A ROUND TRIP TO HEAVEN

It was another one of the innumerable Friday nights which we had been happily sacrificing for long western classics. The only difference this time was that we had promised ourselves (and each other) that this one would be our last before the exams (although this promise now was in grave danger of being declared redundant after being broken every day through the last week). We had run out of classics in our hard disc store so the movie that was picked up for the night was ‘INTO THE WILD’.
The movie was amazingly beautiful and above all ‘situational’ or rather ‘timely’. This is because a lot of sentimental talks had started doing the rounds of our recent chats of how all this college ‘aiyashi’ would soon give way to solitary confinements and a lonely world. The question was how could we give a fitting end to the blast we had in 3 years of college? The answer was staring us in the face. Before bidding farewell what we needed was an unprecedented high! The epitome of adventure- one that would overshadow the grief of letting go of each other.
‘Into the wild’ showed the way. While ‘Into the wild’ has an Alaskan adventure that the protagonist undertakes as a refuge from the materialistic world, we chose its Indian counterpart- The Himalayas.
When we got down to decide the Himalayan trek to take, we had a long list to choose from and after hours of discussions and deliberations the place that was unanimously agreed upon was the foremost shrine of India- The Badrinath. People snubbed it as another one of our romantic projections, a passing fad inspired by some rush of blood. This was because Badrinath, although a popular pilgrimage location is not known for its adventure tourism credentials.
I now feel those adverse reactions only strengthened our resolve!!
After a lot of hiccups and alterations to our initial plan an itinerary was finalized. The ascetic nature of our tour did raise a few eyebrows, for example when travel agents in Haridwar came to know that what we were looking for was a Himalayan trek and not Kedarnath-Badrinath regular hires they were a little taken aback. But with a little effort we got what we were looking for and we set sail on our Tavera.
The first post in our map was the ‘Kedarnath’. Together with the wheels of the car our tour was set rolling and a number of thoughts started clogging our heads, like what kind of avenues would be there near a shrine for the adventure tour that we were seeking? But soon we shed all those apprehensions and lost ourselves in the music of the Ganges rushing besides us. By evening we were near Kedanath and we halted for the night stay.
Next morning as soon as we glanced out of our windows a breathtaking sight greeted us. A snowcapped Himalayan peek shining under the sun’s rays stood right in front of us. The sight set our spirits soaring and we hurriedly jumped out of our beds to start the long walk to the Kedarnath temple which is through approximately 14 kms of rough, steep Himalayan terrain.
After the customary dip in the hot water kund at the base, as we started our ascent an out worldly experience awaited us. With such intoxicating beauty around, geysers, rivers, plants hitherto never seen or heard of, clouds acting as companions rather than those white masses hanging far up in the sky and the sun and the rain playing games together with the those daunting Himalayan peaks towering above our heads and we wished may this commute never end. Add farm fresh marijuana to it and you would dive into the valley and surge over the peaks at will. As we kept ascending it appeared as if the beauty was augmenting exponentially and the pinnacle was reached when we actually reached the temple-guarded by snow covered peaks at the back. It was icy cold there with the effect exemplified by the fact that we were drenched in rain. Not much rush ensured that we had our darshan in little time.
The next day we departed for Chopta – a picturesque location between Kedarnath and Badrinath. Here we had an interesting face-off with the jungles’ habitat. Leeches welcomed us in the lush green mountain fields of Chopta leaving us profusely bleeding. A local presented us with an interesting fact, that these leeches actually suck away the dirty blood from our veins and are also used for medication famously known as the leech therapy, and we felt a lot better. Why not! we had our leech therapy done for free! Chopta is being projected by the Uttaranchal tourism as India’s Switzerland and whatever vague picture of Switzerland I hand in my mind (from those Yash Raj movies), well chopta looked little different.
The next spot on our itinerary was The Badrinath. Ironically the place on which our tour was named warranted the least time and effort on our part, with the car virtually dropping us to the temple. However the temple was grander than the Kedarnath and had a higher attendance as well.
Since Badrinath didn’t take much time we decided to visit Vasundhara falls which was a 6 km trek from mana gaon- the last village on Indo-China border. Here we witnessed a starkly different terrain of Himalayas from those hitherto seen. The mountains were all weared down, appeared like billions of years old. Altogether they presented such a pristine, prehistoric façade that it appeared as if we had traveled back in time to reach some other era or rather some other world. It really did cast a lasting impression on us, more than anything else on the tour.

The last leg of our tour was the most demanding. It really tested our nerves and exhausted us completely in the end. Hemkund Sahib-the highest point in our map at around 4300 mts warranted 3 days even from the mightily build Sikhs. We had no other option but to complete it in a day. When we clambered up there after around 5 hours of non stop trekking we were literally gasping for our breaths. We were not in the state even to stand or speak. We just lay on the Gurudwara floor like martyrs on death beds with no one uttering a word. It was some hot halwa and khichdi from the lunger that helped us regain our senses and we realized that we had to scramble back immediately. I even had a bath (the customary 5 dips) in the natural lake near the guradwara from which it derives its name ‘the hemkund’. With glaciers surrounding the lake on 3 sides it’s only but a natural wonder that the lake does not freeze-, well it does freeze the bodies taking a dip in it for some time!! On our way back we met a lot of sikh families who on coming to know about our efforts described it as one freaky adventure which somehow had the ‘hand of God’ above it. Although we were descending, these compliments raised us to the top of the world. We had tested our wills as well as our body’s physical strengths and we had succeeded and how. There was nothing in the world which more satisfying than that feeling.

As the car was speeding its way back to haridwar we pondered-what bearing will these 7 days have in our lives? Were we purged of our ills after this pilgrimage? Did it even qualify as a pilgrimage when we had not even spent a total of one hour at temples in the whole trip?
Well the truth was that nobody cared! What mattered was that we had an awesome time and even now when I am at my home writing this memoir, for a change the hangover too is quite refreshing!!!