Diaries of a compulsive traveller

View of Tarsar and the stream from the Tarsar Pass (13,500 feet)

Continued from previous post…

Day 5: Tarsar (12,400 feet) to Sundersar (13,000 feet): 5 km

The top was merely a hundred metres away. Or maybe fifty. For the first time on the Paradise Trek, I stood gasping for air. Some of my teammates were already on the top. How I envied them! I looked below, behind me. Most were still on their way up, at various levels of the slope. Some had sat down for a rest.

The other side clicked from the pass

I looked up again. How far the top looked! So far on this trek, it had never taken me so long to catch my breath. But then, we had not faced a climb as steep as this one. Ankit, the trek leader, saw me panting furiously and offered a helping hand at once.

“C’mon, take my hand. I’ll pull you up the rest of the way,” he said. “No way,” I shook my head. “I’ve come alone all this way. I’ll climb this thing on my own,” I told him. He looked at me for a second and gently started climbing.

But the distraction helped. I had caught my breath and started climbing the last leg slowly. And without another break, I was on the top within a few minutes.

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Tarsar clicked halfway up the slope to the pass

It had rained the entire night, and the morning we were to leave Tarsar broke with a cloud cover. As I had suspected, Ankit soon gave the bad news. We could not cross the 13,500-ft Tarsar Pass in this weather.

As he had said the previous evening, we’d have to retrace our path to Shekhwas and take an 8km detour to Sundersar, which literally means the ‘pretty lake’. Those who were not willing to do the 13–14km hike would have to return to Aru.

Down on the other side

I had almost resigned myself to destiny—this would be another ‘incomplete’ trek. I went about the usual morning routine with a blank mind. I knew I wouldn’t return to Aru. Come hell or high water, I’d trudge on to Sundersar.

We were packed and nearly set to leave. Only breakfast was left when a very weak sun peeped through the grey clouds. It gave some hope but I was not experienced enough to know how much we could hope for. But it turned out that there was reason to hope for the best.

Some of us had just started with breakfast when Ankit made the sudden announcement. “Guys, eat fast. We’ll leave in 20 minutes. The sun has come out, so there’s a window of opportunity. If we can climb at good speed, we may be able to cross the pass while the weather is still clear.”

And in another 20 minutes, we were out.

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On way to Sundersar

Sanjay, who was one of the experienced trekkers, had climbed till very close to the pass the previous afternoon, after we had reached the Tarsar campsite. It was a direct 1,000-ft ascent from the lake up a 75-degree angle. “It’s quite a tough climb,” he said.

Ankit told us to climb in a line and strictly follow the guide. Some of the slower ones were put in the front. I took my place somewhere in the middle.

The going was pretty smooth and incredibly disciplined. I realised why we had been told to strictly follow the guide. Though the slope was covered in grass and the cinquefoils, there was a trail somewhere that zig-zagged up the slope. Following the trail made the climb easier.

In astonishingly good time, we had covered more than half of the ascent. And luckily for us, the weather only kept improving. The lake looked like a dream from here. It was a bright blue—one of the brightest I’ve seen in nature so far. And the yellow cinquefoils made a striking contrast against it. The entire western hill was being reflected in the mirror-like still water of the lake.

More boulders to cross

Ankit went up and down the slope all the time, monitoring the entire team. That guy was as strong as a horse. He was carrying two backpacks—his own and another belonging to a trekker who felt he could not do the climb with his pack. Since all the pack animals were loaded, Ankit gladly took it upon himself. And yet, he ran up and down the slope as if he were in a garden out for a stroll.

Even with plenty of breaks, the team covered the thousand feet in an hour. It was not until I had reached in sight of the top of the pass that I felt breathless, as I have narrated already. But then within minutes, I was there, looking down at one of the prettiest lakes of the world.

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View from the top

The sun was well out by now, and in the photographs taken on the pass, I look ridiculous in my raincoat. I had put it on thinking it would rain and I would have trouble on the slope putting on the waterproof trousers.

My raincoat gradually became a joke among my teammates. Apparently it was enough to clear up the weather. “You also go to sleep in your raincoat. Then it won’t rain even at night,” Ankit told me with a straight face one day.

Anyway, after a brief rest on the pass, it was time to move again. And this time I had good reason to panic. We had to descend exactly the thousand feet that we had come up, on the other side. Although I have improved my ascent over time, my descent remains pathetically weak.

The contrast between the two sides of the pass was dramatic. It was like two different worlds—one green and vibrant, another stark and rough. The trail going down was gravelly and slushy in parts. I understood why crossing the pass would have been impossible in rain. While the grassy climb would have been slippery no doubt, the pebbly descent would have been suicidal.

Up that rocky trail we went

Seeing me hesitating to take the first step down, Sanjay, as usual, came to my aid. On this trek, I met some incredible people who were always eager to help their teammates in trouble. Whether it was Sanjay or Arvind or Nandita or someone else, I always got a helping hand while crossing boulders. Ankit was always around to help every trekker.

As I followed Sanjay down gingerly, he gave me some tips on descending on pebbly trails. “Don’t go straight. Walk sideways,” he said. It helped immensely. Soon, we were literally running down the trail.

The descent ended in a flat meadow with intermittent rocky patches. It was not as barren as it had looked from the top though it was not as verdant as the Tarsar side. We stopped for a brief rest and took turns getting photographed carrying a goat kid. And then, it was time to set off again.

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And some more boulders

Very strangely, I remember very little of the rest of the day’s hike. Apart from some fleeting moments—much of which I owe to my photographs—the walk is now a blur. It’s strange because I wasn’t too tired. Maybe it was just monotonous.

The trail was more or less straight as far as I recall. There were plenty of boulders to cross, maybe the reason I simply wished to forget about the walk! We were following the steam that originates from Sundersar, and some of the land we walked on was marshy. There were carpets of cinquefoil here, too, but not as thick as those by Tarsar.

I remember one moment very clearly but I have no clue now where exactly on the trail it happened. I don’t even have any photos of that part of the trail to help me out. All I remember is that it was very short climb—on boulders. Finally, losing my patience, I grumbled that the guide ALWAYS chose the complicated route.

Sundersar

I thought I had muttered under my breath—out of his earshot—but either he had extremely good hearing (almost animal-like) or I was too angry to realise how loud I was. “This is a trek, madam,” he glared at me. “Right a******, I know what I’ve signed up for,” I glared back, still (hopefully), muttering under my breath. Anyway, the match ended there.

The next I remember is the last leg of the trek. We were walking next to the stream, which was prancing down in a series of rapids. I was with my usual companions, Darshan and Sanjay. Darshan crossed the stream and I wondered whether to cross it when Sanjay told me it could be crossed later on.

A bend round the mountain, which at first sight had seemed impossible to take without getting into the stream, and we were at Sundersar. The river flowed out of Sundersar in a series of shallow streams crisscrossing its bed, and on the other side of this maze was the campsite.

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Sundersar campsite clicked the next morning

Sundersar looked nothing in comparison to Tarsar. It was neither as big nor as grand as Tarsar. The water was silvery grey and its surroundings had none of Tarsar’s enchantment. Besides, we were forbidden from going near the water, perhaps because of the local’s fear of cloudburst in case we dropped something in the water.

However, once everyone arrived, Ankit said something I had suspected he would say. Marsar, the other attraction of the trek, which was ‘optional’ for trekkers, had to be visited from Sundersar. It actually lies between Tarsar and Sundersar and is accessible from both the lakes. However, the trail from Tarsar is more treacherous. Hence, for a team, it’s best to visit it from Sundersar.

Our itinerary said we were to do it the next morning, before leaving Sundersar. But Marsar is notorious for going behind a veil of clouds every now and then. So, the clear weather had given us a window of opportunity and Ankit felt those who wanted to visit Marsar should do it right then. The next morning, the weather gods might not be so generous.

I debated what to do. I wasn’t tired. But the trail to Marsar—diametrically opposite our campsite across the lake—was full of boulders as I could see. We would have to go around half the circumference of the lake, climb over loads of boulders and, according to Ankit, we’d be able to see the lake from top of the ridge.

Sundersar

Even if I managed the ascent, I doubted whether I’d be able to climb down the boulders. So, when he asked who all wanted to go, I did not raise my hand. Ankit noticed it. He later came up to me and asked, “Why won’t you come? Don’t you want photographs of Marsar?”

“It will look the same,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “To me at least, it looks prettier than Tarsar,” Ankit said. He HAD to say this, I grumbled inwardly. “I’m sure you are not coming in fear of crossing boulders,” he said next, and I finally owned up.

“Yeah, there are way too many boulders and I’m not sure of the descent,” I told him. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you cross the boulders,” he said. Okay, I will go then,” I said, still not very convinced, but too tempted to say no. And so, after a 45-minute lunch break, 11 of us set out for Marsar, the lake that apparently kills whoever camps by it at night.

To be continued…

Marsar, the 'mysterious' and 'murderous' lake of Kashmir

Continued from previous post…

Day 5: Sundersar (13,000 feet) to Marsar (13,170 feet) and back: 1.5 hours

Eight of the trekkers were way ahead. As usual, I was having trouble negotiating the boulders and hence had fallen behind. Two trekkers were following us, one of them being the chap who had been trailing the team through the trek.

His never-say-die spirit amazed me. Though 11 trekkers had chosen to skip the ‘optional’ Marsar’, he boldly followed us along with a friend after the day’s arduous trek from Tarsar.

Trek leader Ankit was with me, ‘helping’ me on the boulders. He was actually dragging me up the rocks. As we neared the top of the ridge, he said casually, “Do you know at what speed you are climbing? Safzar (our Kashmiri guide) climbs at this speed.”

That's the trail to Marsar from Sundersar (in pic) campsite

I replied equally casually, “Yeah, that’s because you are hauling me up like a piece of luggage. The poor piece of luggage has no option but to tag along.”

Ankit had told me before we departed that Marsar would be visible from the top of the ridge. So I was quite surprised to see that the eight trekkers before me had not stopped. I thought maybe they were a little below, appreciating some heavenly sight, and were not visible from where I was.

As I huffed and puffed to the top and glanced below, I let out a wail. There was no lake there. There was only a vast meadow, flanked by ridges, and we were on one extreme side. “How many lies do you tell per day?” I glared at Ankit. “He burst out laughing, apparently extremely amused at my frustration.

“Where in the world is the lake?” I howled. “It’s visible from the top of that ridge,” Ankit said, pointing vaguely at the ridges at the other end of the meadow. “I don’t trust you,” I glowered at him again. “Once I’m on top of that one, you are likely to point at the next ridge.”

“No, I’m serious. You’ll see it from that ridge,” he said as solemnly as he was probably capable of. So I grimaced and started climbing down to the meadow. I had high doubts that ridge on the other side of the meadow was our final destination.

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Kashmiris believe Marsar is a sinister lake that kills whoever chooses to camp by its banks. Apparently shepherds who decided to spend the night by the lake were found dead in its waters. And, the trek organizers had promoted Marsar as the “elusive” lake that gets shrouded by a veil of mist every now and then.

So, I was curious for a glimpse of this notorious lake that has a lust for blood and/or loves to play hide-and-seek with hikers. Was it really as mysterious and murderous as the tales suggest?

Sundersar campsite clicked from the other side of the lake

Marsar is approachable from both Tarsar and from Sundersar. If you see the map I presented earlier in this series (click here), if one climbs up the ridge at the southern side of Tarsar, Marsar is visible. But the trail is extremely tough and hazardous. So, the better alternative is to take the trail from the southern side of Sundersar, diametrically opposite the campsite.

The lake can be skirted either way, but since there was a snow patch on the eastern side of the lake, Ankit had felt it might not be safe for 11 trekkers to cross it. He thought the snow could give way under our feet and since it was all rocks below, breaking a bone or two was highly possible. So, we had taken the western route.

The trail around the lake was grassy, dotted with small rocks, but once the climb to the ridge began, it was all boulders of varying shapes and sizes. And it was about a 600–700-feet climb. Even as I was climbing, I had started worrying about the descent. For me, it would be worse than the ascent.

As he had promised, Ankit helped me up the boulders, but then came the shocker. Marsar was further up.

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As we crossed the meadow, Ankit told me we should reach the top of the ridge by 5pm. It would take 30 minutes to reach the ridge; we would spend 30 minutes admiring Marsar; and the return journey would take another 30 minutes.

Sundersar clicked from top of the first ridge

The ridge on the other side, though equally rocky, was slightly easier to climb, but there was a snow patch. Arvind was also walking with us. A little up the trail, we could see a trekker struggling to climb up a huge snow patch. He could have avoided it; so it was apparent he was deliberately trying to clamber up it.

“Sahil, wait! That’s not how you climb up a snow patch,” Ankit ran up to him. “I’ll show you how to do it,” he said valiantly, took a few steps up, slipped, and fell flat on his face. The situation was too funny for any of us to hold our laughter.

Ankit was embarrassed, but got up fast and made some excuse. Leaving the two of them to battle the snow patch, Arvind and I started climbing up the last stretch. It was only a short climb and finally, we were at the top. Ankit hadn’t lied; at the bottom of the valley below, Marsar was spread out in all its grandeur.

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By 5.10pm or so, all of us had reached the top of the ridge. We could take a few steps down to a broad ledge that overlooked the lake. But that was about it. Going down any further looked really tough, perhaps impossible without gear.

Marsar did not look sinister to me. Neither did it look mysterious and elusive—there were hardly any clouds to veil it. It looked rather lonely to me, especially compared to its prettier ‘twin’, Tarsar. While the bright blue Tarsaris surrounded by greenery and wildflowers, the greenish-blue Marsar looks stunningly austere in its harsh and barren surroundings.

The way up as well as down

The sides of Marsar are quite steep and I wondered who had dared to climb down to camp by its banks. If we stood facing the lake, a valley seemed to lead straight to the lake a little to our left on the opposite side. But apparently that route is not accessible either. Then how did the victim go down to the banks?

Could it so have happened that he had tried to climb down the steep side, slipped and fallen into the lake, where people found him later? Hence the ‘killer’ tag for the lonely Marsar? But then, I know too little about these parts to make any expert comment. After all, “There are more things in heaven and earth….”

We spent half an hour taking photographs and getting ourselves photographed with Marsar as the background. And then, it was time to take leave.

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We took a slightly different route while going back. Apparently it was shorter. But the boulders were there in all their glory, so there was no respite for me.

Ankit helped me down as well. This time, I took my time, descent always being my weak point. I literally staggered and stumbled my way down and once when I stopped for a breather, I started laughing uncontrollably, as is my wont in an impossibly tough situation. “How do I manage to find myself in such places?” I rolled with laughter.

Sundersar clicked on the way back

But I had company; Ankit started laughing too! “Don’t worry. I have the same habit,” he said. We looked at each other for a split second and burst out laughing again. So tripping and laughing, I finally made it to the bottom of the valley of Sundersar down those dreadful rocks.

Sundersar looked prettier from this side. From the top of the ridge, it had looked a distinct pinkish-blue—quite mauve-ish actually. Our tents looked tiny, and the sky and surrounding mountains were reflected clearly in the water, making Sundersar look more appealing than what it had seemed to me when I had first set eyes on it.

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The sky was totally clear that evening, and when we went to have dinner, I suddenly realised that our head-torches were quite redundant. Apart from the moonlight, the sky was speckled with stars. I could see Sagittarius right overhead, and Scorpio was at about a 45-degree angle, only its tail partially hidden behind a hill.

Seeing me switch off my head-torch and gazing at the stars, Ankit walked up to me and said, “Point out the North Star.” It brought back a faint but distinct memory from my childhood. My father would often ask me the same question while out star-gazing in the evenings.

Those were the evenings in Tripura—a tiny state in the eastern Himalayan foothills in India’s northeast. I left it when I was eleven and that was perhaps the last time I saw stars properly. Living in a city like Kolkata ever since, my relationship with stars has become just as faint as those memories of star-gazing in a garden heavy with the scent of roses and cape jasmines.

“Hmm, let me see, which way is north…,” I started. “You’re supposed to find the north on the basis of the North Star, not the other way around,” came Ankit’s rebuke.

Sundersar campsite

All I remembered was that the North Star had something to do with the Great Bear, which I could still identify easily. “Okay, that’s the Great Bear… Now, let me see… It had something to do with a straight line…,” I started again. By now, other trekkers had surrounded us.

As Ankit started asking others to switch off their head-torches and look up, I quickly sneaked up to Arvind and asked him which one was the North Star. “Oh that’s easy. See the Saptarshi (the ‘Seven Sages’, the Sanskrit name for the Great Bear) up there? Those two stars lead straight to the North Star,” he pointed out.

In a second it came back to me. Right! That was the straight line I had been looking for. I strode up to Ankit and coolly pointed out the North Star. “Who showed you?” he demanded. Caught, I admitted it was Arvind.

“Sir, why did you show her the North Star?” Ankit cried. Poor Arvind had no idea why pointing out the North Star could be such a crime. But I knew—he had denied Ankit the splendid chance to play the hero-cum-boss-cum-lecturer!

As they argued, I looked up again. This desolate piece of land in distant Kashmir had suddenly returned a small piece of my childhood spent in exactly the opposite corner of the country.

Continued in next post (click here)…

Sunset colours at Sonmasti campsite

Continued from previous post…

Day 6: Sundersar (13,000 feet) to Sonmasti (11,000 feet): 7.5 km

If I will remember Sonmasti for any one specific thing, it has to be anything but the trek to it from Sundersar. It has to be my least favourite day in the Paradise Trek. It offered hardly anything but a steep descent down rocks and pebbles, and some more rocks and pebbles. And some more rocks and pebbles. Relentless. Tiresome.

Leaving Sundersar

I have nothing against Sonmasti as a campsite though. It lay snug in a meadow, amid hills shrouded in mist, our tents pitched close to the river, and with the Sonmasti waterfall as the backdrop. Sonmasti gave us a delightful sunset later that day; I had never seen clouds blush as pink as they had done in Sonmasti that evening—until though I saw the sunset at Tumling on the Sandakphu trek around three weeks back.

I will also remember Sonmasti for the only campsite out of 23—comprising four treks in all—where my trek-mates cooked dinner for the entire team and staff. And they did a pretty good job of it.

And I will remember Sonmasti for the fossils—the only ones I have seen so far in the wild. It was not mentioned in the organizers’ website; probably no one knew about it. But thanks to an expert companion like Arvind, I was lucky to be on spot when the discovery was made.

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Minutes before we reached the waterfall

The trail from Sundersar is a gentle descent initially, passing through a broad meadow, though my pet peeves—boulders—were everywhere. They could be avoided though, and I took a detour every time I saw them ahead if I could help it.

I normally try to take the easiest route—even if it means a little extra walk. Once I saw four or five trekkers—and the trek leader—following me. A little to our left ahead of us, several trekkers were hopping from boulder to boulder. I was simply avoiding the rocks.

“I am taking a detour. Why are you guys following me?” I laughed. “Because that’s the trail,” Ankit deadpanned. “Then why are they hopping over those boulders?” I asked him, surprised. “Because they are mad.” He was right anyway. Most trekkers are a little cracked I think.

The waterfall

The meadow led us to the top of a waterfall. We stopped there for some time, for a brief rest and photographs. Someone—probably Arvind—even managed to convince me to peep from the top of the rock which overlooked the waterfall. For someone with an acute fear of heights, it was a medal-worthy feat!

Even when everyone was enjoying the fall, I was sneaking a peek at the trail. I simply did not know which was the way down. It seemed impossible. I sat down with a sullen face and tried to delay the departure for as long as I could. I wished I could sit there forever, at the top of the waterfall.

But then, Ankit gave the marching orders. It was time for the terrible descent to Sonmasti.

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I can remember no longer what the way down was from the top of that fall. I must have gone down somehow, just as I did for the rest of that day. It was a painfully slow process for me, even as most of the trekkers flew past. Both my big toes were hurting, and so was my left knee, which I injured on my first trek, Goecha La. It has never really healed and a little bit of exertion makes it puffy.

Luckily, there was hardly anything to enjoy on the way. The trail was all rocks, dust and pebbles. There was a thick fog and all we did was go down and down a winding path somehow conjured up in that hellish terrain. I slipped on the gravels and fell twice—and as usual pulled a thigh muscle. But I just went on, slow and steady. In the mountains, there is only one mantra—if you go on, you will reach your destination sooner or later.

Sonmasti waterfall

I can’t remember how long that descent lasted. It must have been at least an hour and a half. I was the last one to reach the spot about three-fourth down the descent where my teammates were resting. But I did not stop for a rest. I just wanted to be done with it. So I continued. Arvind walked with me.

By the time we had reached the valley below, the others were still up there, resting. The Sonmasti waterfall was to our right. It was nothing grand, but gave the landscape a character. As we continued to walk to our left, down the valley, Arvind suddenly muttered, “Is that what I think it is?”

I followed his gaze and saw a tree trunk lying by the side of our path. It looked like an ordinary tree trunk, the kind that is seen frequently in the mountains. Still muttering to himself, Arvind walked up to the trunk, and tore off a bit of the bark. After some inspection, he suddenly turned towards me and said, “How old do you think this trunk is?”

I knew that the trunk must be quite old, or he wouldn’t have asked me the question in the first place. “Umm… a thousand years maybe…?” I suggested.

“It’s at least a million years old,” he said. “It’s a fossil,” he said.

My jaw dropped. The trunk was a fossil? “But how can you be so sure?” I asked him. “First, look at this place. Can you see any big trees around from which such a huge trunk could have come?” he said. There wasn’t.

