Babble

If you have ever tried to evade a question, then know that you were wrong (in that for which the question was being asked).

Our minds work faster than our awareness of it. It reasons faster than we can realize, and reason tells the thoughts not to turn to that question, as a measure of self defense. If you were correct, you would face the question. As you were avoiding facing the question, you were wrong.

Our minds know the difference between right and wrong, and we don't need anyone to tell us these things. But still people lie and cheat and deceive, including me at times, for which I ask Allah's forgiveness. Why?

And I guess one of the strong reasons for lying, cheating, deceiving, blah blah is ease. Physical and mental ease.

I steal cause it's much harder to earn an honest living. And stealing is not what the thieves who we read of in story books as children do. It is done intricately and in an infinitely more refined way through economics. So physical ease is one motive for a dishonest living.

The other motive, and much more prevalent in our society, is mental ease. I lie to avoid facing difficult questions. I lie to avoid accepting an obvious truth. I lie to others sometimes, mostly rarely. But I lie to myself more frequently.

The mind can be trained to suit the physical and emotional needs. Hence it will help you to cover up your acts, avoid unpleasantries and support your daily act.

That's why when someone asks a difficult question, we turn away from the question even without having to make a conscious effort to do that. Our trained mind does that for us. It helps us save ourselves from discomfort and from developing a contradiction between our beliefs and our actions. It helps us make belief and conserve it.

I realized long ago that to be an effective liar, you have to believe the lie. My soul is pure and knows no wrong. So when I lie, I leave evidence, such as stuttering (the tongue struggling to carry out the deceit), sweating, flickering eye movements, over-doing the smile, blah  blah. But to effectively lie, I have to, atleast for the moment I am lying, believe that the lie is the truth. Else i will be betrayed by my own body and actions.

To get along in society, to succeed, sometimes to be just happy even, we train our minds to lie. To block certain questions. To blur certain words. To whitewash certain memories. And that is how people get along in their lives. It is a conscious effort on their part to simplify their life, ease their physical and mental strains. And  that is why even good people would have to face the fires of hell. 

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On Divine Consciousness, and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

“Are our bodies machines of a divine creation? 

Are we just tourists on rented vehicles for this journey of life? 

Am i going crazy? ”

Some years ago I had a minor surgery. After the surgery, the doctor prescribed me Tramadol hydrochloride for 3 days. Tramadol is a synthetic opoid that is very good at killing pain. But there was something else to it too…

I clearly remember those 3 days as the happiest days of my life. I felt content, woke up early for Fajr namaz everyday. Never hit snooze once in those 3 days, slept peacefully and felt peace in every small activity of my day.

Life was beautiful. People were kind, friends and family were dear. All that crap. And my every action came forth with gratefulness to Allah for every blessing He had endowed upon me.

Anyways, away went those 6 tablets and after 3 days I went back to work. And that was when all hell broke loose. I would be in the middle of work when all of a sudden tears would start to roll down my eyes. I would be reminded of my childhood and the years gone by, and a deep sorrow for the things gone past would fill my heart and my eyes would well up with tears. Right in the middle of office!

I also suffered from sleeplessness at nights, and would turn in my bed crying. In the morning, I would wake up and cry for a few minutes before I got on with the usual morning rituals.

One time I was reminded of a canal that went by behind the hostel I stayed in when I was in class 11. And the sight of the morning sun as it shone in the water, and I in my teenage years walking beside it brought tears to my eyes. I thought of it as the most beautiful sight I had ever seen! I mentioned to a friend of mine, who by chance had been experienced of a surgery, how lovely the dirty little canal at Kathgodam was, and he replied that analgesics can have strange effects.

I did not understand immediately what he meant by that, but when I did, it opened my eyes. The days I was on the pain-killer were the most beautiful days I had ever lived. And the pain I was suffering now was nothing but withdrawal symptoms of the drug as my body struggled to keep up with the symptoms.

Without my intentions and without my knowing, my hormones were wreaking havoc on me. Everything was the same, but the drugs had made it feel better, and their lack made it much worse.

