THE HIMALAYAN CHAPTER

 
Dear Reader,

I would like to plead your goodself to take the pain to read this entire blog (since I have taken the pain to complete the trek & further to write this blog!) May be you will take time to read this and may even falter as I did, but I would sincerely request you to spend your valuable time to read this no holes barred edition!

Trek (n): - a long difficult journey, especially made on foot.

I think the dictionary meaning really summarizes the entire expedition in just 5-6 words. But I think I would love to put it my own way, just to satisfy my ego. And the fact is that it doesn’t accept anyone and everyone that comes its way. So sometimes you have to make the Himalayas accept you. My experience was somewhere along that line.

Chapter 1:- It all began on my birthday
 It all began on my birthday, 19th May 2006. They say that whatever you do on your b’day you would keep doing it for the entire year. I believe in it because on 19th May 2005 I made the mistake of studying hard on my birthday & had to study the entire year (Gosh! I wouldn’t do it again I swear). We (i.e. Me & my two college friends, Ajinkya Natu & Viraj Sathaye) began our journey by boarding the Rajdhani Express from Mumbai Central at around 2 45 pm. It was my first experience of traveling in the fastest train of India. It left the station at around 3 15 pm and we were all set.

Now here I must tell you why I chose to go to the hills. I had given two exams i.e. TYBCOM as well as CA Inter. So I was homesick in the opposite way, i.e. sick of home. So I agreed to go anywhere just to leave home. And frankly I knew little about where we were heading, all I knew was that we were going to the Himalayas from Dehradun. And the objective for me was to leave home to enjoy and relax in the abode of nature.

“Never go for a trek when you are in a mood to relax. If you want to relax, hit the hill stations”, I would suggest all of you guys, experience is the best teacher, as they say!!!

Fortunately the ones traveling with us were Maharashtrians, Mr. Sane his wife and his 7th Std student son Srinivas (Who loved Harry Potter & even looked like him) Now normally a 7th Std guy would mean harmless little school boy, that’s what I thought about him initially. We began talking to Mr. Sane about where we stayed and where we were heading. Srinivas had got this Rattle Snake thing (two miniature-rocket- shaped magnets which when attracted to each other produce a rattlesnake type sound). It was fascinating for him that the magnets embraced everything in the train and that they produced the rattle sound. We kept on listening or rather tolerating the sound as we saw the train zoom past the northern suburbs of Mumbai. And as soon as that happened the scene outside the window became more interesting. The towers, stations, crowd, dirt, thrash gave way to huge stripes of barren land, trees, farms, small houses like we used to draw in schools. (I never managed it though!)

As soon as I started feeling hungry, (as I always do, so you better habituate yourself with this line) on came the refreshments. It was the IRCTC (wish I could remember the full form) serving us. It began with a kachori and a Frooti type drink followed by Tea. Now this is worth a mention, all the catering agencies either believe that Indians cannot live without tea or that they can stand anything but coffee. So they kept on offering us tea packets, which included sugar, milk powder the tea bags and the thermos filled with enough hot water to have a nice bath.

Perhaps it was the effect of the tea or perhaps the rattle sound wasn’t irritating enough, Srinivas became friendlier with us. Ya the prejudice of him being a harmless little schoolboy was rubbed of gradually when he started showering the wealth of knowledge he had inside his head. He knew the words of the Pakistani national anthem, the atlas better than what I knew, the first men to climb Everest, and what not. He was a nerd and I suitably named him Encarta.
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20/5/2006:- Cut to 6 am the next day, the caterer arrived with Tea, loud enough to wreck our sleep. Never had I got up at 6 in the morning to even study. But I had to. (Did I have a choice!) Now as I looked outside the window, the view was even more interesting. We were in Rajasthan. So all we saw was huge stripes of farms, houses which appeared to be at least a km away from each other, trees and hills. After some news flash from Encarta and some card magic from Ajinkya we reached Nijjamuddin Station, some stations away from New Delhi.

The driver of the guesthouse of Bank of Baroda was waiting for us. He had got this air-conditioned Maruti1000 for us. He took us to the guesthouse through the lavish areas of south Delhi where all the embassies of foreign countries were located. We had a blast there. We were given all the possible V.I.P treatment one could get. We could enjoy the Metro train of Delhi which was like some other part of the world, considering that even the people out there were decent. The India Gate was something special too. I experienced a wave of patriotism when I stood in front of it. It was one movement I felt proud to be a part of India. We even got to experience the Delhi rains (and of course the water logging. I wonder what would have happened had a 26/7 occurred here.) .

