There was no sensation left but the sherpas pulled us ahead and out of that stream. The thought of entering the water few more times froze our feet in the warmish sand. The water was not deep but the current was strong. The sherpas were ready to carry us on their shoulders. But by the grace of God we could push ourselves in & out of the water to reach the other side. It was bright sunshine once again & we dried our feet in the dry sand & generated the lost sensation. We sat on the boulders & thanked our feet with mustard oil. There still was a long way to go to Arwa Taal. By the time we were having our Roti jam lunch, to our surprise Ramprasad & Chandan came back. They found some salt left by some body much earlier. We really felt happy for them & the guilt feeling in our hearts reduced considerably.
As we marched ahead the greenery which had totally vanished for the last whole week made its appearance once again. That was a pleasant sight & was indicating that we were coming down in oxygen rich regions. But that feeling was gone abruptly after seeing the tall mountain which we were supposed to cross. Ramprasad thought of putting up a rope but there were too many ups & downs. We started climbing without rope. The climb was very steep & there was hardly any room to walk. There was sufficient oxygen to breathe & we were not on the glacier. Still I would rate it as one of the most difficult & risky climb we had so far. After a long struggle we were on top of the mountain. We were surprised to see the morain ahead full of the largest size boulders. We wondered once again about the gigantic Shiva quarry & appreciated the forces of the almighty which could perform such a marathon task. It is needless to mention that these same forces which move the rocks, the boulders, the mountains & the water kept us moving in Himalayas in their miniature form. It’s a sorry state of affairs that we don’t realize this in our routine lives.
We reached Arwa Taal camp site by 4.00 pm. The sherpas had already set the tents. After a long time the tents were on plain earth. It was very windy & chilly. I remember spending the whole evening in the shelter of a huge boulder. We asked the sherpas to serve the soup before dinner in our new shelter only. By now the wind & the frost in the night had damaged the zips of few tents & the kitchen tent was no more a protection from wind & cold. The zips of few feather jackets were also not working. Ramprasad as usual had a survey of the next days route & declared that tomorrows river crossing has to be done early morning before the sun comes up too high.
We started at day break & reached the river crossing venue very soon. We had to cross only two streams today but there was lot of water & the current was very strong. We very well knew that the sherpas won’t let us drown in the river. We just had to gather courage to enter the freezing water. We could do it better than yesterday & the whole team was on the other side within a couple of hours. There was no more any major river crossing now & that relived us of the frozen tension within. We were at descent heights now & were walking amongst scattered water streams, boulders & some green patches of grass & wild flowers. On one side were sky scraping mountains & on other side was the river. The beauty was poetic & artistic. This is the place where all the poets, artists, painters & writers could spend their lives but you see only rare mountaineers & amateurs like us coming for threatening adventure or spiritual growth.
There is a competition all over to decide the seven wonders of the world. The choice is limited. And here we lived with thousands of such wonders for 10 days. The choice is unlimited. Amazing beauties were created millions of years back & more of them are being created in destruction of the previous ones. There is never any repetition either in creation or in destruction by the mother nature. Every piece of art is unique. I sincerely felt, why only a handful of us, everyone should get an opportunity to live with the wonders in Himalayas. On our way we met two French couples. They had camped at a beautiful scenic location & were going to stay there & rome around for a week. That’s the way to appreciate the nature & enjoy life. We had already done it & we marched ahead to Ghastoli after having a cup of tea with them.
We reached the Nag Taal camp site near Ghastoli at about 5 pm. The ITBP ( Indo Tibet Border police) post was about 30 minutes walk from Nag Taal. Our food supplies & Kerosene were barely enough for the night. Myself & Ramprasad went to ITBP to seek some help from them. They offered us a cup of tea & a chair to sit. After sitting on the chair I suddenly realized that it was a great comfort for me. After all we had not sat properly for 10 good days.
