The following travelogue - focused on travellers instead of the journey - is inspired by Manu Joseph's miraculous description of his Chadar trek (https://bit.ly/2FhglO7). If you don't have the patience to read mine, do read his. It's the most unique form of travel writing out there.
The Woodbine in Manali looks too
opulent a hotel to not have an elevator. The lobby is small but well-furnished.
One corner has four sets of large couches arranged in the shape of a square, a
thick red carpet covers slightly over half the floor area, and there are two
wooden doors duly marked ‘He’ and ‘She’. No underpaid, untalented artists
smearing the bathroom doors with moustaches that could be confused for lips and
vice versa, leading to embarrassing situations. Just the letters displayed in
bold – the way he likes it.
As he walks up the stairs to the
first floor, where the four other trekkers from the group – all of them
strangers to each other – are housed, he wonders why there isn’t an elevator.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that a lot of the hotel’s clientele, just like
himself, is part of the trekking community, and prefers taking stairs. Climbing
up, he feels his muscles twitch, eager to conquer the 17,300 feet mountain that
lies ahead of him. As he rings the doorbell of Room 102, a bald, stout man with
an uncanny resemblance to Seinfeld’s George Costanza, answers. ‘Phew, I am not
going to be the baldest person on this trek’, the words almost escape the
confines of his oral cavity as he surveys George standing before him. He
introduces himself to George as Fighter, explaining that he loved to fight his
way through life. He doesn’t reveal that he was once known as Winner, a name he
had liked far better.
|
The
snow-covered Friendship Peak in the distance |
“So, where all have you trekked?”,
Fighter asks George, a question that helps trekkers flex their muscles as much
as break the ice. George, a government-employed scientist, proudly declares
that he has under his belt several high-altitude jaunts, including the dreaded
Chadar, a trek Fighter knows he would never dare attempt because of the cold. Fighter’s
accomplishments are feebler, but he is fitter and at least a decade younger.
‘Enough time to outdo this guy’, Fighter thinks to himself, barely suppressing
a soliloquy. Over tea, they discuss that the upcoming week-long trek to
Friendship Peak is going to be the highest and the most difficult for both of
them.
George tells Fighter that Room
201 has been reserved for a girl. “A girl? I thought this trek was a sausage
fest”, says Fighter, already hoping that the girl is old and married, so that
he can focus entirely on the trek. Human and natural beauty are almost mutually
exclusive occurrences in the higher reaches of the Himalayas, but when they
co-exist, it leads to confusion and chaos. Together they go through the list of
trekkers, and settle on the only name which could remotely be a girl’s. Fighter
calls her Hermaphrodite. George asks for the meaning and grins widely upon
knowing – “I thought being gay was weird enough.” To make it easier to
pronounce, they decide to call her Herma.
Just then, there is a knock on
the door. George answers. A tall, fighting fit, dark-skinned man with salt
pepper hair and beard, about 50 years of age, walks in. He looks capable of dating
a hot young airhostess, but has a family with two kids. A man made for Everest,
confined to Friendship Peak. A businessman from Mumbai, his trekking repertoire
ranges from Kang Yatse II (6250 metres) to Mera Peak (6476 metres), and he once
climbed Stok Kangri – India’s highest trekking summit – as an aside (“I was
actually there to run the Khardung La Ultra Marathon”). Milind is a regular on
India’s nascent ultra-marathon circuit, but his greatest achievement is that he
has got there without resorting to a keto diet. George is about to share the Herma
joke with Milind when Fighter stops him, fearing Milind might start running a
Pinkathon in protest.
Obviously impressed with his
feats, George asks Milind for the secret sauce. Milind reveals that the secret
sauce is a group of four close friends and his love for running and the
mountains. He emphasizes that long-distance running and high-altitude trekking are
“personal endeavours” and not competitions, and casually follows it up with “Be
it running or climbing, I always make sure I stand first among the four of us.”
