V is for Vittels of morels, ferns and rose stems #AtoZChallenge

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the last week of the #Blogging from A to Z  April Challenge 2021. My theme this year is based on the Japanese concept of Ichigo Ichie which means--"What we are experiencing right now will never happen again. And therefore, we must value each moment like a beautiful treasure."

I've put together a collage of such moments which can be seen as chance occurrences, coincidences, pre-destined or random (depending on who you ask) for this month's challenge. 

I hope you'll enjoy being here.

Thank you.

Arti

Number 6 in the list of rules listed in the epilogue of  The Book of Ichigo Ichie is:

Apply mindfulness to your five senses: Train yourself in the art of listening, watching, touching, tasting and smelling to give each moment the richness of human perception.

You may recall my first post, Alex and the Bees, of this year's A to Z Challenge. It described a moment in May 2019 when Alex, Apu and I were sitting in Pradhanji's house in Maunda, the last village of Uttarakhand.

I mentioned in that post that we had been exploring the village and its surrounding forests before we stopped for tea at Pradhanji's house that day.

I was looking for a suitable V to use in the title of this post: verdant, vegetarian, very tasty, when 'vittels' showed up. It's a nonstandard variant of the word 'victuals' meaning food or provisions for human beings. Perfect, I thought and plucked the word out of its archaic, nonstandard usage to use it as the title today.

May 2019: 

As soon as we joined the small group of village-guides on the dirt road outside Guruji's house, our education began. Not a single tree, shrub, leaf, bird, insect we spotted on our walk that morning was left un-named or un-explored.

Wild roses were heavy with pale, pink blooms. Their rebellious vines had carpeted everything in their way. We stopped. Picked a thorny stem. Learnt about the parts that are bitter and the ones that are sweet.   

And then we ate:

Having tasted success and rose sweetness on the first day out, our food foraging plans grew bolder. Alex mentioned morels and wondered if May would be a good time to go morel hunting.

"Of Course!" everyone said. "No harm trying...if weather permits."

So, the next day, fortified with pahadi (mountain) picnic food, Pradhanji, Guruji and Veeru led us deeper and higher in the forests and hills surrounding the village.  Our volunteer guides walked in slippers while the three of us laced up our trekking shoes and tucked our walking sticks in our bag packs. The morning was clear and crisp, not a cloud was visible in the sky.

 

Our first find was fiddle-head ferns or lingda (local name). It's also called German asparagus. It is delicious. 

Recipe: Wash the young stalks, take out the stringy sides, chop them into half inch pieces. Heat some butter/ghee, stir in the lingda for a minute or two. Add salt and eat. Yummy!

The climb up the mountain, covered with deodars and oaks and a thick undergrowth wasn't easy. But, every now and then, food would be spotted, picked, explained and  recipes discussed. Those stops were enough to recharge our lungs.

Pradhanji and Guruji scampered ahead like deer.

Veeru stayed with us: guiding our city feet through forest floors. 'Walk this way, avoid that,' he'd pepper his chatter with helpful instructions. He told us about his dream of making a living as an artist based in the mountains. He  remembered his childhood aloud in the forest--recalling a time when foraging was a way of life, not like today when it was being done to show the visitors a side of their lives they themselves were on the verge of forgetting. 

Pradhanji called from up ahead. We joined him, He showed us the gold he'd gathered. Forest oyster mushrooms are called chhatri or the squeaky sounding chyanoon by the locals.

After this point, I had to tuck my camera under my arm to use both my hands to scramble up the slippery slope where the men were sure they'd find morels. They'd seen some last year, they said, in this part of the slope. It amazes me how their eyes can spot so easily and their memories recall so clearly without maps or a GPS! While someone I live with (not taking any names) can't spot salt in the kitchen cupboard! 

"Aa jao...yahan hain." (Come over, spotted some) called out Pradhanji.

They'll  find better ones growing near this one. And I'll try to use my camera, not the phone.

This was the hardest photo to click. My foot kept slipping. I wouldn't go too far down if  I slipped but getting hurt, twisting an ankle or scraping a knee, would've made the climb down and the trek back to the village pretty onerous.

