Abode of Shiva

5/6/09

The conference in Garhwal University, Srinagar is just the excuse to pack my bags and ride off on my bike. Gagan is the only other person who is free, so both of us start early morning (6 am, if it is early enough!). The ride up to Dehradun is nice with a breakfast stop at Nahan. Here we meet a Swiss couple on a BMW who are riding from their home to Nepal! We can not keep pace with the Beemer but surely make quick work of the ride to Dehradun through lovely green forests. Till so far the ride has been a song but now the blistering heat and chaotic traffic starts taking its toll especially as it is high noon. It takes us best part of an hour to cross Dehradun and another to reach Rishikesh. A leisurely lunch and a siesta later we walk down to the Ganga. People flock in droves for the ritual baths absolving themselves of all the sins (and boy do we sin?). Some sit meditating afterwards while others frolic. As the sun drops towards the horizon the beautiful “Ganga Aartis” start all along the Ghats. Peeling of bells, singing and the burbling of Ganga make a divine melody! We sit in the German bakery just above the Lakshman Jhula and soak in the ambiance.

As the aarti ends people float small leaf boats with oil lamps. They sparkle like stars as Ganga Maa bears them downstream. Some sights touch the inner core of your being and this is one of them. After amazing pizzas and sandwiches we get back and sleep early.

6/6/09

We get ready for a new day and as we are loading up our bikes, to our dismay, we find Gagan’s bike has a flat. By the time the tyrewalla is woken up and puncture fixed it is 7 and we rush off to Srinagar an hour behind schedule. Our nightmare has not ended, for the road is in tatters and every four wheeler wants to push us off the road. Yet the drive along Ganga has always fascinated me so we ride on. From Beasi the road is well laid and we do some hairy riding but our efforts come to a naught. There is a traffic jam at Bagban and we have to sit in it for 75 minutes twiddinge our thumbs. So much for wanting to beat the clock!

We manage to reach Srinagar by 11 am and attend the conference. In the evening we watch a performance of traditional dance drama called Pandav Nritya. As the name suggests it is about Pandavas, the five brothers from Mahabharata. We are informed that the whole story of this epic is told in about 480 episodes and we witness one of those. The performance is incredible. It is after long that I see something so profoundly moving and pleasing. Small elements of local lore have crept in to the stories and rustic humour enlivens it further. The folk music is so expressive that no matter how unknown the dialect, it makes us sway and story flashes magically on “the inward eye”.

7/6/09

The conference ends at 3 and we say hurried byes and gun our bikes upstream. By 4 we are at Rudraprayag, made famous by the man eating leopard which terrorized the people of this region and pilgrims from all over India for 8 long years. It had killed and eaten 125 persons. The leopard had became so famous for its notoriety that it found mention in international press and was regularly discussed in the House of Lords and Commons of the British Parliament. After a pursuit of three years, Jim Corbett put an end to its reign on 2^nd May 1926 at Golabrai, a small village few kilometres short of Rudraprayag.

Forest department has put a marker at the spot and the Mango tree from where Jim Corbett shot still stands tall and straight although the pilgrim shelter is now Leopard Inn! The whole episode is very succinctly described by Jim Corbett in his book “The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag”. After halting for a spell and taking pictures we ride on.

Rudraprayag is also the confluence of rivers Alakhnanda and Mandakani. We turn towards left from here and follow the valley of Mandakani. The road is being laid afresh so it is a torturous ride because of the dust. We stop often to take pictures or wait for traffic snarls to resolve themselves. This road is very busy as it leads to Kedarnath. The villages have lyrical names – Agatsmuni, Chandrapuri, Guptkashi! The river flows turquoise amidst luxuriant forests and orchards.

It turns dark and lights glow on the hillsides. This is one sight I never grow tired of looking at. We reach Ukhimath and check in to a hotel. It is very nice and cool after the scorching heat we have ridden through. While we wait for our dinner, the moon rises above the mountains and we see the dazzling moonlit visages of Kedar Dome and Chaukhamba peaks draped in perpetual snow. The sight takes my breath away but by the time we get the cameras and tripods, a large cloud obscures the view. The cold takes away all the fatigue and we fall asleep, dead to the world.

