Yamunotri
Trip Report – 9th May to 11th May 15
9th
May 15 – Saturday. Weather sunny and hot.
I will
not give the evocative description of the eco-pilgrimage I made to the Yamunotri, my third such trip.nMay be
I will give the coldly precise one. Okay, I will try to keep a balance between
my poetical outpourings and censorious comments on the eco destruction.
After
negotiating the torturingly long and over-crowedly cumbersome chaotic river-fuls
of vehicular traffic with plenty of iffs and buts, whys and should-be’s,
through Delhi to Ghaiabad to Meerut to Mujaffarnagar to Roorki to Haridwar; it
was a much needed and expected relief to our oxygen-thirsty lungs and greenery
hungry eyes when we reached on the Bheemgoda barrage and drove towards
Rishikesh barrage via Chilla canal road. My most favourite road in the northern
India so far. Alpine Swallows swooping down on the waters of the Ganga made our
lips turn into smile-widening mode. Other avian friends delighted us equally.
The drongo-cuckoo was learning his countings in an ascending scale.
Small
patch of the road in Rishikesh upto the one that leads us to Narender Nagar was
full of unfriendly noisy Vikrant auto-rickshaws.
How do these sadhus contemplate in these places? Why the Ashramwalas don’t
demolish their ashrams and climb further up? Leaving these places to the
commercially-minded traders and businessmen and equally nature-blind tourists?
If the
flow of the river stops or becomes stagnant at Haridwar/Rishikesh, the Ganga here will become a sewerage .. as
bad as is the Yamuna in Delhi. But who cares? Our present religious heads are
no more spiritually enlightened but commercially oriented… only bait for them
is money and publicity (as the case with all so called experts). There are
exceptions too.. but who cares?
Once on
the road to Narender Nagar, it was a joy
to see the woods, trees, hills, rivulets and birds…Passing by the Kunjpuri temple
bend, we were driving towards Chamba… brief halt at Kothari Dhaba for lunch and
tea. The slope from the dhaba to the passing rivulet was full of garbage .. all
unbio-degradable wrappers and covers and bottles… who cares?
Driving
past Chamba on the road to Gangotri and Yamunotri, we stopped at Kandisaur for
night halt. Nearly 400 kms in a day.
Paradise
Flycatcher was the highlight.
10th
May 15
Morning
we woke up to the bird calls. Wire-tailed Swallows were perched on the wire and
calling. After quick breakfast, we were heading towards Dharasu Bend..there we took left turn
towards Badkot and Yamunotri.
On way,
we stopped when we saw two Sadhus drying some leaves in the sun near a small
waterfall.. On being asked, the elder sadhu told me that those were the bhang
leaves to be smoked later as charas. The sadhu told us all without any
inhibitions, explaining that it helps
them to walk miles and miles without feeling heat or cold or tiredness… When I
asked him more about their ‘on foot’ trip, his answer was that he prefers to be
travelling single or double because “Ek niranjan, do sukhi; Teen main anban,
char dukhi” (The One (Brahman) is pure Being, two (Purush and Prakriti) are happy; three (the jeeva, the maya and the
agyan) are quarrelling; the four (the divided and fragmented beings seen
through separated egos) are sad). Happy as it made us, we offered him a big
currency note, which he happily accepted and offered his blessings. For some
reasons, he reminded me of Rahul Sanskrityayan’s First class traveler.
On way,
seeing a parked van with a banner “pilgrimage on foot from Haridwar to four
Dhams and back”, I stopped the car and asked the young looking man who was
eating his breakfast with 6 or 7 others including some women about their trip. He happily explained that the van (Maruti
Omni) carries their kitchen and other stuff while they all walk and stops on
way whenever rest is needed… I admired and appreciated their efforts.. This is
van-dwelling travelers, a new trend in India to be encouraged more and more. I
request my friends whenever they see such groups, please appreciate and
encourage them.
At a
village, saw a group of young boys and
girls, all dressed in their best. Stopped to enquire the cause. Was told by the
most charming girl of them that her niece was being married and they were
waiting for the groom and his party to arrive. I looked at the shirt of a young
man .. that caries the painting of Salman Khan, who was recently awarded jail
term but was also granted bail by a higher court. I asked the reason why he was
wearing this second-degree bollywood hero on his shirt and not the paintings of
folk singer Negi, environmentalist Sundar Lal Bahuguna or chipko movement
leader Chandi Prasad Bhatt.. the man looked down without answering but I am
sure he must have thrown away the shirt at the earliest opportunity available.