Notice how all three of us are holding on to branches...photo courtesy: Veeru.

After another half an hour or so, we reached the top. Twigs and dried leaves were collected to roast the steamed cakes (called Sidku) that Julie and her helpful neighbour had prepared and packed for our planned picnic in the forest.

The dough for sidku is prepared with flour mixed with boiled potatoes. Doughnut size dough balls are steamed. They're quite dense. One piece and you don't need to be fed for the rest of the day. Easy food to carry when one is travelling through forests and mountains. We were told these can be filled with poppy seeds, too. Soft sniggers, wicked winks and general hilarity accompanied that piece of extra information. Julie told us that just one of those poopy seed buns was enough to knock you off into happy land for many hours.

The ones we ate that day were prepared simply with potatoes and salt. Sidku was roasted in the fire and eaten with chillies under the shade of tall and wide deodars. Birds were busy singing. Ants were busy working. The six of us munched and absorbed the mountain in silence.

After enough time had passed, we got up and carried our forest loot back to the village. 

Sadly, in their enthusiasm to impress us with their culinary skills, the men used too many spices in the morel dish. Alex, Apu and I would've preferred a simpler preparation. But we thanked them for their hospitality and discussed the 'what if' among the three of us afterwards.

The fiddle head fern or lingda, however, was cooked to perfection: simply and quickly, using ghee, garlic, salt and pepper.

We polished it off with gusto.

You may recall from J is for Julie post that when we had visited the village in October of 2018, Julie had told us she didn't like to cook. It was good to see her feminist ways had found her helpers in the kitchen by the time we went back in May 2019. 

Pradhanji and Julie's  brother-in-law, Kishen, prepared dinner that night.

The fact that this post has more short clips or V for videos makes me smile:) 

Have you ever foraged for food in the wild or outdoors?

Do morels grow where you live?

What's you favourite spring-time vegetable? 

This year, I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z  powered by theblogchatter.com 

S is for Salt and Chillies #AtoZChallenge

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the fourth week of the #Blogging from A to Z  April Challenge 2021. My theme this year is based on the Japanese concept of Ichigo Ichie which means--"What we are experiencing right now will never happen again. And therefore, we must value each moment like a beautiful treasure."

I've put together a collage of such moments which can be seen as chance occurrences, coincidences, pre-destined or random (depending on who you ask) for this month's challenge. 

I hope you'll enjoy being here.

Thank you.

Arti.

"A good mood, helped along by pleasant company, 

is an essential ingredient for enjoying our food."

Quote borrowed from The Book of Ichigo Ichie       

*****

You've all met Julie on 'J' day. But, if you missed out, you can meet her today : Julie

We go back to October 2018 for today's post, back to Julie and Guruji's house in Maunda, the last village of Uttarakhand.

The night was cold. The sky was an ocean of stars twinkling in inky waters. Our group of seven was sitting around an electric heater in Guruji's sitting room on thin carpets layered with thick, warm woollen rugs, cocooned in our thermals and down jackets. 

Whenever anyone entered or left the room (mostly to bring tea or water) he/she was told to shut the door securely.

Julie came in holding a steel thali and a katori (plate and bowl).

"Eat this. You'll love it. Eat with the chutney--majja aayega." crisp like the cold October night, Julie issued her instructions, handed the thali and katori to Rajat and left the room.

Roughly chopped wedges of apple, some big, some small, crowded the thali. 

"These are from our baag (orchard)." Guruji announced proudly.

I'd spotted one or two pink and white blossoms on the apple trees circling their house when we had arrived. Late bloomers. We were told the apple harvest had suffered because of unseasonal rains that year. The apples, although delicious, had become marked and were therefore not good enough to be sold in the mandi (market).

"Take the chutney." reminded Pradhanji, who was also sitting with us. 

I took a slice of apple, dipped it in the bowl, picked a tiny blob of coarse green chutney and took my first bite. 

A crescendo of lip-smacking, ooing, aahing and omging and wondering what could've made this chutney so damn tasty rose around the heater. 

Then Julie came back with more apple slices and chutney.