When a baby is born, long before he can understand what is going on around him, his body continues to perform complex chemical and physical processes that are beyond the child’s awareness or control. Even an adult can hardly control any of the processes that his body performs and they go on without our interference.

Without our knowledge, the diaphragm in our stomach bends, creating a vacuum in our lungs and pulling in air through our nose or mouth. Our blood is such that oxygen molecules in the air stick to the red blood cells in it as it passes through the alveoli of the lungs, driving out those of carbon dioxide. This same blood, pumped by the heart, travels to every nook and corner of our body and delivers the oxygen through osmosis to tiny mitochondria where it reacts with glucose to release energy and make our muscles and organs function.

The brain gives electrical signals to the heart, as it does to every other organ, to keep pumping blood, and even this brain’s function is beyond our control. The ability to react to stimuli, to see, to hear, to feel, are all things which go on in our bodies without involvement or much control of them.

And the mechanisms involved are so simple yet so complex that even the greatest of inventors might be at a loss to simulate any of our bodily functions. Everything happens with so much ease and conformity that one can only be amazed.

Take chewing food for example. During the act of chewing, the tongue acts a conveyer that accepts and directs food in multiple directions simultaneously. As we take in the food, the inner side of the tongue presses the food towards the molar teeth at the base of the jaw. The cheek at the same time also directs the food towards the jaw. The lower jaw moves up and down, and if you’ll notice, the lower jaw does not touch the upper jaw flatly. Rather, the back of the jaw towards the molars touch first and the incisors at the front touch last. This way, as the teeth close, food gets pushed towards the front on the jaw, where it gets passed onto the front part of the tongue. The tongue then gauges whether the food is pulpy enough as per requirement, and if it is, then it enters the food cavity through the centre of the tongue; otherwise it goes right back to the side of the middle tongue which again pushes the food towards the molar teeth, and this goes on a few times till a pulpy bolus is made that can be swallowed as per the diameter of the food canal.

During the act of chewing, food gets mixed with saliva and the enzyme ptyalin to facilitate digestion. This saliva also acts as a lubricant for the food through the food canal. The tongue also tastes the food for agreeableness. It is like a conveyer belt mechanism of immensely complex a design.

Who fed the mechanism into our body that recognizes when the food is chewed well enough to get swallowed easily? Did we learn by trial and error that food not chewed well enough might get stick in the food canal? And making the food into a pulp is required to increase its surface area to aid absorption of nutrients from the food. How did our body learn that?

During pregnancy, women have a desire for sour tasting food. And isn’t it amazing that the vitamins that a female requires during her pregnancy are present in foods which taste sour!

So not only does your body know how to process foods to nourish itself, its need for certain nutrients is supplemented with a desire for a particular taste. And nature bears those vitamins or minerals in things that have the same taste that your tongue desires!

Children who are deficient in certain nutrients often eat mud. What tells them that their requirement is present in the earth, whereas those whose bodies are not deficient do not consume the earth?

Our bodies are like machines. Pre-programmed to survive. Aware of what it needs. No one needs to tell it these things. The I that we are aware of as we read this is so different from the I that we think our bodies to be. Just as I am typing this, my body is carrying out millions of reactions under the orders of my brain, and how many of those reactions am I aware of?

For the things that I want my body to do, I am just saying to my brain, ‘Do!’, and it makes my body carry it out. I think and the brain makes the body do it. Somehow. I do not even realize what goes on to make that happen. My conscious self does not control my bodily functions. It merely gives instructions to a brain that then carries out the work, without my even knowing how it does that. It is like driving a car that we can control using the gear-shift, steering and throttle, but what goes on in the engine and the drive-train to make that possible is beyond most of us.

So the 'I' that I am is different from the physical body that is carrying it. The I is a consciousness, it is an awareness, it is a personality, a psychopathological murderer maybe, but the brain and the body that it controls are jut mechanisms that acts under its obedience. And even without my conscious interference, my body continues to carry out the physical processes and produce hormones that make me want do things and feel emotions. When I consciously try to control myself, even then I am only partially controlling some particular functions. Even then I do not fully control what goes on. 

