TwinPeak Series - 6th Note: The Sound of 100,000 Horses

As we ascended up the mountains our camps got progressively cramped and crowded, we rarely found any plain grounds therefore most of our camps were on narrow ridges or in shallow niches. One night we camped right below a massive ice-fall which was several kms wide and several kms high. It was simply massive. Our camp was pitched diagonally opposite the ice-fall on the left lateral moraine of its glacier. So while technically we were literally at its feet but because of the intervening glacier which was a few hundred feet below us we were totally safe from any of its avalanches or ice falls. It was a lovely spot to camp.

When our guide had first pointed out the camp site to us we stared at him in total disbelief. Forget space for five odd tents, there didn't seem to be any place even to park our kits. It was just boulders, rocks and stones. But there was a trickling stream nearby and that's it. Fresh water was at hand and the rest would have to take care of itself. So all of us spent the next hour carving space for our tents, we heaved and hoed and dug out entrenched boulders, removed the rocks, scattered the stones and patted the ground with our feet. Slowly and laboriously we created five plain surfaces, barely large enough to fit the tents and barely plain enough to give us a sense that we weren't sleeping on a bed of stones.

So there it was, a camp site where none existed just an hour ago. With due respect to the old adage, where there is a will there is a sleeping place.

Once the tents were up we sent a few porters to collect water from the trickling stream and the rest of us sat back and enjoyed the view of the glorious Rataban Ice Fall spread out in front for us like an IMAX cinema screen. As we chatted we wondered if we would see an avalanche and as if on que, just a few minutes later, a large overhanging shelf of ice dislodged itself and tumbled down the ice face, hundreds of tonnes of ice and snow hurtling down in a true blue avalanche. It was awe inspiring as well as frightening, but what I remember the most about the avalanche was the sound. It was like nothing I had ever heard before, a thunder, a roar, so profound, so loud, so booming that it seemed to come from all sides all at once, a 360 degree sound. A sound that not just crashed into you but also seemed to shake the very earth beneath your feet. A sound so piercing that it not only jangled your nerves but stirred your whole being till your head was swimming and you could barely keep your balance. Stunned into total inaction we stood and watched. The avalanche lasted no more than a minute, but for several minutes afterwards we stayed stunned.

When words fail to describe an experience the mind automatically searches for images it immediately remembered the time my grandmother used to tell us stories of the epic battle at Kurukshetra. She would describe the moment that epic battle began and the two armies, consisting of several thousand horses and elephants, thundered towards each other. She used to say the sound of the armies hurtling towards each other was heard in all the 'tino lok' (the three worlds).

After hearing the avalanche, I got an sense of what it must have sounded like, these two armies hurtling towards each other. The sound of 100,000 stampeding horses, I would like to call it.

TwinPeak Series - 5th Note: Rites of Passage

I cant sleep all that well once I am above 4000 meters. So I am up and out of my tent while it is still dark, well before anybody else. That's fine by me, I like sitting all alone, soaking in the sights and sounds of the mighty mountains all around me. The hour or so that I spend in this solitude thoroughly energises me for the travails of the day ahead.

The next person to stir out in the open would invariably be our guide, an ageing wizened Sherpa. The first thing he would do is look towards the east and offer his salutation to the Sun. The Sun wouldn't be visible for a while yet but its aura would already be doing its magic on the cliffs around us. Having bowed to the Sun the guide would dig into his pockets and pull out a joss stick. He would then search for a perch, a large rock, or a boulder, overlooking the direction in which we were planning to head during the day. Once he found the perch he would formally light the joss stick, point it towards our path, bow low and plant the joss stick firmly on the perch, all the while whispering a prayer asking the mountains to let us pass smoothly.

We all know that here we are totally at the mercy of these mountains. You cant take them on. Reinhold Messner has said it so eloquently "Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous". The guide knew this, so the first thing he did every morning was to seek their blessing. Seek their permission to pass. Thankfully, the mountains heard him every single day and let us pass without any major setbacks.