"You liked it." she announced her question with the surety of someone who knows how good their wares are.

"What was in it?" Rajat, the hotelier, asked.

"Salt and chillies."

"Must be Himalayan salt, pink salt?" offered Siddharth, another trekker who owns a successful restaurant.

"Na..na...arre, it's that packet one from the shop." Julie dismissed his suggestion with a smile.

"Must be the sillbatta (pestle and mortar) then. This taste--has to come from hand grinding chillies." Vani added.

"Arre, na...na...I can't handle sillbatta. I'm too old. I made it in the mixie (mixer-grinder)." Julie thwarted every suggestion skilfully.

"Are you sure there's nothing other than salt and chillies in the chutney?" Rajat tried again.

"Of course not! Just those chillies growing outside and saada namak (simple salt)." Julie's eyes were shining with tears of mirth at our expense while we sat around the heater, enamoured by her everyday, ordinary chutney.

It had to be the chillies. It had to be the good, nutritious soil of Julie's garden. It had to be her love. It had to be the fact that she grows them herself. We sat there that night listing all the ingredients Julie took for granted and therefore forgot to mention to us when we asked her for her chutney recipe.

The next morning, we left for the trek. We met her on the way. She was walking back home after collecting fresh grass for Lali, her cow.

"As long as I can walk, I'll feed her fresh grass." Julie had told us once.

The one thing I was looking forward to the most (second only to a shower) when we reached Maunda after our arduous trek was apple wedged dipped in Julie's home made chutney.

Do you have a simple 2/3 ingredient recipe that you'd like to share?

Is there a spice, condiment, chutney you cannot do without?

You know I'd love to hear, if you'd like to share.

I wrote about serendipity in 2017. I didn't know about the concept of Ichigo Ichie then, but this post is a perfect fit : Silver Serendipity

This year, I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z  powered by theblogchatter.com 

J is for Julie of Maunda #AtoZChallenge

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the third week of the #Blogging from A to Z  April Challenge 2021. My theme this year is based on the Japanese concept of Ichigo Ichie which means--"What we are experiencing right now will never happen again. And therefore, we must value each moment like a beautiful treasure."

I've put together a collage of such moments which can be seen as chance occurrences, coincidences, pre-destined or random (depending on who you ask) for this month's challenge.

For the 'J' post of this challenge, I'm sharing a snippet from my travel memoir of Maunda, a remote village in Uttarakhand, northern India. The motorable road that goes to Maunda ends there. It goes no further. 

I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

Thank you.

Arti.

Her hazel eyes were the first thing I noticed about her. Her headscarf or ghaatu was the second. The green in her scarf played off the flecks of green in her eyes.

She offered us water. We, our names.

‘Julie.’ She said. My name is Julie.’

‘How come?’ I wanted to ask but didn’t.

Such an unusual, such an English name for a lady who lives in a remote village in the Himalayas, I thought while admiring her gold nose-pin.

My gaze made her touch her nose pin.

“It’s beautiful.” I said.

Her face broke into a smile and she looked towards me, sideways with her golden green eyes, “I used to be very beautiful once. I’m not even that old but my body couldn’t bear children easily, so I look older than I am.” Julie explained her wrinkles to us before we’d had our first cup of tea with the directness and honesty of the mountains.

Julie’s house is built in a typical Garhwali style. Windows wrap around the entire house like a scarf. With views as beautiful as the ones surrounding these villages, it’s good to see men, women and children often sitting by these windows on window sills or wooden benches that are kept right by the windows, watching clouds, goats, raindrops, villagers and the occasional trekker go by. Instead of their heads bent in reverence to phone screens, the humans of Maunda look up, look high, look left and right and their eyes see far beyond the obvious, their smiles stretch to welcome passers-by and a casual ‘Raam, Raam’ or ‘How’s it going?’ echoes from their lips.

By the time we made our way to the bedrooms on the second floor, the welcome party of men from the village had left and evening had arrived, like it does in the mountains, almost too quickly. One minute the sky is blue with day and the next, even before it has had time to blush and kiss the sun goodbye, it dissolves and turns inky. The moon and the stars are always in a rush to peep out of Himalayan skies.