Birds fly from their nest in the morning and return home in the evening with their stomachs full. Who tells them where their food is? Where do they learn this art? It’s what we call their instinct. It is pre-programmed. And it knows what the signs of food are, as well as the signs of danger. Just as the Punjabi Terminator recognized what size clothes would fit him, before he said to the man in the bar, “Mainu tera suit, boot te motorcycle chaidiye”.

Our actions as well as emotions are mechanical and programmed. The only difference between machines and our bodies would be that we have a consciousness over this machine. A consciousness that can control to a small extent, and observe to a large. And from birth to death, it is this consciousness that grows. It is what separates us from the machines of human invention. And I think it is what separates us from the other living beings like plants and animals.

Some like David Blaine can control some of these to a larger extent than others, like make his heart beat slower to stay underwater for over 7 minutes overcoming the involuntary reaction of the lungs to suck in air, and in this case, pull in water instead.

The most remarkable case of having enough consciousness to control one’s involuntary processes would be of Thich Quang Duc, who burned himself to death protesting persecution of Buddhists in Vietnam after seating himself in a meditative position. Once he sat down to meditate, he did not move an inch till his whole body was burnt to ashes. They say his heart remained unburnt.^[1]

Compare these small feats with the overall functioning of the body, and you will realize what small a fraction of the total processes these controlling activities are. Our bodies keep working without the intervention of our consciousness, and we keep feeling hungry or angry or irritated or twitch or itch or scratch, sigh and yawn.

And if even the simplest of machines has an inventor, does it not seem reasonable that this most complex of machines would have one too?

And if there was one, wouldn’t we be at a loss to even try to conceive what form He has? And wouldn't we be naive to attribute a form to Him that only He is capable of giving to things? Or to believe He could be contained in a form that we have made ourselves?

“O people, an example is presented, so listen to it. Indeed, those you invoke besides Allah will never create [as much as] a fly, even if they gathered together for that purpose. And if the fly should steal away from them a [tiny] thing, they could not recover it from him. Weak are the pursuer and pursued.” The Quran, Surah 22:73

Our instinct and our hormones can wreak havoc upon our bodies. Make us feel emotions that we might get addicted to, have desires that call for immediate fulfillment, do motions that our bodies feel inclined to do. But it is the consciousness that is to be meant to be built stronger, so that it may control these, and to identify its divine creator. Otherwise we fall prey to the mechanical impulses produced by chemicals in our brains and our bodies. We start to run on auto-pilot doing things without understanding their ends, desiring things without understanding their use, feeling emotions without understanding why we are feeling them in the first place.

Freud said that there are three stages of human development and one leads to the other. These were the Id, the Ego and the Superego. But from children to aged men, the stages all intermingle and intertwine; many adults may spend their lives being slaves to their desires; children may demonstrate selfless acts; a person may be good towards certain people and cheat upon others at some other time. There could be so many permutations of the three.

But it is the consciousness of us carrying out these acts that we can build upon and what constitutes the first step towards a stronger Emaan [2]. It is this consciousness that grows as we age, and it is this consciousness that I feel animals lack. This is what we humans have been gifted with. This is what leaves us when our mechanical bodies die. It is that which is claimed would never die.

I have called it consciousness here, but it could be the psyche or the soul or the spirit or the rooh or anything else beyond words and my understanding. And of all the creations of the creator, this in my opinion is the greatest.

There are many who claim knowledge of this consciousness. But what needs to be asked is whether they are making you aware of a creator capable of building the complex mechanisms of this world or whether they are merely training you to control your body and mind with knowledge of biological responses. With the exception of the withdrawal symptoms, drugs might get the same results too.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Quang_Duc 

[2] Meaning to have trust in and to testify http://sabr.net/strive-for-the-four/34-faith/48-real-meaning-of-iman-or-faith.html

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The Three Stages of Falling in Love

“Before you can grow up, you must fall in love three times…”

My colleague in office is quite a philosopher sometimes. His name is Paul, so we call the manure he spews out Paulosophy. He is particularly bullish on love, and recently he gave us some gnana that I feel is worth writing down. So here goes…

There are three stages of love, according to the sage Paul. And one may experience all three or any combination thereof.

