THE HILLS CAME ALIVE...(PART-2)

13,051 feet above sea-level! That was our destination... The journey to Rohtang Pass, which connects the Kulu Valley with the Lahul and Spiti valleys of Himachal Pradesh, was a trip to remember... After we checked out the local sites in Old and New Manali, there was a sudden need for adventure... Lack of time and poor physical condition meant that a trek was out of the question... Then my Dad suggested (over an STD call to Kolkata) that we should book seats on a guided tour... After extensive deliberation we decided to follow parental guidance... The few times that we actually have...But as I have reluctantly come to accept that parents are always right...because this trip was going to be something out of this world...

First, I absolutely must speak about our co-seekers of adventure... They were this motley bunch of Tamils all the way from down-under (and I don't mean Aussieland)... These 20 odd people who were presumably from a small village or town in Tamil Nadu, insisted on increasing decibel levels in the bus, changing their lungis in public and most importantly littering the hills with un-recyclable plastic packets... We also had a young couple, on a honeymoon sort of vacation and an elderly Bengali couple who visit Manali every year and sat on opposite windows in order to enjoy the scenery...

We made a rather lengthy stop at a shop that rents out fur coats and boots with the Tamilian party choosing the most outlandish animal-print coats and boots, while we, after much debate about the need for fur coats, settled for the sober brown and grey ones... Even in Rohtang which literally means, 'pile of corpses' I refused to be caught dead making a fashion faux pas...

After passing the picturesque Solang Valley and a quick stopover at the small but beautiful Rahalla Falls, we made our way to the last stop before Rohtang, where we had some Maggi which was half-cooked... I also learnt that that was because it is difficult to boil water at those high levels...

The climb to Rohtang was chilling! I'm serious... Thank God for the fur coats... even though my 'Doubting Thomas' self kept telling me that the driver and guide were getting commission and were fooling us by saying that it was going be really cold... Coming from Kolkata, where you have temperate climate almost the whole year, there's just that much of cold that you can imagine... But en route Rohtang it was bitterly cold... High altitudes, the onset of Autumn and to top it off it had been raining the whole day... So the otherwise cool breeze seemed freezing and what could have been a comfy picnic turned out to be a hazardous, extreme expedition...

Initially the drive around the hills was exhilarating... A zillion turns later, it got unnerving... As we continued to climb upwards as if seeking some kind of spiritual transcendence, my stomach churned and heart leaped up to my mouth incessantly... I'm not scared of heights but narrow and sometimes bad roads with buses and trucks coming from the opposite direction, where you have chances of falling into the recesses of the valley at any unfortunate moment, brought to my mind all the horrific tales of buses carrying pilgrims rolling off hills... What I had read earlier with detachment and indifference seemed so personal now... I strained to remember the actual fact... Was it a drunk driver or brake failure that had caused the mishap? For the life of me I couldn't remember... And the fact that I saw a Maruti 800 and a truck that had fallen into the mountains, totally smashed, did nothing to assauge my fear...

But snow eluded me! No where did I see snow... I really wanted to as I had never seen it before... My biggest regret on the trip... Alas!
Nevertheless, some poor consolation, were the bits of dirty snow patches that had been there for ages...Gulping, gasping, closing my eyes and cursing the driver we reached Rohtang...

After reaching Ground Zero, we were asked to walk the rest of the way... Walking to the actual pass was not that tough... Fighting the light drizzle we huddled to the actual pass... The view was breath-taking, even without the snow... But the walk back took my breath away...And I mean literally...I could hardly breathe...As we walked against the wind, it blew with a new-found vigour... I was sure that I was frost-bitten... Fingers stiff, nose running, I resembled Rudolph... Panting and walking for dear lives we reached the bus, only to have the ridiculous Tamils jeering us to our faces...(Disclaimer- I'm half-Tamil, so I have nothing personal against the community) The smart-asses didn't even venture out, as if that was a very intelligent thing to do... You come to Rohtang and go back to your friends and boast that you saw it through a bus window! I may have almost collapsed but at least I had first hand information...