Fighter calculates that he has a
bit over two decades to match Milind’s feats, but it is probably not going to
be enough. He has never run beyond a half-marathon, and lacks the expertise or
the desire to climb so many difficult mountains. Winner would have got
perturbed and started making plans, but Fighter, instead, suppresses the
thought.
When Milind steps into the
washroom, George confides in Fighter that he thinks Milind’s is a family business,
not a self-made one, but avoids asking him this because he gets the impression
that Milind understands only English. Fighter is a tad uncomfortable at this
display of intimacy by a stranger, but secretly hopes that George is right
about Milind’s business.
Milind gets a call from the
group’s trek leader, who asks all of them to assemble in the lobby below. He
tells him he needs time, and for some reason Fighter and George think they need
time too, and wait till Milind’s ready. Finally, the three of them come face to
face with Herma, a fifth trekker and the leader. George, giggling, whispers to Fighter
that Herma’s looks don’t justify her name. But they can both see that all those
years of climbing have made her old and weary, and heave a collective sigh of
relief. The 40-year old trek leader’s teeth are soiled and the cheap red scarf
around his neck makes him look like a Bhai fan. He stands leaning against a
pillar and shoots off incoherent instructions about how to avoid AMS (Acute
Mountain Sickness), especially on the summit day when the team would go from
13,000 feet to 17,300 feet in the space of less than 10 hours. “Since you’re
all reasonably experienced, I don’t need to tell you the little details”, he
says. Then, without warning, he pulls out huge white Scarpa boots, each
weighing about 3kg, which would have to be worn to negotiate the thick snow on
the summit day. Except Milind, who is carrying his own light-weight snow shoes,
the rest are used to walking only in trekking shoes and unsure how they would
walk in 3kg boots. “We will leave tomorrow morning at 9”, he says before walking
off, leaving the round of introductions upon the trekkers themselves.
Herma – an avid trekker and a yoga
teacher – is unusually petite and demure for a sardarni, and laughs a little
too hard when Milind passes a snide remark on George’s weight. No one,
including George, thinks it’s too early for snide remarks; everyone’s in awe of
Milind’s climbing roster, fitness and looks. The fifth trekker – a Bong who hates fish – is wearing a t-shirt
that screams “IIT Bombay” and points diligently to the caption while
introducing himself. Fighter, an IIT-reject himself, is alarmed. He knows the adage
‘empty vessels…’ holds most true for those who have done only their master’s
degree from the IITs. He considers them fake IITians. “Oh awesome, I always
wanted to go there. What did you study?”, he asks, disguising his probe as
admiration. “I studied....um, bioengineering”, comes the response. “I didn’t know IIT
B offered a bachelor’s in bioengineering”, presses Fighter. “Well, it doesn’t.
I did M.Sc. Bioengineering from there”, says the fake-degree Phenku before
changing the topic, but the damage has been done. Phenku doesn’t wear a similar
t-shirt for the course of the trek. Fighter’s bitterness over having failed to
make it to the hallowed institution has claimed another victim. His mind
briefly drifts to the day people stopped calling him Winner.
The trekkers differ in their views
on how tough the Friendship Peak summit is going to be in the big boots, but
are unanimous in their opinion that their leader is a Leader Only In Name – a
LOIN, which turns out to be an apt gender-neutral euphemism for what they come
to think of him later during the trek.