It was getting cold. 

Apu and I grabbed our extra layers and made our way back to the landing, back where Julie had offered us water.

“Aren’t you cold?” Julie called out from her kitchen door.

“Come in. It’s warm in here. Andar aao…come in.” she insisted as she maneuvered to get inside the kitchen while holding a pressure cooker with both hands. She didn't let us help her.  She’d done this a million times and her assured ways turned us into her audience. We watched while she performed. We were in Julie’s kingdom. We were watching her in her seat of power: her kitchen.

“I don’t like to cook, you know.” She confessed almost as soon as the three of us settled down on the kitchen floor. “I keep telling Guruji (her husband) to get me some help. I’m getting old now. When my daughters come to visit, they don’t let me do a thing in the kitchen.”

A few pangs of guilt mixed with the ones from hunger inside me as I looked across to Julie, sitting next to her stove. The brick red wool of her socks ran in cables across her feet, glowing with warmth in her immaculate kitchen lit up by a white tube light.

Julie wrestled the lid of the pressure cooker open and poured out steaming, boiled potatoes into a paraat and started peeling.

Apu and I offered to help. She let us.

*****

Simple, straightforward, ordinary, every day chores such as preparing food can be turned into treasures if we look at them as once in a lifetime moment. When I decided to share the above extract for today's post, that's what struck me. 

Covid-19's fog has somehow made the concept of Ichigo Ichie clearer to me.

Have you been fascinated by someone's eyes, jewellery, clothes while on holiday or otherwise? 

I'd love to hear, if you'd like to share.

This year, I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z  powered by theblogchatter.com 

A is for Alex and the Bees #AtoZChallenge

"Before beginning to study the sacred texts and constantly singing the sutras, the student should learn to read the love letters sent by the snow, the wind and the rain."

-IKKYU, Zen Master 

Quote borrowed from  'The Book of Ichigo Ichie'

Dear Readers,

For the first post of this challenge, I'm sharing a snippet from my travel memoir of Maunda, a remote village in Uttarakhand, northern India. The motorable road that goes to Maunda ends there. It goes no further. 

I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

Arti.

The morning sun sparkled across the slices of blue sky wedged between tall deodars and broad cedars as Alex, Apu and I explored the village and its outskirts with Pradhanji, the village chief, along with a couple of other villagers one day in mid-May in 2019. 

Every leaf, petal, fruit and tree that grew on the path was explored by us (the visitors) and explained by the villagers. If a shrub or tree wasn't used for food, it had medicinal or cosmetic uses. This was Alex's first time in Maunda. Apu and I had been to the village the previous year. After a couple of hours, Pradhanji invited us to his house for tea.

After the downstairs had been looked at and commented upon, Pradhanji climbed the stairs ahead of us and issued a request for tea for everyone in the general direction of the kitchen while beckoning the three of us to follow him upstairs to sit in his sitting room-with-a-view.

It’s a small L shaped room on the first floor with huge Garhwali style windows peering over the valley below. A few plastic chairs and wooden benches are placed perfectly to enjoy the verdant views.

Apu chose to snuggle up on a chair by the window. Alex sat by the door we had entered the room through and I sat opposite Alex, a foot or so away from Apu, facing the door, the back of my chair resting against the wall with a tiny hole. The hole in the wall was approximately an inch and a half in diameter with a broken and blackened circumference.

As soon as I settled into my chair, a bee, a honey bee, buzzed past me, hovered over Apu for a little while before deciding to fly out of the room.

Alex’s eyes watched the bee and widened with surprise.

Before the first bee reached the edge of the window sill, another bee appeared before me, buzzed, took a few curious circles around my hand holding my cup of tea and then followed the first bee’s route out of the window, flying past Apu.

Alex’s eyes were screaming silently by now. His fingers tightened their hold on his teacup.

Apu looked up at me. I smiled.

The trickle of bees had swollen into a steady stream by now. They were busy flying in single file out of the opening in the wall behind me and making a bee-line for the window.

