Post Script:The Untold (As Yet)

On Ayesha’s request, considering she is an editor of grueling standards, I have an addendum. I had forgotten to add several salient points of the Himalayan trip, so here are some of them.

The Story of Roopkund Lake: I had the girls hypnotized with my story of an invaluable treasure hidden deep in the waters of the Roopkund Lake and how a mere mortal’s attempt to steal it incurred the wrath of the Nanda Devi—I had added all the necessary ingredients like magic, divine powers and a dash of the reality of carbon dating, to get them to have their soup at 12000ft in Bedani Kund. The real story, if I can put it the T S Eliot way, lies “between the potency, and the existence”. Long long long ago, maybe 600 years ago, there lived a king—Raja Jasdal of Kanauj. It is said that his wife, Queen Balpa (a princess from Garwhal), was a sister of Goddess Nanda Devi. One day, Raja Jasdal decided to go on a pilgrimage on the Nanda Jat Route. Being a native of Garwhal, Queen Balpa could not resist the chance to visit her homeland and even though she was expecting a child, she set off with the king, his relatives, his horses and his soldiers. Unfortunately, it was at the Roopkund Lake that she gave birth. They say that this area is sacred ground—ever since Shiva created this lake from the mountain Trishul, as a mirror in which his consort Parvati could see her face. The fact that the Queen decided to have the baby here enraged the Goddess Nanda Devi who felt that the holy lake had been polluted. So she sent down a cruel ice storm that buried them all. The Roopkund area became a taboo to all, fearful of the power of the Devi, people surrendered it back to her. The mysterious lake was left in snow all year through till the short summer thawed its ice to unmask human skeletons that lay beneath its waters.

And then in 1942, a park ranger called Madhwal accidentally found some of those skeletons, which were sent for research. There were varied speculations as to whether the skeletons could have been that of wandering Chinese, or of General Zorawar Singh and his army, who perished in Himalayan storms on their return from the Tibet War. Radio carbon dating proved the skeletons belonged to 9th century people of Indian origin and that these were a group of tall people (both men and women) of one family, accompanied by horses and considering the evidence of the skulls found, they died because of hail stones as big as cricket balls. Could it be what remains of Raja Jasdal and Queen Balpa? Is it true that the Goddess Nanda Devi sent down a hailstorm? End it your way because research is often inconclusive, but imagination knows no bounds. :-)

The Band of Women: These days one has to hear all kind of clichés and categorizations from the quote that women are the enemy of women and how there is a parallel world complete with chick-flicks and chick-lits. For one thing, people have to understand that the chick has evolved since she hatched and has come a long way baby. It is a privilege to be a woman. It’s even more of a privilege to have women as friends. They help you live a better life. According to a UCLA study, friendships between women are special. “They shape who we are and who we are yet to be.” Not just that, it also helps with the stress—the calming response does not occur in men, because testosterone just hasn’t got what it takes to fight the stress. Not that I am waving a feminist flag to men—no, not at all—but I want to talk about what a redemptive power we shared as mothers, as sisters as daughters—as women. There seemed to be in each one of us a special quality that filled in for the lack of it in the other. There was no fear of the lack of a male presence. There were only possibilities—of climbing higher for better look at the world and us, of laughing in the wonder of snow, of understanding the magnificence of the mountains, of finding warmth in the cold lap of the Himalayas, of laughing at ourselves and over the shared gossip, of trusting each other implicitly, of drawing strength here in the mountains and back when we were on the plains, of the charm and magic of just being friends.

I can’t help but raise a toast to the friends like the ones I have, my sister pilgrims, ranging from seven years to 80 years—you give me a reason to go on in life…“When we are invited to do our best, to flow in peace regardless of the shadowing despair that tempts us. We are all here together on this bejeweled dance floor of an earth, and every one of us has the opportunity to choose our thoughts carefully so that our actions, our health, our very being becomes a co-creation with the Divine (Rebecca Wells)”.

Renaming Ceremony: We are all born with names, but some of us are renamed along the way. There is something about a name—while you kind of become the name you are given, you also learn much more than that, provoking others around to re-christen you. Ash, with her intrinsic ability to size up people always added a quiet tag to the name. Sangeeta the Magnificient, Preeti the Perfect, Aparna the Lovely, Shanti the Serene…. When it came to Nanu, you could see the emotion in Ash’s eyes that one has for a co-conspirator—you can see the empathy they share, the camaraderie born of a sense of we-are-on-the-same-side-and-will-face-the-world-together, to protect each other and be happy when good things happened to the other. For Ayesha, it was Nayanika the Innocent—the one friend who exudes a rare naiveness with an infectious giggle, who always supports, who doesn’t care for the clothes you wear, the car your parents drive, the size of your house or for that matter anything material. With her you can bask in adulterated joy and the belief that she would root for you, even if she was running the same race. For me she was the Lucky Baby and was renamed as so.