Unfortunately our inner line permits had not yet reached the ITBP authorities. They said, none of us can cross the post without the permits. That came as a shock to us. The mobiles still did not have the range. Ramprasad decided to go to Badrinath immediately to catch hold of Mahaveer for the permits. I had thought of getting some different food & a good bed to sleep in the ITBP campus. But because of some problem ITBP guys could not help us in any way. I felt totally drained & had no energy to return to the camp site. I was offered a shelter by one Mr. Negi from PWD in his hut. By that time the sun had gone down & it had started drizzling. Even if ITBP would have offered us shelter, I don’t think my other friends would have walked any further in that atmosphere.
Mr. Negi offered me good food & offered me a bed, when I was prepared to sleep on the floor. I was overwhelmed with his gesture. The warmth in the hospitality of such kind hearted people is what GOD is. We unfortunately & ungratefully fail to feel him most of the times. Later on I came to know that many people had experienced the kind heartedness of Shri. Negi. Sleeping on a bed in a blanket was a luxury for me after 10 nights in tents & sleeping bags on the rocks.
The campsite was cleared & everyone reached the ITBP post by 8 am next morning. Mr. Negi prepared parathas & tea for all of us. The ITBP officers were real harsh on us. After several requests & pleading also, they were not ready to let us go. We desperately wanted to reach Badrinath on that day & did not want to waste our day at Ghastoli. Finally by 11 am after lot of negotiations we surrendered our identify proofs to them & kept Himadri as hostage till they receive our permits. After learning mountaineering now we were learning the hostaging business. Luckily we were keeping a hostage with our own supposedly friendly police department & not with the Chinese army next door.
Our last day walk of the expedition commenced like this by 11 am. with the fastest member of the group missing in action. The landscape here was totally different but the tree line was still missing. We were walking amongst the largest boulders we had seen so far. After walking for a couple of hours we saw two gangs trying to break one of the huge boulder with compressors, for construction purpose. With so much force, noise & pollution, they were able to chip of a tiny piece of the huge mass.
The Army officers we met at the site were very polite & they congratulated us for safely & successfully coming back from Kalindi Pass. One of the officers offered a lift up to mana but we missed it by few minutes as we reached late & the vehicle had already gone. After walking for some more time we reached a place where lot of labors were working to build a wall to control land slides. We saw a few dumpers there. These dumpers were in operation for transporting the stones as well as the labors. One such dumper was to leave after some time & we hoped to get a lift in that for a few kilometers. While we were waiting for the dumper, we saw Himadri coming towards us. We were surprised to see him so soon but felt very happy to have him back in the group. Mahaveer had managed to send the permits to ITBP with Army people on ponies. The hostage was set free after seeing the permits. The dumper was ready to go within a short while after Himadri reached.
We were stuffed in the dumper with the labors & luggage like a close packed atomic structure. The driver was very rash & he was driving on the narrow sharp turning downhill roads very roughly. All the forces were against us. Those who were sitting could only feel it & some of us who were standing could see death every turning. It was like a journey in the dumper without brakes. We were dumped down the dumper with luggage after that deadly drive of 6 to 7 kms. For a long time we were thinking that walking would have been a better choice. Fortunately all our spare parts were in tact & we were fit to walk the remaining 4 to 5 km distance upto Mana. The sherpas took us by short cuts straight downhill. To our surprise we did well & could come down comfortably. Finally we learned to become friendly with the friendly mountains when we were going to go away from them.
We reached Mana early evening. Mana is a small but mythologically very important village just 5 kms away from Badrinath. It is also the last village on Indian side before the China Border. Mahaveer was ready with vehicles to receive us. We didn’t waste much time & reached Badrinath before sunset. After reaching the hotel everybody wanted just to lie down on the bed. Nobody was willing to take a bath & go to the temple. Myself & Himadri decided to go to Badrinath. First we took hot water bath in the Tapt kund for more than an hour. The body wanted a hot bath in the cold after ten good days. The water was so hot, that we had to keep it in a bucket for sometime before we could use it. There was nobody around. I completed my Vishnu Sahastra naam while bathing. Himadri was a patient listener. After bath we had a good pooja & Darshan of Badri Vishal as there was no much crowd.
