Onwards to Tol Pani, 11 May 2007

From almost the first step we took it was an uphill task—literally. We all had our faithful sturdy sticks and tackled the very narrow and tricky trails with respect. The nine of us split up—Ayesha and I go ahead with the other kids, Meena and Nayanika alternate on the Narayan’s mare, Munni, with Aparna and Lien while Liz, Priya and Preeti come in with the tail end. Dash it, I missed some spicy moments—an attempt was made to snatch Munni and Narayan , who in the state of dumb stupor probably double-dealed and promised Munni to two parties—Impedimenta (names have to be changed to protect identities, both theirs and mine) will be known for doing the entire trek on a mule but not on ours! Aparna the lovely and Preeti the Perilous (name changed again just for a while) managed to avert the kidnapping and war.

The trail was exceedingly steep. We had to stop to take in deep breaths through our mouths. The Physical Training teachers, Sunil and Narayan were our knights in shining armour—adored by the kids, armed with knowledge of how to cope with this physical stress and blessed with a sense of humor that kept us all going. Ash seemed to sprain her foot a bit but kept on with the walk till we got to a meadow. Meena began a stick-sword fight, Nanu surveyed the scenery. Sunil examined Ash's foot to massage it, asked her to look at the mountains in the distance and cranked her leg—I heard a “Ahhh…!” And then she smiled, got up and did a little dance. Thank you, Sunil—but then before we knew it the boys, Subodh, Avinash etc., sat down next to Ayesha and said, “Sir, please Sir…we need massages too.” Sunil went up to them to oblige, with me thinking, “what a nice guy” and then suddenly the PT teacher instincts came over him as he brandished a stick and said, “C’mon you Donks—walk on I say!”. The response was a lot of laughter and all us Donks along with our brethren the mules broke into run!

After a while, the run petered into a half-hearted, slow-paced hauling of each leg, one after the other, along the track. We looked down at the forests of pine and conifer and the distant mountains. We passed small hamlets with stone and thatched house. We met a new bride, Pushpa, whose husband (he proudly said he was Mister Hari Singh) egged her into posing for a photo. The women we met wore huge earrings in their ears that seemed weighed down but still in working condition. We trudged past them. Higher and higher. It was like leaving everything behind. The weather began to match our mood and the sky exhausted its sunshine to bring in the clouds. “Can you see any camps?” was the only question shouted out to the people in front. The same question posed to the local porters and guides always elicited the same response, “Bas thoda aage hai (It’s just a little ahead)” but we would see nothing ahead.

We came to some flatlands lined with mountain faces on one side and dense forest on the others and saw the trees rustling with...Monkeys! They look confident, stylish and utterly disdainful of our presence. We look at Minakshi on Munni and her fur-lined hood seemed to have emerged as a fashion trend from these guys swaying from branch to branch! Meena gives the smile of a diva and flutters her eyelashes. And we resume the trudge. Impedimenta passes by with the pony’s hooves clopping in time with her disdain of us people on foot.

Then suddenly, “Look, look—there’s a welcome banner to the camp”. With a sudden surge of energy we lunge forward to make it to just have a glimpse of this sighting and are so happy that we have reached camp by 2pm. But it’s still quite a walk to the actual camp at Tol Pani. We finally reach and tumble on to the ground. I drag out the plates from Lien’s rucksack and get Meena, Nanu and Ash, their lunch. They are amazingly full of cheer, even Ayesha, who did not take a turn on the mule. They were back to playing and chatting—it was like the weariness just drips off them like water off a duck’s back. Aparna and Lien walk in and Preeti, Priya and Liz follow. It’s so good to be back to the group of nine at the Tol Pani camps to rest our feet, ease our souls, knowing that we have jokes to laugh at, notes to exchange, updates to share and revel in a collective respite from it all.