Meena already had a tag—the Diva. She was Minakshi the Diva and she had a T-shirt to match. There has been till date no expression that she cannot pull out of her bag—from the scary face to the lost puppy look. The eye lashes flutter according to the demand of the moment, the hands would gesticulate in perfection—who can forget her at 12,000ft, puking her guts out and doing an Odissi dancer’s namaste every time her mother tried to give her a horrible medicine? She is the drama queen who holds centrestage, the Regina Royale, the Pixie with the Punch—her list of names goes on and on till the girls discussed among themselves about what a hurricane she was. Meena retorted, “I’m a Tornado!”. “And you are a Snow Monkey too”, the girls told her back. “So that makes you Snow Monkey Tornado Banerjee”. Why the Banerjee—because she gets a big high from her Eastern roots (after all, all wise men go back to the east). SMTB it had to be and so the Diva was rechristened.

A Birthday Celebration: Said Ash: “Isn’t it amazing! How many people can get the opportunity to celebrate a birthday 12,000ft up in the Himalayas? You just have to be special”. And can there be anyone more special than Aparna? She woke up on 13 May, 2007, in Bedani Kund, after a sleepless night of tending to her sick child, and her sick friends—it was her birthday. There was no birthday cake, or balloons, or any presents. There were a whole bunch of people with nothing but wishes and silent prayers—prayers for her health, for her success, for her family. Prayers in thanks for her friendship. Prayers hoping that she stays forever the lovely person that she is. There were also three children—one was her daughter who drew up a card, even though she wasn’t well, pouring out the love she had for her mother. The other two composed a poem—while one called out the verses she made up, the other became the scribe and wrote them down (because the former had cold hands on account of a lost glove and the latter was a much better artist and illustrator). They handed it out to me to read out to Aparna (they were too shy). That evening in the tent, as I read it out, I do not think there was anyone left without an emotional knot in their systems—the poem said it all. It lay out what Aparna was and echoed all that we felt for her—we could also see that she was moved and close to tears. I think that the poem, a fair version with little drawings on the side, will always occupy an important place in her house and what’s more important, in her heart.

Innovation in the Mountains: Necessity is the mother of invention. No statement is truer than that. There we were at the heights of cold and we can’t find our gloves. We had plenty of socks. So what do you do to beat the cold as you sleep—you wear the socks as gloves! Then of course at the end of the trip, just as you leaving for the heat of the plains, someone not only finds the right hand glove you lost, they also give you an additional one—so you have two pairs of gloves to put on your right hand, but only one right hand available…sigh! What do you do when you can’t carry a pillow because it adds too much bulk to your rucksack—you carry a pillowcase and in the night stuff it with all the clothes that you have and use it as a pillow! What do you do when you don’t want to wipe your hands with tissues and throw them around the beautiful trail—you grab a handful of dried leaves and use them as tissues!

Similarly, in the absence of big brand names what do you do—you just improve on them and sell your wares on the steam of the brand! So Lays becomes Lags and Parle G becomes Raja G but the packing—imitation is the best form of flattery.
Courtesy: All the people who gave the respective ideas—you know who you are.

The Aftermath: My respect for high altitude has heightened. The consequences of a climb must not be taken lightly. It is best to be prepared for what can happen in the high mountain areas. It can begin with a simple headache and leave you gasping for breath. The idea is not to ascend too quickly, not to overexert, not to skimp on the water intake and to be adequately protected from the cold. You can feel fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, shortness of breath, nausea, lack of appetite and swelling of extremities. Each of us felt one of these symptoms at one point or another and some had a combination. The return to the plains began with visits to the doctors for us all—for some of us injections in what Priya calls ‘the seating arrangement’. Accompanying the experiences of our adventure were nausea, fever, swollen joints, swollen feet that were carried around like additional legs, blackened nails and lost nails too. Hey—how about a bit of poetry?

The Leg-ses and Injections
We went up the mountain, Meena, Nanu and I
And Ash and her five aunts, I spy.
With the strain of the climb, extra leg-ses they grew,
But even then complaints there were few.
We went over mountains, thru forests and streams
At the end of it “My Nail!” one aunt screams!
“I’ve lost it,” she cries,
“So have I”, another aunt sighs.
Injections follow in the (ahem!) ‘seating arrangement’,
Nothing else will work, no nail-growing ointment.
“Oh well”, says one more aunt, “Ash will go on to tell the tale,
Of how her aunts went up the Himalayas and lost them each a nail!”