This day and that day

It IS getting a bit monotonous, yes, but here I am, again, not being able to understand something that the whole world takes for granted. Makes you wonder about exactly what was distracting God around the time He made me, considering the number of things he seems to have left out in the process.

It is not like I cannot understand these 'days' thing at all, you know. For one, I DO know the importance of my Birthday...or I did. A birthday was when I got one of the two pairs of new 'color' clothing for the year, was allowed to swank around in those 'color' dresses instead of the school uniform (Which accounts for why I refused for a loong time to believe that grey and white were colors - since THEY were the uniform and, thus, NOT a 'color' dress) and could be confident that for this one day my school-mates would go slow on baiting me. I think even this understanding is dated; when you get new clothes every other hour a birthday cannot be important for THAT purpose at any rate, which is probably why theme parties and the likes have started thriving.

I even can understand how Valentine's day thrives. I mean, when people in love will moon over and celebrate "The monthiversary of your first wearing that pink salwar after we met" and "The day of the week when you wear pink lipstick", it is easy to see how one more day of the year can add to the merriment. It is only later that you get this "How many dates am I expected to remember?" thing when reminded of birthdays and wedding anniversaries.

Take this 'Mother's day', for example. I always thought that it was the day children visited their mother in the old age homes, where they were conveniently tucked away and taken out to be viewed on this day. That comes of having my mother stay with me and remembering her the way she was - she would be happy to be wished on her birthday, her anniversary and things like that - dates that meant something personal to her. If I had gone wishing her 'Mother's day', she would probably have blinked uncomprehendingly and asked 'Whose mother's day?" But, then, maybe it does come in handy for all those with a bad memory for dates - easier by far to wish mothers on 'Mother's day', since the entire social media would be reminding you of it. To remember HER birthday, though...

THAT, of course, explains the importance of 'Friendship day'. Imagine trying to remember a host of individual dates of personal importance for innumerable friends. Especially where they are not close enough for you to bother to do so. Yeah, true, that Facebook does make it convenient for you to do so (unlike mothers, especially of my mothers' generation, who are not even on Facebook) but it is still such a chore. Easier to wish them all on Friendship day and, if you can also put in the 'You know who you are', it also neatly avoids the problem of having to list them.

These days are so useful, after all. Avoids much wear and tear on the memory. Pity that I cannot even remember these days. Maybe someone will come up with a 'Humanity Day' or some such and I can be done with it by remembering only one day. AND if Facebook can conveniently remind me...

The Great Kashmir Lakes Trek - III

This was the first time I was dropping out of a trek halfway. But, then, this was the first time I was about to do a High Altitude (OR any altitude) horse ride for any length of time. So, it was in any case a new experience for me - though I would miss not being to see those lovely lakes. (The pics in this post are the places I missed, and the one below is where Vinod misses me since I'd have been the only guy who would have given him company in taking dips in freezing waters)

To take the ponies for the way back, I had to cross the boulders, first. AND falling thrice in the process of doing so, thanks to that proud, unbending knee, underscored the wisdom of my having decided to drop off the trek (or I would probably have dropped off some abyss and, no, THAT would not be good riddance!)

I had this vision of my sitting on the mule in a trance, drinking in all the beauties of nature that huffing and puffing up and down would not allow me to do, while the mule huffed and puffed in my stead. THAT, apparently, was not how a mule ride would be. Shaukat, the guide who was along for our ride, kept exhorting me to keep my balance, lean backward when the mule was descending and lean forward when it was ascending. I nodded religiously, held grimly on to the pommel of the saddle and did exactly the reverse. The mule would probably had fared better if I had not got all that advice - I would have at least sat rigidly upright, praying to all the gods I remembered to keep me seated on the mule, instead of slipping off gracefully.

The mule, on its part, had its own problems. The poor thing kept looking back at me hoping that I would get off. It looked so piteously that I was reduced to telling the poor thing, "Sorry! If it were not for this leg..." It, of course, was not possible for me to shed some 20kg of weight on the instant and the sheer agony in its eyes made me cast apprehensive glances behind me to see if the SPCA was gunning for me.