A misty Sonmasti

“I am not totally sure, but I suspect it very strongly,” he said. Though I admit that I did doubt him then, one of our teammates later got a similar bark tested by an expert. It was indeed a fossil. Arvind gave me the piece of bark he had torn off the trunk. It’s now a prized possession. I have given a photograph of the bark in this post.

This episode taught me one thing. Walking in the Himalayas is a privilege. But an even bigger boon is having knowledgeable people around you.

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Sonmasti campsite was a straight walk from there. Arvind and I were the first ones to reach it, the rest of the team now finally making their way down from the resting spot in ones and twos.

Ankit had arrived a few minutes before us. I showed him the bark and told him about the tree fossils. He immediately went up to Arvind and asked him to show him the trunk.

Sonmasti

At 67, Arvind could give any of us an inferiority complex with his endless energy. He immediately left with Ankit to find the trunk. Though Arvind could not locate the exact one that we had seen, they found several other similar tree fossils all around the valley.

I felt a little exhausted—more mentally than physically actually. It was funny; I never felt exhausted after a 5–6-hour ascent, but I felt exhausted after a 1.5-hour descent! I did not even feel hungry. It was Arvind who literally coaxed me into having lunch later on.

I found a good spot for our tent, spread out a sheet of foam and lay down on it with my backpack as a pillow, as the rest gradually started arriving. There was still another day of descent to go.

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Nandita had already told Ankit that the team would do the cooking that evening and the staff should not start it as they usually do. When she looked for volunteers, only two other young women volunteered. However, later on, a couple of guys helped them with dinner. Two of the staffers were around to run errands as well.

Sonmasti campsite

I don’t mind cooking, but certainly not after five bathless days. I scrub myself clean head to toe after every trek, and until I do that, something like cooking, which I feel requires the highest form of hygiene, is not to be done. My nails tend to get especially dirty and unless I cut them and scrub the tips clean, I cannot imagine digging my nails into any form of food.

Anyway, I asked for permission to take photographs, which was granted. The three ladies first served tea and potato fritters—which was actually samosa gone wrong—but both tasted great. For dinner, they decided on rice, chapatis, dal, mixed veg and cake. I had never seen cake being baked in a pressure cooker; it was quite fascinating.

The fossilized bark I have now

Nandita herself was no less a fascinating woman. She gave up a high-profile job abroad to volunteer in a charitable organization back home in India. With equal passion, she took charge of the cooking, guiding the two younger women along.

The dinner—especially the cake— tasted excellent. It came after a brief bonfire, which was extremely difficult to light with damp logs. Suvir even borrowed my deo-spray to light it up, but it hardly helped. The blaze was just about enough for us to see each other’s faces as the certificates were handed out and we gave our speeches.

But none of this is what I will most remember Sonmasti for. When the girls had just started preparing dinner, someone came into the kitchen tent and said there was a fantastic sunset to be seen. I went out with the camera at once.

The sun was hidden behind some hills, but the clouds shrouding the mountains had turned a brilliant shade of pink. Facing west, Suvir, who played the harmonica brilliantly, was busy at his music. Sweeper Shravan joined him shortly, keeping the rhythm with a small percussion ball.

Their faces flushed by the pink rays of the setting sun, the sound of the harmonica, the misty hills, the blushing clouds—that would be my most alluring memory of Sonmasti.

To be concluded…

On way to Sumbhal

Continued from previous post…

Day 7: Sonmasti (11,000 feet) to Sumbhal (6,500 feet): 11 km

With every step that I took, the pain went straight to my head. I could hardly move my big toes any longer. They were swollen stiff. As I tried to avoid putting any pressure on the toes—only trekkers will know how utterly impossible that is on descent—my gait got awkward and very soon my left knee started hurting terribly.

Crossing the first stream

Several minutes ago, I had seen a few trekkers way down, at a river. They had crossed me a long way back on the trail. Since then, I had been walking alone for at least an hour, my speed down to a painful crawl now.

So, I had to go down till that river, at the least. Sonmasti to Sumbhal was an 11km-long descent that would take at least 5 hours. I knew I’d take much longer at the speed at which I was going. We were not even halfway down. But several people were supposed to be behind me. Where were they?

As I crawled along, the trail suddenly came to a strange landform. It split into five or six (or maybe more) trails that went down from every side—left, right and front. They looked rather like ‘grooves’—mini canyons actually—that were at least 6 feet deep and were probably made by running water. I shuddered to think what they’d be like during heavy rain. The sky was overcast and there was a light drizzle.

The nearly vertical descent

I thought of waiting for the others to arrive. When I had left our trek leader Ankit more than an hour back, he had told me to stop wherever I felt confused. But any delay on my part would only mean increasing the total time to reach Sumbhal. So I decided to go on.

I was in tears, thanks to my toes. Was I lost, too? I thought for a while the prospect of being lost in the forests of Kashmir. Somehow the idea wasn’t scary. As it is, I feel perennially lost in my city! It’s ten times better to feel lost in the forests of Kashmir.

I knew our luggage horses had already passed. So I looked for the obvious signs to find the right trail—horse poop and hoof marks. But all the trails seemed to have some traces of both! So I took the…err…‘shittiest’ (pardon the language) one, and continued with my laborious crawl.

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The final day of the Paradise Trek is the longest, toughest, and full of adventure, as we found out within an hour of starting off.

We had to cross a stream that had no bridge. Having crossed two rivers on the Hampta Pass trail, I approached the stream with some trepidation. It was quite narrow and perhaps taking off shoes and splashing through it would have been a better option, but we were told to hop over boulders (yet again!) at a place where the stream was only a couple of feet wide.

Through the pines and deodars

No problem with that, but it so happened that the rocks were extremely slippery. I realised it halfway through the crossing. I did not slip but went down on all fours. And I was not alone in doing that.

I thought maybe the worst was over, but no! An hour later, we came to a spot where the road went nearly vertically down. Some rocks jutted out of the earth and we were told to step on those to go down. A slip would mean going down straight into a second stream!

I simply sat down and decided to slide down to the ‘landing’. Ankit, who was helping everyone down, started shouting at the top of his voice that what I was doing was risky and I would certainly fall—taking him down with me.

With my fear of heights, I knew that if I ‘walked’ down, falling was inevitable; sliding down still gave us a chance. So I did it and Ankit was lithe enough to grab hold of me on the narrow ledge as I slid clumsily down. And then there was a one-foot-wide crude bridge to cross. Our guide Safzar was there to help us out.

Second hurdle crossed.

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The odd snow patch still remained. This was end-July

The trail continued through the forest after that but thankfully, there were no rivers to cross for the next 3.5 hours. As we had come down to lower altitudes, firs, pines, deodars and, along with them, Gujjar huts, were back on the trail.

The trail was terribly muddy on some stretches, but on the flipside, the wildflowers were back. I photographed some varieties like balsam, geranium, grasslike starwort, sage and great mullein.

Around an hour later, Ankit caught up with me. We walked along for some time before he decided to wait for the rest of the team. I wanted to go on. “The trail is pretty straight. Stop wherever you feel confused,” he told me. And I left.

I went on all right for some time before my big toes started hurting. They had been hurting on the descent to Sonmasti the previous day. I realised now I should have taken a medicine to reduce the swelling. But now it was too late.

Following the river

Somewhere on the trail I heard voices. It turned out to be a Kashmiri family—a man, a woman (presumably his wife) and some kids (likely to be theirs). I asked the man if this was the way to Sumbhal. He nodded.

I spoke to them for a while, answering their queries about where I was from, how far I had trekked, etc. The man said they were on their way to Sonmasti. “I had come here a long time ago. Now I am taking them,” he said, gesturing at the others.

“There are two members of your group a little way ahead. They are eating dry fruits,” the man said suddenly. If they had been found eating, I was sure they were members of my group! As I started hobbling again, the man said, “Walk confidently. Don’t be scared.”

Before I could reply, the little boy said, “She’s not scared. Her feet are hurting.” Then he turned towards me and said, “Isn’t that so?” I smiled at him, nodded and started walking.

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The duo turned out to be Arvind and Darshan. “How come you have arrived already? I thought you said you would take time on descent!” Darshan said on seeing me. I learned then that there was no one ahead of them.

Back among the Gujjar huts

“That’s because I have been walking continuously, without a break,” I said. The two left soon after. I stood there for a while and within seconds, heard the clip-clop of horse hooves. It was Safzar leading a horse through the forest and happily seated on it was my tent-mate Manasa.

One of the trekkers had already left the previous day; another two had opted to take horses on the way down to Sumbhal. And now Manasa had taken the same route. As the horse passed by, I wanted to let out a wail. I also wanted to hang on to its tail if I could. The going was way too painful now.

I had gone a little way up from the trail. Going down to it would mean putting extra pressure on my toes. Seeing there was no one around—not that anyone being there would have mattered—I simply sat down on the soft ground cushioned by pine needles, and slid down.

As I limped along, four–five trekkers hopped and skipped past me. About half an hour later, I caught a glimpse of them way down at a river. And then, I came to the maze of strange grooves.

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The unique Gujjar huts

I followed the horse poop, wondering all the time whether the horse(s) was at all ours, and whether I would find myself at a strange destination at the end of the trail. However, once the groove ended, my initial suspicion was proved right. The grooves all led to the same trail. Whichever I took would have led me to the same spot.

Tottering down, I somehow reached the river below. There was a foot-wide crude bridge here, too, and no one to help me. The trail continued at the other end of the bridge. So, keeping my eyes solely on the bridge, I started counting “1…2…3…” with each step that I took. Finally, I had crossed it.

On the other side, I realised the trail had actually bifurcated. One climbed steeply up and the other continued along the base of the hill, a little above the river. Trying to figure out the correct trail, I climbed up the steep trail a bit, came down and was taking the other one, when I heard someone call out my name.

One of the several crude bridges we crossed

It was Ankit, Nandita, Ankur and Sanjay. “Wait. That’s not the trail,” Ankit said. I returned, relieved to see the others. But I was also anxious to go on. I asked Ankit why he had stopped me, he said, “What’s the hurry? Once you left, you were nowhere to be seen!”

“Yeah, but now I can’t go on fast,” I grumbled. “I saw Manasa on a horse…” I mentioned offhandedly. “Her knees were hurting. Nothing worked, so I put her on a horse,” he said. “My knee is hurting too. So are my toes,” I whined. But there were no more horses. Not that I would have taken one, but it felt wonderful to complain.

The trail apparently continued through the river! It skirted the hill and then climbed up again. Ankit told Sanjay to help me on the boulders, but I had had enough of rocks and stones by then. I simply splashed through the river, shoes and all. The cold water felt heavenly on my battered feet.

The last of the bridges

As I limped along, the others would walk a little ahead and then wait for me. An hour later, we came to yet another crude bridge, this one maybe a couple of feet wide. I crossed the bridge as I had done the previous one, more confident this time.

Ankit noticed it and suddenly called out to me once I had crossed it. He stood on the bridge and asked me to come to the centre. He wore an angelic expression, which should have warned me. But I was too tired to read expressions.

Once I was in the middle of the bridge, he started jumping, and the crude structure rocked dangerously. As I screamed at the top of my voice, he laughed his head off. I ran off the bridge once he stopped, forgetting the pain and everything else.

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It was another half an hour before Sumbhal came into sight. I walked the last leg with two of the veterans, one in his sixties and the other fiftyish. As we walked through the village, we kept expecting to see our cars somewhere on the way. Others cars were plying on the road.

But it seemed our sadistic organizers had chosen to keep the cars at the very end of the village, making us slog it out for as long as they could. With my feet in the condition in which they were, it wasn’t a happy walk. My big toe nails later got black and hard, and gradually came off.

The last leg to Sumbhal

Thankfully, Sanjay had the good sense to come looking for us in a car, knowing that some of us were not in a very good state of health. He himself had to take a wheelchair at the airport the next day. And, I still had a road trip to Ladakh waiting!

As we were approaching Sumbhal earlier, we had met a couple of young Kashmiri youths, who cheered us on. “You are nearly there,” they said helpfully. Debjyoti, the younger of my two companions, was leading. After a while I saw him waiting on the road for us.

“One of the guys said, ‘Your father is having some trouble, but your daughter is coming just fine.’ They have made three generations of us!” he said. Even in pain, I started giggling.

As the houses of Sumbhal came into sight, I sighed, “Back to civilization.”

“Or is it the other way around?” Debjyoti remarked.

I knew what he meant. Maybe ‘civilization’ was, after all, where we had just come down from.

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Tarsar-Marsar Trek (or Paradise Trek) details

Route: Aru–Lidderwat–Shekhwas–Tarsar–Sundersar–Marsar(and back to Sundersar)–Sonmasti–Sumbhal (click on each individual campsite mentioned for detailed posts)

Prominent site nearest to Aru: Pahalgam, Kashmir, India

Prominent site nearest to Sumbhal: Sonmarg, Kashmir, India

Total no. of trek days: 5–6 (we did it in 6)

THE END

Sunset on River Bidyadhari

The Sun was a bright orange dot on the western horizon, just about managing a final peek from behind the thick wall of mangroves. Light was fading fast, bringing tiger country alive in its full intensity and severity. I was on the lower deck, engrossed in the colours of the evening sky and the growing darkness inside the impenetrable forests of the Ganges delta. Who knew what was lurking behind those shadows!

Macaque at Sajnekhali

That’s when I heard the commotion on the upper deck. And sifted through all the jumbled words, one hit my ears clear enough to send my heart on a gallop — “Tiger”.

We were in the middle of River Bidyadhari, on a two-day cruise of Sunderbans Tiger Reserve conducted by the tourism department of the Indian state of West Bengal. Thirty minutes back, we had left Dobanki watchtower, without so much as spotting the tip of the tiger’s tail.

The only consolation was seeing pug-marks on the bank about 20 metres from our vessel later on. “The tiger had come to drink water. It probably left sensing us approach,” the guide had said. This was only a few minutes before I heard the commotion. Could the big cat still possibly be around?

I ran up the narrow flight of steps as fast as I could. My co-passengers were brimming over with excitement. Someone had sighted a tiger — and photographed it too! I ran up to him and demanded to see the picture, feeling quite skeptical. This was the Sunderbans after all, where sighting the notoriously elusive Bengal tiger is as good as finding a needle in a haystack.

Estuarine crocodile

Amusingly enough, he was equally unconvinced! “Here, take a look,” he said, “Do you think this could be a tiger?” I peered into the 3-inch LCD screen and inspected the brownish figure peeping through a mash of bottle green and the greyish brown of clay. The image was slightly blurred, but my heart knew it could only be one thing. Anywhere else and I could have suspected it was a dog. But in the impassable mangroves of the Sunderbans, only the tiger reigns.

My heart sank. I knew people who had visited Sunderbans twenty times and failed to spot even a pug-mark. This was my first visit and I had been so tantalizingly close. Yet, so enchanted had I been by something as everyday as a sunset that I had missed the precious sighting. But had I?

The swimming tiger. Only the head is visible in the water.
Pic: Kaushik Som

The small ship was already being turned around. As daylight faded rapidly, some forty-odd souls on the deck muttered silent prayers, clinging on to a faint ray of hope. “It’s unlikely that the tiger is still there,” the guide said, a trifle apologetically.

The tiger on the far bank. Pic: Kaushik Som

But that day, Dakshin Roy, the tiger god of Sunderbans, was by our side. We were not even close to the spot where the photo had been taken when we heard a splash. About 100 metres ahead, we could see something stir in the water. “It’s the tiger!” our guide cried excitedly. Either due to our repeated forays into its lair or simply a mood swing, the big cat had decided to swim to the opposite bank.

I knew that the Sunderbans tiger is a skilled swimmer, having adapted to its unique habitat. But watching its speed in water first hand left me astounded. It was literally shooting across the river with its nose barely above the surface, leaving behind a long trail of ripples.

Within minutes, it was close to the other bank. One gentle leap and it was out of the river. I heard gasps all around. The majestic animal took a moment to shake off the muddy water and made for the mangroves elegantly up the soft clay, the water making its coat look slightly dark and lustreless.

Suddenly, we heard the tinkle of a bell somewhere in the ship. Till date I have no idea what that bell was all about, but it denied us a few more priceless moments with the tiger. It pricked up its ears for a split second, then raised its tail and darted straight into the forest. We waited desperately for another glimpse, but it was gone for good. Darkness was fast enveloping the largest river delta in the world.

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To go on a similar river trip in the Sunderbans, log on to http://www.wbtdc.gov.in/(click on ‘Packages’ at the bottom of the page)

A Sunderbans fisherman

Packages: Two packages available. 1N2D and 2N3D

Food: Traditional Bengali non-vegetarian fare served on cruise

Other options: Several private tours are organized too and you can also hire a launch yourself. There is a government tourist lodge in Sajnekhali as well

Attractions: There are numerous animals to sight, including spotted deer (chital), dolphins, birds, the Bengal monitor (or common Indian monitor) lizard, jungle cats, wild boars, mongooses, foxes, pangolin, the famed estuarine crocodiles and, of course, the incomparable Bengal Tiger, to name a few. But remember, NO sighting is guaranteed. The Sunderbans is not like any other national park and sightings are difficult to get. So be prepared for disappointments. Personally I’d say being in the unparalleled mangrove forests of the Sunderbans is an attraction in itself.

I have spent 7 posts writing about all that is beautiful and grand in China. This post is about a few things that seemed troublesome (in varying degrees) to me as a tourist or otherwise. These are totally my personal experiences and other visitors may have had dissimilar ones.

1. Because it’s easier to cross the Great Wall of China than to cross the Great Language Barrier

Chinatown in Shanghai

This is undoubtedly the mother of all problems of travelling in China. In the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, you can expect the hotel staff to speak and follow English. But venture a bit into the provinces and the language barrier stands in your way like the Great Wall of China.
Not that it’s a crime to not know an alien language, but unfortunately when we talk of international tourism, knowing a little English helps—even if only the basics. China is in the process of training the younger generation in English, and the tour guides speak it well enough. But travelling through China on your own could be tough because not only do the people speak only their own dialect, even the signboards and instructions on several machines of public use are written in Chinese.
I have already given an account of some hilarious experiences in my post Shanghai Nights. Here’s another that happened at the hotel in Wutai. The doorbell wasn’t working and though we were staying there for only a night, I thought I should let the staff know about it (I thought if they knew the doorbell should have been repaired).

At Pingyao Ancient City

The receptionist seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. She called a staff member and sent her with me. The very sweet-looking girl did not know a word of English, but as always, I trusted my abilities in sign language. I held my door open, rang the bell and gestured with my hand that nothing could be heard. I thought that was good enough for her to understand what I wanted to say.But to my utter surprise, she stared at me blankly. I gestured to her again and again and all that happened was that she got all red and hot and bothered. Finally, she spotted another hotel guest—a young Chinese girl—leaving her room, and ran towards her. After a few quick words, she dragged the girl towards me. Both looked scared.I asked the girl first if she spoke English. “A little,” she smiled nervously. “Tell her the doorbell’s not working. Can they do something about it?” I said patiently. More quick exchange of words and the girl said, “She says it’s not working.” I felt like banging my head against the wall then (or maybe theirs).
But still I kept my calm and said, “Right, can they do something about it?” More quick words and the reply comes, “She says don’t use it.”
“Great. Thank you,” was all I could tell her, not trusting myself any longer to not kill both of them at once. I did not even bother to point out that I would not have any reason to ring my own doorbell; other people would. And they would not know it was out of order and that would create confusion—as had already happened. But telling them all that would have led to another 30 minutes of confusion. So I just gave up.
Comical as this experience was, in certain situations things may not seem so funny. So, before going to China, either learn Chinese or hire a Chinese guide. Keep a translator app ready on your smartphone, but when reading signboards or instructions or labels on products, be prepared to trust only your instinct.
And don’t dare tell the hotel staff the doorbell’s not working.

2. Because I don’t have a liking for unscrupulous traders

When buying things in China, be prepared to bargain hard, as I have already said in a few posts. But in some places, avoid buying things altogether. I learnt it the hard way at the Hanging Temple.
There were a few stalls selling souvenirs like magnets and key rings outside the temple. I wanted to buy some magnets at a stall where a big team from Mongolia—also invited to the trade fair like us—was also buying things. I chose a few magnets and the shopkeeper woman put them in a plastic pouch. I gave her a 100-yuan note and waited for the change. The Mongolian team had already left by then.

Xuankong Hanging Temple

She even gave me the change and as I asked her for the pouch, she started fumbling about in her pockets. Then, she gestured for me to hand her the change back. Clueless, I gave her the money. Then she started shooing me away. I was at my wit’s end. Two or three more shopkeepers had gathered around us by then and the great language barrier blocked our way as usual.
I called our tour guide, who spoke to her and asked me, “Are you sure you gave her the money?” That was it. I lost my cool completely. After a very heated exchange, when I threatened the guide that I wouldn’t budge before I got my money back, the 100-yuan note came out of the woman’s pocket. But only after the guide threatened to make some calls.
I was a state guest in China. We were a huge team, had Chinese officials with us and a Chinese guide. But I could have been on my own. I don’t think the note would have come out of her pocket then.

3. Because I don’t want rude behaviour from my hosts

The Chinese are tough taskmasters, but to get their work done or have their way, they can come down to being downright rude (at least in my definition that’s what it’s called).

This is not in the list, but I would not like to visit a country which supports
sale of tiger skins. Photo taken at Pingyao Ancient City

We faced it time and again during our visit—even from our host. We were even told that any latecomer would have to “take public transport to the venues at their won cost”. That’s not a nice—and the right—thing to tell a ‘guest’ by any standards, I’m sure.
At the Hanging Temple fiasco, too, the guide doubted my sanity, and/or my integrity, first instead of doubting the shopkeeper’s scruples by asking me if I was “sure” I had given her the money. Apparently I hadn’t and was demanding a 100-yuan note that did not belong to me. Though he apologized later and was generally quite courteous, some things leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

And, these are lessons to be learnt.