TwinPeak Series - 4th Note: Making the most of what is given

The first few nights we camped well below the snow line. So during these nights we always found ample driftwood to enjoy a few hours of a very welcome campfire. As soon as the tents were secured, the porters would begin building a fire and as soon as it was ready all of us would troop out of out tents and jostle for space around it. It was wonderful to warm ourselves and each of us would try and manoeuvre ourselves as close to the fire as possible, our hands splayed out in front of us, our faces craning froward.

While all of us sat facing the fire, I was amused to note that the porters would often squat facing away from the fire, their backs jostling for the warmth with the same intensity as our hands and our faces. You see, for a porter his back is everything. An aching back effectively means he is out of a job. So he knows that when it comes to getting the most out of a limited warming opportunity, he would rather warm his back than his hands or his face.

TwinPeak Series - 3rd Note: Its all about timing

Valley of Flowers has such an aura among the outdoorsy crowd. There are as many stories about its beauty, its grandeur, as there are visitors. So I was quite excited about finally paying a visit to this famed valley on my way up to Bhyunder Khal.

Just like Hemkund Sahib, its equally famed neighbour, the Valley of Flowers too is closed to visitors during the winter months and it formally reopens on 1st of June. The entry to the valley is through a tiny checkpost just ahead of Ghangaria. So having camped overnight at Ghangaria, we reached the checkpost early next morning. It was May 30th, a day before the formal opening. We however has special permission to enter the valley early so we were waved on without much further ado.

After crossing the checkpost one follows a rather well marked path up and down the mountain which is quite steep at times. After almost an hour of more or less continuous climbing one eventually reaches the head of the valley. This is the point from which one can see the entire valley open in front of you in a huge V, the banks of the opposing mountains stunningly converted into a lush carpet of flowers. It is said that through out the season the flowering changes every two weeks, so every two weeks the stunning carpet is relaid, awash with new colours, new patterns, new beauty. They say the view is simply mesmerising.

Maybe so, but I do feel that the 'over-the-top' description may be a bit euphoric simply because of the effort one has put into trekking up to the head of the valley. I mean one is all huffing, puffing, sweaty and hot, limbs are aching, throat is parched and what not. One has seen nothing but scraggy brown mountains for the last one hour and suddenly one's eye falls on this carpet of flowers. No wonder the mind goes ballistic.

Anyway, lets come to our effort, it was ditto till we reached the head of the valley. We were huffing, puffing, sweaty and hot. Our limbs were aching, our throats were dry. We had seen nothing but scraggy brown mountains for the past hour and our now finally our eyes fell on the immense valley in front of us.....

But as we stood there our eyes fell not on a riot of colours but on a carpet of green shrubs. It was too early in the season for the flowers to bloom. Some change of the plot... eh?????

Heartbroken but otherwise just as tired and achy, I remembered what one of my teachers often said...... "Effort is not everything, timing is equally critical for success"

Unfortunately for us, our timing was off by atleast a week or ten days.   

TwinPeak Series - 2nd Note: Morning Blues (or, the lack of them !!)

On our way up we stayed overnight at an ashram in Rishikesh. It was a very peaceful place. There were a bunch of buildings on either side of a wide path that lead to a short flight of stairs that took you straight into the Ganges. Despite a late night I was up at 5 in the morning feeling well rested and fresh. So I decided to explore the ashram. 

I was hoping it would be too early for anybody else so I could be just by myself but the moment I stepped out I saw many people already up and about, some were meditating under a giant peepul tree, others were on their way to the ganges for a dip, some were already on their way back. There was a group besides a small shrine right next to the stairs, singing bhajans softly and melodiously. 