The first stage is during the teenage years, around the age of 14 to 16. True love at this stage is not possible. It most probably is an infatuation, or your sex drive overpowering your thinking. This kind of love seeks attention, gets intimidated by others, is jealous and selfish rather than selfless and is soon lost with age like the bubbles from an open can of coke, leaving a bitter dank liquid behind. The person is too young to understand relationships, too unsure of himself to really love a person selflessly, and life is too full of opportunities to waste upon a single person for the rest of your life.

“Once, you must fall in love with your best friend, ruining your friendship forever. This will teach you who your true friends are, and the fine line between friendship and more.”

The second stage is around the age of 22 to 24. The person is mature enough to know his capabilities, is adventurous enough to stretch the limits, is hopeful and optimistic cause he hasn’t seen his brightest dreams being smashed against reality and breaking apart, nor has he been overwhelmed by the burdens of responsibility and of living up to society’s standards. The lover is devoid of the fear of relationships past, bereft of practicality and regard for what the society thinks, and fearless in its will to fight come what may. This, if it happens, is true love. And even though it may not materialise into a lifelong relationship, it leaves an indelible mark on the rest of your life.

“Once you must fall in love with someone you believe is perfect. You will learn that no one is perfect, and that you should never be treated as anything less than you deserve.”

The age of 24 is critical in this phase. A mentally unstable wise man of Kerala once said, if before 24 one is not a Communist, he is not a normal person; and if after 24 he is a Communist, he is not a normal person. I think he did not mean that the Communist party workers should fire everyone older than 24. But he might have meant that only a man who sees wrong from the supposed right and has the capability to put his interests behind those of society’s and to speak out against what he sees is wrong, is capable of loving without fear. It is only till 24 that a person can do this. Afterwards, he becomes worldly. 

The third phase is in the years later than 28. The person has tried his hand at doing what he wants and is now cautious to preserve the gains as he tries to attain more. This is a cautious and compromising love that finds or seeks to find a balance between self-interest and the lover’s needs. This is a practical, reciprocating love. A tit-for-tat love. It is not what poets call true love.

“And once, you must fall in love with someone exactly like you. This will teach you about who you are, and who you want to be.”

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Dheet Trekkers in Chopta-Tungnath, Deoriatal

Going to the hills is always a spiritual experience. The warmth and the blue of the sea-side make you cheerful, whereas the cold and the solitude of the hills make you somber, somewhat more inclined to reflect upon your existence and purpose in life. Elevating you to great heights only to make you feel insignificant to the existence of the universe...

First it was Araib Hassan, who packed his bags with the usual alacrity and plunged headfirst ecstasy [sic]. His trip account and pics can be seen here.

Then Danish, Kutaula and Major Khandi went there and returned with this pic, posted shamelessly here without permission.

And this one…

 And the awesomeness of these pics made it clear. This was to be the next destination.

The time for Diwali was approaching and I could get a leave from Tuesday to Sunday.  Metallica was playing in New Delhi on Friday, 28^th Oct, and tickets for the same had been booked years ego, so I would get 3 days, from Tuesday to Thursday, to get to Tungnath, Deoriyatal and back again to Delhi for the concert. Vinod Upreti would be my partner. He would be on his Pulsar 180 and I on my ageing 7 yr old Unicorn with broken headlamp bracket and heavy oil consumption complaint. This trip was so done!

But as always, just as the time for the trip came close, things started to look grim. My schedule at work became so messy I started fearing I would not make it and that we would have to cancel the trip and just visit nearby Rishikesh for the bungee jump instead. Well, not so. Dheetpana to the rescue…

My final schedule was something like this. On Tuesday, the 19^th, I was in Nagpur. Then Wednesday and Thursday were spent in Mumbai.  Friday and Saturday I was in Pune. Then I flew back from Pune to Nagpur on Sunday early morning and then went to Nanded by bus in the afternoon, 360 KMs away. Then on Monday, I finished my work at Nanded and drove a Sumo 350 KMs to Nagpur at speeds totally beyond my control to catch a plane at 10 p.m. to Delhi. Reached Delhi at 11.30 p.m., went to my friend’s place in Gurgaon and slept from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m., then got on my bike and up-up-and-awayed for Noida to meet up with Upreti. From there, it was 420 KMs to our destination…

If you think driving 350 KMs the day before and doing 3 hrs of sleep were bad, when I met up with Upreti in Noida and saw him, I got scared. His eyes were red, he had dark circles around his eyes and groped around the bed for his glasses as he woke up with as much surety as a zombie on crack. Figured out he had had a bad night too and had only gone to sleep around 3 a.m.