Chapter 2:- Welcome to the Jungle
21/5/2006:- The next day we had to rise early at around 4.30 am to board The Shatabdi Express (Destination: Dehradun, Uttaranchal). Fortunately even this one had an air conditioning. So after some more tea packets and some breakfast we reached Dehradun at around 1 30 pm. So just to recapitulate we were enjoying the air-conditioning for two and a half days. We reached the so-called reporting camp located at an old abandoned ashram belonging to some Agarwal trust. We knew this wasn’t the best place to report but somehow there was more to come. All our room had was a blanket lay on the floor & abundance of dust cover on it plus one sofa (purchased in 1885 or something) that too covered with dust. “We have had it!” I said. But it didn’t end here. To add salt to our wounds we got a shock that in our group (which was called HD-21, meaning, Har Ki Dhun, 21st May) there are only 4 participants, including the 3 of us. The other participant was Ms Sharma, a Delhiite, yoga teacher by profession and a big time snob. We felt as if we were stuck in the jail, without the bars though. “Welcome to the Jungle! “ I said to myself.

Chapter 3:- Acclimatization
22/5/2006:- Morning came as a relief for us; we couldn’t wait to march away from this “living hell.” We (i.e. 4 of us) boarded a bus meant for 40 people. We had to travel another 200 km to arrive at Sankri, our base camp & the road leading there was really amazing. Its width was just enough to accommodate the four wheels of the bus, the Yamuna River flowing elegantly opposite the hills located on one side of the road. Besides the turns were really zigzag and were mostly blind, a huge risk being that another vehicle could be traveling in the opposite direction and BANG! . It was a scary but beautiful sight. We reached there by 4 pm, as comfortably as a passenger would in an empty Mumbai local train.

Sankri is a remote village located around 200 km away from Dehradun. It is a beautiful place, almost like a hill station. The people there looked like a mixture of Nepali’s and Bhaiya’s. They had these chubby red cheeks (including men) resembling the Nepali’s. Their regional language was Gadwali. The YHAI camp located there comprised of about 10-12 tents each having capacity to hold 10 participants

As soon as we settled down we learnt that four participants couldn’t carry on to start the trek because they needed at least 10 of them to send a batch for trekking. So we had wait for the next batch i.e. HD-22, which was set to arrive the next day. The schedule for our batch originally was: -

22/5: - Arrival in Sankri
23/5: - Rappelling and acclimatization walk
24/5: - First trek to Juda Talao (4 km)
25/5: - Juda Talao to Kedar Kanth (7 km)
26/5: - Kedar Kanth to Dhunda (9 km)
27/5: - Dhunda to Talhouti (11 km)
28/5: - Talhouti to Lekhathatch (10 km)
29/5: - Lekhathatch to Seema (12 km)
30/5:- Seema to Har Ki Dhun (The Ultimate Destination) (12 km)
31/5: - Har Ki Dhun to Seema (12 km)
1/6: - Seema to Taluka (14 km)
2/6: - Taluka to Sankri (12 km)
3/6: - Bus from Sankri to Dehradun
4/6: - Dehradun to Delhi and then the much awaited flight back home.

But since we had to wait for HD 22 we had to alter the schedule, which meant that we would be leaving for Juda Talao on the 25th instead of the stipulated 24th May. The Field Director Mr. Somnath Pal told us that we could skip the halt at Taluka camp and instead arrive at Sankri the same day. This would mean covering 26 km in a day. Now that’s going to be one really daunting task. This also meant that we had to spend 3 days at Sankri. “All those days & km of traveling and the trek is yet to start! 3 days of acclimatization! Why do we need that?” I moaned.

Three days is quite a long time, especially when all you have got to do is sleep, eat, shit & again sleep! Mr. Pal was a strong believer of acclimatization and he had no intention to let us skip that.

23/5/2006:- We waited for HD 22 to arrive in the evening. Ajinkya and Viraj were convinced that HD 22 would have beautiful girls and that we’ll have a blast and I as if waking them up from their dream said ”No way guys.” Ok you can call me pessimistic but I know my fate more than u do! I was really confident that I had left fate in Mumbai (or rather was it vice versa!). HD 22 arrived at around 4 pm. They were a group of 8, 1 girl, Renu Joshi, her cousin Parth Kanitkar and 5 others. So the 12 of us were set to trek together. We made friends with Renu and her cousin, Parth and even performed a skit that night with Viraj and me in the lead roles.