Over the next two days, the five
trekkers negotiate a moderately difficult trek up to the base camp. Speed or
stamina, Herma gives each man a run for his money and leaves behind Phenku and
George, who are always at the end, by a long margin. Though shorn of snow
itself, the base camp is cradled among towering snow peaks. The 6000m+ Deo
Tibba and Indrasan tease from a distance, while their shorter cousins
Friendship Peak and Hanuman Tibba look deceptively climbable. Pointing to his
altimeter, George exclaims that the group has, for the first time on the trek, breached
the 4000 metre above sea level mark. “No, you’re wrong”, intervenes Milind
forcefully, pointing to his own altimeter, which shows a figure just shy of the
4k mark. Everyone agrees with him.
|
The trail |
|
View from basecamp tents |
Herma, being the only woman, is
privileged to a single tent. Fighter, too, sneaks out a tent for himself making
up smelly feet as an excuse. About a month back, while zeroing in on Friendship
Peak as the choice of trek, he had realised that the name of the mountain might
have subconsciously influenced his decision. He had been broken by years of
loneliness and wanted some genuine company. But after the lure of being alone
in a tent proves irresistible, he knows that the malaise had more to do with
himself than with others.
|
The trail |
On the evening the trekkers reach
the base camp, they are led to a large snow patch nearby to get acquainted with
the gigantic boots, crampons, ice axe and safety equipment including harness
and rope. LOIN explains that the safety equipment is there “just in case…” The
team learns the basics of ice-climbing and self-arrest using ice axes in case
of a fall. Milind, wearing lighter boots and trained in ice-climbing, literally
runs up the patch even as others struggle to put one step after another. The
only one remotely close on his heels is Herma, seeing which George wonders
whether it’s the opportunity of spending lone time with Milind that’s driving
her. After barely 60 minutes of slipping and tumbling in the snow, LOIN
declares that the team has had enough training to successfully make a nonstop
8-hour climb in much deeper snow on the summit day. Pleas for more training go
unheeded.
|
The trekkers soaking up the sun on the morning before the
rain hit
|
Back from the
training, Fighter hurriedly ventures out looking for a spot to relieve himself
before it gets dark. There are two kinds of people in the high mountains –
those who choose the nature to answer its calls, and those who choose the
cramped toilet tents. Fighter is clearly the former. He can only sleep with the
knowledge that he washed, and not just wiped, which is the only option available in tents. For this, he puts up with carrying a big water bottle,
soap, and walking far away to find a spot that’s previously unused and provides
him the right balance and cover, which could take up to 15 minutes.
Every time he finds such a spot, he credits himself for the discovery but
wonders how he had missed it so far.
|
“Why do they need a tent for it?” – The Cow
|
That night, the trekkers are
treated to a sumptuous dinner of matar paneer which ends with gulabjamun. For
city folk on a difficult trek, the one thing that suffers an even greater shock
than the muscles is the body clock. Dinner’s served by 7:30PM and, in the
absence of internet and electricity, one usually retires to bed – sleeping bag
in this case – by 9PM. The fatigue ensures that sleeplessness, despite the
claustrophobia inside a tent, isn’t a problem.
|
The training session with ice axe and the huge Scarpa boots
|
Tonight though, the team won’t be
sleeping peacefully, for the summit climb is scheduled to begin at midnight.
Peaks with heavy snow are best climbed in the dark because sunlight softens up
the snow, which makes both ascent and descent far more time-consuming and
treacherous. The threat of weather’s turning on a dime is also lowest during
early morning hours.
Perhaps the heartbroken unfairly
blame the wavering affections of their former lover as the epitome of
fickleness. To get some solace, they need to witness the weather on high mountains.
At the time the team went into the dining tent, the weather had been crisp and
warm – perfect for the summit ascent. By the time they step out, the base camp
is enveloped in a pall of menacing dark clouds, and rain’s pouring down. LOIN
sounds the alarm, “Rain here means snow on the summit. We can’t ascend in
fresh, soft snow. If this doesn’t clear up, we might have to postpone the
ascent by another day”. Thankfully, the schedule has a built-in reserve day to
deal with exactly such an eventuality. But that night, little did the team know
that one reserve day won’t be enough.
