Into the Rajaji forest reserve on the trail of a nocturnal jumbo frolicking around the neighbourhood filching whole fruiting tress for snacks.
The ride
Just as you give up on the far-reaching concreted tentacles of the big city you see hope in shades of green. And if you leave early enough some of it will be a simmering aureate – the summer sun in a hurry to sear, to leave the earth smouldering for a scanty rain.
Leave early for aureate sunrises
The route to Rishikesh, till you enter the state of Uttarakhand after Ramnagar, is not particularly scenic; you pass by industrial-residential-industrial Ghaziabad which looks like a universe of dirty white portakabins stacked sky high. Slashing geometric patterns across the permanently dusty landscape are cranes and other construction equipments. The air is Delphic – those big ass towers shrouded in smog are at once a reassuring pat on our technical finesse and a scary reminder of where we all might end up some day, as human bees cocooned in cement combs. The vehicles are mostly cruising trucks with drivers sitting cross-legged, disregarding the building traffic as a minor banausic detail. Then there are the motorcyclists, mostly workers rushing to the factories at breakneck speeds, speeding in and out like statistically inclined tyros in nonage, but actually handling throttle dexterously. A few give me race, which would also help them reach their workplaces faster. I am only happy to indulge.
Hope in shades of green
We weave through the trucks, silencers giving the fenders a hairline miss and sometimes causing sleep-stoned cabbies to glare and cuss mildly and indignant office-goers in mid-size sedans to honk furiously juggling breakfast on the move with one hand and text messaging on the other. Then there are swanky cars, a familiar sight in the national capital region, parked outside roadside temples and drivers distributing poori-chole from the open rear door while the owners sit inside with a trained benignity. These are rich factory and business owners who count their wile and guile as god-given but are moved enough to show gratitude through the hapless. This is a good thing. The poor and the just hungry are welling around; the dessert, suji ka halwa, am told is particularly delish, made with extreme care and great expense with desi ghee and all the dry fruit works. I am tempted but the motorcyclist ahead of me spewing smoke and sporting a smirk has my attention for now.
The sin-washing ponds of Rishikesh
Reaching Rishikesh, you pass by a series of kunds or ponds each named after a Hindu deity; I couldn’t shrug off the feeling that these were the same places where, just some months ago, thousands had convened from across the country, without distance or masks, along with hundreds of naked sadhus, for the holy dip supposed to wash off sins. The washing off would have definitely come in handy as weeks later the number of Covid cases saw a sharp spike, specifically in the state, and soon hundreds were dead. Either the living ones were unabashedly stupid or unwittingly suicidal – several buses stood by the entrances to the ghats from which worshippers milled out in scores. But unlike the last time, here I spotted masks on most faces – what if they were hanging at severe angles like rain-drenched festoons. There was visible intent.
Far from the reluctant bustle of the semi-clamped down town on the weekend, fringing the Rajaji National Park was the homestay where I had a reservation. Finding it wasn’t very difficult; the ever helpful pahaadis or the mountainfolk turn garrulous when you ask for directions, all smiles, vigorous nodding, even leaving a telephonic conversation halfway for you.
Hashtags in the sky
The walk
In the village – ever expanding in brick trickles into the buffer zone of the national park which actually makes it look like a grudging township – a wild elephant straying into the backyard and polishing off a few fruit trees before rambling away with some sacks of lean time rations has all the newness of city colleagues reporting a hung computer. Only the guests at the homestay including myself elevated the episode – which was to continue for some nights – into something worthy above the regular clishmaclaver. A lady, a yoga instructor, who had checked in with her younger partner, shuddered, wondering aloud what would she do if she strayed into the elephant’s path during one of her crepuscular itinerating. The lad maintained a studied silence – the previous evening we had smoked up together leaving him too stoned to venture out of my room. He had proclaimed we were at the centre of the galaxy and began identifying the planets around us. Holding hands we sauntered into Jupiter and were reeling soon afterwards.