As I walked towards the Ganges, a gentle wind caressed my face, as if a divine hand was touching me, blessing me. I took a deep breath and stood still for a moment. I wonder if you have heard the sound of vocal silence. There were myriad sounds, the ganga was gurgling, the peepul leaves were rattling in the wind, one could hear the strains of the singing wafting about, there was the soft chatter of the pilgrims yet somehow despite all these there was a sense of silence all around. A sense of calm, a hiatus, as if the world was at standstill, yet to wake up. 

Just then I heard behind me a giggle. Two kids, the girl was no more than 10, protectively holding on to the hand of the boy who was a few years younger, were walking purposefully towards the Ganga sharing some private joke. I let them overtake me and silently observed them; they looked so alive, so full of life, so full of energy and purpose. Never have I seen little kids so alive so early in the morning. My thoughts went to my daughter and how difficult it was to wake her up in the morning for school. How she wangled every minute, how she dilly dallied for as long as she could. And here we have kids half her age fresh and chirpy atleast an hour before I would even begin to wake my daughter.


I put it all down to the amazing energy of the place……

TwinPeak Series - 1st Note: Call of the mountain

It happened all over gain, that familiar restlessness, that need to don the boots and strike out on a narrow ledge somewhere high up. The mountains were beckoning and I was a willing listener....

The old trekking group regrouped, made ambitious plans and began the preps in earnest. This was was going to be less of a trek and more of a proper expedition, it was going to be longer, higher, steeper and narrower than we had ever done before. We planned to cross not one but two high passes, traverse not one but three valleys, walk along and among several glaciers, trudge thru miles upon miles of ice / snow fields, camp on narrow snowbound ridges and face blasting winds that would freeze us in sub-zero temperatures. The fact that we were taking on all this willingly and happily didn't quite make any sense to all those that I spoke to about my plans, so I stopped speaking about it... just put in all my energies in getting into top shape.

Normally we do things like clock work, schedules are maintained, we leave on time, arrive on time, start things on time and more often than not finish them on time too.... but this time things were a bit different, one of the chaps was late in coming so we left Delhi 2 hours behind schedule, things compounded and we were very late in reaching Rishikesh for the night halt, next morning the trend continued and we were eventually stopped at Joshimath. It was nightfall and we weren't allowed to drive any more. That meant that we would have stay the night here and travel to Govindghat in the morning. So the early morning start of the expedition was ruled out, all we could aim for now was to hopefully start by 9 am, and even that would need us to really push things in the morning. Next morning we were really at it, pushing things, getting stuff started but something kept happening and minutes kept slipping... the 9am deadline came and went. I kept looking at the watch and wondering why. It was only a little before 10 am that we eventually looked all set to go. The porters had loaded up, the team was all assembled and ready, all we now had to do was walk across the bridge and trek up the steep slope on the other side towards Ghangaria. In two days the Hemkund Sahib Gurudwara would formally open after the long winter break and we were hoping to beat the pilgrim crowds by going past Ghangaria by nightfall. Already the Gurudwara at Govindghat was jam packed with pre season pilgrims and we had to weave our way past the gurudwara gate and then onto the bridge to get to the other side of alaknanda. This was technically the beginning of the trek and as we did a quick headcount and found a member missing. We immediately patched him on the wireless and it turned out he had met someone near the Gurudwara and would join us in 10 mins. I was amused, that naughtly djinn was at it again, leaking away our minutes. I looked skyward and wondered why couldnt we keep to the time.

Just then I heard a commotion across the bridge and instantly I knew why all these delays had happened. The Guru Granth Sahib at Hemkund would be moved down to Gobindghat every winter and two days before the season opened it would be taken back up to Hemkund Sahib in a impressive procession. What I saw crossing the bridge was the beginning of that procession. First came a jathedar sprinkling holy water, purifying the path, then came the nihangs and the resplendant guards, then the young acolytes, followed by the conch blowers and the air was rent with the chant of 'bole so nihal, sat sri akal', then came the bearers of the guru di sawari, chanting the mesmerising 'wahe guru, wahe guru', one of them was carrying the granth on his head, as he passed me I bowed my head in silent thanks. To me it was all very clear. This was a sign, my path ahead had been blessed by a most potent force. All of us were destined too begin our venture in the wake of the guru granth sahib.