Let me tell you something about Parth. If you remember Srinivas, the nerd we met in Rajdhani? Well if Srinivas was a nerd, Parth was a nerd’s nerd, or rather nerd square. We asked him about what he has done so far in his life. After a hour of history oriented narration by Parth we realized the extremes of too much studies. “Who reads atlas just to pass time?” I questioned myself, already aware of the answer. He loved history & he spoke about many leaders (or whoever they were) and their contributions, et al. I realized that I had heard these names for the first time. He was also learning French. Moreover he found it hard to figure out the last time he had a good laugh! Now that’s not what you want to do in life. But he was really sharp. He had loads of knowledge about every field. I think knowledge is more important than your grades. And he thought having one’s own house in South Delhi is the toughest thing in life, so he dreamt of having one, one day. (Hey Parth sorry if I hurt you or something, but it was really necessary for the reader to get used to the characters of the script!)

24/5/2006:- We were supposed to go for rappelling that day. It was the waking up at 5 am everyday, which got into my head & worse still was their style of awaking us. They used to serve us bed tea in our tents. So like it or not, we had to wake up. As per our routine we went for the morning exercise at around 6 am. 3 instructors, who were Pahadis themselves, two of them females, accompanied 12 of us. One of them was Parveena, roughly of our age, but really beautiful features, red chubby cheeks, a silver nose ring which suited her & beautiful hair. She demonstrated how the exercises were to be done. “Wow! She was really cute” I said to myself. She was a typical ‘gaon ki gori’. As soon as we finished the exercises, we headed for an ancient temple, really authentic & well constructed, looked more like a monastery but really artistic. But my dirty mind was into something else. I was thinking of some way to start talking to her. I began with some general questions. I realized she was really simple & had an innocent smile. She blushed as she smiled, her chubby red cheeks appearing redder. We headed for the camp thereafter.

We left the camp for rappelling after breakfast; of course with Parveena along. At the rappelling site (which was a huge rock, which we had to descend) the trainer and the two girls showed us the demo. Parveena was getting ready to hop down. And hop down she did. In a flash, 50 seconds was all it took for her to come 50 metres down. I was really impressed. After the demonstration we all successfully hopped down the rock. Soon we started the much awaited acclimatization walk. It was difficult, especially when you have to do it with a 5 kilo sack on your back. I was trying hard to climb fast to catch up with Parveena, but she was way too fast. I taunted that she was the ’Bachendri Pal of Sankri’. We reached the so-called lunch point, had lunch & after having some rest, descended the mountain. It was as if we proved that we were ready to start the trek. This was the last day when we had our last bath. (It is worth a mention you know; you will realize it later.)

Chapter 4:- Here we Go
25/5/2006:- Finally it was time to leave, it was a long wait. So after three days of intense traveling and then three mammoth days of acclimatization we finally left Sankri for the 10-day trek leading to Har Ki Dhoon, our ultimate destination. Har Ki Dhoon is a valley from where snow clad peaks could be seen, as if the were kept in a showcase in Har Ki Dhoon’s living room. We had heard lots of things from the earlier groups who came down to Sankri again after completing the trek. There are two types of people you know, first: - those who are very critical of you and would go out of the way in proving how you are going to find it difficult in coping with the terrains of the Himalayas, and the second –Those who would encourage you & would convince you that it would be as easy as digging once own nose. (I know it’s a weird metaphor, but couldn’t find anything easier than that) We met both types and digested all the thoughts they had to share.

We left at around 8 am along with Salman. (That was the nickname of our guide) This Salman character was really interesting; he was the brother of another guide whose nickname interestingly was Shah Rukh. You know how it is in villages, like Antra Mali was the Madhuri of her village in the movie ‘Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon’ This Salman had long hair, resembling Salman’s hairdo in Tere Naam. He had learnt Flute and was really good at it, He entertained us throughout the course of the trek. He even taught us a Gadwali song called ”lacchi lacchi log” along with its meaning. It was interesting but it took out a good amount of energy. We had to climb about 2000 feet in 4 km.

Salman made it easy though, with his talkative nature and his melodious flute. We stopped twice, (actually we used to stop literally after every half a km, but officially just twice.) once to have a milk powder made pani-jadya tea and then later for having lunch. The lunch point was a beautiful meadow covered with a thin sheet of grass, as neatly as if it was a football pitch and garnished with cute & tiny yellow flowers. It looked awesome. It is the beauty of Himalayas you know, it has millions of such flowers & as you go higher, you can see different colours.