4. Because I can’t have dinner at 6pm and go to bed at 7.30

The Chinese go to bed when the evening just about begins for most Indians. Okay, there are cultural differences and I am actually quite keen on adopting the local way of life when I visit a place. But who wants to see yawning attendants at a mall at 7.30 pm?

Don't plan a late-evening programme in China

When I visited a mall in Datong with two of my colleagues, that’s precisely what greeted us—bleary-eyed mall attendants who would let off a yawn every now and then. As it is, we three seemed to be the only visitors in the entire mall. Why keep the mall open at all then?
After completing our work in Pingyao Ancient Cityaround 7.30 pm, we found all the shops shut and the road deserted. And it’s a popular tourist spot. It denied me a chance to shop in the place that could have probably offered the best shopping experience in my entire trip.

5. Because I want some souvenirs without burning a huge hole in my pocket

A plain hoodie for 800 yuan (Rs 8,000/$125). That’s right. China means cheap stuff, right? Wrong. You will get comparatively inexpensive stuff only in the roadside stalls and local markets. Go to a shopping mall or a fancy store and a take a look at the price tags. It’s enough to give you a cardiac arrest.
First I thought only Shanghai was expensive. But the Datong mall flaunted equally eye-popping price tags. And I’m not talking about any world-class brand. Most were local brands with quite ordinary products.

The price tags may make you want to find refuge in those (mock) coffins!
Photo taken at a shopping mall in Shanghai

I have an idea of the price tags even in US shopping malls. Even with my modest means, I could afford to buy quite a lot—clothes, cosmetics, accessories... They were expensive by Indian standards, but certainly within reach.
Prices at the local stalls in China are quite reasonable, especially if you have mastered the art of haggling. What was strange was the enormous gap between the prices at the high-end and the local shops. In India, for instance, what is sold for Rs 10 at a local stall may be sold for Rs 20 in a shopping mall. But in China, what is sold at a local stall for 10 yuan will have a 100-yuan price tag in a mall.
But shopping in the local stores, especially for clothes, can be extremely disappointing. Life came full circle for me when I realized that I would not fit into even the ‘XXL’ of China while I had fitted into the ‘Petite Small’ in the US. In India, it’s usually the ‘M’. I saw hardly any obesity in China. And you may get a serious inferiority complex if you don’t tone down to size zero before a China trip. I am too lazy for that.

Read more of my posts on China:

What's authentic Chinese food like?

Gangasagar, where the Ganga meets the ocean

“Sab teerth baar baar, Gangasagar ek baar”: Hindu saying

(All pilgrimages again and again, Gangasagar only once)

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It had been barely 15 minutes that we had landed up in Kakdwip and I had already lost my travel companion. I had been running towards the end of one of the many queues to the jetty; he was right behind me. But when I turned around after about 2 minutes, he was gone. Poof!

Thinking that maybe he had slackened his pace and would catch up eventually, I continued on my way, and finally found the end of what had seemed a never-ending line. But another five minutes passed, then ten, more people streamed in to join the queue... My co-traveller was nowhere to be seen.

There was no signal on my cellphone. I remembered the warning one of my friends had sounded: “Be careful. People get lost at Gangasagar Mela.” “That usually happens at the Kumbh Mela,” I had laughed. “Even Gangasagar gets a lot of people,” she had pointed out. And now, we had managed to do exactly that! Even better, we were not even anywhere close to the fairgrounds yet.

With my backpack and my camera, and in my tee and cargos, I stuck out like a sore thumb among the crowds that stood in the queue, their modest bags and bundles on their head or tucked under their arms, packed like sardines in the five-foot space between the horizontal bamboo railings that had been erected to maintain the lines. Lathi (stick)-wielding policemen barked orders and shrewdly looked for opportunities to use their weapons on the herds of humanity.

The queue to the Kakdwip jetty

Like the Kumbh Mela, the Gangasagar Mela also gets its bulk of pilgrims from the north Indian states of Bihar and UP. Since Gangasagar lies in West Bengal, and because of its proximity to neighbouring country Nepal, many faces can be seen from these two places too. But from the way the women drape their sarees, from the sarees’ vivid colours, and from the way the men tie their pugrees (turbans), the multitudes from north India are easily identifiable.

The queue inched its way towards—I hoped—the jetty. There was no way I could be sure. Several queues seemed to be snaking their way in every direction. I asked someone if I was in the queue to the jetty. “Yes,” he barked with a fierce-looking frown. The irritability was understandable. The queues were bad enough; plus, it was terribly warm for mid-January. We were all sweating under a bright sun.

Gangasagar is famous for its cold. “Gangasagarer hawa” (the Gangasagar breeze) is something I have heard since childhood. But this year, entire India was going through a mild winter. I had had a huge fight with my parents over packing my thermal inners—they had insisted that I do; I had stubbornly refused. I congratulated myself now for the decision.

After about half an hour, I finally got a call from my companion. The connection was bad, but I could just about make out that he had skirted the line and was apparently way ahead of me, somewhere. He named a ‘landmark’ in front of which he was, which could be just about anywhere.

“Where are you?” he asked me. “I have no clue,” I said. “In which queue are you?” he asked again. Again, I had no clue. There was nothing at all that could tell me that. All I knew was that I was headed for the jetty. Because that was what mattered.

I told him to take the ferry to Kochuberia if we did not find each other. We’d either meet there, or straightaway meet at the Bharat Sevashram Sangh in Sagar Island. Thankfully, both of us were used to travelling alone, and would hopefully have no trouble finding our way to Sagar Island, where the fair is held. With that, we hung up.

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Though I’m not very religious, several pilgrimages have always been on my bucket list, mainly for the stories I have read or heard about them, or because of the sights and landscapes associated with them. Of these, there were two famous religious ‘fairs’ of the Hindus—the Kumbh Mela and the Gangasagar Mela. I luckily got the chance to visit the first when I was sent on an official assignment to the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad in 2013. This year, I finally decided on a trip to the latter.

Since childhood, I have seen the multitudes thronging Kolkata during the annual Gangasagar pilgrimage. As this city is the gateway to Sagar Island, the pilgrims, including sadhus and commoners, camp at Babughat, one of our well-known jetties.

For those few days, they are everywhere. Hordes of pilgrims—poor, illiterate masses from India’s back of beyond—flood into the Metro, pushing aside anyone who crosses their path, and likewise while getting off. After all, the leader cannot be let out of sight; the train cannot be missed; the station cannot be missed. The polished city-bred daily commuters scoff at them and openly express their displeasure.

In the vessel after 3.5 hours in the queue. The vessel, by the way, is not yet
full. People are still boarding!

I would see the swarms of men and women pass below my window, trudging the last leg of their pilgrimage to the Kalighat temple on weary feet. As a child I would wonder where they came from and where they went. What was their journey like? What was Gangasagar like? “One day,” I would think, “I will travel with them and see it all for myself.”

And so, I had refused to book the comfortable cruise the West Bengal tourism department offers; I wanted to do it like the pilgrims. And so, we left Kolkata on the day before Makar Sankranti, the last day of the Hindu month of Poush, when the holy dip is to be taken at the confluence of the Ganga and the Bay of Bengal—Gangasagar.

We took one of the many buses that leave from Kolkata’s Esplanade for Kakdwip. They are all marked ‘Gangasagar’. It was a pleasant three-hour ride. A ferry has to be taken from Kakdwip to Kochuberia, and from there, a car or a bus has to be taken to Sagar Island. The total journey should take four hours at the most—three on the bus, 20 minutes on the ferry, and another 30 minutes by car.

And so, there I was, standing cheek by jowl with those very pilgrims whose journey I had wanted to check out. It was nearly an hour in that frustrating queue that hardly moved; the jetty was nowhere in sight.

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Suddenly, I saw my co-traveller. It was just as abrupt as his disappearance. I looked up, and there he was, scrutinizing the queue intently, most probably to find me. I called out to him.

He had told me to be at a particular jetty, which had sounded like Jetty no. 8 to me. But when I asked a cop whether I was in the queue to Jetty no. 8, he had said there was no Jetty no. 8. This was Lot no. 8, which had five jetties in all. I was in the queue to Jetty no. 2. I wasn’t too bothered about the jetty as long as I reached Kochuberia.

Thankfully, it now emerged that we had both taken the same queue. He skipped the crowds to a certain point, but beyond that, the cops would not let him go. So he joined the queue with me.

The queue to the jetty must have been about 1–1.5 km at the most. There were at least 50 barricades on the way. The cops would open one for 20 seconds at the most and close it again. So the crowd moved in hiccups. If anyone slackened his or her pace by a second, some of the cops chased them with sticks as if it were a cattle herd.

A migratory bird flies past the vessel

After two hours, we could finally see the river, and the vessels. We heard all kind of probable and improbable claims from the crowd. Someone said the government had brought vessels that could accommodate 8,000 people at a time. Another said a vessel that usually ferries cars had been brought. It would carry 30,000 people at a time.

Right before the jetty, our path was blocked again. The paramilitary jawan manning it was comparatively kindhearted. “Sit down, all of you,” he said, implying that it would take time. Thankfully, we had stopped right in front of an eatery. I told my companion that instead of waiting, we should have our lunch. From the look of things we would not reach Sagar Island before evening.

As we ate—a typical Bengali meal of rice, dal, curry, potato fries, and fish, for an unbelievable Rs 60 per plate—the queue started moving. My companion went out and asked the jawan if he would let us pass after we had eaten. The jawan agreed.

So, after lunch, we skipped the barricade and joined our queue again. In another 15–20 minutes, we were finally in the launch. In a constant stream, people kept pouring in. Even when the launch looked full, exactly the same number that was inside stood outside, waiting to board. And many of them did board.

Even until a couple of years ago, there would be at least one launch-capsize case during Gangasagar every year. And it would invariably be because of overloading—the reason my family had been vehemently against my trip. Anyway, after 3.5 hours of our reaching Kakdwip, we finally left for Kochuberia.

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“Can you tell us something about the place we are going to visit? Why is it holy?” the elderly man squatting in front asked me. Everyone had sat down wherever they could fit in. I was one of the few who were standing along the windows—my companion and I being at two extreme ends of the launch.

Some space had been made for the city-bred lady and her rucksack, though some pleading had been necessary. Some insisted that I sat down on the rucksack itself, but I had declined politely. As I photographed the gulls that flew past, the question came from the rustic-looking man, who had had to be coaxed for 10 minutes so that he moved a little to make space for me to put my feet comfortably.

I told him whatever I knew. According to Hindu mythology, Kapil Muni had his ashram at a spot next to the sea (sagar) where the fair is now held. His rage had turned to ashes the 60,000 sons of King Sagar. The king’s descendant Bhagirath later brought the Ganga down from the Himalayas so that her holy touch would absolve the 60,000 prices of their sins and they would attain moksh (salvation).

A woman who fainted in Kakdwip being taken to the
health centre at Kochuberia

So, every year, pilgrims congregate at Sagar Island, some 100km south of Kolkata on this day when the 60,000 princes were apparently liberated. They bathe at the confluence, and offer puja (prayers) at the Kapil Muni ashram, hoping for an end to the tortures of the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

The man and several others listened to me with interest. It was intriguing to realise that they make the pilgrimage year after year, but don’t even know what it signifies.

Finally, the man said gravely, “Look how people are. They are going there with such a noble purpose, and yet they are fighting and pushing and shoving…” The others nodded in agreement.

The pushing and shoving was, however, back at the Kochuberia jetty. But this group waited till the end before getting off.

We flowed out with the crowd, not knowing where we were headed. Four men stretchered out a woman whom my companion had seen falling unconscious in Kakdwip. I wondered why she had not been given medical aid in Kakdwip itself.

The road led to the bus stand. The sight was scary: four–five buses, which four–five hundred people were trying to board. I had heard that taxis also ply to Sagar Island. The taxi stand was right there, too, but chances of getting one looked bleak. Apparently tickets had to be booked at the counter, which was deserted.

My companion kept talking to every taxi driver he could find. Finally, one agreed to take us in on the seat next to him. The taxi had apparently been booked by a group, who vehemently opposed our getting the seat. They were comfortably seated behind; we were not disturbing them in any way; our destination was the same; and yet they had a problem.

“The driver should charge us less. We booked the vehicle. Now he has taken two more passengers,” they kept saying loudly enough for us to hear them. The driver turned a deaf ear to them; so did we.

It was amusing to note that they were on a mission to attain salvation!

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The driver looked like he was still in his teens. But his driving skills could not be doubted. The road was smooth and looked newly paved. Within 20 minutes or so, we were finally at Sagar Island.

The sun was already casting long shadows; we had left Kolkata some 7.5–8 hours ago. My back and shoulders were hurting; my companion was even worse off. He repeatedly fell behind as we trudged on, looking for Bharat Sevashram Sangh.

Finally, Sagar Island

For a paltry sum of Rs 150 per head, we had booked (there was no other option) a ‘room’ in their ‘hogla’ camp. Hogla is a leaf that grows in abundance in these areas. It’s used for thatching, but is highly inflammable (giving my family yet another reason to worry for my safety).

More than helping people, the policemen on duty seemed only to be adding to the trouble. We asked for directions to the Sangh. A cop told us we could not go straight and directed us into the fairgrounds.

After a detour of 2 kilometres, and after being stopped at countless blockades, we were back on the same road. We realised then that we could have taken the road all the way to the Sangh. Everywhere, dusty, hungry and exhausted people were walking about like they were in a trance, thanks to the mindless blockades.

We saw people camping by the roadside. There were rows and rows of tents fashioned out of all kinds of materials. Plastic sheets, towels, sarees and other garments held up by bamboo poles.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, we found the Sangh.

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Inside, several people were begging for accommodation. The employees impassively said there was none. I showed one of them the ticket. It was in my companion’s name.

“This cannot be you,” he stared at me. “It says for two persons. I’m the other one,” I told him patiently. “Where is the gentleman?” he asked rudely. Maybe he thought I had murdered the ticket-holder and stolen the ticket. By the look of things, it wasn’t totally impossible though.

Fed up, I asked my companion to handle things. Finally, satisfied that they were not putting up a murderer, the employee sent us to the ‘hogla’ camp.

Pilgrims fashion tents out of just about everything

It was a sight I had never seen before: row after row of crude thatched huts, with a narrow lane leading through them. Our hut number was 219. So there were 218 more huts. But our hut was only about midway through our row. So, there must have been around 400 huts in that row.

Now, there were at least three other rows. So, in all, there must have been at least 1,200 huts on the Sangh campus. People were also camping ‘indoors’—in the rooms, on the verandahs, on the stairs… It’s better to leave the total number to imagination.

The huts even had ‘doors’ (a hogla sheet) and latches (a piece of wood to be inserted in the loose matting of the hogla walls). The ‘floor’—the grassy earth basically—was covered with straw.

The attendant showed us the bathrooms, which were, thankfully, permanent structures that offered the basic facilities. And there were plenty of bathrooms on the campus.

Finally, after some eight hours, we could drop our backpacks. I could then fully appreciate the meaning of the Hindu saying that I started this post with. Once is just about enough. And, we had yet to return from this mess.

To be concluded...

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How to go to Gangasagar from Kolkata

Take a bus from Esplanade to Kakdwip
Take a ferry from Kakdwip to Kochuberia
Take a bus or shared cab from Kochuberia to Sagar Island
Take a train from Sealdah to Namkhana
Take a ferry from Namkhana to Chemaguri
Take a shared cab from Chemaguri to Sagar Island

Where to stay at Sagar Island

The 'hogla' camp at Bharat Sevashram Sangh

Youth Hostel, Bharat Sevashram Sangh and several other ashrams. Book your accommodation in advance if you want to visit it during the fair. BSS is the best bet, but be prepared to stay in 'hogla' camps like the one in picture left. Take your sleeping bag along. Youth Hostel is usually booked for government officials. I also saw a government ‘nishulk yatri nivas’ (free tourist lodge), but I’m not sure of the facilities and where it can be booked.

At the 'sangam' in Gangasagar

Continued from previous post…

On the way to Bharat Sevashram Sangh itself, the signboard had caught my eye even in the crowd of signboards. It advertised various kinds of ‘gur’ (jaggery) and fresh date-palm juice, and at the end of the words, an arrow pointed vaguely towards a lane next to which the signboard was planted.

After dumping our backpacks inside our royal ‘hogla’ room, we had simply freshened up and left for a tour of the fair. There was no time to lose. As we stopped for tea right next to the signboard, I decided to explore the address of the delectable delights a bit. So, after tea, we walked into the narrow lane.

Date-palm 'gur' (jaggery) being made

Towards the end of the lane was a playground to the left where several pilgrims were camping. When we stopped for photographs, the so-called sadhus (beggars actually, or maybe even fugitives) asked us for “something”—apparently their ‘modelling fees’. To escape, we gave one of them some money; immediately the others surrounded us.

Talking our way out of the fiasco, we asked around for the address of the ‘gur’ seller. Some villagers pointed at a nearby hut. There was already a crowd at the hut. Most of them seemed to be in no hurry to buy anything, but they ‘expertly’ tasted every food item they could find.

There was a ‘jhuri’ (wicker basket) full of top-quality ‘patali gur’. Date-palm ‘patali’ is one of the best forms of jaggery which is prepared by boiling the date-palm juice into a thick consistency and then allowing it to thicken into a solid mass. It’s one of Bengal’s traditional winter delights.

Deciding to buy the ‘patali’ the next morning, we asked when we could have some fresh date-palm juice. An elderly man and a young woman seemed to be the sellers. The woman said we’d have to come early in the morning. My companion offered to pay some money in advance so that she would keep some for us, but she refused. “It’s first-come-first-serve,” she said adamantly.

So, letting the obstinate woman have her way, we left for the fairgrounds.

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People being fed for free by one of the religious organizations

All the roads to the confluence were numbered. The one nearest to the Sangh was Road No. 2. These ‘roads’ were basically the spaces that had been left in between the rows of makeshift stalls and ‘hogla’ camps that had been installed. The ware that’s sold by the roadside is some of the most colourful stuff available in the world.

From coloured powder, vermilion, beaded jewellery, trinkets, seashell decorations, conches and metalwork to clothes, cane walking sticks and delicious-looking sweets, everything was being sold in the open. My companion bought some sweets that we call ‘pedas’. It’s usually a mixture of sugar and ‘khoya’ (milk thickened by boiling). This one had a strange taste. Finally, my companion figured out that it was sugar and ‘sattu’ (pulses roasted and powdered). He looked at the seller and said, “It’s trash.” The seller simply looked away.

The sea of people at the fair

Everywhere, there was the familiar sea of humanity. We realised that even if we looked away a second, we lost each other in the crowd. Several times, we had to call up to find out where the other was. Every time, we had been only a few yards apart. It was little wonder that there were relentless announcements on the microphone for missing people.

Several religious organizations were distributing free food and free tea. There were serpentine queues outside these venues. Looking at our cameras, people mistook us for photo-journalists. And we did not try to correct them.

For a few photographs—which would hopefully find a place in some newspaper or magazine—all of them offered us free tea and food. I declined all of it politely. We could afford it; those who were in the queue probably couldn’t.

A volunteer started manning the line with sudden enthusiasm when I trained my lens on him—much to the dismay of the sleepy pilgrims. Some commented on our “brilliant cameras” (though mine is not even a DSLR); some asked us for their snaps to be taken.

Pilgrims camping in the open

The road went for about a couple of kilometres before it ended at the sea. The water seemed to be about 200 metres away from the tideline, leaving a long stretch of marshy land in between. I hoped that the tide would be high the next morning, when the holy dip was supposed to be taken.

We explored the fairgrounds, seeing all kinds of interesting dwellings on the way. Some were triangular in shape, open on two sides. People crouched inside the smallest of ‘tents’, some smoking or sitting next to fires to keep warm (though we hardly felt the cold).

We tried to find our way to the Kapil Muni ashram, which was conspicuous because of its brilliant lights. But all roads to it seemed to have been blocked by the immensely talented security men who were manning the fairground. And yet, we could see a miles-long queue leading up to the ashram! No one seemed to know where it started. After a futile search, we sullenly made our way back to the Sangh.

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An interesting 'tent' on the fairgrounds

We had been given the option of having dinner at the Sangh. For that, we had to book coupons for (ahem!) Rs 10 each. Thinking we would eat and go to bed early so that we could wake up early the next morning, we had bought the coupons. The Sangh workers had said dinner would start by 8pm and be over in an hour.

We returned well before 8pm and realised that there was already a serpentine queue for dinner. It was our day of queues it seemed. We stood in the queue, believing dinner would begin at 8pm. After standing for some time, we heard that dinner would not be served before the end of the evening ‘arati’ (prayers with fire). But no one seemed to know when the ‘arati’ would end and where it would be done.

We were too exhausted to go out again to look for food. We were standing next to a temple on the Sangh campus, the steps of which were teeming with pilgrims who had found no other place to camp. Tucked under shawls, children were already fast asleep on the cold marble floor. There was no place to even place a foot on the stairs.

Seated on a podium, some ‘maharaj’ (holy man of the sect the Sangh follows) was lecturing the audience. He was giving a fiery speech on a controversial comment about India’s “growing intolerance” made recently by a popular actor belonging to another religious community. The audience clapped enthusiastically at the end of every sentence.

An illuminated Kapil Muni Ashram

I found the tone and arguments of His Holiness no different from that of our politicians, and of the common man’s rants on social networking sites.