No wonder there was a spring in my step and a warm feeling in my heart as I began the trek.

Essence of remembering

There was this old monk and each day around noon, once his morning prayers were done, he would step out of his monastery and walk about the streets gently urging people to fill his wooden bowl.

I often watched him from my window and I still remember I used to be very intrigued by this really peculiar habit of his. As he walked about the streets he would often stop for a while and stick his finger out and wave his hand about as if he was writing something in the air. And then every once in a while instead of writing things in the air he would instead dig into his bag and pull out a little book and a pencil and then meticulously write something in it.

One day I asked him about it and he said that he was getting old and he didn't trust his memory any more so he wrote every thing down. So now every time somebody yelled at him he would promptly stick his hand out and write in the air about how that person was nasty to him, and when someone said a kind word he would promptly pull his book and write in it how that person was nice to him.

Wily old monk !!!

Soaring over a storm

Eagles have a remarkable ability. Like most birds they can accurately predict when a storm is on its way but what makes them remarkable is that when they know a storm is coming, unlike the other birds they don't flee away from it, instead they head straight towards the storm and search for the highest perch available and park themselves on it. They then wait till the storm hits their perch and then promptly let the swirling winds carry them higher. This way they rise above the storm and save themselves all the bother of being buffeted and bludgeoned by the winds below.

Truly remarkable.

Working Parent Blues

A friend of mine was telling me the other day about how every time their child ran a temperature in the morning she and her husband, both working, would look at each other. There was no need to say anything. Just a twitch of an eyebrow, maybe, and then one of them would step up on the plate and reach out for their phone.

As a working parent myself, I knew exactly what she was taking about. In fact all working parents know the price of, what I call, emergency parenting. It all boils down to a simple question. Which one of the two puts all things on hold to stay back home looking after an unwell child. Who is the one who calls up and makes all the various deadlines, meetings and tasks disappear for a while. Tough call eh?

About a month ago we were in a real soup. Earlier in the day our housemaid had ran out on us and what was worse, the next day both of us were travelling. And this was not the usual 'morning out - evening in' kind of travel. This was overnight. I was gonna be gone for two nights and she was out for four. So this was a big deal. I really couldn't see any way in which I could get out of my trip and neither could she. So we were deep waters, real deep.

That's when our daughter, who was sitting and watching us, spoke up. "Dad, Mon, chill. I will be okay on my own. I can take care of myself. Both of you go. Trust me"

And just like that, in a space of those few words, we suddenly realised that our soon to be thirteen year old was all grown up. She was a big girl now. We were no longer parents to a little baby.

Games & Lessons

When I was a kid I was simply besotted with this video game called "Prince of Persia". So there was this pauper prince who had to fight his way through many challenges to try and win the hand of this princess. He had this sword and basically had to swing and slam his way past all these guards and this very sinister wizard with super powers, who kept springing all these traps and stuff....it was great fun. The game had all these levels, twelve if I remember right, and if you made it to the top you entered this awesome chamber where the princess awaited you. But getting to level twelve was not at all easy. The first few levels were tame, but from level five things got tricky.

When I first began to play the game even the first level seemed tricky but soon I had the hang of it and it was a breeze. At each level you had about a two minutes to make it to the next level and soon I was rushing through the tame levels like in half a minute or so as if it was some kind of a race, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get past level Five where I had this wall of fire I had to leap across. The number of times I got roasted in the fire wasn't funny and it really bugged me no ends. Soon all I was doing was thinking of ways to get past that firewall and it kind of struck me that I really needed to work on my leaping skills. So now in the tame levels I basically kept leaping all the time, not rushing through to the next level till the very last second, using every opportunity to leap higher and further. Guess what, soon level Five was a breeze.

