The Anatomy of Journey
Page 42
Night turned to night and day became day. Our final few days are a rush and a blur. I remember only the nights.
That night, after crossing Morey Plains, we slept in a tent in Pang, where Moham was sure he would die because of the cold and that when the morning comes, we would find him frozen. But I remember waking up to the sound of women laughing, and when we exited the tent, found two young women smoking a chillum at seven in the morning with an older man. When we sat down, they offered the chillum to us, but we declined. But the older man insisted, and told us he got this “stuff” – which was Hashish - from a rave that was being held again the next night; that the party was at Kasol and that we should check it out. Moham came out an hour later, surprised that he was still alive, and with that surprise came mirth, and he couldn’t stop laughing as he shared his night with us.
The journey back is always shorter. Roads that were strange to us before now acknowledge us. People we have met on the road greet us, recognize us. We know what roads lie ahead, and the knowledge of what is to come makes time flow faster. Before long we were at the top of the Gata Loops, freezing in the arctic wind, looking down upon a tortured landscape, descending using the alternate ‘off-road’ roads. Gravity is stronger going down, and we slipped and fell many times trying to navigate these roads. Gata loops has decent tar roads, but these side-roads that cut corners on hairpin turns were made of that layer of the mountain that appears when the surface is peeled back by constant use.
Shepherds would use these trails to manage their wayward flocks, but now it became an option for the adventurous. As we rode these roads, the descending sun lengthened our shadows and threw them on the faces of mountains. Snow-white peaks turned orange and gold and birds returned home in sunlight the color of autumn leaves. We quickly crossed Sarchu and Baralacha La, and found ourselves, again in the afternoon, facing the nallah at Zing-Zing Bar. That river-upon-the-highway, if it was possible, had gathered even more ferocity. When we stopped to investigate and re-plan, we saw about a dozen army men, assisting workers of the BRO (Border Roads Organization), to help lay a metal, make-shift Bridge over the nallah. When we inquired, they told us that the bridge would be complete in two days. We would be one of the last to traverse the nallah on foot. The excitement of that knowledge – of knowing that the next time we would not be allowed to experience the bone carving cold of that river – turned this last opportunity into a luxury, and so we dipped into the nallah with enthusiasm. Forty five minutes later, we had all crossed over with the motorcycles and luggage, and spent the next fifteen minutes drying off and hoping that some inexperienced biker would come along who’d ask us for help and we would secretly exult at another chance of swimming in ice. But no one came, so we said goodbye to the nallah, turned around and headed towards Zing-Zing Bar and Darcha.
Later that evening, we found ourselves at the foothills of Rohtang, staring at rain-darkened clouds that threatened with electricity every few seconds. At the exact moment we reached the safety of Khoksar, the rains broke upon the landscape of towering mountains and sloping hills, and covered the land in a deluge of melting earth. We could see clouds break apart after hitting the peaks of distant mountains, and then form again in different shapes on the other side.
We wanted to be in Manali that night, and were hoping to cross the pass before the rains began. But it would have to be tomorrow. So we spent the night in Khoksar, where Moham and I competed to eat as many rotis as we could, and ended up eating nine each. After the uncomfortable night at Pang, Khoksar was a mother’s lap in comparison. We slept heavily in the cold, pure air, with the sound of thunder rumbling in the background, and I do not now recall waking up.
If it took us four hours to cross Rohtang Pass the first time around, it took us only forty five minutes on the return leg. The roads were slushier because of the rain the previous night, but the overall descending angle of the road perhaps made it easier. There was also, lesser traffic. Even so, we reached Manali late in the evening. We returned to the HPTDC guest house and received the same room again. After quick, hot, warming showers, we returned to the room to discuss plans for the evening. Manali that night was all about Kasol. All four of us wanted to go, as we had never been to a rave before, and the idea piqued our curiosity. But I wasn’t feeling well enough to go to Kasol in that weather and Sumanth decided to stay back with me.