The ‘arati’ began after ‘maharaj’ ended his red-hot lecture. It wasn’t until 9 pm that the queue started moving. Apparently dinner was supposed to end by that time.

We got seats (on mats on the floor) after two batches had eaten their fill. And, at one go, some 100-odd people were being served. Food was simple fare—rice, a very watery dal, and a cabbage curry. After dinner, we had to take the leaf-plates outside and dump them in a huge pit.

Finally, after what seemed like an endless day, we could retire to our princely hut. We spread plastic sheets on the straw and rolled out our sleeping bags. The fair was on in full gear; apparently it never slept. We heard voices of people from everywhere, devotional songs, and never-ending announcements on microphones before we could drift off to sleep.

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Sadhus take the holy dip at Gangasagar

I had set the alarm for 5am, but woke up a few minutes before it could go off. And I woke up to exactly the sounds that I had heard before falling asleep. As I rolled by sleeping bag, my companion woke up. By 6am, as the sun was lazily making his way up the horizon, we were at the ‘sangam’.

The sea was still away from waterline as we had seen the evening before. This time, I got knee-deep into the water and started clicking. There were several photographers around, most probably professional. They made a funny sight—standing in the water with their pants rolled up to the knees, but with heavy jackets and woollen caps on to save them from the chill!

Cutting across the knee-deep water, I slowly made my way towards the east, keeping the rising sun in the background as far as I could manage. My companion closely followed me down the beach, not ready to leave me out of sight and waste precious time searching for me.

There was no dearth of subjects. But like Kumbh Mela, ‘sadhus’ are the most sought-after subjects for photographers at Gangasagar, too. Unfortunately, there was a dearth of the saffron-clad matted-haired men. So, when one such figure made an appearance, all the photographers literally pounced on him. The poor sadhu was visibly uncomfortable with all the attention he was getting.

After about 90 minutes or so, when we had reached the end of the beach, we turned around. There was some commotion a little up the beach. We went there to find that some important ‘maharaj’ had arrived with his entourage. As shutterbugs bore in on him—which he clearly enjoyed—I could hear his announcer declaring that the mat that had been placed on the beach was for their woman followers to leave their belongings on. “It’s not for the other ‘mothers’,” he said.

There was a serious dearth of photogenic sadhus. One made an
appearance and all the shutterbugs pounced on him!

I was amused. What use is renouncing the world for the saffron robe if you can’t rise above such petty possessiveness?

As we made our way back, we tried to find the queue to the Kapil Muni Ashram yet again. Again, the road had been blocked from the beach-end. We tried to enter it through some of the bylanes, but all had been blocked. Finally, to my amusement, my irate companion declared, “Okay Mr Kapil Muni, we won’t visit you. You are not worth all this trouble.”

I even had a mild argument with a security man when he told a bunch of pilgrims to take a U-turn and go back to the beach to enter the queue for the Ashram. “Why are you harassing these people? That road is blocked; we are coming from there,” I challenged him. “Then you have to take the road from the other end,” he said. He obviously had no idea which end of the road was blocked.

We ate breakfast at a roadside eatery—deciding not to make the previous evening’s mistake by going back to the Sangh for food. I told my companion then that it would probably be wise if we tried to return home now.

We had originally decided to stay a day and return the next morning. But from the enormous crowd that was still pouring in from Kolkata, I felt getting back the next day would probably be even tougher. My companion agreed.

We went back to the jaggery place to get my ‘patali’ and hopefully some fresh date-palm juice. But the juice was gone. “I just poured the last drops into the boiling ‘gur’,” the woman said. So, with a sour temper, the two of us went back to the Sangh after I had bought the jaggery. We packed our backpacks in five minutes and braced ourselves for another torturous journey.

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A woman washes her sari at the 'sangam'

The buses, just like the previous day, had miles-long queues leading up to them. So we decided to head for the car stand. My companion was too weary now to trudge it out on foot. So we hired what is known in these parts as a cycle-van. It’s a big tricycle fitted with a cart (basically a flat wooden seat).

When we reached the taxi stand, my companion jumped out and dashed off towards a vehicle that was about to leave. Again, he managed to bargain the front seat for us. But this vehicle was on its way to Chemaguri, which is the jetty for ferries to Namkhana, which is further from Kolkata compared with Kakdwip. But the driver assured us that the queue would be comparatively shorter. And so, we went on our way to Chemaguri.

But we were yet to fully fathom the seriousness of the case. At Chemaguri, a 1.5km-long queue welcomed us. As I stood in the queue, my companion went to check if he could manage a quick passage for us. He returned after a while and said he had befriended a volunteer who had told him to bring “the lady journalist who was having trouble standing under the scorching sun (!)” so that she could sit under a shade.

“How many lies are you going about telling?” I asked him, alarmed. He had apparently said we were both photo-journalists. We would be in a terribly awkward and humiliating position if we got challenged. Anyway, I left with him, telling the person in the queue standing in front that we were going to have tea. We were challenged by a security man, too, but when we told him the “tea” story, he let us go.

The volunteer was still eating breakfast. Asking him to “do something” for us, my companion quickly added that he was paying for his omelette, even as the volunteer vehemently objected. “Will your omelette-bribe work?” I asked him, amused, as the volunteer left shortly. “The government is paying for their food anyway,” I pointed out.

An image of devotion

Just as I had uttered these words and had taken the first sip of the tea, the volunteer waved frantically at my companion. “You can see it’s working,” he grinned at me. Being a businessman, he knew these ‘tricks’ which were totally beyond me.

“The path is blocked by the queue. I can’t take you through that mass of people. But if you can walk 1.5 km down this dry riverbed, we can get you on the ferry to Namkhana,” he said. The riverbed was okay, but I was worried that we would get stopped by the cops at the other end. Finally, he asked a man to accompany us.

As we ran behind the villager on the parched, uneven riverbed, he rattled off details that he hoped we would put in the newspapers. And I played my part of the journalist to satisfaction—taking photos and asking for totally inconsequential details. After all, I had done it for nearly 10 years.

At the other end, the security men let us pass, albeit with frowns. Thankfully, they did not ask for our I-cards; only word that we were the ‘Press’ was enough. In 10–15 minutes, we were in the ferry. My companion, his lies, and the bribe of an omelette had saved us at least four hours.

There was not much left of the journey after that. It took us some 40 minutes to reach Namkhana. From the jetty, my travel companion and I took a cycle-van to the train station and bus stand respectively, according to our convenience. And, we both reached our respective homes at about the same time that evening, within around 3 hours of leaving Namkhana.

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How to reach Gangasagar from Kolkata

Take a bus from Esplanade to Kakdwip
Take a ferry from Kakdwip to Kochuberia
Take a bus or shared cab from Kochuberia to Sagar Island
Take a train from Sealdah to Namkhana

Women make some ritualistic drawings in the sand

Take a ferry from Namkhana to Chemaguri
Take a shared cab from Chemaguri to Sagar Island

Where to stay at Sagar Island

Youth Hostel, Bharat Sevashram Sangh and several other ashrams. Book your accommodation in advance if you want to visit it during the fair. BSS is the best bet. Youth Hostel is booked for government officials. I also saw a government ‘nishulk yatri nivas’ (free tourist lodge), but I’m not sure of the facilities and where it can be booked.

Also read my posts on Kumbh Mela:

The Naga Sadhu who asked for my gold ring

A dip in the pitcher of life

Our room (left one) at the Lataguri lodge, with the Gorumara forest in the background

My Dooars trip had happened way back in 2009, all of a sudden, thanks to a cancelled Kashmir tour.

Looking back now, I don’t regret that trip being cancelled because the Kashmir tour I made last July-August was far better than that conducted tour could have possibly been. However, not having the advantage of hindsight at that point, the cancelled tour had caused much heartbreak.

The organizers had called off the trip on the very day we were about to leave, and we hardly had the time to make any alternative plans. But instead of sulking, we—my aunt and I—booked Tatkal tickets and left for the Dooars. And, the lovely Himalayan foothills—‘dooar’ or ’duar’ literally means ‘door’—gave us no reason to regret the decision.

Kingfisher clicked from my window

We took the Kanchan Kanya Express from Sealdah to New Mal Junction in Jalpaiguri district of northern West Bengal. After crossing New Jalpaiguri (NJP) station—which is the gateway to Darjeeling as well as Sikkim—the few hours’ journey to New Mal Junction is a beautiful green stretch.

In fact, much of the track passes through the elephant corridor, on which every year some of the majestic animals lose their lives, thanks to train hits. Wildlife-lovers have been demanding that the tracks be abandoned or shifted, but nothing has been done yet. Anyway, if you ever make the journey, keep your eyes wide open for the jumbos; a sighting cannot be ruled out.

We had a car waiting for us at New Mal Junction to take us to Lataguri, the gateway to Gorumara National Park. I can’t remember the exact details after such a long time, but it certainly hadn’t taken more than an hour to reach Lataguri. The train had reached New Mal around 9 am, and we had reached Lataguri well before lunchtime.

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Towards the watchtower at Gorumara.
Only this one was still open

The resort was beautiful, and right outside the boundaries of the reserve forest. In fact, there were several lodges in Lataguri of exactly the same design. Our room was designed somewhat like a tree-house. A flight of steps led up to a point from where it bifurcated towards two rooms on each side. We occupied the one on the left.

The room had all the modern amenities, and even better, the forest was right behind our window. Within minutes of arriving, I caught on my lens a kingfisher perched on a tree outside my window. We heard that elephant herds like to venture into the compound at night from time to time.

There was a very well-maintained garden in the compound, flanked by two-room cottages. To have our meals, we would have to take the path that skirted the garden and led to the main building, which housed the dining hall.

After lunch and a brief rest, we left for Gorumara National Park in the same vehicle that we had come to Lataguri in. We were accompanied by a guide. We were first given a goody bag with a brochure and two small gifts—local handicraft. (I still have my butterfly fashioned out of coir strings.) Then we were taken inside the forest in a buffalo-drawn carriage. It was an amazing ride.

Unfortunately, it was mid-June—nearly the time for Gorumara to shut down. So, only one of the five watchtowers was open. The carriage took us to a certain point, from where we had to walk to the watchtower.

Murti River clicked from the watchtower

From the top, we had a grand view over the national park and the Murti River, which flows across it. Before long, we sighted a peacock. There was a salt pit in the distance. And soon enough, we saw three one-horned rhinos—the brand ambassadors of Gorumara—emerging from the forests beyond and ambling towards the pits.

There were two adults and a calf. They gave us a long time to enjoy the sight. Unfortunately, those were my initial travelling days and I did not yet own a good camera. So the photographs are not very good. But the memories are excellent.

We were next taken for a tribal dance that is organized inside the forest. By the time we made our way back to the resort, it was pitch-dark. The narrow path leading through the thick foliage made our car headlights look dim. In that light, the forest looked even more mysterious.

Rhinos clicked from the watchtower. I did not possess a
very good camera at that time, so the picture is not very good

Suddenly something small and spotted crossed our path. It looked somewhat like a small leopard. The guide said excitedly that it was small member of the cat family which is hardly sighted nowadays. “You are very lucky,” he said. “We haven’t seen these in a long time.” By the next morning, we had become famous in Lataguri. News spread like wildfire that a “mother-daughter duo” had seen a “leopard”!

The forests, the leopard and the knowledge that elephants liked to pay visit to the lodge made quite a bit of an impression on my aunt’s mind, and led to a pretty comical incident that night. I had put my camera batteries on charge before going to bed. The charger had a small bright-red light that glowed in the dark like some sinister monster’s eye.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I awoke with a start at my aunt’s cries. I was lying on my back, so the first thing I noticed was that the ceiling fan was not moving. I realised in an instant that there was a power cut. Turning to my aunt now, I saw that she was pointing at the wall—exactly where my charger was plugged—and shouting at the top of her voice about a “huge light”.

Peacock clicked from the watchtower

“That light… that light…what’s that light?” she was hysterical. “You were dreaming,” I told her gently, shaking her fully awake. “No, there’s a light. Can’t you see?” she was still hyper. “How can there be a light? The fan’s not moving. There’s a power cut,” I pointed at the fan. “Oh!” she said finally, not yet fully convinced.

Since I had woken up that hour, I decided to take a peek outside the window, hoping to see some huge dark shadows moving outside. I opened the window and shone the torch outside with a mix of hope, anxiousness and excitement.

The night was still, so was the forest. Gorumara was fast asleep. The jumbos had not decided to pay a visit that night.

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Jaldhaka River clicked at Bindu. On the left side is Bhutan, the right side is India

I left our room the next morning to a chorus of birds I am yet to hear again. I have a 48-second video in which at least six distinct kinds can be made out very clearly. After breakfast, we left for a short trip to two comparatively lesser known destinations in Darjeeling—Jhalong-Bindu and Samsing.

Suntalekhola in Samsing

I won’t describe the road; those who have ever been to Darjeeling or other North Bengal destinations will know how scenic it is. Jhalong and Bindu are two wonderful spots near the Bhutan border. On one side of Jaldhaka River is India; on the other is Bhutan. In Bindu, the countries are separated by a barrage, on which tourists can climb, but photography is not allowed.

I liked Samsing even better. The car took us to a certain point from where we had to walk. The road started from a village with its corn fields and picturesque hill houses with gardens and flower pots hanging from the edges of the roof. In a short while, we were into the forest.

That walk is something I’m yet to forget, even after four Himalayan treks. My own footsteps seemed noisy to me; I’d have probably even heard my heartbeat had I tried hard enough. The silence was all-pervasive. I could hear every minute sound of the forest—the distant chirping of a bird, the rustle of the leaves, the sound of water somewhere close…

The road leading to Suntalekhola, Samsing

The path led to the Suntalay Khola (or Suntalekhola), a narrow stream over which there is a small hanging bridge. On the other side of the bridge is a West Bengal Forest Development Corporation bungalow. I would strongly suggest that anyone who wishes to make this trip spend at least a day in that bungalow. I did not know about it; or I’d have certainly stayed there. Cars to the bungalow are allowed to go till the bridge.

We returned to Lataguri via some tea gardens, and in the evening, left Dooars. It was all we could arrange in such a short time. But if anyone visits Dooars, the best time to do so is from mid-September to mid-June. The national parks remain closed from June 15 to September 15.

There are several other reserve forests in the region apart from Gorumara, including Buxa Tiger Reserve, Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, and Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary. All of them have their unique attractions. A Dooars trip definitely deserves some time and planning.

Jadoh is a signature dish of the Indian state of Meghalaya. The state’s population comprises three distinct communities—the Khasis, Garos, and Jaintias. Jadoh, as far as I know, is primarily a Khasi dish.

I had read and heard about jadoh during casual chats with friends or during idly surfing the net. But cooking it never occurred to me until I heard about the new restaurant in town that was apparently offering ‘tribal foods’.

I asked my sister to join me for a visit to the restaurant, but I decided to go through their menu on the Net first. I was excited to see jadoh on the menu, but got a mild surprise when I saw the meat options—chicken and mutton (in India, mutton depicts goat meat). Jadoh—and a lot of other meat-based dishes of that region—are mostly cooked with pork. (However, jadoh can also be made with chicken.)

So, since I had found out that one dish wasn’t ‘authentic’ enough to impress me, I had doubts about the rest as well. On a sudden impulse, I surfed the Net and found some recipes of jadoh that looked quite simple. So, I decided to try it out myself.

Getting the pork was easy, but getting the rice led to a slightly unpleasant comedy. When we asked for “short-grained rice”, the shopkeeper looked shocked. He produced a variety, cleared his throat, and said, “Let me tell you madam, mostly labourers eat this rice… It’s very good though. I also eat it. But it’s not… umm … for the likes of you. Are you sure you want this?”

The rice proved to be pretty good (even for a non-labourer like me). And, the end result was extremely tasty. But when I sent a photograph to two of my Jaintia friends, neither recognized what it was! One ingredient, which was clearly visible in the photograph, had apparently led to the confusion. It’s never put in jadoh. So, with new tips from them, the next attempt gave more ‘authentic’ results. Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients (enough for three–four persons):

Hill rice or any short-grained rice (preferably red rice): 2 cups. (Note: I got the ‘atap’ [husked] variety instead of the ‘seddho’ [parboiled] one)

Fresh pork (that is, with fat): 300 gm
Medium-sized onion (chopped): 1
Ginger paste: 2 teaspoon
Turmeric: ½ teaspoon
Red pepper powder/ground black pepper: 1 teaspoon(or according to taste)
Coriander (dhania) powder: ¾th teaspoon
Bay leaves: 2
Salt: To taste

Method:

Wash the rice thoroughly and drain. Cut the pork into small (1–1.5-inch) cubes. This makes them easier to cook and they also spread evenly in the rice.
Heat a flat-bottomed pan and put the pork pieces directly in it. The fat from the pork will be enough to cook it and the spices; adding extra oil will only make it too greasy.
Once the fatty bits melt, add the chopped onion, ginger paste, turmeric powder, coriander powder and red/black pepper powder (I prefer black pepper). Fry the spices till these separate from the oil (fat).
Burn the tips of the bay leaves and drop these in the pan. (Honestly, I don’t really know how the flavour differs from fried bay leaves. My Jaintia friend also told me this was important. So I did it, but I also ensured that the bay leaves were fried red.)
Fry the pork mixed with the spices well until all of it is pretty reddish. I also add some salt at this point because I have this fear that the pork may taste bland in the end.
Add the rice and fry for 2–3 minutes. Mix all the spices, meat, and rice well until the rice looks evenly yellow from the turmeric. Add salt and four cups of water—preferably warm water. (Thumb rule: whatever the amount of rice, the water will be double that.)
Cover and simmer until cooked. If you find that the water has vanished but the pork or rice is still not done, add some more warm water and let it simmer until the water evaporates. Keep doing this until the dish is done to your satisfaction. Serve hot.

Total time taken: 60–75 minutes

Note:

Jadoh, like biryani, tastes pretty good on its own though you may opt for anything tangy to go with it. The first time, I actually ate it with some leftover ‘sarson ka saag’ (a mustard-leaf dish from Punjab). They gelled perfectly (ahem! the taste of national integration!)
Jadoh, as my Jaintia friend said, can also be cooked with chicken. In that case, the rules remain the same. But you need to fry the spices and the chicken in mustard oil. However, chicken will obviously cook faster than pork, so you may need to cook the rice a bit first, and then add the fried chicken bits. I am yet to try this version.
Some people say that to cook ‘authentic’ jadoh, pork/chicken blood has to be added to the dish (though I don’t know exactly when the blood goes into the cooking process). I’d not mind putting it, though I understand that most people would find it repulsive. Besides, the pork mostly comes frozen and I would not like to tell the chicken-seller to pack a bagful of chicken blood for me! However, my Jaintia friends say it’s not really mandatory. One of them even said that she had not really liked the blood-mixed version when she had tasted it once. So, cook it without the blood, it will be authentic enough.
Happy cooking!

Pangong Tso (lake)

Turning back from Chang La (Chang Pass), halfway to Pangong Lake, was one of the worst moments of my life as a traveller. As our cars turned back, I still remember I was in tears. But Pangong was kind to me. It gave me a second chance.

It was my first trip to Ladakh and I was too inexperienced then to travel alone. So I went with a professional tour organizer. The drive to Chang La (17,586 feet) from Leh is one of my most memorable experiences in Ladakh. In fact, I always feel that Ladakh is more about the roads than the destinations.

The road to Chang La

After about an hour of passing through the signature barren moonscape of Ladakh, we crossed the snow line. The sky was overcast and as we kept going higher, the surrounding greyish brown gradually kept turning more and more into white. It started with white dots on brown. By the time we reached the police outpost on way to Chang La, it was brown dots on white.

We got stuck in a queue of cars way ahead of the pass. I got off the car. The road was slushy with melted snow. The slopes and rocks all around had a two- to three-foot layer of snow. The road had trailed off into a mass of white. There was no sky. It was all white. That is the only time so far that I have experienced a “whiteout”.

After a long wait, when we finally reached Chang La, we got the bad news. A vehicle had skidded and now stood diagonally blocking the road. Apparently the Army was trying to get it back on track.

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'Whiteout' at Chang La

I walked around a little, taking photographs, totally overwhelmed by the landscape and the snowfall. There were a huge number of tourists, frolicking on the snow, hurling snowballs at each other. And then, the drama began.

At the tea stall, I noticed that my roommate was behaving strangely. The elderly woman looked totally disoriented. She was trying to take off her thick phiran—the Kashmiri women’s coat. “What are you doing?” I asked her, alarmed. “I can’t find my cap,” she said, making no sense whatsoever.

I had read that lack of oxygen to the brain in high altitudes—acute mountain sickness (AMS)—could play such tricks on people’s minds though I had never seen it happening to anyone. First, I asked a teammate to order some hot coffee for her as I went to look for help. I found an Army jawan and sought his help to take her to the Army medical camp.

Frozen river on way to Pangong Tso

Even as we walked her to the camp, I could see that she was breathing laboriously. At the camp it was total pandemonium. The lone Army doctor was struggling with a huge number of patients who complained of breathlessness. I saw one of our teammates—a young girl—being stretchered out, an oxygen mask strapped to her face.

Everyone was being shooed out of the tent. So I stood outside as the jawan helped my roommate into it. After a minute, he was back, looking for me. “You come in,” he said. Inside, the Army doctor was administering oxygen to my roommate.

In a corner, a young woman sat on a bench, weeping. The doctor paid her no attention. “Why are you crying?” I asked her, a bit scared. “I can’t breathe,” she howled. I stole a glance at the doctor. He was busy with my roommate and totally ignored this woman. “Crying won’t help ease your breathing,” I told her gently, but she kept weeping.

