Monday, Feb' 07, 2000
Gangotri-Gaumukh-Tapovan Trek Part-4/5
Rasik Shah
Rasik Shah was born in the Indian diaspora in the colonial apartheid type society of Kenya in the early forties. Having grown up in a multi-ligual, multi-racial society, he studied law in the London of the early sixties and went back to Kenya, practising as a criminal lawyer. He migrated with his young family to Canada in 1974 and practised law in Vancouver till 1995. He has been conducting trekking tours to the Garwhal region of India in the last few years and is now retired from law, writing full time. He has published a couple of short stories at the following sites:
1. "The Ngong Hills" at www.dorsai.org/~tjhubsc/ngong.htm
2. "At the Dentist's" at www.es.co.nz/~treeves/rasik.htm
He has written a novel set in Kenya and is trying to get it published.
The Gangotri trek is one of his favourite treks and he plans to lead a group to Gaumukh again in September, 2000. Please address any queries to him at: rshah132@home.com
|
 |
Swami ji
 After breakfast the next morning, we line up to hike up the steep hill right across the road from our camp. A young lad from the village up above the hill, summoned by Neelu has already arrived to act as guide. It is tough going through the bush on a narrow path criss-crossing through vegetable patches, thick bamboo brush and silver birch trees and sometimes we tumble over loose rocks trying to get a footing to clamber up sheer vertical spaces. It takes us over an hour to get up to the top of the hill, where the village is ensconced in a relatively flat area. Apple orchards and vegetable patches abound, as well as women carrying basket-loads of apples to storage areas in the lime plastered houses. The villagers are friendly and curious. We get many invitations to enter their houses and have tea; Finally, we settle down in a courtyard neatly arranged amongst rows of lime-covered rooms at two levels, water buffalo masticating away straw feed, half-clad children running about, cows bellowing away. We accept hospitality gratefully and sit on string beds in the yard. The elder woman of the house has a lot of questions for our group. She only speaks a Garhwali dialect, as far as I can tell, and Neelu has to act as interpreter. The women seem to be everywhere and doing everything in this village. The odd man we have seen is driving cattle around or lying down on the grass smoking bidis. We enjoy the cloyingly sweet, hot tea out of brass cups and depart after thanking our ancient-looking hostess, who is obviously the matriarch of the house. Our young guide leads us down the hill on another route, through fields of mustard and fruit orchards, pointing out the different crops, fruits and vegetables being grown.
We rest in the afternoon. Judi joins me in the late afternoon for another walk on the sandy beach along the river, enjoying the spectacular backdrop of the Bhagirathi Sisters. Later, we have yet another bonfire evening and a visit from the Major. We have begun to get to know the Major and have become good friends. We say goodbye to him the next morning, taking pictures and exchanging addresses. We are on our way to Gangotri.
 I have heard horror stories about Gangotri. There was a time when the snout of the Gangotri glacier descended all the way to the village. There was no road all the way to the village until the 1980s. Busloads of pilgrims now crowd the holy village. Pollution, overcrowding and development are taking their toll. A majority of pilgrims still go no further than Gangotri, and very few venture up to the pristine Tapovan, as we will discover to our delight. Well-equipped westerners and mountaineering expeditions do venture up the hiking trails and the peaks nearby. There is a problem with the garbage they leave behind and the sooner the authorities act to take strong measures against the invasion of the new plastic pollution, the better. The fragile eco-system of the area is also being adversely affected by the cutting down of the forest for fuel along these routes.
We are at the bustling village square and bus stop by noon and soon walk through narrow alleys, past the temple, to the other side of the roaring Ganges (it is really the major tributary, Bhagirathi, at this point) and check in at our rest house. We have a lovely vegetarian lunch at one of many places to eat in this town and are led on a walking tour of the village by Neelu. It is almost four in the afternoon and Neelu tells us that it may be a good time to pay a visit to Swami Sunderanand at his kutti by the big waterfall, on the left side as we face the river downhill. I have heard about the reputation of this 'clicking' swami. A major photographer, master yogi, mountain climber, artist-painter, collector of rare plants, environmentalist, yogi with superb control of his body and mind -- he has a formidable array of accomplishments and I look forward to meeting him. I know that I will not be disappointed.
