The compact speaker had seen better days, been on many treks and taken several falls. It was rusted around the edges but continued to play with such high fidelity that it was easy to see why my friend took it everywhere with him. Right now it was tucked into the cradle of his arms and belted out Lateralus by Tool as we walked along the Mall Road in Nainital.
Over thinking, over analysing
Separates the body from the mind
Cradled in his arm, a pampered pet
The steely night was pricked by street lamps flickering because of an erratic supply due to pilfering and eerily glowing LED lights outside closed shops. The mist settling around us gave the darkness a metallic sheen. A shaggy dog with a bleary, intelligent look wagged up to us and trotted along. If reborn souls were found mostly in the mountains then this one might have been a groupie for metal bands.
Reaching out to embrace the random
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come
We were returning after dinner at one of the lakeside restaurants when we were stopped by a bunch of urchins whose eyes were practically popping out from the thinner solution they were sniffing. One was hitting the other, they said, pointing to two of their peers who stood, swaying, trying to focus their eyes on each other. Their shirts had been recently relieved of buttons and the pockets hung like felled kites. They looked at us earnestly, mindless of the meldrops that had dried into icicles, expecting us to say something. Being the elder of the two, I decided to rise to the occasion.
Like a bomb dropped 20 minutes ago
I shared with them what my mother used to tell me and my sisters when we were kids which we summarily dismissed but now classically haunts me as I am gripped by zenosyne speeding past my 40s. They ought to realise, I told them, that these were the most carefree and wondrous years of their lives. Soon enough they will be all grown and gone away and they would miss each other terribly. From the way the boys stared at me I realised something was not quite alright. It was probably the circumstances, they didn’t look exactly connected like family. Guess I was flying higher than them even.
Spiral out, keep going
Spiral out, keep going
The dog was staring at us impatiently and growled at the boys for the unwelcome interlude. But we had probably stopped a fight that could have turned nastier. The boys ignored the dog and gawked at us, smirked knowingly at our own red eyes eager to jump out of their sockets bushed from all the hours on the road.
Garh Mukteshwar – it all adds to the change
An explosion of emotion and pollution had prompted our departure from Delhi that morning. Someone once close was leaving the country to settle abroad – in an ashram! Making matters worse was the air quality index which had sunken into the ‘severe plus’ category. The media which called Delhi ‘gas chamber’, ‘smoke room’, etc had run out of monikers. Though construction had been temporarily banned across the capital region, a thick haze still clung over suburban Ghaziabad like a bomb was dropped 20 minutes ago. We cut across the pewter air leaving a clear trail in our wake. Ginormous, half completed concrete structures loomed on both sides of the road like restless apparitions. A series of flyovers sprang up one after the other dutifully ferrying us forward uninterrupted by busy intersections and unseen traffic lights. We drove peering into the rear mirror for any sign of the particulate murk abating. By our haste and the desolate, apocalyptic surroundings, we could have been in a game mash up, say, a ‘Grand Theft Auto’ meet ‘Wasteland’.
It took about 150 kilometres – till the pilgrim town of Garh Mukteshwar by the river Ganges – for any sign of respite. Even then a distinct layer of smog hung in the air which surprised my friend who traversed this stretch several times a year. He claimed that the air was usually so pristine that even the chime of the temple bells had an ethereal quality. We stopped and peered out over the bridge. Tourist and pilgrim boats were docked below, still and listless in the life-giving water.
Food, above all – a dhaba signage en, er, root
Some men were plodding about in the foggy water in their underwear with a stick. These sticks apparently had magnets fitted at the tip which were used to collect the coins flung into the river by those passing by for blessing and good luck. Just as my friend apprised me of this belief I emptied my wallet of change and began hurling them into the water one by one. Soon a saffron-clad sadhu appeared from one of the lean-tos that lined the pedestrian walkthrough along the bridge and made a beeline for me. Famously pauciloquent, the holy men are content to stare at you usually with a beatific smile. I gave this one the rest of my coins wondering aloud whether only those coins that underwent ablution in the Ganges brought good fortune. My usually knowledgeable friend had no answer.