We reached Juda Talao, the first of our higher camps. It was cold & pleasant & the campsite was another beautiful meadow, with a Talao besides. (The Lake, that’s why the name Juda Talao, since Talao was bang opposite our camp site) we were welcomed with a welcome drink made up of Gurranch (extracts of a flower). It tasted sweet and it quenched our thirst. Actually anything we did get at that point of time would taste sweet. After gulping two glasses of the juice the camp leader welcomed us all and gave us and option of either going for a walk or bird watching. So 5 of us, whom I would call the youth brigade of our group, started bird watching. I was well accustomed with bird watching in Mumbai.(but the birds were different though!) The birds were far and few. We hardly could spot few and even if we did, we couldn’t spot them through the binoculars. So we indulged in some serious handwriting analysis by Renu (and she did analyze it very well. I can say that cause she had unearthed some of my best kept secrets, not all though!)

We had dinner at 6.30 pm, astonishing but true. Never did I have dinner so early before, but we had to, did we have a choice? It seemed logical though, having dinner before sunset was advisable when it was going to get pitch dark after that. And seriously it did. We had campfire with the candle serving as the fire. Kishore and Rafi dominated the proceedings. We had a hot cup of Milo (which was a nice routine of YHAI) and dozed of at around 8.30pm even as the thunder & lightning said, “We wouldn’t let you sleep peacefully!”

26/5/06:- We woke up at 5, except me. I got up 5.45 as I smartly ignored the bed tea to grant myself some grace period. I was feeling kinda low when I got up. I went to perform the necessary chores. The YHAI had earmarked a zone for dumping fertile human fertilizers, which was at least half a km away from our tent. So there was always a danger of wetting your pants! After breakfast, I realized my stomach was not in the best of health. I had loose motions. We packed our bags and started our 7 km trek to Kedar kanth. As we ascended we could see the tiny yellow flowers and what more they were accompanied by their lavender neighbors. We climbed, climbed and climbed. We stopped at a meadow for tea.

Meadows here were really beautiful, surrounded by trees, neatly naturally trimmed grass as if it were a turf club, sprinkled with cute tiny yellow sunflowers It was our tea point. It was incredible you know, as it’s difficult to get ready-made tea, 10000 feet above sea level. So after some biscuits and milk powdered tea we marched on. We kept walking till we approached our lunch point. After lunch we slept on the grass. It was chilly & sunlight was a relief for our skin. We had a sunbath & moved on. We reached Kendar Kanth to the relief of our much-tired legs. The campsite was another meadow...large enough to build two cricket stadiums. We played cricket with home made bat & ball. The sunset here was intriguing. The red sunrays surpassed the cloud cover is so as to form a beautiful Mahal. It was amazing. Ajinkya tried to grab the movement with his camera but was unsuccessful. It was the wonder of nature and we were fortunate enough to get a glimpse of it while sit in the lap of Mother Nature; 12000 feet above the sea level.

Chapter 5: - The Downfall
27/05/06:- A lethargic start, performing the daily chores which resembled that of nomads, eating a hurried breakfast & again getting ready for another exasperating and endless trek. Gosh! I was tired. I wished today were a Sunday. But nope it wasn’t. I missed home, my family, my bike, the TV set, and not to forget my toilet, fully lit, with 24-hour water supply. Wow it sounded like a luxury. Wish we could get one here. I was late for the farewell speech where the camp leader was to brief us about today’s trek. The camp leader could guess that I was tired. I knew I wasn’t that fresh but I knew I had the stamina to go or it. The camp leader said he would accompany us for a short while. We started the upward march. Left, right left right, we marched on. Alarm! Alarm! Systems failure!, the body responded. The heart started pumping louder. I couldn’t breathe. The nose was a bit choked. May be that was one of the reasons for breathlessness. It was frightening. I sat on a rock. I just couldn’t breathe normally. It was as if I was having an asthma-attack. Help! Oxygen please!

That’s it! I have had enough. I couldn’t continue. I just looked behind and gathered that I hadn’t even walked half a km. I went back to the Kedar Kanth camp promising my group that I will be back.

The only option for me was to go back to the base camp (Sankri! And that too AGAIN!!!) and join them in either Lekhathatch or Seema. Since I couldn’t climb 9 km, I had to descend 11 km to reach Sankri, our base camp. It was tiring but to my relief I could breath normally again. ‘Parle G’ gave me the energy to reach my destination. I reached Sankri at around 6 pm. While climbing down I realized how much altitude we had covered. All I longed for was sleep.