Right after crossing Chang La

Within minutes, a robust young man burst into the tent. From his clothes and gloves, he looked like a biker. “Doctor, I can’t breathe,” he said, quite normally for someone with breathing trouble actually!

“Sit still for a while. You will feel better,” the doctor said. But the chap would not listen. Finally, the doctor pushed him out of the tent even as he begged for oxygen. I realised it was more a case of mass hysteria than mass AMS.

I felt relieved then to have brought my roommate to the doctor. She was obviously a ‘genuine’ patient, or the doctor would not have treated her. He asked me whether we would be turning back to Leh. I knew by then we would be. Several others had taken ill, too. “I think so. As it is, the road is blocked.” I said, trying not to show my disappointment. He said nothing.

As soon as I led out my roommate, all the cars of our group were ordered to turn around. I thought my Pangong dreams were over.

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Himalayan marmot outside its burrow

Luckily, we had an extra day on the trip, free to do whatever we liked. Four of my teammates and I decided to give Pangong another shot.

This time we passed Changa La without stopping. After all the rush only three days ago, the road was somehow deserted. The weather was clear this time and we passed through some of the most amazing landscapes I am yet to encounter again—huge lakes frozen into massive white sheets, frozen rivers, a chain of snow-capped mountains on the horizon…

Brahminy duck

The magic of Ladakh lies in the dramatic change of its landscapes. Within an hour of the snowed-out landscape, we were in the desert of Changthang. The area was teeming with wildlife. Before long, we saw a herd of the famous ‘kiang’, or Tibetan wild ass, a Brahminy duck, and the Himalayan marmot.

The driver took biscuits from one of my teammates and lured a marmot out of its burrow. I was inexperienced then and thought it was a cool idea. I know now that offering food to the marmots is banned and it’s not really a cool thing to do. It destroys their natural instincts to look for food, and often the food offered to them does them harm.

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Herd of kiang, Tibetan wild ass

Within half an hour of our encounter with the marmot, we were at Pangong. Made famous by the Hindi movie ‘3 Idiots’, Pangong’s ‘colour changes’ are quite famous among travellers. I saw it in at least 3–4 different ‘colour schemes’ in the short time that we spent there.

First view of Pangong Tso

The first sight, from a height, was with a complete reflection of the mountains in the background. The water looked like a mirror. The second sight, level with the lake, was of two–three different shades of blue in the water. I don’t know if there’s a similar multi-coloured lake in the world.

Another angle produced a uniform sky-blue, with the white brown-headed gulls making for a stunning contrast against the water and the surrounding brown hills. I know some people saw it in a uniform dark blue. Pangong is magical. How you find it is up to your luck.

Colours of Pangong Tso

I had heard that the water of Pangong was saline, and I actually tasted it, though it may not have been a smart thing to do. First, it could have been unhealthy; second, these lakes are holy to Ladakhis. I’ve seen photos of people bathing in Pangong. Not only are such acts polluting the beautiful lake, they also hurt the sentiments of locals.

It’s said that Pangong, like Tso Moriri (‘tso’ is the Tibetan for ‘lake’), another famous name in Ladakh, may be a remnant of the ancient Tethys Sea that was pushed up by the Indian subcontinent to form the Himalayas. That makes these lakes all the more enigmatic.

Two-third of the 134-km-long Pangong Tso, which means ‘high grassland lake’ in Tibetan, falls in Tibet. India enjoys only a third of its beauty. Though we made a day trip, there are arrangements for tent-stay near the lake. I would say Pangong—and Ladakh in general—is a must-visit if you are in India. It’s one of a kind.

Brown-headed gull at Pangong Tso

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For more photographs of Ladakh, see links below:

Ladakh: A Photo Story I
Ladakh: A Photo Story II

Sonamarg

After touring Ladakh once in 2012, I decided to go back to my favourite part of India after the Tarsar-Marsar trek in August 2015. Not to see the same parts, of course. Last time I had covered Leh, Pangong Tso, Tso Moriri, Sham valley, Hemis and Thiksey monasteries, Magnetic Hill, and Shey palace.

River Sindh

This time, I decided to go via NH1D, the famous Srinagar-Leh highway, covering Sonamarg in Kashmir, crossing the notorious Zoji La (Zoji Pass) into Ladakh, stopping at Drass, Kargil, Mulbekh, and Lamayuru before reaching Leh.

Most Indians suddenly woke up to the names Drass and Kargil in 1999 when Pakistani forces infiltrated into the country through these parts of Ladakh. Now these places have occupied permanent positions on India’s tourist map. Kargil is also the way to Zanskar Valley.

To do the three-day road trip, I again chose Tanveer, who had driven me around Srinagar and had arranged my stay in houseboat Hong Kong. Houseboat owner and Tanveer’s friend Adil also decided to come along since I was alone and there was plenty of room in the car. He had never been to Ladakh.

People usually travel from Srinagar to Leh in two days with a one-night halt in Kargil. But I wanted to stay a night in Sonamarg, and preferably one in Lamayuru. Accordingly we started off from Srinagar the day after I returned from the trek.

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Apple tree. The fruits were not very healthy though

I had told Tanveer that I wanted to buy saffron. On the way to Sonamarg, he stopped the car on the highway at a shop. The best place to buy saffron is on the way to Pahalgam or Sonamarg where it is cultivated.

There are certain tests that you can perform to identify genuine saffron because a lot of the peddlers selling it on Dal Lake sell coloured grass. I could tell it was genuine from its smell. You can also rub a strand between your fingers; if it’s artificial, the colour will come off. You could also put a strand in your mouth; if it’s genuine, it will leave the trademark saffron stain on your tongue.

We stopped for lunch next to the bridge on the River Sindh. Though Sindhu is the original Sanskrit name of the Indus, this River Sindh (or Sind) is not the same as Sindhu. It’s a tributary of the Jhelum, which is a tributary of the Indus.

Thajiwas glacier

I had a nice quiet lunch by myself sitting by the river, which was greyish brown with mud. Kashmir had seen several cloud bursts over the previous weeks and there had been a major mudslide in Sonamarg shortly before I had left for Kashmir.

Tanveer said he had been at the site when it happened and gave a detailed description of the incident. He also pointed out the site when we passed it later. The road was still in a terrible shape and the trail along which the mud had come surging down on the road was clearly visible. A woman and two kids had died.

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The road to Pahalgam and Sonamarg looked strikingly similar to me. After leaving Srinagar, the road passes through agricultural fields with a backdrop of some low hills. However, somewhere on the way, the river—the Lidder in case of Pahalgam and Sindh in case of Sonamarg—crops up by the roadside and suddenly the pines and firs are back!

On way to Zoji La from Sonamarg

We passed apple orchards on the way. One still had the fruits on it. They looked rotten and pecked by flocks of birds.

The weather wasn’t good that day. In fact, we had been late in leaving Srinagar because of sudden rain. The green hills played hide-and-seek from behind a veil of low, tattered clouds. From time to time, lean mountain streams rushing down in a white cascade broke the green evenness.

The famed Thajiwas glacier welcomed us to Sonamarg. In early-August, it had been stripped of much of its snow and a narrow stream flowed down its bare body. It was a pitiful sight.

Sonamarg and the hotel where I put up proved to be even more disappointing. I won’t say general tourists will be let down by Sonamarg (though they just might be), but I had just returned from an absolutely gorgeous trek in the interiors of Kashmir. The usual tourist spots looked dull to me.

Approaching Zoji La

For one, Sonamarg was dirty. I thought it was so because of the rain and mudslides. But my cousin who had visited Sonamarg a few years ago had also felt that it was dirty. Plus, the town was teeming with Amarnath pilgrims. I wished then I hadn’t decided to stay the night in Sonamarg.

Most ‘good’ hotels were beyond my budget. Their per-night rent was a ridiculous Rs 5,000 or more. I keep travelling in the Himalayas, so I have a fair idea of the rents in popular tourist spots. For half that price, absolutely fine accommodation is available in most places. For the not-so-popular destinations, the rent is even lower.

The hotel Tanveer took me to was named after the Thajiwas glacier. It proved to be just as pathetic an experience. The room was the worst I had ever put up in over all my travels in the Himalayas. The room was musty; the tap in the washroom was broken; there was nothing to hang clothes on.

End of the road? On Zoji La

I won’t even talk about the ‘view’ from the window.

The person who showed me the room pointed out the TV set very eagerly. “I don’t think I’ll even watch TV,” I told him sourly. “No, no, you just might want to,” he insisted. He showed me two rooms actually; both were equally pathetic.

The rent was Rs 1,500 per night. It was even more unacceptable when I considered that I had put up in Adil’s beautiful houseboat for Rs 1,000 per night. I felt cheated; and also that I had cheated him.

I fell asleep without bothering to have dinner. The post-trek exhaustion was taking hold of me now. Sometime around 10 pm, I heard a knock. I staggered to the door and opened it. A guy asked for the rent. Too tired to know what I was doing, I handed him the money, shut the door, and went straight back to sleep.

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We were supposed to leave at 6 the next morning. I woke up at 5, got ready and went down, only to realise I had no idea where Tanveer and Adil were. My phone had no signal, the hotel staff was missing, and there was no sight of my driver and his friend. Tanveer’s Innova was parked right outside the main door.

On the other side of Zoji La. The trademark barren landscape of Ladakh

Another tourist group stood outside with their luggage, looking equally confused. One of them searched the entire hotel and coaxed a bleary-eyed employee out of his room. Their driver was found, but the fellow had no clue where Tanveer and Adil were. I was at a loss.

I wondered then whether they were sleeping inside the car. I tried to peer inside, but the windows were frosted over. Hesitantly, I knocked on the glass and sensed some movement inside. In a few seconds, the windows were rolled down and very groggy Tanveer and Adil greeted me. It was already 6.20 am or so.

Tanveer explained then that they hadn’t found any accommodation. Apparently Sonamarg was full of the pilgrims. They went to the room I had vacated to freshen up as I took a walk around Sonamarg. It was not even half a degree less depressing than it had been the day before. I was eager to leave it behind.

Gumri cafe run by the Indian Army

When we were about to leave, Tanveer told me the manager was asking for the rent. “I have already paid it,” I said, surprised. “Whom did you hand it to?” Tanveer asked me. I told him about the guy who had taken it from me the previous night, realising now how stupidly I had acted. I hadn’t even bothered to ask his name.

Tanveer looked very troubled and went and spoke to the manager, who immediately sent for his employees. Thankfully, one of them owned up to have collected the rent from me.

“He’s very sorry. He had no idea the room boy had taken the initiative to collect the rent from you,” a very relieved-looking Tanveer came and told me. I heaved a sigh of relief—and also made a mental note to not repeat such a mistake in future, however exhausted I might be.

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Zoji La War Memorial

It was past 7am when we finally left Sonamarg. I told Tanveer that the hotel had been awful. “Please don’t put up your guests (that’s how he spoke of his patrons) in such hotels,” I told him.

“I know it was bad. I saw the broken tap when I used the washroom,” he said apologetically. “Actually the situation is so bad because of the Amarnath Yatra,” he explained. Then he said very cheerfully, “You know madam, if you had been a guy we wouldn’t have let you sleep in that hotel. We would have let you sleep in the car with us.” I smiled inwardly simply thinking about the idea.

Unfortunately, I’m not a guy.

The weather was still cloudy and layers of clouds still shrouded the green hills. It made a pattern now; trails of cloud disappeared into the gaps between the rows of overlapping hills as the road wound itself along the valley.

The landscape got drier as we approached the notorious Zoji La. I knew that the road on the pass was bad. I just did not know how bad it was. The fog just got worse as we approached the 11,575-foot (3,528-metre) pass. The rain had left nothing of the road. I could see the cleared debris on the roadside.

On way to Drass along with the River Drass

“Everyone knows of the road condition on the pass. But no one ever repairs it,” Tanveer said ruefully.

Mine seemed to be the only tourist car on the way to the pass. All the others were trucks—Army vehicles or other goods carriers. The car literally moved at a snail’s pace. In some places, there was no road; it was just a mud track that ended in a mass of clouds at a seemingly dead-end.

I heard the story of the captain who had taken the initiative to build the metalled road but died in an accident on his first trip across the pass. Whether it’s true or not is immaterial; on passes like Zoji La, every macabre story seems real.

It took about an hour to cross the complete stretch.

And then, Taveer told me something he hadn’t told me till then. Apparently Zoji La had been closed till the previous day and he had had doubts whether I’d be able to make it to Ladakh. He did not want me to be worried and so had said nothing.

Gujjar tents on the way to Drass

My return flight tickets were from Leh, so it was important for me to reach it. If Zoji La had remained closed, I would have had to cancel my tickets and book something back from Kashmir. In peak tourist season, making an alternate arrangement would not have been very easy, or cheap.

But Lady Luck had decided to be by my side.

I was now in familiar territory. Once Zoji La is crossed, the landscape changes dramatically. From the lush-green hills and the pines and firs, barren mountains with the bare minimum cover of grass take over. Though officially Ladakh is still a little further away, this landscape signals entry into it for all practical purposes.

The river and the road snaked their ways across this desolate terrain. From time to time, Gujjar tents added bits of colour to the landscape. The only living beings that met the eye were distant horses that grazed in the valley. But this starkness is what makes Ladakh so appealing to me.

I was back in my favourite part of India.

To be continued. Next post to come: Drass and Kargil.

Read more of my posts on Kashmir and Ladakh:
1. Life on Dal Lake
2. All about Srinagar
3. Things to see in Srinagar I
4. Things to see in Srinagar II
5. The Mughal Gardens of Srinagar
6. The Paradise trek (Tarsar-Marsar trek)
7. Journey to Pangong Lake
8. Ladakh photos I
9. Ladakh photos II

Cenotaphs of the martyred soldiers at the Drass War Memorial

On the way to Sonamarg (previous post), Tanveer had stopped at a shack by the roadside and bought a small gas cylinder. I had not paid it much attention, thinking it was for their personal use. It was, but I was also allowed to enjoy some of its benefits.

Now, please don’t start thinking about the safety aspects of carrying a gas cylinder in the car!

The most extraordinary 'hotel' I have seen. Bhat Tea Stall, Hotel Matayen!

Shortly after entering Ladakh, Tanveer stopped the car by the roadside, brought out the cylinder, placed it in the shade of some rocks to protect the flame from the wind, and started brewing some tea. He was carrying tea, milk powder, and sugar. Adil got some water in an empty plastic container from a thin stream that was flowing nearby, and the tea was set to boil as I inspected my surroundings.

I could see a long way from where we were; there was not a single vehicle in sight. The road was barely metalled, and as dry and lustreless as its background. It wound its way through the austere terrain towards both ends—to Zoji La and Drass. The hills had the bare minimum cover of grass.

In this inhospitable terrain, as if it had cropped up totally by mistake, was a pale mauve-coloured wild dianthus. It nearly seemed like an illusion.

Tanveer and Adil brew our tea

The thin stream Adil had gathered water from ended in a slushy puddle by the roadside—the only sign of moisture in a parched land. Yet, only about 150km away, Markha Valley had gone under waist-deep water in flash floods. Cloudbursts and resultant mudslides had hit Sonamarg only a few days back.

Nowhere in India is perhaps climate change more glaringly evident than in the Himalayas. Floods in Uttarakhand, Kashmir Valley and Ladakh have become routine now. The first two regions used to receive moderate rainfall, and the last one, the bare minimum.

A wild dianthus by the roadside

Just as Mushtaq’s uncle had told me at their home on Dal Lake (clickhere to read that post), neither he nor his ancestors had ever seen floods like the one that hit Kashmir in September 2014. The climate of the Himalayas is changing, and disastrously so.

“Madam, your tea,” Tanveer handed me a paper cup. “This is the way we Kashmiris travel. We carry our gas cylinders and provisions, and we cook and brew tea as we go. So, you are travelling in true Kashmiri style now,” he smiled.

“This is only tea. Where is the food?” I joked. “We cooked a fantastic chicken last night in Sonamarg. We wanted you to join us, too, but we did not want to disturb you. Today we’ll cook it for lunch and you can have some,” he said, as we got back into the car and headed for Drass.

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Road to Kargil following the Drass River

The Gujjar tents were still with us. Sometimes I saw little kids running after the car, their arms outstretched, their little hands cupped upwards in a clear sign—begging for money. Tanveer looked apologetic: “You know madam, these kids’ fathers own livestock worth lakhs. And yet they don’t send their children to school but make them beg from tourists.”

I was appalled. Begging out of poverty is something; begging as a hobby is totally different. “Don’t give them money. What if they buy drugs or something?” I cried as Tanveer stopped the car and handed the kids some money. He and Adil laughed the idea off. All of it apparently went to family coffers all right.

One of the walls built at Drass during the 1999 war to protect it from shelling

Why they were so benevolent to people who send their kids to beg as a pastime was beyond me.

Drass was barely half an hour away from where we had stopped for tea. Tanveer showed me the mud-brick walls that had been built to protect the town from the shelling during the Kargil war. Though broken in parts, much of it’s still there as a souvenir of the 1999 conflict between the neighbours, India and Pakistan.

The Drass war memorial is built on a magnificently maintained sprawling campus overlooked by the Tololing peak, one of the key theatres of the Kargil war. Like all war memorials, it was peaceful, tranquil—a sad irony.

Strangely, a State Bank of India ATM welcomes visitors to the campus. I desperately needed money, but it was out of order.

Drass

An Army jawan asked me to sign on the visitor’s register. Scattered over the vast lawn are models of howitzers and a fighter jet (both Tanveer and Adil asked me to click their photographs in front of the latter). A metalled road divides the lawn into two and leads straight to the memorial of Operation Vijay—the name Indian forces gave to their strategy to clear the area of Pakistani intruders.

To the left is Vir Bhumi (literally ‘Land of the Brave’) which houses the cenotaphs of Kargil war martyrs and a model of Indian forces celebrating on Tiger Hill after recapturing it. The photograph of this incident had sort of become the symbol of the war in India, thanks to the media.

To the right is the (Captain) Manoj Pandey Gallery, named after the brave soldier of the Gorkha Rifles who was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India’s highest military honour, for the extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice he showed during the war.

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On the Drass War Memorial campus

Drass Memorial

The gallery possesses a fine collection of terrain models of the various battle zones, models of arms and ammunition used in the war, replicas of awards, extracts from letters and diaries, photographs, with brief descriptions and anecdotes pinned on boards. Photographs along with brief introductions of all the (Indian military awards by rank) Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra and Vir Chakra awardees adorn a wall in an inside gallery.

A particularly poignant article on display is the replica of a letter from Maj. Padmapani Acharya written to his father from the battleground. “…Please don’t worry about the casualties. It’s a professional hazard which is beyond our control, so why worry; at least it’s for a good cause…” he writes matter-of-factly.

“…tell manam (probably mother) that combat is an honour of a lifetime and I would not think of anything less. What better way to serve the nation…” the letter goes on. He ends it with “...Don’t worry and lose sleep. Tell a story a day of the (the epic) Mahabharata to Charu so that your grandchild imbibes good values.”

Maj. Acharya received the Maha Vir Chakra posthumously.

Manoj Pandey Gallery. We had to take off our shoes to enter
the gallery, just like we do at temples

What made the Kargil war very special was the terrain—cold, inhospitable, dizzying altitudes—which the Indian forces overcame. Initially Pakistan had denied having sent its forces into Indian territories, and had blamed Kashmiri militants for the deed. But the Indian forces found I-cards and pay books of Pakistani Army regulars on the dead or the captives. Photographs of some are on display.

There is an excerpt from a diary seized in Batalik sector. The writer names several captains and majors (evidently of the Pakistani Army) and a brief account of the activities on that side.

It’s difficult to not feel your blood boil in a place like that, however cool you intend to be. An Army jawan was showing us around (there was already a big group of visitors when I went in) and explaining the various incidents related to the war. He had a very stimulating style of speaking, probably the reason he has been given the job of showing visitors around.

At the end of the tour, he bellowed, “Jai Hind!”

We all roared in unison, “JAI HIND!”

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In Drass, Tanveer had met a friend of his who was driving a group of youths to Leh. On the way to Kargil, we saw their car in front of us. Some locals were selling something to the youths in what looked like old fuel cans.

The memorial

“It’s apricot,” Tanveer told me. “Buy it madam, it’s very good.”

I had wanted to taste the fresh apricot anyway. In cities like Kolkata, we only get the dry, packed ones. “How much is it?” I asked. It was Rs 120 per can. “And how much apricot is there in the can?” No one knew. The price is ‘per can’! You can’t buy any less.

“But what will I do with an entire can full of apricots?” I wailed. “Eat it slowly. It won’t go bad,” my ‘guides’ assured me. It actually did. For the next few days, I had apricots for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, and also as afternoon snack—and even managed to carry some all the way to Kolkata. There was 3–4 kg of the fruit in the can, at the least.

Kargil town

We got delayed for some time on the way as the debris of a landslide was being cleared by backhoe loaders. I did not mind. Nothing can be better than getting held up on a road in Ladakh—or anywhere in the Himalayas for that matter!

The Drass River was still with us. A little before Kargil, to its north, the Drass loses itself in the Shingo River. The Suru comes up from south, joins the two and together they drain into the Indus further north. It’s the Suru that waters Kargil.

Kargil looked like an oasis in a desert. Surrounded by dry, soft-earth mountains, the quiet town was surrounded by green poplars. There aren’t too many houses in Kargil that are more than two storeys high. The only vehicles around were tourist cars.

Kargil town by the Suru River

Though Ladakh is primarily inhabited by Buddhists, the population of Drass and Kargil is Muslim. The facial features of some, however, did not match those of the Kashmiris. They had more Tibetan features than the softer Kashmiri ones.