Alex couldn’t hold it in any longer, “Bees! Honey bees!” he stated the obvious with barely hidden disbelief.

“They’re harmless.” Apu mentioned and went back to her day dreaming. She continued to gaze out of the window.

I was enjoying the look on Alex’s face, so I smiled to show him that all was well: he could chill. We had the same look on our faces last year when we'd seen the bees in this room for the first time. I'm not sure our assurances convinced him. Being a gentle soul, he continued to sip his tea but his eyes kept following each bee’s flight keenly. 

“Arre Alex Ji, these bees have lived here for as long as I’ve lived here.” said Pradhanji. “My father discovered this hive when we first started making a few changes to this part of the house--almost fifty years ago. He decided to let the hive be. We’ve all grown used to each other. We don’t bother them and they don’t trouble us.”

Just then, Pradhanji’s little grandson crawled into the room from the door next to Alex. Three bees were buzzing over his head like a noisy halo.

Alex smiled. I could see his eyes were taking in the miracle of symbiosis.

The little one gurgled and crawled eagerly to his grandfather who picked him up, kissed him and set him down again to continue with his crawling.

“What about the honey? Don’t you harvest it?” Alex asked.

“What they make is for them. That’s their food. We get our honey from the hives we farm.” stated Pradhanji.

For the rest of the afternoon, we sat in Pradhanji’s L-shaped sitting room looking out of the sky blue windows that framed mighty deodars and oaks standing tall and proud--all the way into the horizon--as far as the eye could see.

The little one crawled through the chairs’ legs, our legs, while bees buzzed around him like wound up toys.

Shangri-La is alive and well in a village in Uttarakhand where men let bees live in hives built inside houses because their ancient instincts show them how intricately bees and humans are bound together. That day, I was left wondering if they really need roads to open up their minds or  modern technology to teach them how to live and let live. 

But, who am I? I'm a traveller who appears once a year at their doorstep. It's the youth and the elders of this village who'll have to decide how to balance the modern with the ancient; how to learn to keep up with the times without unlearning the songs of the wind, the snow, the bees and the mountains.

(Pradhanji's house in Maunda)

The village of Maunda, Uttarakhand

*****

Have you ever come by a moment of symbiosis such as this?  

You know I'd love to hear, if you'd like to share.

This year, I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z  powered by theblogchatter.com 

Waiting for Mules: a photo essay of our trek to Chainsheel Lake (Part 1) #TravelouesofArtiJain

Dear Readers,

I hope you are all well and healthy.

Today, I'm sharing memories of a trek that I went on in October 2018. As memories are many and wonderful, I've decided to split the travelogue into parts.

Offering part 1 today for your reading pleasure.

The photos were made then but are being looked at and shared now--thanks to my current home-bound journey status, I'm able to look back at the treasures of my past travels and relish them all over again.

I hope you'll join me.

Warm regards

Arti.

The morning temperature read -5 degrees Celsius in Mandi Thatch. Misty fog seemed reluctant to let go of the sun. She wanted another cuddle.  

It was the morning after the night of celebrating Vani's 50th birthday. 

Vani, a dancer, a health coach and an avid trekker had decided to celebrate her milestone birthday in the mountains, doing what she likes best--trekking. And even though October gets cold in the Himalayas, a couple of us volunteered to be part of her birthday celebrations--happily and eagerly.

Apu, as usual, did all the spade work. She sent us the itinerary and a packing list. Looking at the weather predictions, I packed all the thermal vests and leggings I had ever bought from UniQlo and landed in Maunda: a village that will become very dear to us after this trip. 

Outdoor Monks were trusted with the task of taking us to our destination: Chainsheel Lake, nestled in the lush green folds of Chainsheel bhugyal -- a high altitude meadow in the Himalayas perched at 3,600 metres above sea level. As there had been a few unfortunate episodes of loss of life in these parts the previous year, the village Pradhanji and one of his friends, Rana ji, came along with us as local guides.

You can see Maunda's charming Pradhan ji (on the right of this photo) all set to embark on the trek with us.  While we were lugging all the thermals known to us and were kitted out in our carefully thought out trekking gear, Pradhan ji's preparation included packing his phone and  a change of clothes and Ranaji for his part, carried his transistor. 

