#1: An Echo of A Journey of the Past
I was a seventeen year old. Had just finished my board exams. Summer had set in the plains with vigour and after the first few days of the exams, life had become dead and boring with nothing to do, nowhere to go.
It was then that dad promised to be a friend. “Pack your bags, we are going for a trek to Sandakphu tomorrow.” he said one day.
Those were beautiful days. And that proved to be a brilliant summer, especially when I think now, looking back. That trip was highly educational. I learnt that in a trekking trail, distance in the mountains are measured in hours. Saw how difficult mountain life was. And it also taught me, how value the most basic things of life because I saw for myself that certain things which we took for granted were luxuries in places like those.
Those days, the Singalila trail was a virgin, deserted meadow, where, flowers blossomed in the summer.
The others walked.I ran. Sprinted.
I remember the routine well. Close all of your thoughts and walk. Walk, and when you got tired you rested with your backpack on a rocky edge, under the shade of a rhododendron tree. And opened a rationed packet of cashews, raisins and dates.
During one of those breaks, a ‘preaching’ dad asked, "Don’t run. Go slow and see those flowers. You won’t get them back home."
Dad and his friends had come to see flowers whereas I found nothing in them. I was instead searching for the mountains that had refused to reveal themselves.
“How old is he, dada? Why do you expect him to be like us?” remarked one of his friends to him. Then they got tangled into a discussion of maturity, age, worries etc. soon after – you know, the types of discussion which we indulge in now – but would give ‘a damn’ about it then.
But that comment was tacky. So, tacky that it had stuck to me like a chewing gum even after all these years. This walk was that walk, only that I grew older by 15 summers - old enough to understand the beauty of those flowers. Apart from that it was a continuum. Of roads and journeys.
I was a seventeen year old. Had just finished my board exams. Summer had set in the plains with vigour and after the first few days of the exams, life had become dead and boring with nothing to do, nowhere to go.
It was then that dad promised to be a friend. “Pack your bags, we are going for a trek to Sandakphu tomorrow.” he said one day.
Those were beautiful days. And that proved to be a brilliant summer, especially when I think now, looking back. That trip was highly educational. I learnt that in a trekking trail, distance in the mountains are measured in hours. Saw how difficult mountain life was. And it also taught me, how value the most basic things of life because I saw for myself that certain things which we took for granted were luxuries in places like those.
Those days, the Singalila trail was a virgin, deserted meadow, where, flowers blossomed in the summer.
The others walked.I ran. Sprinted.
I remember the routine well. Close all of your thoughts and walk. Walk, and when you got tired you rested with your backpack on a rocky edge, under the shade of a rhododendron tree. And opened a rationed packet of cashews, raisins and dates.
During one of those breaks, a ‘preaching’ dad asked, "Don’t run. Go slow and see those flowers. You won’t get them back home."
Dad and his friends had come to see flowers whereas I found nothing in them. I was instead searching for the mountains that had refused to reveal themselves.
“How old is he, dada? Why do you expect him to be like us?” remarked one of his friends to him. Then they got tangled into a discussion of maturity, age, worries etc. soon after – you know, the types of discussion which we indulge in now – but would give ‘a damn’ about it then.
But that comment was tacky. So, tacky that it had stuck to me like a chewing gum even after all these years. This walk was that walk, only that I grew older by 15 summers - old enough to understand the beauty of those flowers. Apart from that it was a continuum. Of roads and journeys.
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| On the trekking path to Tumling. |
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| Phalut trekkers hut in the distance. |
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| A man on an early morning walk on the Phalut meadows. |
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| Chauris grazing on the meadows I |
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| Chauris grazing on the meadows II |
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| A Rhododendron in bloom |
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| Near Sabarkum |
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| Village Trail |
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