I wrote the following catch-up on the balcony outside my room in Rishikesh (I miss it!):
It’s really hot. In a languid, luxuriant way if you’re privileged enough to have nothing specific to do, and utterly exhausting if you’re not. It’s been a lovely few days with friends on the banks of the Ganga, hidden away up in the trees, eating salad and fruit, feeling happy and rested and nurtured. It’s that perfect evening light-time, a rose-peach warmth cast across the hills, the river, the multi-coloured buildings and the single white mandir on the opposite bank that I can see from here…
The last few days in Mussoorie were hectic – finishing classes and hiking up and down to the bazaar for various things. Most notably to send a parcel home, a process that demands a significant portion of time as you hunt for a tailor willing to accept the menial (but impressive, to me) task of encasing the box in cotton as is required by the post office. But the busyness was a good thing – both Martina and I were ready to move on and staying so occupied made the time fly.
On our last evening we took supplies round to a friend’s flat and spent the evening with Kaushal, learning to cook – chole, baingan ka bharta, bhindi and chapati, to be specific. If I can recreate them to taste as good as they did that night I will rightly consider myself an Indian masterchef. With a small but select repertoire. Although actually, having said that, I shouldn’t lay claim to such a title until I have also mastered pista and nariyal barfi (even though every Indian woman I say that to finds it hilarious that I can be bothered to even try given the apparent tedium of the task. But they fail to register that, unlike virtually every town in India, Bradford-on-Avon suffers from a noticeable dearth of good mithai shops). Then the menu will be complete.
So early on Saturday morning Martina and I bade a gleeful farewell to Dev Dar Woods and its white toast breakfasts, and a more affectionate sort to Mussoorie itself, as we set out in search of the Ganga in its Himalayan home.
We spent the first night in Uttarkashi which at first post-bus sight strikes as a dusty frontier-feeling town, but on further exploration turns out to be a gentle place, nestled in a valley amongst the foothills, with colourful single storey homes and ashrams straddling the Ganga which quietly bubbles its way over rocks, gathering strength for its journey south. Curiosity about the river’s spiritual significance is swiftly satisfied by the orange-robed sadhus ambling along its banks, or taking the obligatory freezing dip in the late afternoon. The scene was a gratifying change from the Christian missionary legacy that remains disspiritingly palpable in much of Mussoorie.
The next morning we opted for a bit of (very relative) luxury and hired our own jeep and driver for the four hour climb/scramble/bounce to Gangotri, 3600m up in the Himalayas. The route follows the Ganga the whole way and is breathtakingly beautiful. Literally. There were moments when looking down into the valley and seeing the water snaking through sand-coloured rocks like a jade green ribbon felt like a glimpse into Eden – or Paradise, Nirvana, the Garden of Enlightenment, whichever imagery you find most accessible or appropriate.
There is, I think, a point at which description of beauty becomes an almost pointless exercise. It can be self-defeating for the writer, who is well aware that she has no hope of doing the particular scene justice, and unfulfilling for the reader especially if the description, through want of alternatives (or sufficient talent), falls victim to cliche and generalisation. Given this (and the fact that I have photos), perhaps it suffices to say that I think, in many ways, Gangotri is the most beautiful place I have ever been (though I don’t want to mislead by omitting to mention that the journey there alse negotiates some kind of engineering project on a gargantuan, mountain-scarring scale).
It is also, between about 3pm and 8am, bone-achingly cold. We set out beneath ridiculously blue sky and bright sunshine on our trek towards Gaumukh – the glacier from which the Ganga begins to drip. After much deliberation we had decided to walk towards Bhojbasa, 14km from Gangotri, and stay the night there, possibly going to Gaumukh early the next morning or possibly just walking back to Gangotri, depending how we felt. When we reached the official entrance to the park we were told to sit down by the ageing civil servant (having his aloo paratha and chai for breakfast) and the standard army of unnecessary staff as they explained (in Hindi! Because our linguistic genius knows no bounds) that the path to Bhojbasa had become obstructed by landslides and that they would advise us not to go. Whipping out the newly acquired (and amazingly useful, my friends) future tense from my extensive grammatical armoury, I explained that we would go anyway and if it proved too difficult we would come back. This assurance that we wouldn’t take any risks was met with predictable approval, and off we went.
Four and a half hours, twelve kilometres and two negotiated minor rockfalls later the path disappeared and I gained a degree of clarity as to the etymology of the term “landslide”. The surface of the mountain had slid so as to incorporate the path, which was now subsumed beneath a shifting mixture of sand and rocks with nothing to catch them save the river itself, hundreds of metres below.
So we decided to turn around. Because in spite of the holy significance of submersion in the Ganga, we just didn’t fancy it at that exact moment. Which meant that we ended up walking 24km in a day, a distance that we hadn’t anticipated. And on the way back the clouds gathered and darkened and began to send us snow! Which was fun. But what a day. What beauty, what air, what shanti. What an amazing privilege to experience an environment so deeply touched by the truest form of natural magic.
Narnia during the thaw.
