 |
20/10/2010: A day's rest at Bura Madmaheshwar
I woke up to a fine clear morning at 6:20am. It had rained in the
night, though. Someone reported that some deers with antlers had
paid nocturnal visits to our tents.
The mental weather of my teammates, surprisingly, are quite fine
too! Drying wet clothes seem to be only problem lingering from
yesterday. We are on a peak surrounded from two sides by even
higher peaks. So it was not before 6:55 that the first ray of sun
graced the grassland. But it was not enough to dry the pile of
dresses that got drenched in yesterday's hailstorm. The sun light
is intermittent too, playing hide-n-seek with the clouds still
lurking in parts of the sky.
While waiting for the sun to glow brighter, I learned what had
befallen the others yesterday. They had arrived in troops at
Madmaheshwar between one and three hours after Ballu and I had
left for Bura Madmaheshwar. After taking rest and doing some
puja
etc at the temple they had started upwards for Bura Madmaheshwar
when the weather was already pretty bad. Before reaching the top
they were engulfed in thick fog, and lost their way, just as I
had. I had the advantage of knowing that I could not be far away
from the tents. But they were absolutely at a loss about their
own whereabouts, and were not even sure if the tents were already
pitched or not. So the ladies of the group started to panic, and
they really freaked out when the hailstorm started. "The ice
balls hit us on the ears like bullets!", Tubu-da later told
me. To cap it up Tubu-da and his family didn't have their
umbrellas and rain coats with them. So their plight could well be
imagined. It is ironic that while Ballu was looking for them in
the direction of Madmaheshwar, they were actually standing very
close to the tents in the opposite direction, without of course
knowing their proximity to us in the fog! Tubu-da had tried
looking for us here and there, and Ruku had shouted for help,
but, as I knew from my own experience, these expedients do not
work in a foggy bugial! It was by sheer chance that
Tubu-da managed to catch a glimpse of the tents, and that saved
the day!
Let us return to the present. It is now 7:00am, and the sunlight
is pretty bright. So I let out my shoes to dry. A flimsy film of
fog is veiling the face of peaks. But the the soft glow of
sunlight feels endearingly warm on our faces.
Our tents are near one verge of the bugial. Behind the
tents at at an illusively close distance stand a magnificent
array of peaks. With the aid of a Tublu-da's map and Dipu-da's
memory, we could recognise quite a few of them. The leftmost peak
is Bhrigupanth, followed by a trio consisting of Kedarnath, Kedar
dome and Shivling. Then comes what appears to be long snow-covered
ridge rising up into a another peak called Mandani. A little peak
farther away peeps out from behind the ridge, that is Sumeru.
But the grandest of them all is definitely Chaukhamba, a
collection of four peaks.
 Chaukhamba
[Image loading...]
[Click on the camera icon to hide the photo.]
On the other side there is an enormous void that reaches up to
the sky above and down to Madmaheshwar Ganga... far far below.
Our tents
[Image loading...]
[Click on the camera icon to hide the photo.]
We have laid out a large plastic sheet on the grass and spread out
the wet dresses on it to dry.
Drying
[Image loading...]
[Click on the camera icon to hide the photo.]
It is very cold. My shoes are yet to dry, so I am going around in
a pair of sandals. I feel a gnawing pain in the soles of my
feet. And the gloves are making it hard for me write my diary.
At 7:50 we had a white-out again. The temperature is going down
the moment the sun hides his face. I can see two jackdaws
vaguely silhouetted in the fog. The heavy wind last night has
taken its toll on the tent pegs, many of which has come loose.
Our mules were taken down to Madmaheshwar for the night to
protect them from cold. They returned to us at 8:00, and within
five minutes a hailstorm started again. But it is much milder
than what we went through yesterday. The ice pellets are hardly
larger than homeopathic globules. The hailstorm slowly gave way
to a drizzle.
We finished a magnificent breakfast with luchi
and chhola, and then remained inside our tents.
At 9:13 the elderly couple (who put up in an inn at Madmaheshwar
last night)
arrived at Bura Madmaheshwar.
The rain and the wind are both getting stronger by the
minute. The kitchen tent is shivering in the gusts of cold
wind. The ever optimistic Dipu-da is assuring everybody that the
sky must clear up within ten minutes. But may be the sky is
unable to hear him in the incessant sound of rain.
I am warming myself by pressing my palms against a kettle full of
boiling tea! Dipu-da and the muleteers are smoking, and I have
resigned myself to the fate of a secondary smoker. I can stand
the smoke but not the cold outside!
The rain finally stopped at 9:50. The cold wind is still
sweeping over the bugial. No sign of the sun
yet. Chaukhamba is still invisible in the fog. But the opposite
side of the bugial is now clear. Madmaheshwar Ganga is
visible down below meandering its way towards Gupta Kashi.
That then sun is the chief source of energy is nowhere more clearly
felt than in a situation like this. The temperature goes up the
moment their is even a faint glow of sunlight, like now at
10:10. I try to warm myself up by jogging around. But the
ground is too soggy!
10:45am. I am wandering alone in the bugial talking to
myself, which is my favourite pastime. I see Dipu-da and others
tying a rope across two newly erected posts to dry clothes.
The mules are patiently standing in one place.
"What a useful and hardy beasts these are!", I heard someone
remark.
"Yes, the British must be given credit," Rasmohan-babu answered
sympathetically, "for creating these."
11:13am. The sun is now quite strong. It is a pleasure to strip
out of layers of warm clothing!
Lunch at 1:30pm, lentil soup,
rice, ghee, beguni and mashed potatoes. It is
amazing how Ballu manages to cook so many things despite all
odds.
A solitary eagle is monitoring our movements from high above us.
The wind started again soon, and the fog rolled over the
hills. The colour of today's fog is blacker than yesterday's.
But the bugial itself is still bright with sunlight.
I have seen only part of it so far. At 2:00pm I set out on a
periphery walk to explore the entire bugial.
The entire walk took me exactly one hour. It was enjoyable but
there is nothing worthy of special mention, except a curious
cluster of trees that
I saw in one place. The trees were all growing horizontally,
possibly to counterbalance the slope of the terrain! I also
saw a light brown bird with a long tail.
The entire place was engulfed in fog by the time I returned. Now
we have nothing to do but stay confined in the tents. Ballu is
sad that his mobile battery is down, so he cannot listen to
songs.
A spate of lethargy seems to have gotten us all. Ruku is asleep
in a tent. The others in Tubu-da's family are invisible inside
the cocoon of their tent. Only Tublu-da is promenading outside.
I am trying to solve the last layer of my Rubik cube.
The sun itself seems to be touched by our laziness. He is showing
his face for a minute or two now and then, and then is vanishing
again.
Determined to break my laziness, I got up and brushed my
teeth. I had been postponing that useful activity waiting for the
weather to get warmer until I had completely forgotten about it!
Then I walked to our water hole to fetch two bottles of
water.
As I sauntered back to the tent I could not help observing with
some amusements the contents of my pockets. I was carrying two
pens, one Rubik cube, a printout from internet, my diary, a pair
of gloves, plentiful supply of cashew and raisins, a roll of
toilet tissue, a camera, money, two handkerchiefs, two torches, a
tube of moisturiser! Little wonder that kept on losing things
inside my pockets!
A mild hailstorm started at 4:50. I lost no time in getting
inside the kitchen tent.
After an hour of chatting with Ballu and Dipu-da, I returned to my
own tent. It was dark. I had nothing to do. So I regaled myself
reciting poems...
And when finally we went to sleep at 9:00 (after a dinner half an
hour earlier) we drew an end to a day that was about to get a wee
bit boring.
|
