Mano ya na Mano...

A thin man in his forties, Dr. Rawat’s face radiated calmness and simplicity. Hailed as ‘pandit ji’ in the entire village, he was admired and respected by everyone – after all he had achieved the remarkable feat of instituting the first temple of Goddess Durga in the village. The temple was located on the top of a hillock at one end of the village, nestled between Pine and Sal trees. Every year, during navratri(nine day festival in honour of Goddess Durga), the temple was decorated and illuminated for celebrations.

            It was believed that on the ninth day of navratra, Goddess Durga would herself make her presence felt inside the temple premises to fulfill the wishes of all Her devotees. In a particular ritual in the evening, the spirit of Goddess Durga will enter into the body of the chosen one- our very own Dr Rawat. Led by curiosity of this news, I decided to visit the temple on the ninth day of navratra. After all, it is fortuitous to be able to see an educated doctor turn into an avatar of “Ma Durga”, I thought.

            As I entered the temple, I saw all the women of the village sitting in the courtyard singing bhajan-kirtan(hymn songs) in a local dialect. Dr Rawat stood infront of the idol of Goddess Durga, draping Her in a glistening red cloth(chunni). I fixed my gaze on him, waiting for the divine moment of enlightenment to arrive. The moment the clock struck 4, Dr Rawat rose from his place and left the temple. He returned in five minutes, clad in a glossy red colored saree. I almost spurt out a giggle, contemplating whether Goddess Durga had told him beforehand to wear a saree through e-mail. As he sat down on the chowki(pedestal), his body began to shake vigorously. In a few moments, he began oscillating his head to and fro, quite akin to the head-banging rockstars I had seen once on television. The divine moment had come as Ma Durga spoke in a squeaky, feminine voice to all Her devotees. Unable to satisfy my rational mind, I walked out of the temple with arrogance, chuckling and laughing at the histrionics of ‘Pandit Ji’.

            I woke up early the next day to bring milk. The milkman had a small stable adjoining his house with a large disclaimer on the gate “Beware of Dogs”. I rang the bell a couple of times and then opened the gate carefully to enter inside. Seeing no wild, unruly dogs around, I decided to cross the stable and reach the courtyard of the house to enquire about the milkman. I had just crossed the stable when I heard the snarling sound of a dog behind me. I turned around to be greeted by a ferocious Himalayan mongrel. Panic-stricken and nervous, I ran across the stable. As I tried to jump over a pool of fresh cow-dung, my foot slipped on a brick. The next thing I realized was the lovely fragrance of cow dung all over my face and an angry mongrel attacking my buttocks. I was saved by the milkman’s four year old son. The day started with four stitches, an anti-rabies injection and an antiseptic bath with dettol.

            I was recuperating from the trauma of the morning accident basking in the sun when one of my friends visited me for lunch. Himalayan rivers are filled with trouts(freshwater fish) during autumn. I was utterly pleased to see a bag full of trouts he had fished. Something to feel happy about finally, I thought. The trouts were marinated in a paste of ginger, garlic and local herbs and baked in the oven. We savored the fish with squash (buraas) made with rhododendron flowers. Little did I know what awaited me in the evening.

            It all started with an uncontrollable itching on the neck and the cheeks. Gradually, it spread to my ears and eyes and places unworthy of description. In a few hours, my eyes and face had swollen to an unimaginable size. To add to that, everything seemed weirdly distorted to my eyes. I rushed to the doctor immediately. It seems, there was an allergic reaction because of the fish I had for lunch. A couple of more anti-allergic injections were injected on my beloved behind which had already borne the brunt of a terrible day.

            The injections had a hallucinating effect and I slept off on my bed on returning home. I was woken up at the middle of the night by the oscillating sound of the armchair. I could see a figure in the armchair, clad in white kurta and pyjamas, moving to and fro on the chair. As I raised the lantern with fear, I saw the smiling face of Dr. Rawat in the darkness. “Ask for forgiveness”, he said. The moment I walked up to him, the figure vanished.

            I do not know what drove me to the temple the next morning, but that is the first thing I did after waking up. Kneeling infront of the deity, I prayed to Goddess Durga and asked for forgiveness. On returning home I saw a red, shimmering piece of cloth(chunni) lying on the armchair…..

