Trek Himachal

I went into the unknown to fulfil a childhood dream. Long ago, around 10 years, I passed a bridge on the River Sutlej at Slapper. The river disappeared upstream into mountains and the bus went along downstream. Ever since, I wondered what would be the world like in those mountains. So, I packed my bag with some essentials and went away to fulfil that dream. Here, in the pages that follow, I present the diary that I wrote on this trip, an insight into what travelling into the unknown made me feel. Everything I saw on the way had been seen by human eyes earlier but my eyes saw all of that for the first time and that for me, was discovering. And I also discovered so much of myself on the way.

23 Dec 2009

The thought first occurred a few days ago. Yesterday, I had decided today would be when I start. I only knew Sutlej crossed over into India at Shipki La, a mountain pass on the Indo-Tibet border. That and my start point at Slapper was about what I knew when I started the walk today at 2 PM from Slapper. Just to make it more fun, I also decided yesterday that the trip of discovery would last as long as the 5000 rupees I had drawn from the ATM yesterday. When I started from Slapper, butterflies were fluttering in my stomach and I was wondering if I was making sense at all. A little later, I decided, I was not but that did not matter. I had started and I was not going back. Most of the way, no one was able to tell me anything concrete about the route I would have to follow.

I have now walked almost an hour and see the Kol Dam coming up. Clouds of dust, mounds of dirt, loads of trucks working on damming the Sutlej. The scene is captivating and revolting at the same time. The prowess of man made machines tunnelling the mountains and the prowess of the mountains pushing back the human effort each time.

When I walked into Ahyn at half past four today evening. I had a sleeping bag and some clothes in my bag and no clue where to stay. Maybe I would ask for shelter at the first village I reached. Ahyn was that village. Asking for shelter at an unknown village where I was a non entity was an act of faith. Figuratively, I bared myself in front of the man I asked for shelter from, hoping he would see nothing wrong and let me in. At that moment, I was the beggar with nothing to give and everything to hope for. Now, sitting in the cosy quilt and a goat fur blanket on a bed, I am wondering what turn my trip would have taken if I had been refused shelter.

I just had dinner with the family I was staying with. When they say guests are an incarnation of god in India, I know which world are they talking about. I was served dinner before everyone else, given the best of everything, offered multiple servings and treated very politely. The slight apprehension I had noticed when I was asking for staying overnight had disappeared and replaced by a genuine concern for my well being. I will sleep well tonight knowing a better world still exists, where people treat each other with the respect they deserve for being the humans they are and not for what they earn, show off or look like.

End of day balance: Rs. 4805.

Spent on bus fare, food, water and some food reserves