Our trek started in Maunda.  The khacchar wala (the mule owner) who was supposed to accompany the team did not turn up. So, some local lads from a nearby village were roped in to help out with the trek.

The trail we were supposed to take had not been accessed all year. So, this trek to celebrate Vani's 50th would wear many hats -- as a trial to check out the route, as an opportunity to capture its beauty to promote the village of Maunda as a suitable base to start all future treks from and consequently bring much needed commerce into the village.  All we, the mountain lovers whose souls dwell in these parts, needed was an excuse to pack up and go. So we did.

Six or seven hours of hiking later, we reached Sonawat Thatch, our first camp site, by early evening. 

Tents were set up. Dinner followed a couple of rounds of tea and a young moon shone in the deep Himalayan sky while we rested.

As an early riser and as someone who can make do with four hours of sleep on treks, I can be found outside my tent, waiting for the sun to rise.  The next morning was no different.

For me, every sunrise and every sunset witnessed is like a new book read or a poem told. The alchemy of sun and sky in those hours has to be witnessed to behold. 

Sunrises and sunsets are the best kind of gold to hoard in a life time. I'd like to be the Bill Gates of sunsets and sunrises one day. I'm not kidding. I'm extremely ambitious like that.

The sun rose like a sorcerer that morning and sprinkled Sonawat Thatch with its magic.

The mules, though, had a slightly different point of view. Do you notice the ground frost? 

After breakfast, we loaded our day packs on our backs, slathered on sun cream while the team loaded the mules with everything else--all the essentials needed to spend five nights outdoors, in the Himalayas in October.

Clear blue skies, grove after grove of bare branched birch trees and unending rows of mountains kept our spirits up and vibrant. Mountains come in all shapes and forms. The one we were about to traverse seemed to have suffered a few erosive blows from land slides in the monsoon rains. The path ahead started getting narrower and rockier.  

And then it became dangerous. The only saving grace was that it wasn't raining. We crossed this stretch in single file. The rubble and debris on the path made it slippery at places. But as humans with two legs carrying just the day's supplies of lunch, water and extra layers, we managed to cross over pretty deftly and then whooped a triumphant whoop when we got to the other side. The mules who were following us had a very different experience.

You see, treks are a means of income for villages in the Himalayas where employment opportunities are rare as all developmental policies in India, like in many other countries, focus exclusively on manufacturing and building and hardly ever on preserving and conserving. We are all witnessing the effects of such lopsided, money-making, short-term solution based policies.  Treks in these parts are akin to a co-operative movement: the entire village benefits from it, assuming that the head or pradhan has his people's best interest at heart. 

Mules are loaded up with tents and other camping equipment. Care is taken to ensure they are not over burdened and that the weight is proportionate on both sides. A trekking team is as good as its mules/donkeys. Without them, treks such as the one I go on wouldn't be possible. This also provides earning opportunities to the village youth who would otherwise head out to towns and cities, as is the case in so many parts of India. Thus, emptying villages of youth and hope. 

As you can see, with all this load, it was impossible for the mules to cross the narrow ledge. We didn't know any of this, of course. We had carried on ahead and when there were no donkeys in sight behind us, had decided to wait for them.

It was a very long wait!

We waited and we waited and then we waited some more. First, I went around clicking photos of mountains and trees. Then, I munched on an apple. Then I clicked a few photos of us waiting. That's Apu up there. Now, the thing is that without our mules, we wouldn't be able to carry on ahead. I'm usually lost in my own world so I tend to find out what's going on pretty late. Any stop on a trek is an unhindered opportunity to click. So I click and don't ask too many questions.  When the waiting didn't end for a very long time, I asked.

"They're having trouble with that last pass." Someone said.

All manners of speculations and suggestions fluttered around the group. Pradhanji, for his part, sat unperturbed and Ranaji's transistor rang out ---"Yeh Akashwani ki...seva..." to break the silence when conversations died down: as they do when one is faced with an unexpected change of plans. 

"I can see them." declared Pradhanji, getting up from the perch he was sitting on- on his haunches all this while, smoking.