Barren sugarcane fields expanded tremulously on both sides awaiting the cultivation season. The last of the harvest was being transported in rickety tractors to factories in Moradabad not very far away. We passed by several of them with canes piled up unrestrained and debated among ourselves whether to pull out a few as we overtook them. Finally we decided against as it might have brought the rest of the precarious pyramid crashing down. On some fields along the way stubble burning was in full force much to the exasperated relief of my friend who was still pondering over the bad air quality of Garh Mukteshwar.
Stubble burning menace, continues
Much of the pollution in Delhi is attributed to stubble burning in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh – which we were passing through now – and Punjab. The smoke was not very thick or black, but a weak shade of argent. Neither was it that malodorous. Guess the problem is when vast acreages do it in tandem compounded by the still winds of winter. A few shops with shiny wares flashed by as we passed along the outskirts of this ‘pital nagri’ or brass hub. This sooty, smoky, stubble-burning town also accounted for not less than 40 per cent of the total handicraft export from India. With so much skill on hand converting the stubble into biodegradable plates and other cutlery should be a breeze for these people. By inspiring every airline to be conscionable like Vistara would tie up the market end too.
Passing by Rampur you wonder how ‘Mustafabad’ – the name given by its first Mughal ruler – never made the cut. The clamorous township is a sea of shops manned by men in Muslim skull caps and hijab-wearing women scurrying about with large baskets and dragging a few snotty kids. Goods-laden trucks caused traffic congestion as they eased into deep potholes and stopped for livestock loitering on the road. It is 20,000 rupees if you kill one, my friend informed. No discounts even if you are maiming only. Motorcyclists swarmed with the swiftness and sudden swerving of ants running out when a kid pokes an anthill with a stick. The chaos slowly tapers off as the road smoothens out. A few dhabas catch your attention with road-facing shiny vessels holding the reminder of lunch hour long past. Scattered fields hemmed in by trees whisk past and you enter woodlands. We were now traversing along the fringes of the Corbett National Park and officially in Uttarakhad.
Enter Uttarakhand
Once in my life many years ago, just once, I committed the grave mistake of asking a safari operator the chances of spotting a tiger. The poobah looked at me like a slick worm, waved his arm dramatically at the expansive greenery around and asked pompously whether I got any of these where I came from. The point was that, which was revealed during that safari as well as many safaris that followed over the years, you didn’t see a tiger if you went looking for one. Looking for one was the key here.
Just twice in my life I have seen a free tiger: once as a student on a boat returning after a tiger census survey held by the Kerala government forest department (not while we were out there painstakingly recording the pugmarks in POP casts an entire week) and more recently driving through Chail in Himachal Pradesh past midnight with a friend when one just bounded across the road. It was when she asked ‘did you see what I just saw?’ that I realised I wasn’t nodding off. I thought of these instances as we sped along the road shaded by stout bodhi, sal and mango trees.
Terai Arc – the tiger corridor
The chances of spotting a tiger was quite robust in Corbett as it was covered under the visionary Terai Arc Landscape Program of the World Wild Fund For Nature which restored forest corridors linking 14 protected areas of India and Nepal. I had been on a safari inside the reserve some years ago and remembered the guide pointlessly making us wait next to a watering hole. The jalopies we rode made such a cacophony – and the tourists such cackle – that it had to be a really curious tiger which approached the vicinity. I had also been on a tiger safari in the terai regions of Nepal – on an elephant, no less. Here too, we stomped around watering holes awaiting the arrival of the tiger dying of thirst.
Yes, you wouldn’t see a tiger if you went looking for one. I turned to share this with my friend. As if on cue he turned towards me and told me to slow down. He said tigers were known to cut across this stretch causing accidents.
Some useful tips for your trip to Uttarakhand
- Hashish is easily available if you are looking to score and you have to ask for ‘maal’. Just ask at the shanty shop removed from the rest of commerce or the most colourfully turned out unkempt guy. Asking anywhere else you will be directed to one of these.
- Calling somebody ‘daadi’ gets your job done faster; it means ‘big brother’. Something I couldn’t do as I have all the grey hair.
- If your co-passenger asks you to ‘dodge’ a vehicle, it means overtake.
- The right word to hire a cab in Nainital/Uttarakhand is ‘booking’. If you say ‘reserve’ or ‘hire’ they will just stare at you dumbly.
