Kinnaur: A Road Trip 2 (Kalpa)

(90km/5hours with a 2-hour break at Karchham Wangtoo HEPS)

On some stretches, the road passes through ‘half-tunnels’, with the rocky overhangs sheltering the road from above. Sometimes it becomes a complete tunnel for a couple of metres.

The distance is not too long, but an invariable break happens at the 1000MW Karchham Wangtoo Hydro Electric Power Station on the Sutlej, 71km from Rampur. A permit has to be taken somewhere up the road and cars are released only at a one-way direction. For us, it got even more harrowing because the road was blocked on account of a landslide and we had to take a 25-km detour.

When we reached Karchham, a long train of cars was already waiting. The sun was harsh and I ended up getting more sunburns on my hand, over and above the ones that I had got at the trek and were yet to heal.

The Sutlej flows a few metres below the road surface here and there are a few shops where one can pick up packets of snacks. Eti and I got off for a cup of tea and I struck up a conversation with our driver Vicky.

He asked me what I did for a living. When I told him that I hold a desk job with a newspaper, he said he had done it for a while at a newspaper in Mandi, his hometown, which we had passed on way to Manali from Kalka. “So why did you leave it?” I asked. “The pay was very poor. I earn much more now,” he laughed.

That came as a rude bit of shock. I wondered if he earned by driving cars more than I did by making pages and cleaning up other people’s copies. We white-collar workers have such overrated ideas of our work and ourselves!

From Karchham, the road climbs further up the Sutlej valley and within about 10 minutes, the snow-capped peaks come into sight. The road comes down to meet the Sutlej once again about an hour later in one of the harshest of stretches. But once you cross over to the other side, the landscape turns magically green and stretched across the horizon, in all its glory, the mighty Himalayan peaks come into view.

It still takes about half an hour to reach Kalpa, but the mountains will never let you out of sight and no Himalaya-lover can look away either, even for a second, from its heavenly beauty. Our hotel, Rakpa Regency, was right on top of Kalpa, offering a grand view of the mountains, which the entire village offers anyway.

Even as we got off the car, Eti looked wide-eyed at the mountains and asked me, “What are those peaks?”

“Kinner Kailash,” I said. 

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Kalpa, which used to be called Chini till the early 1960s, is a small hamlet that was important because of its location on the old Indo-Tibetan trade route. Those days are over and Kalpa makes a living of apple orchards and tourism. Surrounded by ‘chilgoza’ pines — the nuts of which are eaten by locals too — Kalpa comes under Reckong Peo, the headquarters of Kinnaur, but is mostly famous for its second-to-none view of the 21,300-feet Kinner Kailash peaks. 

Coming to myths, the tales of Banasur, which I narrated in my previous post on Sarahan, are famous here, too. [Source: Kinnaur Desh (Land of Kinnaur) by Umaprasad Mukhopadhyay] Legend goes that Banasur, who was a devotee of Lord Shiva, prayed to him atop the Kinner Kailash peak and summoned him through his prayers. Shiva appeared in his Nataraj (dancer) form and Banraj appeased him by keeping up with his ‘tandava’(dance of death) by playing a thousand musical instruments using as many hands. Umaprasad wonders if Banraj was actually a Kinnauri — who are famous to this day for their talent in and tradition of music and dance. But more on that in later posts.

The legend continues that Banraj installed a ‘shivling’ (representation of Shiva) atop the Kinner Kailash. The reason why at least two peaks in Himachal Pradesh are named after the sacred Kailash peak in Tibet is that they are all shaped like a triangle, which represents the ‘shivling’. Hence they are considered Shiva’s abode. One is Kinner Kailash and the other is Chamba Kailash or Manimahesh.

These peaks are sacred to Hindus and Buddhists alike. And just like the kora or the parikrama(circumambulation) of Mt Kailash, it’s done at Manimahesh and Kinner Kailash, too. The Kinner Kailash parikrama trek is said to be one of its kind.