"Where? Where?" we all erupted simultaneously.

"Ooooh...there....can you see that falan-falan bend ..." he pointed his finger in the direction we'd just come up from.

To say that it took me an hour after he'd spotted the moving mules on the horizon to make out dark blobs of movement far, far, away is no exaggeration. Well, that's what you get when you live in cities---you stop seeing clearly!

A collective sigh of relief followed by a chorus of "kya hua, kya hua?" (what happened, what happened?) greeted the team when they finally joined us in Mandi Thatch, our camp site for the day.

As expected, the narrow ledge had freaked out the mules who rely entirely on their instincts for survival. So, their loads had to be offloaded. Each mule was then cajoled/pushed/perhaps even threatened to cross the ledge, guided by its keeper. The loads were then carried by the team across the ledge and only when the mules felt settled, were they loaded up, balanced and secured (for the second time that day) for the rest of the journey. 

Once reunited, the tents were pitched, tea was made and life returned to normal once again.

That night, Surinder, the chef, excelled far and beyond our expectations. He makes the most amazing food but when he and the team brought out a cake: baked in the tent in a pressure cooker and dotted with candles to celebrate Vani's 50th, it left us all speechless. I still can't fathom how Surinder manages to bake and cook such feasts at such altitudes! The cake was delicious.

Sunset and bonfire, cake and cuppa, songs of 'Happy birthday' sung in English and Garhwali, tum jiyo hazzaron saal... followed by amazing shero-shayari (poetry recitals) by Pradhanji created a celebration like none seen before or since. It was perfect. We went to bed clad in many layers of warmth, both the thermal kind and the fuzzy kind one feels in ones heart when man and nature come together.

The next morning unfolded dramatically. 

"Our mules have gone.... khacchar bhaag gaye...the mules have fled..." cries of wonder and hilarity (the kind one finds in unimaginable situations) tweeted around Mandi Thatch along with birdsong a little before sun rise. 

The morning was bitterly cold.

Siddhartha's thermometer refused to rise above -5 degrees Celcius despite his effort to take it to the 'sunniest' spot around his tent.

After some chaotic kerfuffle trying to figure out the mules' whereabouts, the team figured that they must've made their way back to their village--yes, equivalent to  a day and a half of our trek thus far. A little sleuthing revealed that while the mules' novice keepers took to their grasses to invite sound sleep, the mules had decided to scamper all the way back to the warmth and familiarity of their own haystacks and sheds in the village. Animal instincts are fine tuned for survival. 

Another wait unfolded. But, with hot cups of tea, yummy breakfast and enough warm layers, we were able to crack jokes. Or perhaps, it's the innate optimism of a new day breaking out over the mountains that makes one see everything through the prism of positivism. Or maybe, it was Pradhanji's chilled out vibes that helped. His reaction to the situation was akin to a father's whose son or daughter  has just missed the school bus and he knows he'll have to take his car/scooter out to drop his offspring--a slight deviation in daily routine but nothing to get worked up about. When one is in sync with nature, patience comes naturally.

Khacchar walas (keepers of mules) took off to look for the stars of the trek and to fetch them back. 

As soon as word reached  that they had been spotted and were now being brought back, it was decided that the group would carry on ahead with Bharat, our team leader, while the rest of the team of Outdoor Monks will wait to load up the Moody Mules and follow us.

By then, fog had reluctantly let go of the sun. The long wait for our band of rebels to be found worked in our favour. Slowly and steadily, a bright sunny day began to emerge from the smothering cuddles of Himalayan fog.

Everything sparkled-- snow, stones, shrubs and our smiles:)

A 'happy' birthday girl:)

The pictures that follow were all taken on Day 3 of the trek: we covered 11 kms that day from Mandi Thatch (Bhutaha) to Sarutal. Come along and enjoy the spectacular views. The air is fresh and crisp. Cerulean skies and fluffy clouds are ready to keep you company.

To stand and ponder and stare for hours without any agenda or plans--now, that's bliss in my world. And when one gets amazing chai after a long day of walking and admiring, that's what I call sone pe suhaga:
translation: Gold. Pure Gold.