Anyways, bags were strapped to the bikes and we set off after a tank full. Odometer reading was 42722. The morning breeze was pleasantly chilly and signs of winter approaching were showing. We took the route from Meerut via Muzaffarnagar to Rishikesh, as if there is any other! Had breakfast at some crappy joint near a village called Bhangedi, raced at a 100kmph on the newly built toll road via Muzaffarnagar, lost sight of each other several times (whereupon a phone call later it would be determined who was ahead and he would wait while the other caught up), and then crossed a place where two men were lying unconscious on the road beside a pile of cycles and a small crowd looked on as a few among then dragged the unconscious to the side. We saw the scene, then looked at each other and started laughing. Not because the accident was funny, but because it could as easily have been us…

By the time we reached Roorkee, it was around 10.30 a.m., which meant we were right on schedule. When we stopped for tea on the Haridwar bypass and looked at each other, we knew we were in deep shit. We both were cramped and tired, and my back had started to pain at the base of the spine, probably due to the posture on the bike and the lack of sleep. I was drowsy and the morning traffic was so irritable it was driving us mad. We had done about 200 KMs of the journey, on plain highways, and now we had to drive in the hills.

We were slowed down owing to the heavy traffic between Roorkee and Rishikesh, and we got to Rishikesh by 1 p.m.

At Rishikesh when we tried to get our tanks filled, we found that none of the petrol pumps accepted a card. It was then that we realised we had started on our trip without withdrawing any cash. At Noida we had paid for the petrol by card and totally forgotten about cash.

From Rishikesh the hills start and the air becomes cool and dust free, the atmosphere becomes quiet, the landscape become greener, the heart becomes redder and the lips start to curl up in happiness. The pleasure of riding in the hills takes away all your fatigue.

We rode onwards and had our lunch at Srinagar at about 4.30. There we asked the people about the time it would take to Chopta, and they acted surprised. No one there seemed to have heard of the place! Wtf?

A thing peculiar about Srinagar that deserves mention was that if you went to buy a pack of cigarettes, you couldn’t find a single shop having them, but if you asked for 10 loose ones, then even grocery stores had them!

Anyways, onwards we went to Rudraprayag and then reached Ukhimat at 8 p.m. Chopta was now 32 KMs away. But my back pain had grown unbearable, so I begged Upreti to call it a day and instead start out a half hour earlier the next day.

The hotel at Ukhimath asked us for 300 bucks for a room, but we had a problem. When we told him we would check out next day at 12 p.m., he said we could not do that. His sweeper came at 10, and we would have to vacate by then. We had a problem with that as we had to come back from Tungnath and rest, and he told us we should go to Mastura 12 Ms ahead where we could stay till 12.

I was shocked. It was certain that he would not be getting any more guests that night. He was not only losing the 300 bucks from rent but also the dinner and breakfast earnings! It was ridiculous. He would have been better off letter us stay for free! Guess he was more a landlord than a businessman…

I don’t want to be rude, but both Upreti and I were agreed that we had met some of the most unpleasant people in the hills that day. Such a contrast to the people we had met in Himachal and back home in Kumaon.

Anyways, we drover another 12 KMs to reach a village called Mastura, where an ex-Army Service gentleman runs a motel. Although he charged us 600 for the room we were getting for 300 back at Ukhimath, the place was very hospitable, had a geyser and the food was amazing. He even called his daughter to make rotis for us beyond his closing time, and I think Upreti took a fancy to her cause that whole night during dinner, he kept praising the owner about the stupid ghee he had used on the rotis as he indirectly praised the chef. The ghee was really good though.

Odometer reading at the end of day one was 43182. We had done 460 KMs that day.