I did not know how good this one was till we stopped off near the muleteer's current residence to change mules. (Evidence of the friendliness of the Kashmiris is the fact that we were given a glass of goat milk, each, which tasted...err...like goat's milk.) The next mule that I sat on reared high as my weight settled on it that I was thrown forward and, literally, bumped noses with it. THAT, though, was not the start of a beautiful friendship.



This one had its own ideas of travel. For it, the shortest distance between two points was a sine curve. The problem, though, was that I did not know whether its idea of the two points were the same as mine; whether it was heading where I wanted to head. The sight of a few resting mules would make it run towards them to partake in their leisure. At times, it would decide that going downhill, with my weight on it, would be easier, and head off the track. AND, then, there were those instances when it would run uphill AND why it should have thought THAT would ease its burden only it could know. Keeping your balance on the mule involved turning your body to where the nose of the mule points at any point in time but it would have taken a corkscrew revolving at high speed to keep up with the twists and turns of THIS mule. I was holding on so grimly and so tightly to the pommel of the saddle that I developed blisters in the hand.

THOSE were the only blisters I could SHOW, though. Any ideas that riding a mule was fun were blasted out of my hide, that day. The problem is that you get scant sympathy at the end of the day. Any attempt at showing off your blisters and wounds would have seemed like an invitation to 'unnatural sex'.

Suffice to say that by the time we hit Sonamarg, I was only too glad to get off that mule and the mule, rather impolitely I thought, pranced around in joy to exhibit ITS gladness at being rid of me.

Dushyant of India Hikes suggested that we stay at their place but with the knee the way it was I could not countenance the idea of an Eastern Toilet. With the Amarnath tourists backed up due to curfews across Kashmir, hotels were full and we ended up at Rah Villas.

The stay would have been very pleasant and enjoyable, with excellent food and a Coimbatore-born manager to talk to, but for the fact that the situation in Kashmir seemed so grim that we were wondering about whether we would get across to Srinagar and back to our homes. Rumors of Amarnath yatris being pelted and rumors of the  abnormal killing of a driver, who seemed to have disappeared after ferrying tourists, from Gund were not very heartening.

We stayed put, instead of advancing our journey, and Dushyant ferried us to Naranag where we would join the rest of our group. Four kilometers from Naranag, the road was blocked by locals and further travel by vehicle proscribed. After a wait, we decided to walk it. Just as my leg, which had been relatively all right since only THAT morning, started twinging again some vehicles from another route came along and gave us a lift to Naranag.

The rest of the group seemed to have had a gala time on their trek. The return to Srinagar, though, seemed fraught with risk. Eventually, we left Naranag in the middle of the night and hit Srinagar at about 1.30 AM. The rest of the crowd opted not to risk the possibility of a curfew making them miss their flights and headed straight to the Airport. We took the India Hikes rooms, snoozed till 5 AM and hit the Airport by 6 AM for our afternoon flights. (Yeah! We ARE foolhardy but not ALL that foolhardy!)

The Airport was like a fairground; passengers all over the place with luggage, vendors selling tea and snacks, the works. About the only things missing was jugglers, merry-go-rounds and balloon-vendors. We hung around till 11.30 AM, when we were allowed to check-in. The rest, as they say, is anti-climax.

Apart from the regrets of not being able to visit those lovely lakes, there is also the regret of not really bonding with the guys from Mumbai, Pune and Delhi. They seemed such a great crowd and it was such a pity that I could not spend those extra five days that would have made friends out of relative strangers. But, then, c'est la vie. Maybe I shall bump into them some time in the future.

Meanwhile, another trek over - even if not completed. AND, right now, the ONE unforgettable being that I added to my list of acquaintances is THAT mule!

Part I

Part II

Pics: Rammohan and Neha

The Great Kashmir Lakes trek - II

There is nothing that frightens me more than to go on a trek and have people exclaim, 'Oh! You are a veteran trekker!" Somehow, human beings seem wired to try to live up to the billing. What with finding balancing myself more difficult than standing an egg on its edge and with blowing like a bellows from the very first step on an incline, I cut a pretty sorry picture of a 'veteran trekker' and the unsightly blush that covers my face, due to all that slipping, slithering and blowing, is really no help. So, you can understand how I felt when I got accosted as a 'You are one of the tough trekkers' by Arpita. Veteran was bad enough...tough?? What would I have to do to live up to that?