I'll be back with more bags of gold for you soon-ish. Part 2 of this travelogue promises to blow your socks off -- or rather freeze them--because while we will be climbing higher to get closer to Chainsheel Lake, the temperature will tumble lower.

The views, however, will make it all worth your while as they did for us.

Till then, stay safe and healthy. Smile often and dance whenever you can:)

Happy weekend dear ones. xx

D is for Dewdrops on daisies in forests of deodar #AtoZChallenge

Every once in a while you come across someone who says something to you which makes you stop and ponder.

Last year in May, I met Alex in Dehradun.

Aparna and I had been on a trek to Chainsheel Lake in October 2018 and Maunda, a village nestled in the Himalayas on the border of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, was our base camp. We stayed in the village for two nights; once on the way up and then again on our return from Chainsheel. Something about the village and its people enchanted us so much that we decided to visit again. 

Alex joined us and in May of 2019 the three of us climbed into a comfortable white Innova in Dehradun: destination--Muanda, estimated travel time--nine to ten hours. 

Where the tarmacked road ends, Maunda begins. It is the last village reachable by motorable roads in Uttarakhand.

May turned out to be even more magical than October. Spring was still lingering on in late apple blossoms while summer had started fattening lingda fronds (wild fiddlehead fern).

This tiny village of deodars and chestnuts, a cow called Laali and a matriarch named Julie left a deep impression on me. My pahadi (of the mountains) soul felt at home among its roadside sea of stinging nettles and tricky to reach truffles. Often, during our stay, a bird or a fragrance or just the way dew drops glinted in the morning sun would unravel a longing within and I'd break into a reverie of fond childhood memories about Papaji and his garden.

Alex and Aparna would listen and watch me revel in the details of my own narrative .

"You should write about it. You are a daughter of the mountains, you should." said Alex one day as we sat sipping our drinks of choice, chai for us and coffee for him, looking over a field of daisies carpeting every inch of visible land under the shade of the ancient deodars. 

Alex's dark eyes shone a little more brightly as I looked at him and nodded. 

His words sowed a seed.

I have fantasised about writing a book for as long as I can remember. But, other than jerky starts and fanciful wishing, I have not given this dream any solid ground to take root.

Papaji used to spend hours tilling his kyarian (flowerbeds) and vegetable patch: raking the soil, mulching the ground, adding cow dung and tea leaves and composted heaps to nourish the plot -- to make it fertile and ready before dropping the seeds.

How will the seed flourish if the soil is not turned? How will ideas germinate if the learning hasn't churned into unlearning? How will words spout without practice? How will the pen write if the journey within hasn't begun in earnest? 

No matter the weather, no matter the time, if his garden jobs had to be done, Papaji did them without excuses. His garden was scared to him. The love with which he looked after it demanded a discipline that he was always willing to give. Did he ever feel lazy, I wonder. Did resistance ever make him doubt his skills as a grower of beautiful things?

"Let resistance do his work. You do yours." a quote by B.K.S. Iyengar helps me when I falter in my practice of yoga or writing.

Alex's words have been planted carefully into my days. I find the time to nurture them with regular writing. A sentence, a para or a page: it doesn't matter. I'm doing my work. 

Resistance is the shadow that follows me everywhere. She turns on the latest Netflix series and slips down rabbit holes of pretending-to-be-research-based google searches every now and then. I let her. I do my work. I toil the soil of what's sacred to me everyday so that when the sun of inspiration shines, I'll be ready.

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Have you hugged a tree recently? What did you see when you looked up?

I've cobbled together a few photos I shot in May 2019, in Chakrata, Uttarakhand to create this video:

And have used Ustad Vilayat Khan's music to accompany the daisies and the deodars.

A lone, late apple blossom will make his debut too:)
Enjoy.

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Have any words uttered by a friend, acquaintance or a stranger made you take stock of your dreams ?
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If, by chance, you have lingda growing around where you live, try this Pahadi recipe:
Pahadi lingda with garlic and herb pasta
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Wishing you all a safe and healthy weekend.