I looked but didn't see anything.
'Look...look.' his body followed his pointed finger and folded into a squat peering at the ground. 'Can you see?'
I looked but I could not see.
I felt exactly as I had when my driving instructor had asked me,'which way is the wheel facing?'
We were both inside the car. I thought it was a trick/funny question.
'How can I know? I'm inside the car?'
I saw him slapping his forehead like Punjabis do to suggest no-hope for this one. (i.e. idda kucchch nee ho sakdaa). His eyes were peeled at my hands holding the steering wheel. He was trying to tell me the clue was in my hands with his eyes.
I didn't get it then. I was almost thirty when I decided to learn to drive. He had told me more than once that I should've done this when I was seventeen. i.e. I was too old. So, I knew he was biased.
Only after my legendary attempts at passing the driving test did I get it and then I felt as stupid as I was feeling that day at 10,000 ft above sea level trying to see what Jagat was pointing at in the lush meadows of Ali Bugyal.
Jagat scarped at the ground with his index finger and like an expert pair of pincers teased out a worm like creature from the ground.
'Open your palm.' he said and put the creature on it.
'Half plant, half worm.' he proclaimed.
'What?'
'Yartsa Gunbu, very, very, very expensive Tibetan medicine....it's plant for six months and worm for six months. Sells for 50,000 dollars for half a kilo!'
I trusted Jagat. All his information about the local flora and the peaks we were about to climb had sounded plausible up till then.
For better photos and a brief description of the biology of Yartsa Gunbu, please do click on: www.npr.org. You have an option to listen to the article. It's very informative.
After I got back from this wonderful son and mother trek to Roopkund, I started digging up more about this super expensive fungus.
Like all elixirs of youth and life, Yartsa Gunbu comes with its fair share of bans, police chases, rules put by governments and flouted by people for survival or greed.
'Locals, sometimes, go looking for it. It's illegal ....But....' Jagat's eyes had said the rest.
I came across stories of gangs, a man killed by another for YarstaGunbu which prompted the local government to put the ban.
However, as an aphrodisiac and as a status symbol (especially in China, I'm told), this tiny fungus has been the bane of many small villages in the Himalayan region.
I read a story of a man who went missing and was later found dead. Such stories are not uncommon in villages of Nepal. The more I googled, the more disenchanted I felt.
My heart breaks when I see this beauty and the beast of human greed that's acting just like the caterpillar fungus: consuming some villages from within.
Yartsa Gunbu is being researched and googling it will tell you that they seem to have found it useful for treating cancer and arthritis.
I hope and I pray that right measures are taken to farm it and that locals, the guardians of these magestic mountains are not short changed by the mighty corporations or greedy men and women. Even as I type this out, I can hear the echo of the emptiness of my words. But, hope I will.