           

               

'Pahadi' Wilson and Gulabo....

I knocked at the giant, carved door of the guest house. The echo of my voice coupled with a chilly, gusty breeze pierced the darkness of the autumn night. The gurgling murmur of the flowing ganges subdued the noise of tapping feet on the wooden floor. The wooden door of Deodar made a creaking noise. A thin, pale man greeted me. The light of the lantern and the radiance of the moon fell on his face and his torn, green sweater, making him looking like the protagonist of a low budget horror film. He introduced himself as the khansama(cook) cum caretaker of the guest house-the famous Wilson’s cottage of Harsil, Uttarakhand.

 Frederick E. Wilson deserted the British Army after the mutiny of 1857. Charged with sedition and treachery, he sought refuge in a tiny hamlet named Harsil on the banks of the river Bhagirathi in the hills of Garhwal. As time went by, he made a fortune by selling the timber of Deodar trees and the aromatic musk of the musk deer. Cupid struck and Wilson fell in love with a beautiful garhwali girl of an adjacent village named ‘Mukhba’. Her name was Gulabo. Their wedding was a grand affair and Frederick E. Wilson turned into ‘Pahadi’(a colloquial term meaning ‘of the hills’) Wilson - the revered son-in-law of Mukhba.

It had been a long, enervating drive from Uttarkashi to Harsil, the last pit stop before Gangotri and Gaumukh-the mouth of the river Ganga. The fatigue of the journey took its toll on me and I passed out in deep slumber in my sleeping bag.

 I awoke early to the chirping of the Himalayan babblers and decided to take a walk to the village Mukhba. The astounding beauty of Garhwal mesmerized me. The sloped canopies of Deodar and spruced pines added to the majesty of the Himalayas. As I made my way up the hill towards Mukhba, I caught a glimpse of the snow clad ‘shivling’ peaks shining gloriously in the rays of sun. Mukhba was bustling with activity. Women dried pumpkins for the harsh winter, urchins played with marbles and laidback men played cards. I decided to visit Gulabo’s ancestral house. A group of men sat huddled together outside the house discussing their wedding night experiences. Their faces beamed with alacrity and excitement as I enquired them about ‘Pahadi’ Wilson and Gulabo. As I probed further, I was informed that the spirits of ‘Pahadi’ Wilson and Gulabo visit Harsil on the second full moon of autumn every year. Myth has it; at the stroke of midnight, the spirits of Wilson and Gulabo take a romantic ride on a horse across the Wilson’s bridge.

Many intriguing stories and legends have been woven around the hills of Garhwal. A number of them are attributed to the figments of imagination of intoxicated minds. After all, “sooraj hua ast,Garhwal hua mast(As soon as the sun sets, Garhwal turns joyful with liquor)” is a very common maxim in the hills of Uttarakhand. I heard the captivating story with utmost interest and the more I heard, the more I believed that it was nothing more than a recreation of a drunken mind.

I came back to the guest house by dusk and decided to have an early supper. As I ate stuffed parathas of kulath(Himalayan pulse) with gosth(red meat) ,chainsoo(black gram pulses)and bhang ki chutney(sauce made with the seeds of the cannabis plant), I entered into a conversation with the cook. I enquired him about the Wilson’s bridge. As fate and co-incidence would have it, I was lucky to be in Harsil tonight. It was the second full moon of autumn. Driven by my inquisitiveness and an obstinate urge to prove the non-existence of spirits around me, I decided to venture out at night. I cajoled the cook into it. Since midnight was a propitious time for romantic sprits to come riding on horses, we fixed a late night appointment with Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.

            By the time the clock struck midnight, the cook was overcome by a drunken stupor, imagining himself to be the raja (king) of Tehri, ordering men in his durbar (courtroom) to get him more liquor. We took our lanterns and walked out slowly. It was dark but the light of the moon engulfed everything like a thin, white blanket. I could hear the rustling of leaves and pine needles against the winds. As we approached the Wilson’s bridge, the rippling sound of the river gained prominence. The entrance to the bridge looked desolate and mysterious. A mystical sea of mist covered the entire bridge. Suddenly, the cook grew silent, pointing towards the other end of the bridge. With eyes wide open, he broke down in a sweat of trepidation. He had seen the ghosts of ‘pahadi’ Wilson and Gulabo. A few moments later, I saw a wild mule walking towards us all by itself. I laughed uproariously. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson had decided to choose a cheaper option for a ride tonight, I thought.