But then I got stuck in level Six, where I had to simultaneously punch and slice at this tiny little spot to kill this fearsome guard. So the tame levels were now all about my swordplay. I practised slicing, punching, weaving and I found all these useful shortcuts and hell no, soon I was like some ninja and that guard wasnt fearsome no more.

As I got closer to level Twelve I kept using the tame levels as hunting grounds for working on all those skills I would need much later in the game. Now I wasn't rushing through them, instead I was using every precious second to work on my skills. No wonder within a month I was routinely getting into that chamber where the princess waited, no sweat really.

Its been years since I played that game but just a while ago something struck me about what that game had really taught me.

Our life is quite like that game, we have our growing years and not much happens to us during those years, we have a nice protective environment around us and people looking after us, making sure we are safe from all those really tricky stuff . These years are kind of like those tame levels, most of us never really face any bruising challenge during these years. And because things seemed tame I was in a big a hurry, I wanted to run right through, wanted to just hop skip & jump straight to being that 'cocky young cousin brother' several years my senior. I talked like him, walked like him and I thought I was like him till I ran smack into a wall of fire, my first proper 'young adult' challenge. Ended up properly roasted. Unfortunately, unlike as in P of P, my life didn't end there, I didn't get to go back to the beginning and start all over again. I just had to get up, dust my bums and get going. And guess what; I kept running into more things I wasn't ready for. I was smacked, pasted and pulverised again and again till one day,  much bruised and battered, I was finally a 'grown up'.

How I wish I had taken my sweet time during those tame years to find out what skills I would need and use every moment I had to get ready for what life was gonna throw at me. It would have saved me so much of the pain and the bother.

The Art of Walking

Tatsen, the zen master, often walked many miles to travel between monasteries where he would hold his popular discourses on zen. His disciples, which were many, would follow him around and often discussed among themselves how difficult it was to keep up with him on his long travels. Each day he walked for so long that most of them, when they reached the monastery, would be too tired to move let alone attend to the various tasks and the prayers. The master on the other hand always seemed fresh and ready for any task. So one day, a young apostle asked Tatsen didn't he ever felt tired after his long walks. Tatsen smiled and asked the young monk;
'Are you tired?'
'Yes master, very tired'
'Did you walk more than me today?'
'No'
'So your tiredness is not because of the walk but the way you reached here'
'Let me explain. When you took your first step today morning you must have surely worried how much you would have to walk today. Thereon your mind must have kept worrying, asking you questions, complaining, constantly keeping close track of how hot it was, how you were sweating, how thirsty you were and how you needed to take a break and rest. But then even as you you rested, it worried about how you would have to walk faster so you could catch up with me and so on. So now you see, you are not tired because of all the walking you have done, you are tired because of all the running your mind has been doing since this morning. So tomorrow when you walk, just walk and let your mind sleep, let it do all the resting for you. That way no journey, and for that matter any task, you undertake will ever be tiring.'


* all the zen stories on this blog are works of fiction. My zen masters are all very real to me but did not exist in real life. I however remain indebted to all the many zen masters who have since time immemorial guided that essential thought that is the source from which these stories spring.

New Year Thoughts

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult.
I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year-old again.
I want to go to a McDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant.
I want to sail little kishtis in the puddle and splash any who dared walked by.
I want to think Cadbury Gems are better than money because you can eat them.
I want to lie under a big jamun tree and sell nimbu pani to my friends on a hot  summer's day.
I want to return to a time when life was simple; when all I knew were colors, multiplication tables and nursery rhymes, but that didn't bother me, because I didn't know what I didn't know and I didn't care.
All I knew was to be happy because I was blissfully unaware of all the things that should make me worried or upset.
I want to  think the world is fair and that everyone is honest and good.
I want to  believe that anything is possible.
I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be stupidly excited about all the little things like a stick of wrigleys, or a cone of icecream.
I want to live simple again.
I don't want my day to consist of hanging laptops, misplaced phones, depressing news, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones.
I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, imagination and mankind,
So . . . here's my checkbook and my car-keys, my credit card and my passport. 
I am officially  resigning from adulthood.
And if you want to discuss this further, you'll have to  catch me first, cause I just tagged you. So you are the DEN and please do count till TEN.