I wake up early to catch the sunrise on the peaks but to my chagrin more clouds have piled up overnight. We have a hurried breakfast and set off for Sari. We ride through very beautiful areas on a potholed road winding through the mountains.

The road to Sari forks away from the main road and is hardly 10 feet wide. It meanders through dense forests and climbs steadily. There is no traffic. We reach Sari.

It is a small sleepy village perched on a hill side with a flattish piece of glacial till plain towards its south. We park our bikes at Negi’s Dhaba and start off for Devaria Taal.

The 2.5 km walk is a zigzag path laid on the face of a near vertical cliff.

The lower half is cultivated with occasional houses and a temple. The upper half is clad in a thick forest of oaks, rhododendrons and an occasional pine. We huff and puff our way upwards stopping every few hundred meters. The forest resonates with birdsong and we spy a rare thrush or a blue coloured Veridite fly catcher. At last we are over the ridge and a few steps on a panorama of beauty of such magnitude appears that it is impossible to put in words. It is as if one has died and gone to heaven! That is Devria Taal or the Lake of Devas!

The corrie lake is surrounded by a thick forest on the upper slope till the peak. On the lower side, the lip of the corrie is covered with thick green carpet of grass as if it were golf greens. Below the lip, the forest grows thick and copious all over again. The waters are blue and crystal clear. Rufus headed streaked thrushes, red beaked magpies, black headed jays and pied shrikes rummage for grubs in the fallen leaves and a cool breeze ripples the waters of the lake. We soak in the bounty of nature.

I revel in the glory of nature and take pictures. We meet a couple who are ardent trekkers. The lady is one of the first women to traverse Himalayas from east to (4500 kms in 210 days). We sit and chat. There are no other people except the dhaba owner and the forest guard, who charges us Rs 40 per head for our visit. We sip tea and chat. Time flies and soon it is time to go. We walk back but the downhill walk on steep paths is more gruelling than walking upwards. Yet we make it in time for lunch of masala aloo and chapattis!

Thus fortified we ride up to Chopta (advertised as Switzerland of India). Chopta lies on Kedarnath – Badrinath route and is essentially an Alpine meadow surrounded by dense forests.

The saving grace is that no hotels have come up here. There are a number of dhabas lining the road and very basic living arrangements. The entire road is chock-a-block full of parked vehicles. Families with picnic hampers and large groups with patilas full of food are sitting on the grass and having their meals. There is vehicle exhaust and human din. The beauty of the place is marred by tourist assault. After a cup of tea and a few pictures, we start for Chanderpuri. The drive down is like a magic mantra. We cross a village where the crops are planted in surprising geometric patterns as in Shamlam’s Signs!

A few photo stops later we reached the GMVN Tourist village. It is a gorgeous place on the banks of Mandakani. We are lucky to find a log hut and check in.

The hut is bang on the bank of the river. We ride our bikes right up to the veranda unload. As I sit in the garden letting the gurgling of the river and birdsong melody unwind me, a flock of russet sparrows descends on the lawn and peck around till an intruding waiter scares them away. I spend the

evening sitting in the garden or walking down to the river. While we are sitting there, a gentleman walks up and starts a conversation. He turns out to be so much like us that we end up having food together. He and his wife are on Char Dham Yatra.

The surprise does not end there. Another person’s car breaks down and we offer our help. After tinkering around, I am able to fix the problem. In the thank you conversation it turns out that our man is just back from Antarctica after spending 14 months there. It is not very often that you meet so many incredible people in a single trip, and here we meet them in an expanse of 24 hours.

Early next morning we load our bikes and as we were leaving, benediction we get is a hazy view of Kedar Dome and then again the clouds hide it from us.

We drive along the banks of Ganga till Rudraprayag where a blast of hot winds catches us and follows us down to Chandigarh, the cool of the mountains a distant memory.