Moham and 3 rode to Kasol in the thick fog of that night, a round trip of a hundred and fifty kilometers, and returned in the early hours of dawn to tell us a riveting tale. They had gotten lost near Kasol, had to park their motorcycle to trek up a hill, through a forest, and in the middle of the forest they had found a clearing. They were navigating by following the lights of a village that they could see through the gaps in the leaves. At the end of the clearing, they ran into a rope bridge, hanging dangerously low at the center, over the monstrous raging of a powerful river. Looking at each other, they gingerly stepped onto the bridge, testing it. Just as they reached the middle of the bridge, the distant lights of the village that were guiding them suddenly disappeared; a power cut.
Moham and 3 groaned. Night returned swiftly. The sounds of the forest began to creep up on them over the sound of the river. In the middle of the bridge they waited, trying to make small talk, friendship slowly strengthening, as they watched the foam of the river disappear under their feet, as swift as the night.
Deciding it was best to keep moving forward, Moham turned on a torch he had brought with him and walked forward. But before he could take another step, he yelped, and found that he was about to step on a group of eerie-white scorpions. Gingerly stepping over them, they relaxed for the briefest second, before discovering, under the white light of the torch, that the entire bridge was infested with hundreds of those tiny scorpions. They were running around on the footboards, on the ropes and on the railings of the bridge, the same railings they had used as support to come this far across the bridge. Struggling in the half light, they crossed the bridge carefully, walking single-form right down the middle of the bridge, avoiding the now sleep-disturbed, agitated scorpions. Ten nervous minutes later, the power came back on, and they walked out the forest and right into the village.
When they asked about the rave, the lone gunman – yes – the lone gunman pointed them towards a large hut. When I asked them why, of all the people in the village, did they decide to ask the gunman for directions, 3 replied that he was the only person in sight. The village was deserted. When they entered the hut, a dull, orange light from a zero-watt bulb greeted them, and a tall man appeared and asked them to wait at a cozy divan.
Reclining in the divan, 3 and Moham wondered what they had gotten themselves into. But they didn’t have a lot of time to ponder, as the man re-appeared and asked them to follow him. Rising slowly, unsure of what awaited them, they followed the man into another dark room, and then through another door, where the increasing crescendo of bad trance music calmed their minds. This was a rave. One more door later, their excitement fell another notch when they found eleven to fifteen men – of an assorted collection of nationalities - dancing to the music in a half-lit, half-trashed dance floor. Smoke from marijuana and hashish and cigarettes hung around, looking equally disappointed with the entire affair.
All they could think about was having to walk back over that scorpion-infested bridge.
From Manali we did an overnighter to reach Chandigarh in the wee hours of the morning. But we first had to get through the ghat sections of Mandi. The roads of Mandi ghat were twists and were tempest. The rain and the night and the final slice of moon had made the night and the road dark and slippery. With the rain as our host we had started our ride back to the plains, and had found ourselves repeatedly lost in its haze. The hot road steamed in the cooling rain and the steam rose to meet the clouds. 3 and I rode on this wild road uninterrupted except for the constant flow of trucks; endless chains of iron and steel floating on rubber wheels, manned by mindfulness and mindlessness alike. We needed to reach Chandigarh by sunris
e, but the continuous barrage of trucks was not helping our cause. Moham was leading the charge, overtaking truck after truck in sinful display of poetic motorcycle riding. He swept between trucks effortlessly in a free fall fluidity that seemed to lend the concrete road the fluency of water. Moham defined ghat-riding that night. He would signal to 3 and I, who were right behind him, and warn us of any trucks hidden from our sight, and we would pass the signal along to Sumanth amidst blind, dark curves.
At 1 AM, halfway down the ghats, 3 and I stopped to catch our breath and wait for Moham and Sumanth at a tea shop, along with at least thirty truckers. Sumanth joined us five minutes later, but Moham was nowhere to be found. After waiting for nearly half an hour, we started again, cutting through legions of trucks until the mountains and the hills were left behind, and the heat informed us that we were in the plains again. We found Moham waiting for us outside Chandigarh, smiling and extremely happy with himself. After a two- hour power nap on the side of the road, we fell in again with the highway and reached Delhi around 4 pm.
*