It was so very difficult to imagine that this sleepy hamlet in one extreme end of India could have been at the heart of one of the deadliest battles fought in these parts of the world merely 16 years ago. But human greed is something that spares no corner of the Earth.

As we drove out of Kargil, I could still see the words etched in red on a cream-coloured gate leading out of the Drass memorial: “When you go home, tell them of us, and say that for you tomorrow we gave our today.”

I have just tried to do my bit.

To be continued. Next post to come: The 30-feet Buddha of Mulbekh

The Buddha of Mulbekh Chamba, which was built roughly around the same time as the Bamiyan Buddhas

Mulbekh is about 45 km from Kargil (previous post). It’s a small settlement with around 3–4 shops by the roadside along with something that looks like a small monastery—the kind you’ll find in every nook and corner of Ladakh. It’s easy to miss the 30-foot rock relief of Maitreya Buddha dating back to the 7^thor 8^th century which stands behind it.

Road from Kargil to Mulbekh

If you look very carefully, you can see the head and the bust peeping from behind the temple and the huge silk cotton tree than guards the campus. Alone it has stood for 1,300 years, watching over the handful of people who reverently offer their prayers to the gentle deity of their lonesome land. The temple is not more than 50 years old.

From the Suru River in Kargil, its tributary Wakha takes over as the guide for travellers along NH1D till Mulbekh. Its journey is not easy. It passes through some of the loneliest and toughest of roads, sometimes slimming down to a narrow channel only a few metres wide to squeeze through the gap between two steep cliffs.

Even in early-August, the river bed was dry in some places and the water was muddy all along its course. Since Markha Valley was apparently under knee-deep water, I wondered where all that floodwater went! Maybe the parched land lapped it all up thirstily.

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Mulbekh

By the time I reached Mulbekh I was feeling extremely weary. As it is, the post-trek exhaustion was getting the better of me. I had also walked quite a bit around the Drass memorial. Now I just wanted to sit back in the car and lazily enjoy the sights. In fact, I had no idea we had stopped at Mulbekh. Tanveer said it was the “lunch spot”.

“Madam, there’s a monastery here. Why don’t you go visit it while we cook lunch?” he said. I was in no mood for monasteries right then.

We were evidently following Tanveer’s friend’s car. They had stopped; so had we. I got irritated and asked him why we were following the other car. From what Tanveer said, I gathered that this chap was more experienced on this road than he was. So he had decided to stick to him.

Mulbekh monastery

Tanveer noticed my murderous mood and quietly said, “You are feeling tired, aren’t you?” I sulked even more.

The monastery was a modest structure—all the more the reason I still grumbled as I sauntered up to it. Mulbekh itself was just another ‘oasis’ in the desert of Ladakh.

I calmed down a bit after entering the monastery premises—the usual soothing effect Buddhist temples have with their peace, stillness, and the fragrance of incense and butter lamps. The additional calm here was offered by the enormous silk cotton tree that shaded nearly the entire premises.

The wooden entry gate was adorned with the usual Buddhist paintings and prayer flags. To the right of the campus was a huge prayer wheel. I took off my shoes and crossed the gate. And there it was, towering over me, the tranquil magnificence of the Maitreya Buddha.

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The 30-foot (9-metre) Buddha of Mulbekh

I never got around to thanking the other driver and Tanveer for following him. Only when my jaw dropped on seeing the colossal figure did I realize what I’d have missed if we had driven straight through Mulbekh.

A local Ladakhi woman was tying a ‘khata’ (a ceremonial white scarf in Tibetan Buddhism) on a string tied from left to right at the foot of the statue. It was teeming with similar ‘khatas’.

I remembered vaguely then reading somewhere about the rock-cut Buddha; I still could not remember the name of the place. I looked around for the noticeboard, which I had angrily ignored on my way inside. ‘Mulbekh Chamba’! The name surely rang a bell. I could not have felt more stupid.

To my left was the monastery building—a one-room structure. It houses a small Avalokitesvara Buddha statue, lots of paintings, photographs of the Dalai Lama and possibly other high lamas. The temple is just a formality I guess, to ensure regular prayers to the statue and to ensure that it gets the importance that it deserves.

I came out of the monastery and sat down on its cold stone stairs. The pods of the silk cotton tree had burst and the thin balls of fibre were floating everywhere, drifting languidly to the ground in a constant stream—tireless, relentless. It was like watching life in slow-mo.

I sat there—the heady scent from the monastery making me even drowsier—watching the surreal falling of the cotton strands, feeling no need to go anywhere at all. I could have sat there forever and watched the cotton fall from the tree.

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Inside the monastery

I sat there until my reverie was rudely broken by the boisterous youths of the other car that we were following. They had decided to lunch at the eatery bang opposite the monastery. They were some 6–7 youths in their early-twenties. They trooped into the first-floor balcony, temporarily squashing the tranquility of the monastery campus.

Feeling the irritability begin to creep back all over me—just like Venom does to Spiderman—I finally went back to the car. Tanveer looked at me closely, probably to see whether my mood was any better. It was.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the Buddha statue in there?” I asked him. From his reaction it seemed he hadn’t thought of it. Thirty-foot Buddha statues probably are of little significance to them. I asked if anyone of them could tell me more about the statue, and heard a faint “I will tell you. Come here.”

The owner of the voice was someone who seemed like a local Ladakhi man in his fifties. He was sitting in front of a shop right behind where Tanveer and his friend had parked their cars and were cooking their rice and chicken on the small gas oven.

I went in gladly. He eagerly showed me a chair to sit on and took another one across a table himself. It seemed like a small provision store.

Those white specks are not snow. Those are silk cotton fibres

It turned out that he was a retired government employee (he looked a lot younger) who had worked in the tourism department, and had now opened this store. I felt he had done it mostly to pass time. His sons had grown up and left home.

Another man with short cropped hair and numerous creases and lines on his face squatted next to me. He had a good-humoured twinkle in his eyes. I liked the duo at once.

Adil brought in my plate of rice and chicken. The show-owner told him to put the plate down on the table and told me, “Eat here as I tell you about the Buddha.”

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Who worked there with a blade? A signature Ladakh landscape

I can’t remember what the context was, but he said one time, “I am a Buddhist. We don’t have non-veg.” The other man next to me looked at me with gleaming eyes, “I am a Buddhist too. But I eat everything. I was in the Army.” I smiled at him, startled. He was a retired soldier.

Namika La

The shop-owner told me that the Buddha was 2000 years old, dating back to the period of Kanishka, the Kushan ruler whose kingdom spread across modern northern India, parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China. He was a big patron of Buddhism, and since Mulbekh stands on the old Silk Route, the theory seemed plausible.

I learnt later, however, that this theory has now been challenged, though the plaque at the site also mentions it. Newer estimates date the Buddha to around 7^th-8^th centuries. But no one knows who had it carved.

View from Namika La

The statue, he explained, is of the Maitreya Buddha—the ‘future Buddha’ who will arrive with his message of peace and friendship (‘maitri’ means friendship) in a world devoid of kindness and virtue.

There are two more similar rock sculptures in that region—in Kartse-Khar village in Suru valley, and Apati village in Kargil. All three date back roughly to the same period as the famous Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan which were blown to bits by the Taliban.

As I ate the delicious chicken curry and rice, we spoke about all kinds of things—climate change, the political situation in the country, Ladakh and Kashmir regions in general—as Tanveer, Adil and the other driver joined us.

It was a good lunch.

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Fotu La, the highest point on NH1D

After my meal, the shop-owner gentleman even brought a mug of water—an extremely precious item in Ladakh where water is scarce—for me to wash my hands. I left them wishing I could stay a day there, and learning more about their life and the region. But I was travelling on a tight schedule that did not allow me to make sudden changes in the itinerary.

Our next stop, about 8.5 km from Mulbekh, was the 12,198-foot high Namika La (Namika Pass), the second-highest point of the Srinagar-Leh highway. It was extremely windy though not particularly cold as the sun beat down on us. After some bird’s-eye views and photos of the surrounding valleys, it was time to move again.

We stopped again around 36 km later, at the highest point on the highway, Fotu La (Fotu Pass), at 13,479 feet. Fotu La was windier and somehow colder than Namika La. Both passes were marked with the trademark colourful Buddhist prayer flags and offered grand views of the surrounding moonscape.

View from Fotu la

My intended night-halt spot, Lamayuru, was only some 6–7 km away. I was eager to see the monastery and stay there if possible. I had read somewhere that there is a night-stay facility in the monastery. Tanveer and the other driver, however, were pretty sure there was none.

The other driver, in fact, doubted whether I’d get any accommodation in Lamayuru at all since I had no pre-booking. He would be driving the youths straight to Leh. “He suggested that we also do the same if you don’t get a place to stay,” Tanveer told me.

I kept quiet. I was pretty certain I would get some accommodation in Lamayuru if not the monastery facility. I couldn’t believe that a small settlement like Lamayuru would be teeming with tourists.

It would take only 20 minutes to find out who was right.

To be continued. Next post coming up: Lamayuru

Read more of my posts on Kashmir and Ladakh:

1. Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (II) Drass and Kargil

2. Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (I): Sonamarg and Zoji La

3. Life on Dal Lake

4. All about Srinagar

5. Things to see in Srinagar I

6. Things to see in Srinagar II

7. The Mughal Gardens of Srinagar

8. The Paradise trek (Tarsar-Marsar trek)

9. Journey to Pangong Lake

10. Ladakh photos I

11. Ladakh photos II

Lamayuru clicked from my room in Hotel Niranjana

Lamayuru turned out to be an enchanting little settlement—an ‘oasis’ hemmed in by towering mountains, the green of poplars and naturally manicured lawns dotted with the trademark off-white Ladakhi houses with brown or mahogany-coloured door and window frames. The houses blended in with the mountains; the greenery offered the contrast.

Houses in Lamayuru

Tanveer drove through the town, going up and up the road that coiled itself around the bare mountainside like a snake, leading up to the crest on which like a crown stood the famed monastery of Lamayuru. The sun was already on its way down, taking a few last peeks from behind the lofty mountains. The eastern sky looked menacing with dark thunderclouds, but made a stunning backdrop for the monastery building that looked golden from the light of the setting sun.

Right outside the monastery, there was something that looked like a hotel. In fact, it could have been a part of the monastery building at some point of time. On seeing the car, a man came running at once and said I could get a room in there.

Entrance to the monastery clicked from my room in Niranjana

I was still adamant about staying in the monastery, but he said no one was allowed to stay inside and this was the accommodation closest to it. I figured out then that whoever wrote about staying “in” the monastery had probably meant this hotel, Niranjana. My traveller’s instinct had beaten the experienced driver’s intuition (see previous post). I was staying in Lamayuru for the night.

The room was right next to the main balcony that looked out over the town. I got a similar view from a window in my room, too, and another window inside gave me a glimpse of the interiors of the monastery campus. The entire floor seemed unoccupied, though people came in later. The minus point—no attached bath. There were a couple of common bath-cum-toilets on every floor.

The monastery had been closed for the day and I was told I could visit it after 7 am the next day.

Unfortunately, I could not utilize the evening to take a tour of the town because shortly after I settled down, rain came pouring—rather, crashing—over the tiny hamlet. This was the first time I had seen such a thundershower in Ladakh. It seemed that the soft-earth mountains would melt and drown the little town under mudslides.

The rain continued through the entire evening and night and I drifted off to sleep listening to the chorus of thunder, lightning, and the pounding rain.

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A view of Lamayuru clicked from somewhere on the monastery campus

I woke up early and got ready, not wishing to be late for the monastery visit. When I left my room, Lamayuru was still asleep. The sky was still overcast and tell-tale signs of the previous night’s rain were everywhere—puddles, waterlogged paths, muddy water trickling down from rooftops.

Lamayuru houses clicked from somewhere on the monastery campus

I asked the only man I came across about the way into the monastery. He explained it to me in detail. Though there was something that looked like a ticket counter, he made no mention of a ticket.

I went along the path as directed and found a couple walking ahead of me. It was eerily quiet and there was not another soul to be seen. The couple looked just as unsure as I felt. The man had told me that the path would lead to a door that I would have to unfasten! The idea was quite strange and I felt like an intruder.

Inside the monastery. I took this photo before spotting the notice
that said photography is prohibited. No one stopped me though!

Anyway, when I reached what seemed to be the door he had mentioned, I unfastened it, pushed it open, and looked straight into a courtyard that was being swept by a lama. The couple was behind me.

I looked startled and so did the lama! I hadn’t expected to see someone behind a bolted door! I realised then that the door was probably for outsiders; the lamas possibly accessed the monastery through another door somewhere on the other side.

Feeling extremely awkward, I barely managed to ask him politely whether I could come in. “The monastery hasn’t opened yet,” he said, looking surprised. I apologized and was about to leave when he said, “Wait. Go inside. Darshan kar lijiye (roughly translates to ‘Get a glimpse of the deity’).”

I thanked him and went in, followed by the couple.

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Lamayuru monastery

The monastery as such looked, felt and smelled like the rest—calm, quiet, the air heavy with the fragrance of butter lamps and incense, beautifully painted thankas and prayer flags, prayer wheels, rugs on the floor for the lamas to meditate on, and wooden desks for them to place the holy books.

The unique thing was a small cave accessible through an opening at a side of the building. Inside it a Tibetan Buddhist monk had meditated in the 12^thcentury. This is the original shrine of Lamayuru. The monastery building came much later.

The cave is not open to anyone. It looked dark and uninviting with shadows of mysterious objects inside.

The monastery was deserted save for a young European-looking man who looked deeply immersed in meditation on one of the prayer rugs. The couple occupied two other rugs at the far end of the building, next to the door. The chap looked as if he was trying to meditate sincerely enough; the woman was clearly restless and blinked and fidgeted constantly.

Lamayuru

I left the monastery and found the lama still sweeping the yard. I asked him if he could tell me about the monastery. He could only tell me about the monk and the cave—which was already mentioned on a plaque outside the cave—but did not know when the monastery building had come up.

I took a thorough self-conducted tour of the monastery campus. It looked fascinatingly run-down in parts and newly built or painted in others. A flight of half-broken steps seemed to go straight down to the valley. The views of the surrounding town and mountains were spectacular.

The Lamayuru monastery was an enchanting place. It did not make me regret my decision to stay in the town overnight.

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The famous roller-coaster of NH1D

Just at the point where the road that led out of Lamayuru joined the highway, we found three backpackers waiting for transport to Leh. They were two women and a man, evidently foreigners, possibly of European origin. Tanveer asked me if we could give them a lift. I did not deny him the chance to earn a few extra bucks, and so, the trio hopped in.

The road to Leh

The guy and one of the two women were from Germany and probably a couple. The other woman was from Argentina and was on a huge trip across India and Nepal. They had booked the Markha Valley trek, which had been cancelled because of the floods. Apparently the agent had arranged another trek for them, which they hadn’t liked much. After going through two incomplete treks, I knew what they must have been feeling like.

Around half an hour after we picked them up began the famous roller-coaster ride of NH1D. Hairpin bend after hairpin bend led about 1,000 feet down to the Indus valley and the road continued along the river. Tanveer went on a merry drive, his hands not faltering on the wheel even for once as his Innova raced down the road.

The confluence of Indus and Zanskar

I enjoyed the gush of wind in my hair and the rush of adrenaline in my veins; after all, I was on my favourite roller-coaster ride of the world! But I secretly wondered what the three tourists thought of us. They sat stiff in their seats as I hummed along with the music on the car stereo. Maybe they thought we were all crazy or suicidal or both.

The Indus would now lead us most of the way to Leh. Around 90 minutes later, we crossed the Indus-Zanskar confluence. I did not ask Tanveer to stop because I had already been to it on my previous visit. The three others did not ask him to stop either, so we passed by the confluence.

Bikers pass by as we stop for tea in Likir

About 15 minutes later, Tanveer asked me if I wanted to stop for tea. I gladly agreed. We stopped by the roadside somewhere in Likir, though it looked like the middle of nowhere. Biker gangs passed us by with their typical swagger, which I actually find quite endearing. I am often asked whether I am with a biker gang; even in Lamayuru someone asked me if I was a biker. I really don’t know what makes people think that way.

It was my final ‘Kashmiri-style’ tea on the highway and we were only about 40 minutes away from Leh. When the headquarters of Ladakh finally came into sight, even from the distance I could not help but notice the change it had undergone in only the three years since I had visited it last. It had grown like a child on steroid or something.

Close to Leh

Scores of hotels seemed to have come up on the outskirts of the main town and I wondered what effect it was having on the fragile infrastructure—especially water supply—of Leh. But then, I was also one of the outsiders, adding to the extra load on the little town.

My journey down NH1D was nearing its end. In a short while, I would be back in one of my favourite towns of India.

To be continued. Next post coming up: Leh

Read more of my posts on Kashmir and Ladakh:

1. Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (III): The 30-foot Buddha of Mulbekh
2. Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (II) Drass and Kargil

3. Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (I): Sonamarg and Zoji La

4. Life on Dal Lake

5. All about Srinagar

6. Things to see in Srinagar I

7. Things to see in Srinagar II

8. The Mughal Gardens of Srinagar

9. The Paradise trek (Tarsar-Marsar trek)

10. Journey to Pangong Lake

11. Ladakh photos I

12. Ladakh photos II

Leh, with the white Shanti Stupa prominent on a peak on the right and the Stok Kangri peaks forming a gorgeous backdrop

Few places perhaps change as dramatically in three years as I have seen Leh do. When I went there in early-June 2012, it was a quiet, dainty little hill town with clean roads lined with small shops mostly selling handicraft and trinkets. There were few outsiders at that time since the tourist season was yet to set in. I remember taking a walk through Leh one afternoon, and not meeting a single other tourist.

This is what the central market area looked like in August 2015

When I went back in early-August 2015, most of the adjectives I have used for Leh did not fit it any longer. It was far from being ‘quiet’, it was overflowing with tourists, and deep trenches had been dug along the boulevard, parallel to the pavements. Apparently Leh was being ‘beautified’.

Why someone should think of beautifying a town as pretty as Leh is beyond me. The effect has been quite the opposite—Leh looked ugly to say the least. Apparently the work started shortly after I left Leh in 2012; it was being ‘beautified’ for three years!

When we finally drove into Leh and Tanveer declared that we were in the central market area, I could hardly recognize the spots I had walked down so many times three years ago. The trio we had picked up at Lamayuru bid us goodbye. The young chap thanked Tanveer and said, “We felt very safe travelling with you.”

Leh is increasingly becoming all about concrete

I wondered if he was genuinely grateful or was being sarcastic about the ‘roller-coaster’ ride to Likir (see previous post). Tanveer looked very doubtful, too. He was probably thinking the same thing!

I had to withdraw money from an ATM, or I wouldn’t be able to pay Tanveer. He stopped the car at the stand and I first went hunting for the SBI ATM. There was no cash. Next I went to the J&K Bank ATM. Again, no cash. Next stop: HDFC Bank ATM. There was cash, but there was also a 100-metre-long queue outside it.

On way to Khardung La

This was another change from my last visit. ATMs in Leh running out of cash were nothing new to me. I had experienced it the last time, too. But there used to be hardly any queues, that too, containing only locals. Mostly tourists would access ATMs then. It was good to see locals availing of such facilities, but infrastructure has clearly not been able to keep up with their aspirations.

Since there was no other option, I stood in the queue. After standing for some 30 minutes I heard I was in the queue for men! I am yet to come across any other ATM with gender-specific queues. Anyway, seeing that I was an outsider, I was allowed to stand in the ‘male’ queue.

A wild rose bush thriving in the harshest of conditions

One person from each queue was allowed to access the ATM alternately. After standing for an hour, I finally reached the counter. The woman from the other queue right before me started withdrawing money. She withdrew Rs 30,000, taking out Rs 10,000 at a time. When she inserted the card for the fourth time, the ATM had run out of cash. She turned around with a stupid grin, and said, “Paisa khatam (Cash over)!”

I imagined myself strangling her, punching her, and banging her head against the wall. But all I could actually do was to give her a cold, mean stare. Adil was standing close by. Seeing my face looking like a thundercloud, he quickly said, “I saw what happened. Let’s go to the J&K Bank ATM. I saw it being loaded.”

Thankfully, I finally got the money from there.

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Macho Nullah

When Tanveer asked me where I wanted to be dropped off, I had no answer. As usual, I had not booked accommodation. I told him to drop me off at the market area, but Tanveer would have none of it.

I did not want to go back to the hotel where I had stayed during my last visit. It was unduly expensive. From my internet research, I knew of a few guesthouses and named one. Tanveer asked one of the locals where this guesthouse was and he said it was quite far. Another name—same response.

I did not want to stay too far from the market because I had an early-morning flight to catch. In case the guesthouse could not arrange a car for me, I’d have to go to the taxi stand and book a cab.

A biker deals with a rough stretch

By now, a few locals had gathered around the car. One of them suggested Nezer Guesthouse. He said it was cheap and quite close to the market, and gave directions. It turned out to be only about a five-minute walk from the taxi stand. In fact, Nezer had several kinds of accommodation to suit all pockets—a hotel, a guesthouse, and a holiday inn, which was a cross between the other two.

The guesthouse (cheapest) was full, and there was only one room in the holiday inn (costlier than guesthouse but cheaper than hotel). The woman in charge said the holiday inn rent was Rs 1,500 per night; I said I could pay no more than Rs 1,000. She brought it down to Rs 1,200. I took it.

On way to Khardung La

When travelling through India on a budget, the best way to bargain is, “I can’t pay more than this.” It usually works better than haggling does.