Chapter 6: - Life at the Base Camp
28/05/06 , 29/05/06 :- As if 3 days at the base camp were not enough, I had to spend another 2 days here. The only interesting thing there, apart from Parveena was the toilet. I could comfortably perform my chores. I caught up on the much-needed sleep. By this time Mr. Somnath Pal (our field director) had left Sankri. The new field director was Mr. Sharma (One sad character I tell you) He was cool at the beginning. But then he started taunting about my physique and how I was too weak to go back again. I thought he was just kidding but he wasn’t. All these days he kept criticizing me. He said I didn’t have the caliber to complete the Har Ki Dhun trek successfully. That’s enough! (Wish I could say that to him.) I would love to call him serial-discourager; since he followed this as a daily routine. I avoided his comments. But somewhere inside I wanted to give him One Tight Slap.

Moreover there was this indecision, whether to stay here till 2nd for the group to come back, or to join them at Lekhathatch or Seema. Sharma was provoking me. I wanted to prove him wrong and make him eat his own words. May be I had a ‘Lakshya’ now. I had a reason to go up there, which I didn’t have earlier. I decided to leave Sankri and head for taluka, which was about 12 km of plain road walk and then choose the next day whether to march upwards or else its was back to the square one, again. “Nice decision.” I said to myself since I had managed to get rid of that Negativity Transmitter, at least for the time being. But he went on “Mark my words, you will return here tomorrow again, I tell you”.

After reaching Taluka, the participants there added some more masala by saying that the trek from Taluka to Seema was very difficult and the climb was extremely steep. (One of them even had the measurements done. He said that the slope was 80 degrees steep)


Chapter 7: - The Judgment Day
30/05/06: - Another dull start to the day, getting up at 5 was something I would have loved to change in the YHAI schedule. Now the judgment to be taken was whether to proceed further towards Seema or to go back and relax in Sankri. I pondered over both the options. I was a difficult decision and it was influenced by the discouraging words earlier night. But the same participants who discouraged me started encouraging me. I was a morale booster. It gave me the courage to atleast think about going uphill to join my friends and my group.

After loads of thinking I decided to continue the uphill journey. 14 km uphill wasn’t a joke. And something inside me kept on pushing me to just go on. So with tons of energy, (which was stored in my bag in the form of Parle G as a substitute for lunch) excitement and determination, at around 7.30 am I left Taluka, not even knowing the road, walkin alone humming the songs I loved most, saluting the never-say-die spirit of the Pahadis, munching Parle G for instant energy and salaaming the beautiful walk though the evergreen and peaceful Himalayas.

Amidst the peace was a challenge, a challenge to survive the hilly terrains, Survival of the Fittest one might say. With the Pahadis serving as navigators I reached yet another remote village. The ascend never seemed to end. Yet the excitement of getting back to join my group and my friends seemed to override the pain and the fatigue. Backing myself all the way, I managed to reach Lekhathatch, which was enroute. I stopped over, looking for something to eat. Lunch would have done me a world of good. To my luck two YHAI directors were heading for Har Ki Dun and they too had stopped over for lunch.

After lunch the two directors & I resumed the never ending ascend. This time though I was in safe company. We laboured our way through the rivers and rocks. Tea at a ‘Himalayan Canteen’ recharged us, just enough to let us complete our mission. It was 6 pm then and the feet were just too tired. I throwed my rucksack into my tent and greeted my friends. There was this amazing astonishment on their faces. They were overjoyed to greet me. The fatigue just disappeared with their warmth. There was a sense of achievement, as if I had won a Himalayan Oscar! I was overjoyed, on cloud No 9 you can say. I slept that night, content with the decision I had made to join my friends, come what may.

Chapter 8: - Ultimate Destination
31/05/06:- Next morning witnessed the dawn of the most eagerly awaited day. We were finally heading for Har Ki Dhun. It was not easy though; well nothing was easy till now. 12 km uphill was what YHAI claimed it to be. But it was going to be worse than that & somehow I was ready for it. We got an amazing good-bye salute from our hosts. We followed the river, which kept flowing in the opposite direction, rather hastily. The flow was smooth and loud, the sound resembling that of a whirlpool. This was indeed the day we were going to see the much-hyped Har Ki Dhun valley. It was difficult to visualize how the valley might be.