After napping for four hours, holding in nausea for the next 3 hours till we hit the base camp, breaking fast on the food arranged by Dushyant - who was the local India Hikes coordinator - and hooking up with Vaisakh and his team, who would guide us on the trek, we were off. I, as usual, was doing my celebrated imitation of a steam engine right from the start but THAT was no help to the others, since they had to ascend on their own steam.

Weather plays such an important role in making a trek easy or difficult. With a drizzle going, the path had turned to slush and we were slipping half a foot for every foot climbed. On a more than usually slippery turn, Vinod slipped and, in trying to break his fall, dislocated his shoulder. The joint was pushed back in but the pain was so intense that he had to carry it in a sling. So, back he went...or THAT would have been the result with anyone else. Vinod?? Forget dropping out of the trek, he was not even willing to drop off his day pack on someone else. So NOW you know the sort of madcaps I trek with.

Of course, being Vinod's friend, I showed my sympathy for him by slipping and falling myself in the same spot. (AND dislocating my shoulder? No, thanks, not even I am THAT sympathetic.) Onwards we went, puffing and panting (I speak for myself, of course) till we hit a dhabha. The dhabha, where I was inspired to imitate Salman Khan by shedding my T-Shirt in full view.

To be sure, Salman would not have liked to own up to my physique, much like I would not like to own up to the things he - oops...his driver, bodyguard, nanny etc - is said to have done. AND, no, I was not under any illusion that my upper torso was something for women to swoon over - unless they swooned because they could not stand the sight. The problem was a maddening itch, possibly caused by something that had got into me when I tried to 'sympathize' with Vinod. All that I found, though, were rashes here and there with no sight of the culprit causing them. Eventually, and thankfully, the itching subsided.

Up and away, again. Thanks to the fact that we could not acclimatize overnight - because of the change in schedule enforced by the aftermath of Wani's killing - and the lack of sleep, quite a few of the trekkers were making heavy weather of the trek. Rammohan was throwing up everything that went in, despite having hydrated himself at the start. (Another of those nuts...he still kept up with us, despite the nausea and the splitting headache). I, the eternal believer in Electral (and the one who needs it the most, considering how much I sweat), was, as usual, carrying a bottle of water mixed with Electral and forced him to drink it, thanks to which he threw up once again. By the end of the day, he was fresh and healthy, which, of course, I attribute to the Electral I forced down his throat!



Trekking in Kashmir throws up all the challenges of trekking on a daily basis. In addition to the ascents on inclines, you end up descending also on the same day - thanks to the fact that every day, we went up to close to 13k feet and, then, ending up camping at somewhere around 11500 feet. You walk over snow drifts, you jump across boulders and, even, cross fast-flowing streams on a slippery path of stones. It is fun to do all that, not least because you get to see such wonderful sights en route (When you stop to take it in, of course. If you tried it WHILE you were trekking...) And, no, pics are not a substitute. To see the pics of those rolling green valleys, those lovely carpets of flowers, those rearing mountains, the gushing River Sind and to think you have had the experience is to assume that you have had the joy of eating by looking at the pic of food on Facebook. There is a vast difference between looking AT some natural beauty and being in the midst of it.

We camped on day 1 at Table Top. Rammohan, Shekhar and I shared a tent. Both Mohan and I believed in giving the world audible evidence of the fact that we are asleep, when we are asleep - what a cousin calls 'sound' sleepers - and, thus, there are no prizes for guessing who could not sleep soundly in our tent.

The next day, we started climbing up to Nichnai pass. Strangely for me, I was needing to take a break after every 10 steps (I know! It is your opinion that I do my trekking on the back of some-one else, sort of like the people who go walking in their SUVs. Malicious propaganda, I tell you!). By the time we hit Nichnai pass, I had a splitting headache to add to my woes. Around then is when it struck me that I had been so busy telling other people to hydrate themselves, on the previous day, that I had not found the time to do it myself. I downed my bottle of Electral and suddenly found that the trek was not as bad as it seemed, after all. Not even slipping and falling twice while descending down a snow-drift, changed my mind.