Rakpa Regency tuned out to be a hotel run by Bengalis. Vicky, very thoughtfully, took us there because he knew I am from Bengal. The sad part was, I had to eat Bengali fare, which I eat round the year, at Kalpa too. Eti, who is extremely fond of Bengali food, enjoyed it immensely.

The hotel, however, was good. Our room gave an out-of-the-world view of the Kinner Kailash and the facilities were good enough. I spent the entire afternoon gazing at the beautiful Kinner Kailash, which is reputed to change colours at different hours of the day. Unfortunately, I saw only one colour. Maybe the treat is for the faithful, not for faithless wretches like me who run to the mountains only to soak in their timeless beauty. 

And beautiful it was. Dazzling under the sun this moment… hiding behind a veil of clouds the next … playing hide-and-seek through the mist… turning golden by the light of the setting sun… I gazed at the mountain till it got dark and I could see no more. Regardless of the post-trek exhaustion, I set the alarm and caught the sunrise the next day. We sat on the balcony and watched and watched, till it was time to leave.

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Before driving out of Kalpa, Vicky took us down to the old village of Chini. There’s a monastery there, which is reputed to be a century old. It is a modest structure and was closed and so we could not venture inside. As we inspected the monastery unhurriedly, we heard something breaking the inherent calm of the place.

It was an ‘orchestra’ of sorts, combining horns, drums and cymbals. The monastery is located on a platform raised a couple metres above the road. On peeping out from the edge, we saw a procession of musicians following a man holding a decorated object reverently. It was obviously the procession of a deity. 

I asked a couple of men at the monastery about the procession and they told me it was of “Lord Brahma Vishnu”. It was striking since Brahma and Vishnu are two different gods, two of the highest in the Hindu pantheon who make the Holy Trinity along with Shiva. But ironically, the only temple dedicated to Brahma lies in Pushkar in Rajasthan.

I felt the musical instruments used in the procession had striking similarities with those used by Tibetan Buddhists. But the two men denied it vehemently. “These instruments are all locals. There’s no outside influence,” said the younger of the two.

The procession snaked its way down the road and disappeared from sight. We came out of the monastery and walked a bit down the roads of the village. Somewhere down the road, we came across another small shrine with the emblem of a snake carved on the wall, above the door. The shrine was closed and Vicky had no idea who it was dedicated to. But Kalpa sure had some interesting things to offer.

Sitting outside, crushing stones was a Kinnauri woman. I remembered reading in Umaprasad’s travelogues that in Kinnaur, men are too lazy and the womenfolk do most of the physically demanding work. He wrote it sometime in the 1960s. I wondered if things have remained the same in these nooks and corners of the Himalayas, where external influence is still minimum.

Though we could not visit it, about 3km from Kalpa is Kothi, which has a temple dedicated to Goddess Chandika. Few venture there, but it’s certainly worth a visit if you have the time.

As our car left Kalpa, right at the edge of the village, we met the religious procession again. Some of the musicians looked at us as we drove past. Suddenly it all seemed like another country to me, so far removed from the chaos, commotion, madness and pollution of Kolkata. It was probably even more ‘distant’ for Eti, both geographically and culturally. But that exactly is the uniqueness of Incredible India. Every region is unique, with its own charm, its own stories and its own temptations for travellers like us.  

The music of the devotees of Lord Brahma Vishnu kept ringing in my ear as the car wound its way out of Reckong Peo. And we kept watching the magnificent Kinner Kailash for as long as we could until it vanished from sight as the car sped towards our next destination, Chitkul, the last Indian village on the border with Tibet. 

How to reach Kalpa: By road, 90km from Sarahan, 260km from Shimla

Where to stay: Several hotels. We stayed at Rakpa Regency

Famous for: Out-of-the-world view of Kinner Kailash peaks, Chandika Devi temple at Kothi, Kalpa monastery  

Food: Vegetarian though eggs are available 

Driver's contact number for Kinnaur trip: Vinkal Hada (9459262520/9805473522)