The accommodation in Nezer was quite good but from the fact that there was no view of the surrounding mountains. To get that, it’s best to stay away from the market, which I had done on the last visit. The room was quite big with a nice, comfortable bed, warm water in the bathroom (a luxury in Ladakh), a TV set, and huge windows that looked out over the main road.

Nezer also had its own cars for sightseeing. Only after ensuring that my car for Nubra Valley trip and airport drop had been booked did Tanveer and Adil leave.

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Khardung La top

My plan to visit Nubra Valley the next day was rudely quashed. My car and accommodation for the night stay had been booked by Nezer. I woke up early, got ready and went down, only to hear that landslides had blocked the road to Nubra via Khardung La.

This was the second time my Nubra Valley plan had been cancelled. I hadn’t been able to visit it in 2012 either.

I was too tired to even feel unhappy. I had a mild fever and simply went upstairs, changed, and went back to bed. I slept through the morning, somehow dragged myself out of the bed at 2.30pm to lunch at the restaurant right opposite the road, came back and promptly dozed off again.

I went out in the evening, took a stroll through Leh, bought momos (dumplings) for dinner at an eatery, and chatted with the eatery manager, who claimed that most roads out of Leh—to Tso Moriri, Pangong, Nubra, and even the highway to Manali—were shut because of landslides. “You are lucky to have reached Leh,” he said.

Leaving Khardung La behind

I met a young Kashmiri shopkeeper and spoke to him about how Leh was being ‘uglified’ in the name of beautification. From his facial features, I knew he was not a Ladakhi and was from the Valley. On the last visit, I had bought a thanka (Tibetan Buddhist painting) from a shopkeeper who had also been from the Valley.

“What do you people come here for? Go to my Kashmir Valley. You will see how pretty it is,” he had said in between placing one thanka after another for me to choose from.

I wanted to meet him again and tell him that I had finally visited ‘his’ Kashmir Valley and had found it exquisitely beautiful. But I simply could not locate the shop in the crowd of construction work.

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On the way back to Leh

The next morning brought better news. I could not possibly go to Nubra Valley because it required a one-night halt and I had to leave Leh the next morning. But the road was open till Khardung La, which is one of the highest passes in India and is promoted as the highest motorable road in the world, though it is apparently not so.

My driver was a quiet chap who hardly spoke—like most Ladakhis I have met. He was an excellent driver.

I asked him how Leh was managing to supply water to so many tourists. He said the civic body filled up all tanks once every morning. Even that was good news. I grumbled about the beautification project and he laughed gently but did not comment.

Merely half an hour into the journey, we were stuck. Landslides had blocked off the road ahead and the debris was being cleared. The cars lined up right next to a lean stream that was unsuitably named ‘Macho Nallah’. It looked anything but macho.

An army truck was stuck, too, and the jawans passed time trying to hit a target with pebbles. Two wild-rose bushes grew amidst the rocks and pebbles near the river. Rose apparently takes a lot of pampering to grow well. But nature has her own way of doing things. It had taken only the nourishment from a clear mountain stream for the two bushes to be teeming with flowers.

Play of light and dark

After two and a half hours, we started off again, only to be stuck after merely covering some 500 metres. Again we started; again we were stuck. I can’t remember any longer how many times we got stuck in landslides, but it was a most tiresome journey. There were only a handful of tourists in cars and bikers on the road.

The road was in terrible shape. A small car got stuck in the mud and after several attempts, had to give up. “Will it be able to make it?” I asked my driver. “It will be tough,” he said quietly. I knew it translated to “It’s impossible.”

Just a word of caution for those willing to travel in Indian mountains: Do not go for small cars for a lower price. Small cars are simply not fit for these roads though they are allowed to ply. Your journey may rudely come to an end on a road like the one to Khardung La.

It took us four and a half hours to cover the 39 kilometres from Leh to Khardung La top. There was a thick cloud cover and hence, no view. We all got ourselves clicked in front of the board that says that at 18,380 feet, Khardung La is the highest motorable road in the world. As I said, that claim is doubtful.

Since the weather seemed to be getting worse, I quickly got back in the car and the driver agreed that we’d better head for Leh.

When I got back to Nezer, I found a team of bikers waiting at the reception. They were all from Bengal, my home state. They asked me how the road had been and rued the fact that they had not joined me for the trip. Many of them were not keen on driving on that road.

Thunderclouds gather over a valley

They had driven all the way from Manali, and the rain and landslides had rudely jolted their Ladakh dreams. Just as the manager of the eatery had said, all roads were closed. The team was vegetating in Leh. One of them was in a murderous mood and even skipped dinner out of sheer dejection. I could empathize with them.

They were super-budget travellers. They bought their own provisions and cooked their own food. Very kindly, the woman in charge of Nezer had allowed them to cook in the kitchen. On the road, they survived on ‘chire’ (flattened rice)—an eternal Indian ‘fast food’.

Generously, they invited me to dine with them that evening. It was a simple but delicious meal of rice and chicken curry, which made my last night in Leh quite enjoyable. I flew out of Leh the next morning. I had missed Nubra Valley yet again, but Kashmir had more than made up for it. Nubra would have to wait, yet again.

Read more of my posts on Kashmir and Ladakh:

1. Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (IV): The cave-shrine of Lamayuru
2. Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (III): The 30-foot Buddha of Mulbekh
3. Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (II) Drass and Kargil

4. Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (I): Sonamarg and Zoji La

5. Life on Dal Lake

6. All about Srinagar

7. Things to see in Srinagar I

8. Things to see in Srinagar II

9. The Mughal Gardens of Srinagar

10. The Paradise trek (Tarsar-Marsar trek)

11. Journey to Pangong Lake

12. Ladakh photos I

13. Ladakh photos II

An eggplant-and-tomato curry is nothing unique and several versions are cooked by different people across India. In fact, one of my friends uses this particular recipe to cook hers without having a clue that it belongs to Kashmir. So, I can’t say for sure that it’s actually from Kashmir. I’m simply going by what I was told by my houseboat keeper because that is where I had this dish and learned the recipe.

What impressed me about the dish is its simplicity. It’s easy to cook; no complications are involved. The taste is hot and tangy, which goes well with both bread and rice, though the Kashmiris—very much like us Bengalis and unlike most north-Indian communities—prefer rice to roti or wheat in any other form.

The version of this curry I had was terribly hot. So was the chicken cooked by my driver Tanveer which I had at Mulbekh. He told me that he had “not put enough chili powder since I would be eating it too”! I could only wonder with some trepidation what their regular version was like. I can’t say if all of Kashmir eats such hot food. The roadside rista (meatballs in gravy) had not been so hot.

So, I leave the decision on the amount of chili powder to you. Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients (Serves four):

Two medium-sized eggplants (brinjal/aubergine): Cut lengthwise into four with the stalk intact.
Six medium- to small-sized tomatoes: Cut into small pieces or pureed.
Turmeric powder:½ teaspoon
Red chili powder:¾teaspoon (or according to your stomach for hotness)
Salt: To taste
Mustard oil: Enough to fry the eggplant pieces

Method:

Take a broad flat-bottomed pan, preferably non-stick ware. This would help you fry the eggplant pieces at one go with little oil. Heat mustard oil, spreading it across the pan. Place the eggplant pieces one by one in it.
Fry the eggplant pieces well. Keep the heat low and cover the pan, but check the pieces from time to time and turn over each side by turn. Make sure that the pieces become tender, but also make sure that they remain whole and do not turn into a pulp. Keeping the stalk intact helps keep the pieces intact to a large extent.
Once the eggplant is fried, remove the pieces from the pan. If the oil is completely gone, add some more, just enough to sauté the tomatoes and spices.
Add the turmeric powder and chili powder in the oil first. Sauté for a couple of minutes before adding the tomato pieces, or puree if you dislike the idea of tomato peels in your mouth.
Sauté the tomatoes well until their water is gone completely and it’s got the ‘fried’ look.
Add enough water to cover the eggplant pieces, which you would be putting in next. Add salt.
Place the fried eggplant pieces in the pan, side by side, making sure the water covers them well. Cook until the water turns into gravy. Now how much of the gravy you keep is up to you. The version I had in Kashmir was quite soupy. Personally I like a thicker gravy. Just remember to add the salt accordingly. When it’s done, the eggplant pieces should be intact.
Serve hot with rice or roti.

Total time taken: 45 minutes

View of Vivekananda Setu (Second Hooghly Bridge) from Prinsep Ghat 2

Whenever visitors ask me what all they should ‘see’ in Kolkata, I’m mostly at a loss. Personally, I believe a city has to be felt and not really seen as such. But explaining that to tourists can be tough sometimes.

Not that there isn’t anything to ‘see’ in Kolkata. Thanks to its incredible heritage, combining Islamic, British, Armenian, Chinese, and, of course, quintessentially Bengali legacy, Kolkata’s built heritage is indeed something to be proud of.

The Hooghly riverfront or the 'strand'

There are, of course, the age-old attractions like the Victoria Memorial Hall, the Indian Museum (which is in a sorry state despite being the oldest and largest in India), the temples, churches and mosques, and the red-brick British edifices in the central business district, to name a few.

But built heritage is not what Kolkata is all about. More than anything else, Kolkata has a unique ‘feel’ to it that few cities can boast of. To feel it, you have to take a walk along Park Street or Bow Barracks during Christmas or Chitpore or Chandni Chowk during Ramadan, soak in the festivities during Durga Puja, take a cab to Tiretta Bazar at 6am to have the ‘Chinese breakfast’, spend a few quiet moments at the old cemetery at Park Street or wander about in the central business district during office hours.

Or, you can take an early-morning walk down the strand of the Ganga—or the Hooghly, as it’s called in these parts. It’s one of my favourite to-do things in Kolkata and I’ve done it twice already. The best time to do it is in the winter, though the monsoon may not be a very bad time either. The Ganga has many a story to tell, if you have the ears for them.

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James Prinsep memorial with Vivekananda Setu in the background

I took the same route both times, the first time with three colleagues and the second time with my sister. We started our walk from Prinsep Ghat, one of the landmarks of Kolkata. It’s one of the most well maintained ‘ghats’ (jetties) of the Hooghly and is used as a venue for many open-air programmes.

Beautified Prinsep Ghat

Named after James Prinsep (1799–1840), the ‘ghat’ houses a striking memorial to the British scholar. Prinsep was an orientalist, an antiquarian, a numismatist (he worked at the mint), a philologist, a metallurgist and even a meteorologist. Among the many things that go to his credit are deciphering Brahmi and Kharoshti scripts from ancient India, designing a new kind of barometer, restoring historical structures, designing the Benaras mint and churches, and being the founding editor of the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society’.

The memorial was built a year after his death in 1840. With its rows of Ionic columns and arches at the two ends, this beautiful structure has found a stunning backdrop in the Vidyasagar Setu (often called the ‘second Hooghly bridge’), which was completed in 1992.

Ionic columns of James Prinsep memorial

Our walk began from the strand that lies behind the Prinsep memorial. It’s a different experience altogether watching life on the Hooghly asleep and slowly beginning to wake. Colourful boats tied together in an arc, a solitary barge, or Kolkata’s twin town of Howrah asleep on the other bank—they all make for fantastic sights to soak in. In winter, a cover of mist makes the experience all the more alluring.

The strand is now neatly paved with tiles and leads through rows of trees and plants. You’ll find morning walkers or joggers at that hour though not too many to spoil the quiet of the place. Look out for the colourful kingfishers, or common birds like the pied myna, bulbuls, or the white and spotted doves. There will be boatmen even at that hour to offer you a ride on the Hooghly.

Prinsep Ghat has two parts, I and II. There are a few sculptures on the strand, too, though I must say that they evoke amusement rather than awe. These are close to the Man of War Jetty, which is used by the Indian Navy, and hence, photography is not allowed.

Vivekananda Setu clicked from Prinsep Ghat

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Gwalior Memorial

As you keep walking, you will reach the Gwalior Monument. A marble plaque declares that it was built in 1847 at the initiative of Lord Ellenborough, the then governor general of India, as a memorial to the British forces killed by Marathas in the Gwalior War of 1843. The 60-foot high octagonal structure is apparently also called Ellenborough’s Folly or The Pepperpot. Unfortunately, its doors are kept shut and no one’s allowed inside.

Next on the strand is Judges Ghat. If I have gone to Judges Ghat on occasions other than the strand walks, it’s to immerse the ashes of my loved ones following the Hindu ritual of cremation. It’s prohibited at most ghats nowadays to protect the Hooghly from pollution and this ghat is one of the places where the ashes can still be given to the Ganga.

Coming to the history of the name ‘Judges Ghat’, I have heard that my mother’s ancestor Digambar Chatterjee, who was a judge in Calcutta High Court, was the person it was built for. Hence, the name. I have already written about him in my earlier posts (click here). Apparently, seeing him go to the Hooghly like common men, the British had assigned the ghat to him. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this fact, though. It seems a bit far-fetched.

An official version is that the British built the ghat for the use of its high-ranking officials, especially judges, which gave it the name. This sounds more plausible.

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Outram Ghat

Next comes Outram Ghat. It took its name from lieutenant-general Sir James Outram, who fought in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Even before you reach the jetty, you will find the Sea Explorers’ Institute. Apart from maritime research, it organizes various courses like scuba diving, kayaking, and disaster management.

Kingfisher clicked during the walk

Outram Ghat, though it’s one of the well-known jetties, does not boast of a special structure but the one next to it, Baboo Ghat, does. It’s perhaps the most famous of all the ghats of the Hooghly now. Standing on Doric columns, the Palladian pavilion is, ironically, one of the most neglected as well.

Standing amidst filth and slush, thanks to the long-distance bus stand next to it, Baboo Ghat is caked in layers of dirt and even the inscription at the top is difficult to read now. It does not help that in winter, pilgrims camp there before heading for Gangasagar (read my post here).

It’s also one of the main points from which idols are immersed in the Ganga during Durga Puja and other festivals. Masseurs and ‘pandas’—men who help people pray to their ancestors—have thrived on the ghat for ages.

The ghat was originally named Baboo Raj Chandra Das’s Ghat, after the husband of Rani Rashmoni, the zamindar of Janbazar. As I said, the inscription on top is impossible to read now. But I got the message of the plaque from my internet research. It goes thus:

One of the most elegant structures, Baboo Ghat is now a picture of misery

‘The Right Honourable Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, G.C.B. & G.C.H. Governor General & c. & c. & c. with a view to encourage the direction of private munificence to works of public utility has been pleased to determine that this Ghaut constructed in the year 1830 at the expense of Baboo Raj Chunder Doss, shall hereafter be called Baboo Raj Chunder Doss’s Ghaut’.

Both times, we had a breakfast of piping hot ‘luchis’ and potato curry at Baboo Ghat. We reached it just around 7 am, when the ‘luchi’ makers start frying the first lot of the Bengali flatbread. Besides, we had to wait for the ferry service, which would take us to the opposite side of the Hooghly, to begin for the day.

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Waiting for the ferry at Chandpal Ghat

We took the ferry to Shibpur (Howrah) from Chandpal Ghat, the jetty next to Babughat. The walk ends here as the stretch of strand after that was turned into the Millennium Park at the turn of the century. I’m not exactly sure if it can be entered so early in the day. Besides, if you want to catch the Mullickghat wholesale flower market in all its glory, it’s better to head for it.

Chandpal Ghat once used to be the busiest ferry ghat of Kolkata. Apparently, it was named after Chandranath Pal or Chand Pal, a small-time trader who used to sell his goods next to the ghat.

We found the ferry nearly empty both times, apart from a few flower sellers on their way to the Mullickghat market. The ferry goes right up to the Howrah railway station, one of the oldest and grandest in India. Looming next to it is the Howrah Bridge—now named Rabindra Setu—the cantilever bridge that is arguably the most iconic structure of Kolkata.

Sunset clicked from Millennium Park on a different trip

Walking past the station complex, we climbed on the bridge and crossed it on foot along with hundreds of people. From the bridge itself, the Ramchandra Goenka Zenana (Ladies) Bathing Ghat on the other side, next to the flower market, comes into view.

With its Islamic-style dome, and arched doorway, this ghat, built in the late 19^th century by the eminent businessman Ramchandra Goenka, is perhaps the most beautiful of all. Sadly, it’s also the filthiest now. Not only do people bathe here regularly, the waste from the flower market is also dumped here.

If you are a photography enthusiast, do remember to take long shots of the Mullickghat flower market from the bridge. They make for absolutely stunning pictures. Such a riot of colour is tough to find except for maybe at festivals like Holi.

Clicked while crossing the Hooghly by ferry

Piles of yellow and orange marigold chains, roses, gladiola of different colours, sunflowers, dahlias, cockscombs, tuberoses—flower lovers may simply go crazy at the sights of the market. Both times, we ended up buying huge bags of flowers to carry home with us.

Dare to venture into Ramchandra Goenka ghat at your own risk. If you can ignore the bathing masses and the filth, you will find the beautiful structure hidden behind all of it.

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Howrah Station clicked from Howrah Bridge

The ghat next to it is Chhotelal ki Ghat. Named after Chhotelal Durga Prasad, an eminent lawyer at the Calcutta High Court, the birth of the ghat has a fascinating tale behind it.

Apparently, Chhotelal, who pined for a son, met a faqir (Muslim holy man) near the spot where the ghat now stands one day. The story goes that the faqir blessed him and told him to build a ghat at that place. In due time, Chhotelal did have a son. He kept his promise to the faqir and built the ghat.

The architecture of the ghat marries Hindu and Islamic styles, but unfortunately, its entrance is blocked from view by the flower stalls. Taking a photograph is difficult.

Mullickghat wholesale flower market

As you go down the steps, don’t miss a white marble plaque embedded in the wall. Up close, the message can still be read:

‘This stone is dedicated by a few Englishwomen to the memory of those pilgrims, mostly women, who perished with the Sir John Lawrence in the cyclone of 25^th May, 1887’.

The Times of India had reported on June 4, 1887, about the ‘disastrous cyclone in the Bay of Bengal’. Here is an excerpt:

‘…The Sir John Lawrence, with 750 souls on board, is supposed to have become a total loss... Luggage bearing her captain’s name has been washed ashore, and the bodies of many women have been noticed. The bulk of her 750 passengers were women on pilgrimage to Puree (Puri, Orissa), and the wreck of the Sir John Lawrence, so far as loss of life goes, is one of the most terrible wrecks on record…’.

Chhotelal ki Ghat has a wrestling ring next to it and it’s one of Kolkata’s most famous ‘akharas’ (rings) for pehelwans (Indian wrestlers).

Howrah Bridge clicked from Chhotelal ki Ghat

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It's difficult to figure out now that Ramchandra Goenka Zenana (Ladies)
Bathing Ghat is one of the prettiest of the jetties. It now lies in utter neglect

Leaving behind Chhotelal ki Ghat and the flower market, and walking past some of the enormous strand warehouses, we come to our final pit stop, Mutty Lal Seal Ghat. Again, a beautiful structure but claimed by squalor.

Mutty Lal Seal was one of the richest Indian businessmen in the early 19^th century who also speculated in the market. Starting with a humble background, he made it big after marriage to a rich businessman’s daughter.

Seal was apparently the first to use steamships for internal trade in Kolkata. Apart from building the ghat, he also founded a free college and a destitute home.

Even in the surrounding filth, the ornate Corinthian columns of the ghat can hardly be missed though one has already been damaged.

Check out the Corinthian columns of Mutty Lal Seal Ghat

The best way to complete the tour is to take the circular railway which passes along the Hooghly, parallel to the strand. The station nearest to Mutty Lal Seal Ghat is BBD Bag. The first time, we had walked right along the tracks to reach the station about 400 metres away. But the second time, my sister simply refused to do it.

So, we went out on the main road and found our way to the station. In the process, I discovered a very colourful Shiva temple across the road. It’s called the Nageswar Mahadev Mandir.

So, if you are in Kolkata, do plan an early-morning walk by the Ganga. The ghats I have named are not all; there are others to explore, too. Not all of it is pretty, but that’s how Kolkata (and India) is anyway. When you go home, you will surely carry back a piece of this incredible city with you.

A rough map of the Ganga (Hooghly) strand walk we did with the ghats marked out

Khowai area in Santiniketan, Bolpur

I went to Santiniketan for the first time in November 2004. It was, and still is, one of those places that do not offer much to do apart from a quiet corner to soothe your nerves and rest your weary bones after hectic weeks of work. But, that is precisely the charm of Santiniketan, which literally translates to ‘abode of peace’.

Kopai River

Santiniketan, and the small town of Bolpur near which it is located, are quite famous because of Visva-Bharati, the university Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore founded. However, apart from the VB campus, there are quite a few places that people can enjoy on a two-days-one-night trip to Bolpur.

I went back to Santiniketan again in January 2016. Though quite a few things have changed in these 11 or 12 years, it still has its own appeal, thanks to the red soil of central Bengal, its sal forests, and the rural flavour that Bolpur has managed to hold on to.

There are many types of accommodation in Bolpur. However, the Santiniketan Tourist Lodge, owned by the West Bengal government, is definitely the most popular. We stayed there both times.

The Santhal village of Bonerpukur Danga

Rooms can be booked from the West Bengal Tourism Department office at BBD Bag in Kolkata, or online. We went without any booking this year, but the lodge staff made the online booking on our behalf after granting us the room. Room rent starts from Rs 900. The food they serve is mostly traditional Bengali stuff, and it’s quite good.

The first time, we had taken a train—the Santiniketan Express, which leaves from Howrah station—to Bolpur. This time, however, we drove all the way from Kolkata, and I would recommend it highly for those who love road trips. Santiniketan Tourist Lodge is marked on Google Maps and we had no trouble finding it by using GPS.