Riding after dark

We went to bed at 10 p.m. At 3 a.m. the next morning Upreti woke me up as he handed me a piece of cake for breakfast. We set off at 3.30 a.m. for Chopta 20 KMs away and from there we would trek for 5 KMs to reach Chandrashila, a place we had heard was great for watching the sun rise.

The temperature was sub-zero and we made slow progress as the cold wind froze our naked hands. We had forgotten to take our torch with us, which the owner of the hotel was kind enough to lend to us. And although we had packed warm innerwear, jackets, caps, mufflers and even leather socks, for some weird reason we both had also forgotten our gloves. So we rode on in the blistering cold in the dark eerie night with our mufflers tied around our hands till we reached Chopta. From Chopta it would be a 3.5 KM uphill trek to Tungnath and from there 1.5 KMs to Chandrashila.

As we were told by Araib, the best thing about this trip would be the sunrise, both at Chopta and at Deoriyatal, and we were eager to reach Chandrshila before sunrise. It was 4.15, and we had to do 5 KMs before the sun rose at 6.20 a.m. 2 hours for 5 KMs seemed too easy to worry much about and we foolishly wasted 15 minutes trying to figure out how to keep our helmets locked before we decided to take them along. There were horses at Chopta too, for tourists who wanted to avoid walking, but taking them was not even an option for us. We would walk.

I think what happened was the combination of factors such as the sub-zero temperatures, acclimatization issues, the fatigue from previous days (especially the previous day) and the discovery that I suddenly had a sinus problem. Cold certainly had the major part to play. We found ourselves tired, exhausted, dizzy and panting even before we had covered a KM. Marching on in the Zombie Holocaust, midway we heard a voice call out to us from the dark hill-side. The voice asked us to stop for some warm tea. It was the devil come to tempt us and foil our salvation.

Temptation won and we stopped for the tea, losing another 10 minutes of our climb. We came to know that a group of about 10 people on horses had gone on ahead of us. We too had been seen by the locals and guides as they had seen our bikes’ headlights as we came in the morning. So even before we had reached Tungnath, news of our coming had spread. And almost everyone we met knew us as the ones who had come on bikes in the morning!

As the twilight grew thinner and the first rays of the sun set the snow covered peaks of the Chaukhamba on apparent fire, we realised we were running short of time and increased our speeds to the maximum we could. As a final blow, we took a wrong turn after Tungnath and instead of taking a sharp left turn on a path that was a no path, we took a path that looked straight out of the Lord of the Rings and enticed us towards it and took us downhill! By the time we realised our mistake and found the correct way to Chandrashila, it was too late. Our sins, though each small in nature, had piled up and we would be punished by reaching the Chandrashila top 20 minutes after sunrise.

What we saw there was so beautiful that to this day I fail to understand how the sunrise could have looked any better had we reached earlier. You get a panoramic view of the snow covered Himalayas, and all around you see steep hills and the lands far beyond. The group of 10 left after the sunrise and we slept for a while in the sun there, on grass covered in frozen dew as Brothers in Arms played in the background. Every effort that we had made to reach this point so far had been rewarded beyond measure.

The Lord of the Rings path

From Tungnath to Chndrashila, a walk on frozen dew

The rising sun set the Chaukhamba peaks on apparent fire

Feeling happy in my veins, Icicles within my brain...

  

View of Chandrashila

       

Chandrashila

        

Chandrashila

It grew warm as the sun came up and we then went to see Tungnath, the highest Shiva temple in the world. There are small huts at Tungnath where a person can stay if he wants to catch the sunrise from Chandrashila. Araib had stayed the night at one of these cottages, at the time when there was snow all around, and found them to be quite cold and inhospitable. Spending the night at Tungnath is a good option if you do not wish to trek the 5 KMs from Chopta early in the morning. But I guess half the fun for us was in that dreadful early morning trek, and would recommend all to spend the night at Mastura, where its comfortable and you also get to walk the most dastardly of climbs.

Returning to Chopta was easy as the sun was out and it was downhill. We returned to Mastura by 10 and went off to sleep. We were woken up at 12.30 by the gentleman owner, and after lunch we set off to Sari, from whence it would be a 3 KM trek to Deoriyatal.