Anyway the drive back got worse instead of the other way around... Thick mist and clouds had descended on the hills... Reading, listening to music and praying most of the time, we made our journey down... Even the Himalayan mineral water bottles fallen on the Western Himalayas (what an irony!) couldn't be discerned... But just when we had resigned to the fear of the unknown and the maneuvering skills of the driver, we stumbled upon the most perfect rainbow! It was the best sight ever and I hurriedly caught it on my phone camera... A distinct giver of hope... I knew I would survive the difficult journey, not only from Rohtang, but also the journey called 'life'...

The rainbow was one of those once-in-a-lifetime sights that make every tribulation, fear and risk worth it... Today as I sit in my boring office, surrounded by the day's mundane work, it is that picture on my mobile that lifts me up when I'm feeling low... It gives me strength to face today and all the 'tomorrows' of life...

THE HILLS CAME ALIVE...(PART-1)

When you leave the city (and it doesn't matter which one) and travel into a quaint little place, you can hardly imagine how inept your life is... Living in a big city makes one forget the simple joys of life... Unhappiness, depression, jealousy, OD-ing, sex and greed are subconscious companions... But in a little town tucked away in the Western Himalayas, amid the Deodars and the clouds, life moves at its own pace... Unhurried, un-flummoxed, uninhibited... You learn to relax and your body tunes to a new rhythm...

While sitting on a bus en route Manali, as we drove on the winding, curvy roads, with the bus precariously balancing itself, rising higher and higher from sea level, going deeper into the 'Valley of the Gods', I failed to realise how far away I was actually moving from my big city life... Not in terms of geographical distance alone, I was leaving behind a peculiar life, culture, ethos and thinking...

At first sight, Manali disappoints... Too quick to make judgements and too fast to dismiss things, I looked at the hill-station as an impoverished cousin to the more illustrious and tourist-friendly hill-stations... And no, it doesn't matter to me that two former PMs had given Manali their official seal of approval when they chose it as their solace from politics and parliamentary affairs. I make my own impressions.

New Manali was, in my opinion, a town that was forgetting its identity. Changing itself to suit the palate of the foreign wanderlust, New Manali is a bustling town full of hotels and restaurants like Sher-e-Punjab (Pure Veg!) and Sher-e-Punjab---The Original (Non-Veg)...

Full of locals, New Manali can sometimes be a tad rowdy with youngsters having no way of giving vent to their hormones. They delight equitably by a chance visit by a Bollywood hero, Sohail Khan as well as two donkeys satiating themselves in the most public and indiscreet way. (Both are first hand accounts and not exaggerations of the idle mind)

Old Manali, a few kms away from the New Town, is an altogether different place. Tourist-y? Sure. But in a quiet, subtle sort of way. Old cafes manned by Tibetans offer English breakfast, Israeli lunches and Italian suppers. Most hotels and eateries are by the river (Manaslu) and having a river running so close to your feet as you sit down to eat, surrounded by a constant gurgling (which is not your hungry stomach) is a totally different experience...

Living here was like living in excess and decadence---excess of food, excess of dessert, excess of fresh air, an excess of everything (if you know what I mean)... The first thing to catch your attention are the apples... Trees and trees full of rotund, red, juicy apples... Actually there are apples everywhere---on the sides of roads, in neat mounds at the foot of tree trunks, in drains, drying on porches, in wine bottles, in pies---they can be found everywhere except in a shop!
The next thing that you can't miss even if you want to are the number of hippies, 'charsis' riding in bikes adorning the worst-possible rags. I mean seriously, what's with these firangs and their clothes! Some of our Indian beggars are better dressed than them...sheesh!

Amid the yaks, unbelievably fluffy rabbits, old, smiling people and beautiful, wild flowers that grow un-nurtured, you'll also notice the lack of political signs and paraphernalia... It's as if this place has purged itself of every kind of pollution...

Old Manali is a queer mix of Tradition and Modernity... The constant dichotomy between the Natural and the Acquired... But that is also what draws you to it... It makes you forget your home and desire to be part of this delicate balance that exists between Man and Nature...
(To be contd...)