Durgapur Expressway is a beautiful, well-maintained road lined with trees and the last leg to Bolpur passes through the trademark red soil of central Bengal, telling you that you have entered the district of Birbhum. The lodge has drivers’ quarters, too.

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Chital deer at Ballabhpur Wildlife Sanctuary

We reached the lodge in about 3.5 hours of leaving Kolkata. It’s best to leave as early as possible to make the most of the day.

Instead of driving around in our own car in Bolpur, we booked a local auto (tuktuk) for sightseeing. That’s mainly because it would have been difficult to find all the local places on GPS. One of the lodge staffers called the auto and we left in it after having lunch at the lodge. Do bargain a bit to lower the fare.

One of the best things about Bolpur is the charming bungalows with sprawling gardens that have sprung up along its uncluttered streets. Some of the houses look straight out of the pages of some fairy-tale picture book.

We first headed straight for the Kopai River. In winter, it was not a very pretty sight. It’s not a grand river by any means. But, we Bengalis have grown up reading so much about the river in literary works that it has become a sort of tourist attraction for us. If you are not a Bengali, you may be disappointed.

Lesser whistling ducks at Ballabhpur Wildlife Sanctuary

Our next stop was the Santhal village of Bonerpukur Danga. The Santhals are one of the major tribes of India and their revolt against the British in the colonial era is still remembered with awe.

Bonerpukur Danga is a model village especially maintained for tourists where they can see Santhal lifestyle first-hand. Many television soaps and movies are shot there, too. So, the residents are used to visitors and their cameras. They will carry on with their work without sparing a second glance at you.

The houses and the central road that runs through the village are spic and span, and you won’t even find a scrap of paper lying around. Carpets of grains lay drying right in the middle of the road. Some of the houses had decorations of rough terracotta relief work on their walls. The scenes depicted Santhal life, like a farmer on his way to work with bullocks and a plough, women sowing paddy, a man hunting deer with a bow and arrow, and the like.

Lesser whistling ducks at Ballabhpur Wildlife Sanctuary

A nondescript building displayed a board announcing a ‘crèche’ though, from the outside, it looked deserted. A couple of kids ran around—throwing frequent shy glances and grins at us—as their mothers worked on the grains. A couple of handcarts stood at strategic points to add to the overall picturesqueness of the village.

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One of the watchtowers at Ballabhpur Wildlife Sanctuary

As you walk your way out of the village, you will find yourself in Khowai—an arid landscape dotted with sal trees, which depicts the quintessence of Birbhum and other central Bengal districts like Bankura and Purulia. It is great as a picnic spot. Or, you may just walk around and relish the unique topography a bit.

The auto drove us through the Khowai area and made its way to the Deer Park, or the Balabhpur Wildlife Sanctuary, which is one of my favourite places in Bolpur. There is a very nominal entry fee (Rs 5, as far as I remember) and the best time to go in is during the deer’s feeding time in the afternoon. It is open from 10am to 4pm every day except on Wednesdays.

Ramkinkar Beij's 'Sujata'. The building at the back
is Rabindra Bhaban museum

The park houses a huge population of chital (spotted) deer and you will keep meeting them as you walk along the path that winds itself around the campus. The walk itself is immensely enjoyable as there is no dearth of greenery and birds. If you love bird-watching, go early in the morning and you will have an enjoyable day.

A couple of waterbodies flank the campus and you will find them teeming with migratory birds like lesser whistling ducks during winter. There are several watchtowers from where you can enjoy photographing birds.

Keep at least a couple of hours in hand, or more, for the deer park if you love wildlife.

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The five houses of Tagore in the Uttarayan complex

Our next stop was the most famous destination of Santiniketan—Tagore’s Visva-Bharati university, conceived on his idea of universal education. You will be charged Rs 40 if you are an adult Indian citizen (for students and children, it's Rs 10; for foreigners, it's Rs 300 per head) to enter Rabindra Bhaban museum and Uttarayan complex that houses five buildings associated with Tagore.

Tagore's car

The path leads left to the museum, which houses many of the poets’ and his family members’ personal possessions. The items on display also include a copy of his Nobel medallion and citation; the originals were stolen several years back and no one ever found them.

Among the other items are unique gifts he received from countries all over the world. So, the museum is also a mini-storehouse of global artistry. Photography is prohibited inside the museum.

On leaving the museum, make your way down the path, past the replica of ‘Sujata’, a sculpture by renowned artist Ramkinkar Beij, to the Rathindra Museum. Rathindranath was Tagore’s son and this house served as a studio for him and his wife Pratimadevi.

The path will take you through a beautifully sculptured garden to the Uttarayan complex. Each of the five houses is a museum now and you can take your time to go through each item on display. However, you will have to take off your shoes everywhere. So, remember to put on something easily removable and wearable.

A Kala Bhaban student paints in one of the gardens on the campus

The first one you will come across, on the left, is Udayan. Tagore’s car is housed in a garage next to it. Opposite Udayan is another sculpture by Beij, ‘The Santhal Family’. The grounds are separated by a small arched gateway, which will lead you to the houses Konark, Punascha, and Udichi.

Even further down is the clay house of Shyamoli, which was under renovation by the Archaeological Survey of India when we went last January. There is a stunning rose garden nearby and this entire area open to tourists is full of manicured gardens or potted flower plants and you can catch Kala Bhaban (art school) students trying to capture a scene or one of the houses on their canvas.

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The next point of our visit was another part of the campus which houses ‘Chhatimtala’, where Tagore’s father Maharshi Debendranath Tagore is said to have meditated. The spot gets its name from the ‘chhatim’ trees (blackboard tree/Indian devil tree) that shade it. It is a heritage zone now and entry to the central spot is restricted. You can see it across the low iron fences.

Chhatimtala

The road leads through the campus to the Brahmo Mandir—a temple of the Brahmo faith that was born out of a reform movement against orthodox Hinduism. Debendranath was one of the founders of the faith. Again, entry is restricted and tourists can only watch it from a distance.

Do not forget to visit Kala Bhaban. There are several artworks by Beij, Nandalal Bose, and Benode Behari Mukherjee. It’s a long walk through the campus. We had hired a rickshaw the last time. But now, they are apparently banned. So, keep enough time on your hands for the walk.

You may hire a guide if you wish to. Personally, I find them quite amusing. They seem to know just as much about Tagore as a kindergarten kid knows about Neptune. But, they will tell you all kinds of fantastic tales about him and the campus which Tagore himself may not have known.

They will point to a tree and say confidently, “Tagore wrote so-and-so poem after watching this tree in a storm” and stuff like that. And, people do actually listen wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

My personal advice: Do not hire guides. You won’t need them.

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Brahmo Mandir

Our next stop was a fair at Sriniketan. In winter, you will generally find some or the other fair going on in Bolpur. Some of the most famous ones are the Basanta Utsav on Holi (spring) and the Poush Mela, which begins on the 7^th of the Bengali month of Poush. This date corresponds to December 23.

The fair was a delightful experience. It was a fantastic demonstration of simple village life that we miss in cities like Kolkata. There were cultural programmes displaying local rituals, music by the mystic sect of bauls, and lots of to eat and buy.

There is a cooperative centre called Amar Kutir from where I had shopped for mementoes in 2004. But, this time, we shopped at a local market in Bolpur. Amar Kutir is a bit more expensive though it has the choicest products.

You can buy several things as mementoes. There are the leather bags with typical Santiniketan motifs. Then you have the ‘dhokra’/‘dokra’ (lost-wax casting) figurines, and sun-dried clay and terracotta handicrafts. You can also buy scarves and other items of clothing with ‘kantha’ or batik work. Among edibles, there are the famous pickles and murabbas of Birbhum’s Suri town. All these items are unique to this area.

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A village fair at Sriniketan

The next morning, we visited the Kankalitala temple dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali. It is around 9 km from Bolpur and the place I had liked the most on my first visit to Santiniketan. I remembered it as a small temple in the middle of a thick sal forest with no one around but the priest of the temple. There was an eerie quiet about the place which I had enjoyed tremendously.

However, times change and I was extremely disappointed to see that Kankalitala has not been able to hold on to that unique charm. Much of the forest surrounding the temple is now gone. Rows of shops selling sweets and flowers to be offered to the goddess have come up near the entrance, and beggars sat waiting for alms from devotees.

We were even accosted by a man who claimed to know everything about the temple and offered to tell us all of it for a fee. We refused him politely.

A board proclaims that Kankalitala is one of the 51 ‘Shakti Peethas’. For those who are not familiar with Hinduism and its myths, Shakti Peethas are the 51 spots where Goddess Shakti’s (Durga/Kali) body parts are supposed to have fallen.

Kankalitala Kali temple

The legend goes that Goddess Shakti killed herself when her father spoke badly of her husband, Lord Shiva. The latter went mad with grief and anger, and refused to part with the body. This threatened all creation.

Lord Vishnu then chopped the body into 51 pieces with his Sudarshan Chakra (wheel) to help Lord Shiva get over the state of trance. The pieces apparently fell in different parts of what are now India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. These are the 51 Shakti Peethas, some of the most revered religious destinations for Hindus.

The board claims the pond next to the Kankalitala temple holds Goddess Shakti’s ‘kaankaal’ or the side of the hip. Some other sources claim that the goddess’s skeleton fell in that spot, from the similar-sounding word ‘kawnkaal’ that means skeleton.

We ended our Santiniketan trip here and left for Bishnupur in the neighbouring Bankura district. I will write about the temple town in my next blog post.

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How to go: By train (you will get many trains all through the day. Santiniketan Express is especially for Bolpur. It leaves from Howrah station). You can also go by road.
Where to stay: Many types of accommodation. Santiniketan Tourist Lodge is the most popular.
What to eat: Traditional Bengali fare.
What to buy: Leather bags with typical Santiniketan motifs, dokra/dhokra, clay or terracotta handicrafts, scarves or Indian wear with 'kantha' or batik work, pickles and murabbas of Suri.
Best time to visit: Autumn/fall and winter.

Rasmancha

Bishnupur, the town of the terracotta temples in West Bengal’s Bankura district, is well connected to Kolkata via several routes. The most popular one is the one via Arambagh, which we took on our way back. However, since we went there straight from Bolpur, we had to return to Burdwan and take the Bardhaman-Bankura Road.

Gumghar

The distance between Kolkata and Bishnupur is quite similar to that between Kolkata and Bolpur. It should not take more than 3.5 hours by road, unless the road condition is very bad, which happens from time to time, especially during and after the monsoon.

Bardhaman-Bankura Road was simply beautiful. We hardly saw any traffic on the way, and the road passes through lush green fields and picturesque villages, which made the drive worth it.

The road via Arambagh is equally stunning because of a stretch of sal forests on the way, closer to Bishnupur, which is missing on the Bardhaman-Bankura Road. However, our return journey turned into quite an ordeal because of road maintenance work around Arambagh. Since that work has surely ended by now, that road is highly recommended.

If you are not familiar with the area, you can still drive to Bishnupur because the places are marked well on Google Maps. Using GPS, we had no trouble finding our way to the Jorbangla temple, one of the biggest draws of Bishnupur. However, we heard there that one has to collect an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) ticket from Rasmancha, which is, again, one of the prime spots.

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The arches of Rasmancha

The Shyamrai temple

Parking the car at Jorbangla, we walked to Rasmancha, thereby enjoying the feel of the town a bit. Treading on the characteristic red soil of Bankura (also found in Birbhum, and Purulia), we reached Rasmancha in about 10 minutes. The ticket is priced at a mere Rs 5, and is applicable for Rasmancha as well as the temples on the Jorbangla complex.

Rasmancha is perhaps the most iconic structure of Bishnupur. Otherwise bereft of too much ornamentation, the hallmark of this red-brick building is its perfect geometrical symmetry. Built on a raised platform, the square-shaped edifice is characterised by two consecutive layers of 10 arches each on every side so that it looks the same whichever way you look at it. The arches, guarding the very dark and inaccessible sanctum sanctorum, are topped by a pyramidal roof.

The Rasmancha, as the name suggests, is a ‘mancha’ (platform) for the ‘Raas’ festival of the Hindu Vaishnavite cult (worshippers of Lord Vishnu). The festival is held on the Raas Purnima (the full moon night of the Hindu month of Kartik) when Lord Krishna is said to have danced with his lover (spiritually, his devotee) Radha and her friends (also devotees). On that night, each of the women saw Lord Krishna dancing with her. The spiritual significance is too deep to discuss here; neither am I qualified to explain it.

Carvings on the facade of Shymarai temple

Carvings on the facade of Shyamrai temple

Commissioned in 1600 by the Malla ruler Hambir Malla Dev (1565–1620), Rasmancha was the platform where all the Radha-Krishna idols of Bishnupur would be brought (until 1932) to be worshipped on the Raas festival. Surrounded by a manicured garden, Rasmancha is one of the best maintained of the Bishnupur terracotta structures.

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A dilapidated temple near the Jorbangla complex

Before we go on, I believe it’s important to give a brief history of the Malla kings of Bankura who ruled over the region for more than 1,000 years had the temples built (source: Wikipedia). The word ‘Malla’ literally means ‘wrestler’ and the dynasty got its name from the fact that its founder, Adi Malla (meaning first Malla), was a renowned wrestler.

There is an interesting legend associated with Adi Malla. Sometime in the 7^th century, a royal prince from northern India was on a pilgrimage to Puri with his pregnant wife. In a village called Laugram, presumably close to the area of present Bishnupur, he left his wife in the care of a Brahmin because she was not in a state to go on. She soon gave birth to a son, who started growing up in the care of the Brahmin.

But from a young age, he started showing signs of his warrior background and very soon, there was no wrestler in the vicinity who could equal him. Impressed with him, the local ruler of Padampur granted him several villages around Laugram and thus, Adi Malla became a chieftain.

Jorbangla temple

His son Jay Malla later captured the power centre of Padampur by defeating its ruler, and shifted his capital to Bishnupur. Interestingly, the village of Maliara, where my mother’s ancestral house is situated (read posts here), took its name from the Malla rulers of Bishnupur. The word is a combination of the two words ‘Malla’ and ‘ara’. Probably ‘ara’ means ‘akhra’ or wrestling pit. It probably housed one of the wrestling pits of the Malla rulers.

The Malla rule started declining by the first half of the 18^th century. They left behind their unique creations—the terracotta temples they fondly built in their capital.

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Carvings on the facade of Jorbangla temple

A unique—and quite fearsome—structure lies between the Jorbangla complex and Rasmancha. It is the Gumghar. It’s a plain edifice, square at the base and narrowing a bit at the top. Apparently, the Malla rulers used to hold their enemies prisoners in this building. ‘Goom’ means to vanish or to make someone disappear; ‘ghar’ means room. So, the meaning is quite apparent.

Carvings on the facade of Jorbangla temple

Nearly opposite Gumghar is the Shyamrai temple. Built by Malla king Raghunath Singh (1626–1656) in 1643, it is a ‘pancharatna’-type temple. Pancharatna literally means ‘five gems’ (pancha=five, ratna=gem). In the case of Bishnupur temples, the word ‘ratna’ signifies ‘sikharas’ or pinnacles. The temple has five pinnacles on a curved roof typical to Bengal.

Depicting scenes from Hindu mythology, dancers and musicians, floral motifs and geometrical patterns, the intricate terracotta carvings on the façade of the temple are simply jaw-dropping.

Carvings on the facade of Jorbangla temple

The Jorbangla temple complex is about 200 metres from the Shyamrai temple. This complex houses three other temples. The Jorbangla temple, also known as the Kestarai temple, was also built during the reign of Raghunath Singh Malla, in 1655. Like the Rasmancha, this is also an iconic structure of Bishnupur.

Carvings on the facade of Jorbangla temple

The Jorbangla is unique because of its shape. It looks like a pair of huts attached together, like Siamese twins. Hence the popular name Jorbangla (‘jor’ means ‘joined’). The typical Bengal-style sloping roofs are joined by a square-ish structure at the centre with a pinnacle on top.

Like the Shyamrai temple, the Jorbangla temple is adorned with exquisite carvings on the façade. Again, the topics are very similar, but the Jorbangla carvings seem to have more variety.

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The temple closest to Jorbangla is the Radhashyam temple. Built more than 100 years after Jorbangla, in 1758 by Chaitanya Singh (1748–1801), is also an ‘ekratna’ (one pinnacle) temple. The temple is marked by a gateway, which the other temples do not have. Though this laterite temple, too, has carvings, they are nowhere close to the quality of Jorbangla or Shyamrai temple. Radhashyam temple, however, still houses deities and regular prayers are held in it.

The Radhashyam temple

The gateway of Radhashyam temple

Around 50 metres from Radhashyam temple is the Lalji temple, another ekratna temple built of laterite. Malla king Bir Singha II had it built in 1658. It has a pretty high boundary wall and was not open to tourists when we went.

About 200 metres from the Lalji temple is the Bara Pathar Darja (Big Stone Gateway). Built of laterite blocks, this arched gateway was the northern entrance to the ancient fort of Bishnupur. Malla king Birsingha (1656–1682) had it built sometime during his reign.

A few paces away is the Chhota Pathar Darja (Small Stone Gateway), also built during the reign of Birsingha.

A worshipper at Radhashyam temple. Regular puja is done in this temple

The Lalji temple

The Bara Pathar Darja

The ruins of the old fort are not very far away. However, we had got a little late and so, had to skip it. There are several more terracotta temples in Bishnupur and these are situated in only one corner of the town. We also missed a very significant temple, that of Madanmohan, the tutelary deity of the Mallas. If you are in Bishnupur, do not miss it.

The Chhota Pathar Darja

We visited two more attractions on the way—the Dalmadal cannon and the temple of Chhinnamasta, a form of Goddess Kali. Built of wrought iron, the Dalmadal cannon is 3.8m in length, with a muzzle of 29.2cm in diameter. It was apparently used in a war against the Maratha raiders, who were partly responsible for the gradual downfall of the Malla rulers in the 18^th century.

The Chhinnamasta temple is right next to the cannon. The temple is not very old and may not appeal to you unless you are a devout Hindu. There are several handicraft shops right opposite the temple. You can buy terracotta souvenirs like the famous horse of Bankura or other items. But the prices are a bit on the higher side since they are primarily meant for tourists.

The Bishnupur lodge of the West Bengal government tourism department is a very good place to stay overnight. We had a late lunch there before leaving for Kolkata.

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The Bara Pathar Darja

How to reach: By road or train from Kolkata (3.5–4 hours). There are several trains like the Rupashi Bangla Express and the Aranyak Express to take you to Bishnupur.

Dalmadal cannon

Where to stay: The Bishnupur Tourist Lodge of the West Bengal government.

What to eat: Traditional Bengali fare at the lodge.

What to see: Terracotta structures built by the Malla kings of Bengal. Some significant attractions are Rasmancha, Shyamrai temple, Jorbangla temple, Radhashyam temple, Lalji temple, Bara Pathar Darja, Chhota Pathar Darja, ruins of Bishnupur fort, Dalmadal cannon, Chhinnamasta temple, Madanmohan temple, Nandalal temple, Kalachand temple, Radhavinod temple, Madangopal temple, Radha Madhab temple, Radha Govinda temple, etc.

What to buy: Terracotta figurines, especially the famous Bankura horse.

The Paradise Trek Part 5: 1000 ft up, 1000 ft down, and a 'pretty' lake

Day 5: Tarsar (12,400 feet) to Sundersar (13,000 feet): 5 km

The Paradise Trek Part 6: The 'killer' lake of Kashmir

Day 5: Sundersar (13,000 feet) to Marsar (13,170 feet) and back: 1.5 hours

The Paradise Trek Part 7: The land of waterfalls, and fossils

Day 6: Sundersar (13,000 feet) to Sonmasti (11,000 feet): 7.5 km

The Paradise Trek Concluding Part: Foot-wide bridges, and a maze

Day 7: Sonmasti (11,000 feet) to Sumbhal (6,500 feet): 11 km

Tarsar-Marsar Trek (or Paradise Trek) details

Route: Aru–Lidderwat–Shekhwas–Tarsar–Sundersar–Marsar(and back to Sundersar)–Sonmasti–Sumbhal (click on each individual campsite mentioned for detailed posts)

Prominent site nearest to Aru: Pahalgam, Kashmir, India

Prominent site nearest to Sumbhal: Sonmarg, Kashmir, India

Total no. of trek days: 5–6 (we did it in 6)

The swimming tiger of Sunderbans

Five reasons why I'd think twice before visiting China again

1. Because it’s easier to cross the Great Wall of China than to cross the Great Language Barrier

2. Because I don’t have a liking for unscrupulous traders

3. Because I don’t want rude behaviour from my hosts

4. Because I can’t have dinner at 6pm and go to bed at 7.30

5. Because I want some souvenirs without burning a huge hole in my pocket

Read more of my posts on China:

Gangagasar Mela: An ocean of humanity (Part I)

Gangagasar Mela: An ocean of humanity (concluding part)

Dooars: The door to Himalayas

Recipe for Jadoh (Meghalaya)

Pangong Lake, the Himalayan Marmot, and fighting AMS at Chang La

Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (Part I): Sonamarg and Zoji La

Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (Part II): Drass and Kargil

Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (Part III): The 30-foot Buddha of Mulbekh

Srinagar to Leh via NH1D (Part IV): The cave shrine of Lamayuru

Leh, and Khardung La, the 'highest' motorable road in the world

Kashmiri-style eggplant (brinjal/aubergine) and tomato curry

Something different to do in Kolkata? Take a walk down the strand

Weekend destination from Kolkata: Santiniketan (Bolpur)

Weekend destination from Kolkata: The temple town of Bishnupur