For enquiries and booking at Sari

We had been told that Sari was 25 KMs from Chopta, but it was only 6 from Mastura. There are options to stay at Sari also, but we were in no mood to go trekking again in the dark tomorrow. So we left off our bikes at Sari and climbed up to Deoriyatal to stay for the night. We had travelled 47 KMs on bike that day.

It was Diwali that day and most of the people were either drunk or high. And the mood of gaiety crept into us also as we walked on up to Deoriyatal. I fell in love with the cows there. The cows in the hills are a little different than the cows in the plains, in that they have shorter legs and fatter tummies. Also, the expression on the cows in the plains is of absolute simplicity and harmlessness. The cows in the hills, on the other hand, look more mature and learned. They too are harmless and sweet like the ones in the plains, but have a smug been-there-done-that uninterested expression on their face when they look at you. Atleast that’s what I thought when I saw them.

The mules, on the other hand, look suicidal at the best. So dejected, dispirited, demotivated, overworked and underpaid that it did not seem they were from the same family as horses. Upreti said they needed a Ghoda Chalisa, like the Hanuman Chalisa of the Ramayana, to rouse their inner horse.

The trek from Sari to Deoriatal is easy, and I think it can be covered in around an hour and a half at a leisurely pace. We were told that there is one Mr.Rajender Singh Bhatt at Deoriatal who could arrange tents for us, and we also met a few people en route who wanted to know if we would require tents. The going rate was 600 per night for a tent of two. There are also two fixed tents for two persons each owned by the locals from Sari, and a caretaker named Negi ji looks after their booking. So accommodation at Deoriyatal was not an issue. As it happened, we were the only ones at Deoriyatal that day. We got one tent for 500 bucks, dinner included.

Now visitors be warned, this Negi Ji caretaker is a tricky fellow, and one should avoid engaging him in conversation if one can. One should learn from our mistakes. I wish some one had warned us too.

Anyway, the moment we got to Deoriatl this dude caught hold of us. Told us we were like children to him, and that he had been here all his life and was going to die here too. Told us how it was unimportant what you did or where you lived, as long as you brought happiness to others. And he would bring that happiness to us by sharing the mutton that he had made earlier that day. He was a scholar of religion, like his forefathers and told us about ethics and respecting elders and being religious and what not.

We were told by Negi Ji that Deoriyatal was where the Pandavas had meditated, and it was the place where the Yaksha prashna had been asked. All hogwash ofcourse, but we couldn’t risk disagreeing. All this even before we had gone around the lake!

Now the Yaksha Prashna was asked to Yudhishthira of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata by a demon of a lake, who had poisoned his four brothers when they had refused to listen to him.

The last question that had been asked is my favourite, and so I asked the caretaker whether he remembered what the last question was. No. Then I told him the question and asked if he remembered the answer. Still no! So much so for truthfulness and scholarship.

Anyways, the last question that was asked was what is the biggest wonder in the world. And the answer was that even though every day man sees people around him die, but he still goes on living as if he himself would never die…

Tungnath Temple

Tungnath Temple

The lake at Deoriyatl is small, but the Chaukhamba peaks get reflected in it and the scene is breathtaking, even in the evening. One can take a walk around the lake or just sit in quiet contemplation by its side. With no visitors that day, it was paradise.

On the way back from Tungnath

Deoriatal

Deoriatal

Inside the tent. That's Upreti sleeping...

We went around the lake, and found a blood trail leading to a place where a lamb had been sacrificed earlier that day. Later we went to Negi Ji’s tent to ask if he could make us some tea. Upreti, who too had come to regard the man with caution, habitually addressed him as yaar as he asked for some tea. Fatal mistake. We got another lecture on ethics, about respecting our elders and about the social and religious morals that the youth of today had forgotten. It only stopped when Upreti said sorry and showed him the bottle of rum that he had in his bag.

Sipping tea in Negi Ji’s tent, a mule came up from outside and started chewing on the tent. Our Negi Ji of the rightousness and happiness fundas screamed out explicatives at the poor animal and said in disgust that this animal was a nuisance and that it was the Muslims who had brought it to India. He then added some other irrelevant data to prove that Muslims were bad people. This was becoming more than we could bear now.