Around the time we reached a long field of boulders to cross, my headache intensified. Skipping lunch, due to the dehydration-induced nausea, was probably not the wisest of decisions but, then, I have very seldom been accused of wisdom. Arpita, who was then trekking ahead of me, was finding the boulders difficult going and, in the normal course, I'd have been helping her across them. (Yeah! Yeah! Being called a veteran trekker does do something to me). The way I was feeling, though, I could hardly help myself and I rushed on ahead.

By the time I hit the campsite, I was feeling ready to lie down and die. Vaisakh was all agog getting people to climb up a small hillock to take in the Vishnusar lake but I begged off.

After a snooze, I took a walk around the campsite, turned awkwardly, slipped on some slush and fell. Nothing new about it for me but this time the muscles of my right leg were strained badly and I could not bend my knee. Unfortunately, the rest day planned for the next day was rescheduled because it looked like rainy days were ahead and Vaisakh did not want to take a chance. An unbending knee may be the sign of a proud man but it is also a sign of a man who cannot skip over boulders.

I decided to take the call on turning back or continuing on the trek after a night's sleep. Well...there WAS no night's sleep with the pain keeping me awake almost all night, except for a few minutes of dozing now and then.

I did climb - if one can call dragging one foot behind you as climbing - up to see the Vishnusar lake. Shekhar, who had had enough of pushing himself, decided to turn back with me. THAT, then, ended the High Altitude trek. The saga of the High Altitude Horse Ride still remains to unfold.

Part I
Part III
Pics : Rammohan, Neha and Maulik Shah

The Great Kashmir Lakes Trek - I

Just as I was thinking that this Nemesis that was stalking me on every trek had turned its attention to someone else, up it pops again and says that it was only taking a break last year. Every trek I have been on in the few years before then have been brushes with disaster. Who goes on a trip to Badami when the entire Gadag region drowns in rain? Yours truly! Who is on trek in the Leh/Ladakh region when Leh gets cut off by rains? Yours truly! Who gets stranded in the middle when the Uttaranchal disaster strikes? Yours truly! Just as I was wondering whether the weather reporters should abandon following things like El Nino and start chasing after me, the treks of last year came as a respite. And now...NOW I am waking up with nightmares of Arnab Goswami screaming in my ears, "Where are you going next? India wants to KNOW."

It all started rather innocuously, though...boringly, in fact. I mean, if one lands up at 2 PM on the 7th  of July at the Srinagar Airport, and has to wait till 6 PM before the rest of the group can join in, it is unlikely that the said person will have an interesting time. Four hours of sight-seeing in the Srinagar Airport, lugging a couple of bags, was four hours more than I wanted to spend in ANY airport but, if you have no clue where the group has arranged to stay and have a non-functioning prepaid mobile, you have little choice but to admire the car-park, the tea-shop and the canteen till the rest deign to land. I even managed to snooze at the waiting hall, where the cabbies rest in between ferrying passengers.

We did, eventually, hook up and landed at the houseboat - Aristotle, if you can believe it, which was paired with Plato - by around 7.30 PM. Since it was not named Socrates, we did arrange for beer and dinner, without any fears of being served hemlock. Shekhar, Ravi, Rammohan and I were the tipplers with Hari Sethuraman sticking to the less elevating drinks. Vinod was expected the next day and Chandru, having crocked his knee back home, skipped the trek, leaving his brother Rammohan to hold up the family banner.

The next day, we left to take in the sights at Gulmarg, having informed the Houseboat chaps to admit Vinod into the boat, despite what they may feel about him at first sight. Ravi who, in his previous avatar, was a Colonel in the 'Golden Gurkha Gunners' - the only artillery Gurkha regiment in the world - had organised lunch at his regiment.

The gondola ride and the views from the top were amazing. For trekkers, though, I'd say it was more of an everyday affair since the views on a daily basis are equally as amazing and you do not either have to line up in haphazard queues to get tickets or have the serenity marred by screaming tourists. One of the things I never have managed to understand. Why does a sense of enjoyment involve making SO much noise?

