Camp I: Raun Gadera, 10 May 2007

Our first camp: Cosy warm red and blue tents, a stream running by over rocks that have stood the test of time, green mossy banks, mules lazily grazing with their bells ringing, and the smell of food cooked over smoldering logs. Except that the tents let in the cold drafts, the water in the stream would chill a snowman, the grass was too damp to sit on, the mules snorted all night…and more: toilets that had to be visited, sleeping bags that were so cold that you did not want to slide into them, lining up for the food like prison inmates and washing the plates and mugs afterwards and not being able to have a bath. Lien of course was undaunted and stuck her head in the cold, cold stream complete with shampoo and probably conditioner too. We of less hardier souls left our hair as is and relied on wet tissues, lotion (both sunscreen and odomos…especially for Preeti…didn’t she after all ask us to buy the stuff?), talc and deodorant.

That apart, Camp Raun Gadera had the makings of a picture perfect camp (if only there was plumbing thrown in, the need for which was compounded by the fact that our children were resisting every attempt at recycling the food they had ingested since Delhi. It was worrisome for us moms but they had no complaints and merrily skipped around picking up interesting stones, wood, leafs, flowers and in Ayesha’s case little bouquets for Liz who ended up saving each one of them). The camp was clean with little dug out dump pits, affectionately called “DUMBPIT”. The stream was crystal clear and the music the water made was hypnotizing. There were river-crossing activities and the food was good. The bonfire was lit and songs were sung. Our tent was full of the gang of girls (Nikhila, Jyotsna, Usha, Priyanka, Aaliya, Anushka) and more kids, all attracted to Priya, who was becoming more like a logo for the nine of us. We got to know a lot more of our group and marveled at how parents had let some of the young ones come alone on a trek up to 12000ft. The children outnumbered us and what with the seemingly honey-covered Priya, we had children hovering all round us. They came to have their hair combed, their bags packed, and even for a good cry. Some were beginning to feel homesick—for their parents but also for the potato chips, the air-conditioning, the comfy beds and their Gameboys.

It had slowly crept on us all that trekking was not a walk in the park and that the Roopkund Trail was not for beginners. We also began to realize that it wasn’t the sunscreen that we needed. It was much more harder made harder than harder by the fact that we were all first-time trekkers not exactly in the prime physical condition. We had already given our rucksacks to the mules and now a decision was taken to get a mule for the children. Enter Narayan—we just could not decide between him and his beast as to which one was the mule. He was endearing in the way that you hate to love Donkey in Shrek. We were at 6000ft now and the climb to Tol Pani-Camp II at 10000ft was surely not going to be a joke.

We did not realise it then but we were part of an adventure that was bringing in a whole of lot of learning into our lives: about the beauty of little blue, purple and yellow flowers that dotted the landscape, the tricky challenges of the trail that this beauty shrouded, the unlearning of urban ways to adjust with the bare necessities of nature, the amazing things we did not know about our children, the warmth and support of people we were getting to know, the spice added by the intricacies of having to live within a large group at such close quarters, and in all this - holding on to oneself as an individual and just being.