We had to overcome steep climbs, river crossing with the help of two wooden planks set between the two ends, rocky patches, et al. We walked our way through Wheat farms stretched over miles of a mountain peak. I remembered the scene from Gladiator wherein Russell Crowe moves through the wheat farms with his palm outstretched to feel the crop. I did the same, with a sigh of relief that I wasn’t a Gladiator! We went on, miles to go before we could sit, leave alone sleeping. The wheat farms though divided, gave the impression that I was one huge farm, almost the size of two golf courses. Everything about the Himalayan valleys was huge, the glaciers, the mountains the snow-clad peaks, the trees and the incessant jungle

Maggi was a relief for us as we could relish it and have some rest too. The next phase was a steep climb, threatening the muscle of our thighs. We kept on taking small breaks. Plain flat land was the last thing we could see, miles ahead from where we were. Hours of crawling led us to the lunch point much to the relief of my tired legs. We reached Har Ki Dhun after hours of further trekking. I dropped my sack and had a seat. Wow! I could feel a sense of satisfaction that despite all odds I could experience the aura of this awesome & staggering beautiful valley. (Though prima facie it looked just another meadow! But the scenic beauty was just capitulating).
It was just freezing cold there. We could see the snow clad peaks, which were about 21,000 feet above the sea level. The clouds had begun to settle in. We were at about 12,500 feet. And the water was simply chilly. I couldn’t even wash my hands after dinner. I realized how important an invention the toothbrush was, thanks to some cool American for that! We went to bed at about 8 30 pm & caught on some much needed sleep, since we had to do descend tomorrow.

01/06/06:- The group photo was something special for me, since I was a part of it. I believed that I made it happen. It was a feeling of contentment that ran through my veins. The descend wasn’t that difficult though. But we could quantify what we had achieved the day before. Reaching Seema was more of ‘A walk which eventually leads to home’ than a trek. I couldn’t wait to reach home. The feeling of reaching home was out of the world.

02/06/06:- We, i.e. Ajinkya, Viraj & me left our group whilst going from Seema to Sankri since we had to be quick, as we had to skip taluka. The distance was a staggering 26 km on paper. Reaching home & more so reaching the base camp safely was a driving force though. It was exasperating in every sense and I kept on saying to myself ‘Come on boy this is the last trek’. Finally we reached Sankri much to the relief of our dead legs. Another proud movement awaited me. Mr Sharma gave me the Certificate much to his agony. He still wondered how in the world did I complete the trek. I was so satisfied, cause I had managed to keep him silent.

03/06/06:- The trekking part had ended, but not the traveling part. We boarded a public transport, which was almost like our Haat Dhakwa, Bus Thambva. So it stopped even before I could achieve full acceleration. The twists and turns were just too much, enough for one to hate the roller coaster for life. We reached Dehradun at about 3 pm. Obviously we were not going to that god-forsaken reporting camp again. We hired a room in a decent hotel, which even had a TV set! Wow finally we could watch the idiot box.

04/06/06: - The next morning we took a train to Delhi. The great Parth (Sorry dude, couldn’t resist the temptation!) had warned us that the traffic in Delhi was too much and it would take about 2 hours for us to reach the airport from the station. So we hurriedly reached for the cab and much to our agony, we reached the airport in half an hour. So it was 2.30 pm and we had already reached the terminal to catch a flight scheduled at 6.30pm. The empty stomach roared and the staggering out of the world rates at airports mad our hearts pump harder. Two samosas for Rs 37/- was hardly value for money.

The wait was endless. Time hardly seemed to pass by. All we had for entertainment was a Plasma TV airing Star News, shouting the same news again & again, so frequently that I could even memorize them. To add to our suffering the flight was delayed for an hour, thanks to the ever-punctual Air Deccan. The flight was good though. I felt as if we were driving over a boulevard of clouds. I looked out of the window to check if we could really see the gods, meditating in atmost silence.

We reached Mumbai at around 9.30 pm. As soon as we alighted the Airbus, the air felt familiar. The climate felt warm and nice. It was as if we were acclimatized to this climate already. Wow! It felt so good to be back.

The memories remain though. The images captured by the brain are just too permanent. Now as I write this I long for that amazing climate, the hills, the trees the valleys, etc. This has been the rarest and the most amazing treks I have ever been to.

It has taught me a lot too. The most important one I feel is the adjustment part, in every little thing we did. The acclimatization was very much essential, the food was something which you wouldn’t like to have on a vacation, the survival of our lives against the rough weather, steep and rough terrains, it was tough. So it was about survival and above all, survival of the fittest. Though not the fittest, (as Mr. Sharma would like to put it) I did complete the trek successfully and I feel proud about it.