Colours of the fall.

I have always envied the American fall season. What little I saw of it always took my breath away, the sheer explosion of colours. I so wished we too had a similar season.

It turns out we do.

We were on a trek into the Hathi Parbat valley. It’s off the beaten track and not many know much about this valley. Which is all that much the better for us as we are happy being just by ourselves.

So here we were, having just spent our first night under the stars, ready to head out into the wilderness. The trail led into a lush forest and as soon as we crossed a stream I saw the valley on the other side. It was the same explosion of colour. The fall running riot among the leaves.

As we entered the valley I was surrounded by the same hues, the oranges, the browns, the deep reds and the mottled yellows. The path was littered with the leaves, softly crunching underfoot, the air suffused with the fragrance of the pine, the maple and the oak.

I had my wish. This was way better than what I had imagined. I sat on a rock and soaked it in. I saw a leaf, a dried maple, and on it were three water droplets, like three little pearls, the remains of the overnight dew. I saw a little lizard scampering across looking for a morning meal, and a beetle nearby fleeing hoping not to be the one.

I got up to carry on with the trek, the leaves softly crunching underfoot.

The tale of the rolling stone

It was surprisingly quite and I lay sleeping under the tent. It was absolutely still. No wind flapping at the tent, no stream gurgling nearby, nothing at all. Just then I heard an almost imperceptible hiss followed by a slight scrapping sound.

I was immediately alert. My first thought, it’s a Bear. But then bears don’t hiss, do they? They don’t. Then I figured it out. We had camped at the bottom of a massive glacier and the sound that I had heard was the sound of the glacier on the move. I was immediately reminded of John Muir who once said that everything in this world was on its way somewhere. So was this rock solid piece of ice.

Isn’t it interesting that it’s only us humans who attach so much importance to permanence, to having roots. It’s always about my hometown, my region, my state, my house, my this and my that and what not. But the fact is that no matter what, even that which is most dear to us, is always on the move and will eventually be gone.

Winter wars

It had been an exceedingly cold night. I hadn’t slept much and the watch finally showed me that it was time to get up and get out of the cosy tent. I reached over for my headlamp, clamped it to my head and snapped it on. As its light spread I saw many hundreds of tiny sparkling stars above me and I wondered whatever had happened to my tent. Actually the tent dome had frosted over and the tiny stars were infact frozen droplets that had ascended from my damp breath and my warm body.

I zipped on my heavy jacket, slipped into my shoes and unzipped the tent. The moment I poked my head out, the cold outside simply took my breath away. The grass crunched under my step, the frost making each stalk brittle. The stream had iced over and I had to crack the thin ice layer with my heel. I scooped a little water in my hand and splashed it on to my face. My face felt as if it had smashed into a wall. It was numb for a minute. I looked around and saw that everything had a patina of ice. Every stalk, every shrub, every leaf was glossed over, shining and stiff. I went over to the campfire and it too looked stone cold, the ash from last night’s fire all dry and grey.

I took a stick and poked around the ashes. At first I saw nothing but when I looked closer I saw a faint orange glimmer, a tiny sign that somewhere in this vast coldness heat had survived.

I quickly gathered tiny sticks, some dry grass and tuffs of juniper and I was immediately on my knees, my face close to the ashes as I blew at them. Gently at first and later, as the embers glowed a bit, I blew harder and longer till the little sticks and the grass and the juniper began to smoke. I blew harder still and suddenly tiny flames flickered to life and I had a fire going. I got up with a smile.

Yet again the heat had won over the frost in this eternal ding dong battle of the winter.