The lunch in the regimental mess was an eye-opener. The military way of life is something that has been a closed book to me till then. (not that I have suddenly become the military expert who will come now on Arnab's show and plead with him to get a word in edge-ways.) It was an education to see the impeccable hospitality of the young CO, who was simultaneously engaged in handling reports from his men who were on patrol to nab a vehicle with intruders from across the border. The trophies of the regiment gave me to think. These were the guys, who were putting their lives on the line, to safeguard the country; the guys who carried out the orders of civilian governments in the process of carrying out their duties. Yet, when they risked their lives to carry out one set of orders, they were heroes to be lauded across the length and breadth of the country and, if they did the same to carry out another set of orders, they were demonized and vilified by anyone with a platform and a mike. The vice if any, one would have thought, was in the orders and, thus, the blame, if any, was that of those who gave the orders. Seemed to me that the journalists both want the military to be subordinated to the civilian government and, yet, question or refuse to carry out those orders that the journalists consider incorrect. Whether they ever bother to think about the inherent contradictions in their expectations, I would not know.

An interesting aside to that visit was the information that the father of Chetan Bhagat was once the CO of this regiment, and our Ravi was once his adjutant.

By the time we returned to the houseboat, leaving Ravi back at his regiment, Wani had been killed and the TV reported a tense situation. The cab that dropped Ravi the next morning was also pelted with stones on the way back, apparently. We were advised to stick to the vicinity of Dal lake, since the tourist areas are normally left alone by any rioters.

Vinod, who had come in while we were away had taken a long Shikara ride on the Dal Lake the previous day and, if you know Vinod, his joy in anything is communicated so infectiously that you regret the time you spent almost anywhere else except where he was enjoying himself. We took the Shikara ride on the Dal lake and the tour, especially the non-touristy areas, was so lovely and serene that it more than lived up to Vinod's billing. It is such a pity that the lake, in the vicinity of the Houseboats, is so full of the muck thrown in by the people who stay in them.

Around lunch-time, when we were supposed to leave for the base camp, the situation had still not improved and the trek hung in the balance. After a brief nap, we decided to go out for dinner, instead of having it on the houseboat, also in order to meet up with the other members of the trek who had come in from Mumbai, Pune and Delhi and were staying in other houseboats.

We took a long walk along the lake since the other lot was on a Shikara ride of their own and would be some time in getting back. In the meantime, Ravi talked to the India Hikes guys, who were the organizers of the trek, and we were informed that we should be leaving at 3.30 AM from Srinagar so that we could take advantage of the sleeping habits of potential stone-pelters to go over safely to the base camp. Since the arrival at the base camp would be in the morning, we would have to proceed on the trek, as per the original schedule, right away.

Deciding not to wait for the others, in order to maximize our sleep, we had dinner at a nearby restaurant. I was just stepping out of the restaurant when a crowd of lathi-wielding youth landed up. Luckily for me, the restaurant owner was swift to down the shutters and the lathis thudded into them. THAT was when I understood why the CRPF could not adopt a 'Now! Now! Don't be like that' sort of indulgent attitude when faced with stone-pelting mobs. After all, people have been killing each other with sticks and stones for far longer than with other weapons and I rather doubt that wearing a uniform makes them any less likely to get injured or killed.

We stayed put in the restaurant, shivering to the tune of drumming lathis for a while. Once all was silent, we crept out and went to the ghat to await the shikara from our houseboat to pick us up. The boatsmen at the ghat were telling us that, in thirty years, this area had been undisturbed and this was the first time that these rioters had asked them to take away the shikaras from the ghat. Notwithstanding that, they were still there to ferry any tourists. It is that part of Kashmir which was amazing - the friendliness of the people running in tandem with rioting.

Having to wake up at 2 AM is not one of my favorite ideas - THAT being the time I tend to go to sleep normally - but when needs must, one does have to adjust. The next day we would start on the main business of this visit - the Great Kashmir lakes trek.

Part II

Part III

Pictures : Neha