            We came back to the guest house and went off to sleep. I arose from my torpor somewhere before dawn. The thrust on my urinary bladders was impossible to ignore even in sleep. I rushed to the toilet to relieve myself. As I stood there discharging the dispensable fluids of my body, my ears picked up the sound of a galloping horse. The resonance it produced kept on increasing. I walked out with my lantern to see the silhouette of a rider on a horse…………. trotting away into a sea of hazy mist.

Wilson's Bridge

                          



             

The 'Khansama'

 

'Shivling' peak

Gulabo's ancestral house

A woman drying pumpkins

An old picture of Gulabo

The Himalayan sheep

Mukhba

A view of  Bhagirathi from Mukhba

Harsil

Bhagirathi meandering through Harsil

The woman and the dog...

It was a cold December night in Delhi. As I walked across the platform of the newly renovated Old Delhi Railway station, I tried to figure out the exact meaning of the expletives hurled by my auto-rickshaw driver to a pedestrian crossing the road five minutes back. The pedestrian had unexpectedly come in front of the autorickshaw on a busy, clamorous street of ‘Purani Dilli’(Old Delhi)evoking the choicest of abuses from the driver. If you want to hear the rarest of rare words added to the thesaurus of hindi expletives, then Delhi is the place to be.

The Old Delhi station bore a clean, revamped look; courtesy the just concluded Commonwealth games. Restaurants, ATMs, burger joints and the smiling face of Delhi’s Chief Minister made their presence felt at the station rather conspicuously. I walked towards the foot over bridge leisurely. There was still no announcement for the train I had to catch.

As I climbed the steps of the foot bridge, I came across a hoarding with a quotation in hindi – “Insaan bano,janwar nahi ”(Strive to become a human, not a beast).Just below it lay a pool of spluttered betel juice, the floor stained red with the indelible venom many Indian men and women spit-paan. Just across the hoarding, a group of men sat huddled together having dinner. Not an uncommon sight in most Indian railway stations. Stations are a second home to Indians after all. But what grasped my immediate attention was a black, furry abandoned dog sitting beside them. The dog was unable to move on its hind legs, perhaps, a result of an unfortunate accident, I thought. The crippled dog stared at the food hungrily, knowing very well that its survival was completely dependent upon the left over food given to it by travelers. Unfortunately for the poor dog, we Indians tend to have a penchant of seeking fun through the misery of others. The men, while enjoying their home made ‘parathas’(Indian bread) and ‘sabji’(spicy vegetable curry), decided to feed their appetite for sadistic pleasure as well. What ensued was a rather deplorable sight! Bits of bread and vegetables were deliberately thrown away from the dog. Every time it saw the food, the dog limped on its fore legs towards the eatables, simultaneously evoking bouts of laughter and grinning faces among the men.

Disgusted at the utter depravity of the men and partly inspired by the quote I had just read, I decided to intervene. Looking into the bag pack I was carrying I found a few remaining pieces of fruit bread I had kept for my journey. I took out the loaf and lay it in front of the dog, thinking, at least for tonight the poor dog will not have to go through the ordeal to feed its stomach. How mistaken and foolish was I to think so? For the next moment, the crippled, miserable and hungry dog turned into an avatar of a trained narcotic sniffer. It sniffed through the bread suspiciously, almost as if it was sure I had plans to drug it tonight. After ten seconds of serious examination, the food I served was rejected. Perhaps, the spices of home made ‘sabji’ attract the palate of an Indian dog much more than that of bland, fruit bread. The dog went about its business of running to and fro for its heavenly dinner. I turned around to see an old, cadaverous, haggard looking woman gaping at me with big, round eyes. She hardly had anything to cover her in the biting winter cold. Burbling and scratching her head, she sat down in front of me. Without giving me a moment to react, she picked up the pieces of bread and started to eat them excitedly. I stood there…shocked, speechless and numb.  In a few minutes, the blaring noise of an approaching engine broke the eerie silence. I walked towards the platform with moist eyes and a heavy heart contemplating the travesty of life…