In the night, it was now our turn to treat the sherpas with dinner in a good hotel. We took them to a good hotel & thanked them a lot. We expressed that, it was only because of them, we could complete the pilgrimage cum expedition & come back safely . They didn’t like it much. They held our hands & said, its nothing like that & they are surviving because we are there. At that point all of us including the sherpas became sentimental. The art of love & appreciation for each other was complete from both sides. We felt relieved of their debt. Some of them were to start their onward journey early next morning. We might see them again only if destined. We said good night to them & parted like close friends.
Next day was my Birthday & my eyes opened at 5 am after hearing Vishnu Sahastranaam being played at Badrinath temple. It was a divine way to start the day. After everybody got ready, we went to Badrinath. I was going to perform the act of offering the Gangajal from Gaumukh to Lord Vishnu for which I had taken so much efforts. After a nice hot bath, all of us went to the temple for Darshan. There was no crowd at all, but to our surprise the temple doors were closed. The temple was going to remain closed for the whole day as lord Vishnu goes to see his mother in Mana village on that particular day. Its probably the mother’s day for the Gods. We were totally nervous with the news.
Myself & Himadri had a very good Darshan the previous evening but the others were going to be deprived of it. I was not going to be able to offer the Gangajal on the feet of Lord Vishnu from where Ganga is supposed to have originated. May be it was not supposed to be so as per the Shastras. It was probably not an acceptable ritual. But my desires were not totally turned down. I could offer the Gangajal on the foot steps of the temple & chant Vishnu sahastranaam there in bright sunshine. The lord blessed me with Darshan the previous evening but did not allow me to do something against the tradition. Thinking that the Lord wants to call us again for Darshan on some other time, we returned to the hotel, packed our baggage & started for Joshimath in the afternoon. For the first time there was a feeling of starting our return journey. There were no plans now & there were no desires left.
We visited all the good temples in Joshimath & had a relaxed evening. That night India won the 20-20 world championship & we witnessed a grand celebration in the town. The next day morning started with rains & we had to cancel our ropeway visit to Auli. We had planned to stay in Joshimath that day & then visit Tunganath on the way next day as we had a couple of days to spare. On TV we saw that the climate had gone very bad in Himalayas from where we had come down. The group which started 4 days after us for Kalindi Pass could not make it & they had to be rescued by the rescue teams. We had no words to express our gratitude for the mother nature. Only the tears in our eyes could express our feelings.
The rains gradually increased & the climate in Joshimath also did not remain good. The bright sunshine was gone. The Almighty was telling us that I have fulfilled all your desires, protected you like children during your expedition & given you success. Now go home without mixing up issues. Let me continue with my job. We got the hint, got the message & started immediately for Rudraprayag. Fortunately we reached Rudraprayag late in the evening without seeing any major land slide. Small land slides here & there are very common in this region.
It was pouring throughout the night & the picture was scary in the morning. We could not even visit the famous Koteshwar temple & had to start for Haridwar immediately to avoid traffic jams due to massive landslides. By evening we reached Haridwar. The expedition was over. We had the ropeway rides & could visit all the temples in Devlok before we went to Delhi for our return journey to Bombay.
Now its more than a month since we are home. Our mind is still wandering in the great mountains & glaciers of the Himalayan range. Every time I came back from Himalayas, I thought the trip was ultimate and I may not be called again. It might be somebody elses turn as my body may not be able to take the hardships anymore. But this time its different. We are missing the mountains, like you miss your dear ones after a vacations with them. God willing, we may plan our next trip within a couple of years.
Everyone of us will remains grateful to the Almighty the rest of our lives for taking us like children to show his creations & bring us back home safely. We will always pray the lord for the well being of everyone & for providing such opportunities to more & more people.
It will be ungrateful not to thank everyone in my 35 years old group of friends & their families who made some fake, ugly & cruel allegations on me on 28th April 2007. The frustration, the agony & the heart burning deserted feeling arising from the shock of the incidence was definitely instrumental in giving the final push for taking the decision of going to the life threatening expedition to Kalindi Khal.
! Jai Mata Dee !
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