In 1984, I took my very first trek, to the Valley of Flowers, where the Bhyundar flows through alpine meadows, to join the Alaknanda between Badrinath and Joshimath. It was not my first long walk in the mountains - my father had taken us on pilgrimages to Kedarnath and Amarnath, but this was the first time I set off with a friend, to explore the beauty and adventure of the high mountains.
Our trek was something of a disaster. Exploring the higher reaches of the valley, while my friend Koko sunned himself by the stream, I stumbled on a rock, another rock smashed on to my foot, and a shard of pain implanted itself where my toes met my foot. I lurched back to Koko, and could feel the blood draining from my face. The path back to camp was paved with roughly hewn stones, every step was agonising, and I walked with the fear that I would lose my balance. When we got to our tent, my foot was swollen all the way up to the ankle, and taking the shoe off was a painful challenge. A doctor from the US, an NRI, had pitched his tent close to us, and saw me wincing as I eased the sock off. An ugly blue discoloration had seeped all the way from my toes to just below the ankle.
“It’s a fracture, for sure”, he declared.
And so it came to pass that I came off my very first trek perched on a mule many sizes too small for my 6’5” frame, with one shoe off, and the other shoe on*. Koko declared that this was his last trek ever, but my sense of masochism prevailed, and I went on to score literally scores of treks over the next four decades.
The Bhyundar valley, as it is properly called, is really quite exquisite when the wildflowers bloom in the monsoons. In the recollecting and the recounting, its charms seduced many of my friends. I think it was in 1993 that I was persuaded by several of them to lead another monsoon trip to the Valley of Flowers. Our family basement was filled with camping gear for a party of eleven, day rations of nuts and raisins had been weighed out and packed, breakfast and dinner menus finalised and provided for, smelly kerosene stoves cleaned out and stuffed into duffel bags. A week before we were to leave, we got word that the bridge across the Bhyundar and into the valley had been swept away by the rain.
Too much work had gone into the planning, office leave applied for and granted; a pilot had de-rostered herself from flights, and a couple from the UK had altered their travel plans to join us. Annu and I scuttled about to identify another monsoon trek - in the pre-internet days, that meant phone calls, and ultimately, a visit to Ashok Dilwali, trekker and mountain photographer. Ashok pointed us to Panwalikantha, another bugyal or alpine meadow, this one in the region of Kedarnath.
Our first night out, just above the tree line, made for damp and miserable camping, and many of us slept in a shepherd’s hut. But when we climbed up to the ridge on the second day, springs gushed from little knolls, wild flowers grew among vast, sloping meadows, sheep grazed under brilliant blue skies, and the Kedar peaks ranged to our north. It was a long haul to our second camp, and we barely made it by sundown. Our dinner done, we lit a small camp-fire, and lounged against the rocks; a bottle of Old Monk was passed around, cigarettes were lit, and we watched the new moon drop into the valley. Young JoJo pointed to the darkening sky:
“Shooting star!”
Prokhor Minin, on Unsplash
I missed it, and the second one, but soon we all zoomed into a display of cosmic lightworks, sharp and brilliant in a sky lit only by the stars, and washed by weeks of rain. This was my spectacular introduction to the Perseids, the meteor shower our little globe passes in the middle of every August. We don’t see it often in India, this being peak monsoon season, but once, above the infant Sutlej, Kai and I caught some glimpses of its fragmenting meteors against the Ladakh skies.
This August, for the third time, I planned to go to the Valley of Flowers.
This August, for the second time, I cancelled a trip to the Valley of Flowers.
The Valley has been shut off all of last week, because of heavy rains. Even if it were to reopen, the road from Rishikesh to Badrinath has been very treacherous this season. Friends who drove in the region this summer say the widening of the chardham roads has laid bare massive gashes on the upper slopes. Reports of subsidence and landslides surface every few days, and the risks of the road,more than a fear of the rain and the leeches, weighed into our decision to cancel.
On Whatsapp last week, a friend listed the 5 qualities he thought a person should cultivate. To his list I added, “The ability to deal with uncertainty.”
When I was younger, I wrestled uncertainty into a new certainty - a trip to the Valley of Flowers swiftly morphed into a trip to Panwalikantha. Some of that resilience and resolve is gone…and I’m watching the weekend turn into the week when we were supposed to be heading up the Alaknanda, without an alternate plan.
My wife is thinking of going up to our mountain home instead; a friend asks why we don’t join them at a climbing camp in Suru. The dates don’t fall into place: I need to attend a board meeting on the 29th, Rakhi is on the 30th. Should I go before, or after? My wandering spirit is hard to still, and I feel like I’m in a state of suspended animation.
Maybe that’s where I need to be right now - let the poles, the many poles that tug at our lives, test their strengths against each other, and decide who gets to point me in which direction. But please, let it be north, into the mountains. Till then, I will cultivate my ability to deal with uncertainty.
*Reminding me of the nursery rhyme my father used to sing to me:
Why don't you start a annual or semi annual trekking camp sir. It will be a wonderful experience for us to Trek with you and indulge in your amazing stories.😄
Lucid as always. Loved it.
Why don't you start a annual or semi annual trekking camp sir. It will be a wonderful experience for us to Trek with you and indulge in your amazing stories.😄