I asked him if he knew the difference between a horse, a donkey and a mule. No. I told him that when a male donkey mated with a female horse, you get a mule. Mules, like oxen, are sterile animals that cannot reproduce, and are hence used for carrying burden. In these regions, if not for these mules, Negi Ji would have had to carry all his supplies on his own backside.

It was the horse that the Muslims brought with them. And what a fine animal it is, most faithful to its owner after the dog. 

Then I asked him if he knew that I was a Muslim? In spite of my beard and my clipped moustache, he said no. I left it at that. And made sure that we paid him whatever he asked us for in the morning.

Later in the evening, an Israeli couple came up with an entourage of cooks and guides. These guys had brought pressure cookers to make dinner, and all through the evening the quiet was abruptly disrupted by the whistling of the pressure cooker. Aarghh!!!

The night sky was so clear that I was able to identify the Pole Star and the Big Dipper. I even spotted a plane that was quite distant yet moving so fast that I guessed it was a Chinese spy plane. Ofcourse, I was just fooling around.

The much acclaimed mutton from the sacrificial lamb, although I did not have it, and the egg curry that Negi Ji had made was pretty bad, not just because of the bad taste in our mouth. But we were grateful for it nonetheless. It you don’t get too entangled with him in conversation, I guess he is a nice old man that you would remember.

We woke up the next day at seven, after sunrise. The reflection of the Chaukhamba peak in the lake can be seen till an hour or so after sunrise. We then went back to Sari to have breakfast and then started back for Delhi. It was 9.30 a.m. on Thursday.

Sunrise at Deoriatal

Coming down was easy and most pleasurable. You could conjure the wildest fantasies or the most intricate philosophies while riding down the lovely hills. One thing worth noticing was how Shivalik, the entity of the Border Roads Organisation that had built the roads, had spent much upon publicising the fact that the roads had been built by them.

The slogans for road safety were also enjoyable. Here is a sample from the innumerous slogans we came across that day:

 “Driving faster beckons disaster”

“No race, no rally, enjoy the beauty of the valley”

And the mature sensible ones like:

“Start early, drive slowly, reach safely”

And my favourites:

“ Impatient on road, patient in hospital”

“Safety on road, safe tea at home”

Without being in too much of a hurry, we were at Haridwar around 4 p.m. Had lunch there, hoping to reach Delhi in another 4 hours. Were it not for the spike strip that we ran over and the murderous bus drivers trying to mow us down, we would have been on time. But we nevertheless made it back by 10.30.

We had been shocked and awed by the trip we had just made, but were back at home and would live to tell the tale. We had taken unwarranted risks and had driven long KMs on bikes that we could have stretched out over a couple of days more. But we only had 3 days to make the trip, to accommodate the Metallica concert in New Delhi into our Diwali holiday schedule. Ofcourse, what happened at the concert the next day, for which we had made all the haste, is public knowledge and I do not wish to write down that which would make me smash this laptop to bits…

This trek is the easiest way to get to 4000m above sea level, and offers some breathtaking views. For someone wishing to take the trip, we would strongly suggest against doing things the way we did them. Our suggestion is to go easy. On the way and back, take a stop at Rishikesh where you can go rafting or bungee jumping and enjoy the camp fire beside the Ganga. Stay at Mastura the night before going to Tungnath. Take the mules to carry you to Chandrashila early in the morning. Then go to Sari and take a guide and a cook with you to make you some good food at Deoriyatal and to spare yourself from the broth that we had to endure, and have a nice peaceful time in the hills. We would also suggest that you get a tattoo that reads tame.

We, of course, prefer the challenges that stupidity brings in its wake. If it is comfortable and easy, you’re doing it wrong….

P.S.

• Tungnath is the highest Shiva temple in the world, at an altitude of 3600m asl.
• 1.5 KMs from Tungnath, at an altitude of about 4000m is the Chandrashila peak.
• Deoriyatal is at a slightly lower altitude of 2438m asl.

and lastly....

What happened at the Metallica concert!

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