The charming young lady smiled torrents of approvals at me and was mesmerized
how the driver of a Haryana Registered Car was knowing so much about their
local culture heros. Happy surprise at their faces made me accelerate the car a
bit suddenly, holding the front two wheels few inches high off the ground
below.
After
driving on smooth road sandwished with the pine-forest on both sides, we observed
a young man covered in currency note garlands and wedding make-up, being
photographed by his cousins and brothers and friends. When I asked, one of them
happily told me that they were going to the ‘bride home’ for wedding… so this
was the baraat the other young ladies were expecting to arrive… I asked the
groom why he was looking sad and depressed instead of feeling elated and happy,
he could manage a very faint smile but others burst into laughter.
Car engine also laughed noisily in the second gear from neutral one.
We
stopped at a secluded tea-stall, long in length but narrow in width. While tea
was being fixed, was updated by the tea-vendor that a leopard had killed a
woman who approached the feline unknowingly while cutting the grass for her
cattle. But the big cat was not a man eater, she was simply protecting herself
or may be her cubs too…. as no other case of human attacks was reported
afterwards.
I
appreciated his respect for the leopards. ..that is my way of encouraging love
for wildlife.
Suddenly
a few yards from me, a car coming from the opposite direction halted, the
driver waiving his right hands outside the window for me to stop. I too braked.
He came out .. must be of my age.. and asked me to get out..After making sure
that the unhappy looking man was safely harmless
and in utter need of some emotional help, I got out of the car and asked him ‘why’
with my facial gesture.
He
pointed to his co-traveller.. a lady.. in jeans and shirt with modern hair
style. Still she could be a heart throb,
though in her late fifties. The man, apparently her hubby told me that
his wife had been distracting his mind from the road by her ‘red wattled
lapwing like’ nonstop criticism on something he had committed in his past many
hours before. I looked at her face. To my happy surprise, she gave me her
sweetest smile and apparently felt delighted at her hubby’s dramatic way of
expressing his love and attention for his wife (and also his sincere apology).
I looked at them both without uttering a single word..feeling myself
speechless... the lady swiftly sprang to her feet and came out of car and
hugged her man in the most mesmerizing manner. I quickly retreated back to my
seat and ignited the engine. At the happy ending of an otherwise Shakespearean tragedy, I heard a Himalayan
Blue Whislting Thrush outpouring his best musical notes from a nearby pine tree
branch. A pair of Oriental Turtle Dove alighted not far from their vehicle on
the roadside to glean grass seeds or perhaps to collect nesting material.
We
drove ahead leaving the couple in their softest romantic display.
Drive from Badkot to Syanachatti was smooth, but
from Syanachatti to Janakichatti, the landscape turned from beautiful to
mesmerizingly soothing.. Deodar trees and other mixed forests were teeming with
bird calls. Crossing Ranachatti and Hanuman Chatti, we stopped at Janakti
Chatti. Checked into a hotel along the river Yamuna.. it began to rain with
thunders. Snow peaks were visible.
Night
halt at Janakti chatty hotel.
11th
May 2015
Visit
ed Yamunotri temple. Sprinkled water as a token of our respect to the river and the mountain. While the men
and women were interested in ritualistic performance, religious pandas were interested
in earning their mone, no one was interested in spiritualism. Our feathers friends - Brown Dippers and two species of Riverchats,
tits, vultures, Large billed crows, laughingthrushes made their presence felt.
But we
were distressed to see the insensitiveness of the priests as well as tourists
to maintain the cleanliness of our holy places. Hope someday, someone in the
administration will take notice and do something real on ground. I don’t expect
anything worthwhile from our religious heads as they are more money minded than
a trader, and nothing from the so called pilgrims as they are more interested
in washing their sins rather than respecting the sacredness of our nature.
The
punya goes to the cattle .. donkeys, horses, mules, ponies. One of them, due to
not many tourists to carry on his back, was rolling on his back kicking all his
four legs in the sky. See him in the pic.
Drove
back towards Badkot, Dharasu and Utarkashi. Night halt at Netali in a hotel on
the bank of river Bhagirathi.
Trip
Report to Gangotri in next part.