 We walk past the big waterfall in the town where the river roars down in a flat torrent some twenty-five metres wide into a bed about the same distance below. The young lad who is leading us to Swami Sunderananda's kutti points to the row earth fissure up above the level of the waterfall and tells us there was a major landslide at the site of the fall some three or four years ago. Right across from the fall we turn towards a wooden gate in a solid wall of wood that runs parallel to the riverbank. Neelu taps at the gate. Someone opens the gate in a while and we are led in to the grassy compound inside the fence. We behold a landscape of supreme beauty and peace. Lush green grass covers the grounds leading to the lovely cottage beyond and the inside wall of the square of the compound is lined with a series of exotic-looking plants, colourful flowers and cacti. The attendant leads us to the cottage entrance and we enter, after taking off our shoes, into a living room furnished with great simplicity, a wooden bench running along two sides of the wall, strewn with cushions. There is a large rough-hewn desk in front of the back wall that is itself lined up with some large photographs of Himalayan vistas, peaks and valleys. In some photographs the young Swami can be seen standing up prominently on some peak or other.
I get the feeling that we are expected by the Swami. Word of our planned visit must have reached him. The attendant asks us if we would like some tea and then leaves, saying the Swami will be with us shortly. Neelu points at the large number of photographs on the wall and points to a poster that advertises a photographic exhibition in Berlin held a long time ago. We realize that the Swami has attained worldwide fame as a photographer and won many trophies and prizes. The photographs themselves are of very good quality, taken from vantage points close to the subject landscape or mountain peak. We are told that the Swami carried the simplest of cameras in his youthful ramblings in the Himalayas; nor did he have sophisticated clothing or other equipment. He had always walked in the simplest of footgear, even when climbing high peaks above the snowline.
 A majestic figure soon arrives into the room -- the Swami in his flowing white beard and a woolen robe floats into the room. We all join hands and utter a formal "Namaskar" in slight awe of the imposing figure. He has a presence, that is clear, a sense not so much of power as mastery and control over himself. Neelu introduces members of the group to the Swami and then briefs us with an outline of the Swami's achievements. The Swami speaks a high Hindi, very much Sanskritized, and tells us about some of his ventures into the Himalayas in the early days, when he went out to collect rare plants. We are taken round the room and told stories about some of the photographs. The Swami tells us about a major theft of some of his best photographs, carried out by some German visitors to his house. In one of the photographs on the wall, the Swami was in what seemed an extremely difficult posture, his stomach having been drawn in deep, exposing a series of sharp concave contours of the inside of the stomach wall. The Swami said that it was a challenge that he had issued to all the yogis of India. No one had come forward to perform the feat that he was demonstrating in the picture. We were then taken on a tour of the outside of the house. Under a shed covered by creepers we looked at a series of big round and oval rocks on which some abstract paintings had been made. These were usually in the form of lines in dark colours, forming a composition. I asked the Swami to explain what he was doing in one rather simple composition; it was simple but subtle. It suggested a Zen design to me. There were only a couple of lines issuing from what looked like an egg shape at the centre of the shiny rock hemisphere. He used several Hindi words that mentioned the creative energy of Shiva charging the cosmos. I had difficulty following the language. His flow of words was superlative and clearly he had fluency in expressing philosophical concepts of great subtlety. We asked him about the process of painting on the rocks. He explained that he had to treat the round rocks with mustard oil first. He would paint on them only after they had acquired a bright sheen.
After this, the Swami took us on a tour of his garden. We were much amazed by the variety of plants and flowers that adorned the place. Pointing at one plant with long, drooping leaves and an erect stem about four feet high, he said that it was a rare species, thought to be extinct. It had medicinal properties and had been traditionally used in treating certain forms of blood cancer. He had secured this specimen from the forests of the Himalayas. He gave a Sanskrit name for the plant, but I have lost recollection of the name. Another area of some tall, thick, dark grass he pointed out was the medicinal herb called rudrawanti; it grew wild in the mountains at about 13,000 feet, he said. We would be walking in fields of Rudrawanti in Tapovan, he told us after he found out that we planned to go up there. Rudrawanti had major medicinal properties and was used traditionally as a cure for respiratory problems and arthritic pain. We left the Swami's cottage grounds with a great sense of awe, realizing we had been in the presence of a remarkable man, a kind of renaissance figure in modern India, a product of traditional culture, yet one who has adapted well to the modern world.
"Rasik Shah is leading a trek to the source of the Ganges and Tapovan this year in September. The two week journey will start from Delhi on 15th September, 2000. There will be other journeys such as an overland jeep safari of Ladakh in the summer of 2001. See future issues of Sawf Magazine for Rasik Shah's articles on Ladakh and other treks and tours.
For further details or inquiries please e-mail him at:
rshah132@home.com "
Credits
- Editing : Reeta Sinha
- Photographs : Judi Hopkins
|