The next dry moment they witness
comes exactly 60 hours later. The only thing more difficult than living in the
mountains is living there while it rains. To those who choose the outside to
answer nature’s call, a cold and wet butt is worse than a cold and dry one; and
to those who choose the toilet tents, wet poop smells worse than dry poop. Moreover,
the greatest charm of mountains – being out in the midst of nature – is lost,
which is exactly what happens with the team as they spend most of the two days
huddled inside the dining tent, making it to their soaked sleeping tents only
after dark. The fact that everyone’s trying to postpone finishing their
business doesn’t make for a pleasant-smelling dining tent.
To pass time, they turns to
movies. George and LOIN are carrying some in their phones, but after LOIN
refuses to share his, they’re reduced to seven, three of which belong to the
Taken trilogy. The debate over which one to play first is settled as soon as
Red Sparrow’s name pops up. “Man, I haven’t seen a woman in a week, and it has
Jennifer Lawrence’s sex scenes”, says Phenku excitedly. It is at that moment
the group embarrassingly realises they’re not all-male, even though Herma’s
tried hard to keep it that way the past few days. They then sheepishly agree
upon Argo. Over the next two days, the team would polish off seven movies on a
6-inch screen without external speakers, battling the noise made by raindrops
falling on top of the dining tent. Given that Liam Neeson’s movies require the
least hearing, they’re left disappointed when he stops after only three
consecutive attempts at saving his family. At some point during the trilogy,
Milind changes his wet clothes for dry ones. Fighter notices he doesn’t have
abs, and wonders whether anyone without abs should be called Milind.
Every hour the team mates break
their torpor by venturing outside, hoping that the weather has become better.
Every hour their hopes are dashed. The mountaineering folklore is loaded with
warnings about AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), but it will remain incomplete
until it adds Acute Rain Sickness (ARS) to its lexicon. The gloom and sloth
induced by mountain rains has a knack of cracking open the toughest of
trekkers. Hungry to touch the summit till the moment the rain hit, the team
members are now down with homesickness to varying degrees. “B***d I really need
to get back home to sort out my shit”, mutters Milind, and adds hurriedly, “all
professional of course”, finally confirming that he does indeed speak Hindi. “I
know what you mean”, concurs Herma, and deflects questions by Phenku on what’s
troubling her. The marriages of both the married trekkers in the group seem to
be on shaky ground. Is this their true motivation for spending so much time in
the mountains?
The unmarried trekkers have their
own problems. Phenku wonders whether the mini avalanche that rumbled down
Hanuman Tibba is a result of a nuclear explosion afar. Unsure, he hopes that
the explosion eliminates all the myriad non-trekking tourists of Manali so that
he can make his home there. George takes time to fall asleep once inside the
sleeping bag because he likes to contemplate how his life might have changed in
the days he’s been cut off from civilization. Three nights of sleeping in a wet
tent have made Fighter unsure about whether travel is a singularly rewarding activity.
“If other gratifying pursuits of human life – romance, sex, food, audio-visual
entertainment – can leave one confused and regretful, why not travel?”, he asks
others, who want to agree but are unsure in the face of evidence to the
contrary presented by IT professionals who gave up their low-paid sinecures to
turn into only slightly higher-paid travel bloggers. He fiercely counters
everyone, including Milind, who tries to pass off the 3-day ordeal as a
“learning experience”.
|
The tourists that make
Phenku wish for a nuclear explosion |
|
The final river crossing with the rescuer holding the rope
|
After the rain eats up the
reserve day and some more, the team decides to descend back to Manali. Their
love for mountains, regret of not making the summit and slippery downward
slopes are up against one thing – the promise of civilizational comfort. The
zing in their steps shows that the latter far outweighs everything else. They
face three river crossings of which the last, an especially raging and deep one,
has to be negotiated using a rope. Back in The Woodbine, nothing except the
room numbers allotted to them has changed. Almost disappointingly, there have
been no nuke explosions and all the tourists are alive. Everyone’s jobs and
family members are secure. Staying true to the name of the mountain they tried
to climb, the trekkers make promises to see each other again, but they all know
promises are meant to be broken. It would take a lot more than a week-long trip
to the hills to change their lives.