I hadn’t followed big game since a tiger census survey I was part of in Kerala many years ago. The most important lesson – besides how to take POP copies of pugmarks – came to me: to keep an eye on the tiger’s tail which it wagged slightly before it leapt at you. Basically you had to jump away before it sprang; a kind of pre-empting move. Though they don’t tell you how long you ought to keep at it the knowledge gave some relief. The tiger might eventually just laugh at the folderol, shake its head and walk away. When it came to elephants, all I knew was they had a gigantic memory – the elephants in Kerala swat mahouts who harm them against roads and walls. And they usually wait for the biggest elephant gathering, the Thrissur Pooram, before they do it. Probably like speaking for, while being silently egged on, by their ilk. This gave me some sense of safety – there was no way an elephant in the forests of Uttarakhand would have anything against me.
Watering holes, ahoy
After informing my homestay host about my intent I ventured out. He was an Osho follower and his pad like a little ashram dedicated to love. There was a man in the neighbourhood, his dear friend, who played Krishna in some televised series which put the idea in his head that he was the lover god himself. This modern day Krishna believed in and promoted all kinds of love and he would be happy to meet me, I was assured. I used the elephant as an excuse to leave the lord to his fawning gopis. My stoner pal remained in the clutches of his yoga instructor friend during most parts of the day – leaving their room with tousled hair and puffed lips, eager to just breathe.
Some village kids offered to take me to a spot inside the forest, which I gathered was a watering hole, where the elephant quenched and refreshed itself. Our little party of three soon swelled to six or seven by the time we crossed the Song River that traced a slushy finger through it. The muffled cackle only grew louder as we entered the scabrous fringe. I had visions of the tykes still cackling as the elephant trampled bush trumpeting death after the slowest moving biggest body safely from treetops; I bribed them to go back which they did, gleefully.
The blue-green Shivalik Range
The Shivalik Range from the Gangetic Plain is just an impression of heat and mist rising a dull blue-green. The marshy grassland, deciduous trees and pines form the bulk of flora which, when you walk through, are scattered with wide open spaces in between; the underwood, of course gets thicker as you go deeper. The riverine vegetation is a visual delight as is the tall, drying timber marking hashtags across the sky. I tracked a pebbled isthmus from the buffer zone into the reservoir which was slippery, losing my foothold several times. It wasn’t easy to erase from my mind the possibilities of having to cross back in a jiffy. Animal-man conflict was common here too, like anywhere where the natural habitats had been gobbled into. Tigers are frequently spotted and food raids by wild animals are common. Little surprise no local was curious about the elephant.
Walking with my eyes glued to the ground and stopping to look up to follow the screech of large birds it occurred to me why it was called a ‘park’ and not a ‘forest.’ Forests are primeval, conveys a sense of wildness, beauty and even danger, a force to be reckoned with and respected. But this was a park, acre upon acre of just even greenness punctuated by an occasional copse. A pugmark would have definitely brightened up my walk, even a sign of a trample or a gargantuan tussle. Instead, wild fowls and rabbits kept hopping and disappearing behind swells of down. The only thing close to mesmerising was when a peacock decided to announce its presence with a gust of wind as it parked itself on a different overhead branch taking with it an unending folded train.
Delightful riverine flora
There were the hemp leaves which I collected for salad garnishing later; Roshan, the caretaker of the homestay was not just an exceptionally talented cook but also a very resourceful person. The kind you need when you are travelling alone trying to get away from inanities which leave you teetering towards the hebetudinous. These are the walking denim-wearing Gabriel Angels.
The stay
For Anand Utsav (adopted name) the many years spent in Delhi as a top government servant was an exercise in needed mundaneness and frivolity. Mundane because he couldn’t help it and needed as it gave him the means to set the course straight soon enough – taking voluntary retirement and embarking on a life of more purpose and meaning. As a staunch Krishna follower, he didn’t look far but a little ashram dedicated to Osho which also became a homestay for sustaining the cult and its activities. The weekend I stayed there was a congregation for which followers, including a smattering of foreigners, assembled from across Rishikesh sang and danced. The music was mindless trance but the limbs flowed, movements liquid and everyone wore a transported look. An infant in diapers prancing about trying to pull out the wires of the sound system ensured nobody got too carried away.
Cosy nooks and corners
“We have a long way to go before love in its many avatars is accepted as part of everyday living,” Utsav told me one evening over whisky and smokes. “The Osho Maikada is an attempt at fostering the necessary dialogue and action in that direction.”
The homestay itself is a labour of love with cosy meditation corners and open yoga spaces, different sized rooms for staying and bay windows with views of vast fields coalescing into the sparse green along the reservoir periphery.
And behind an endearing mooncalf smile and astute eyes is Roshan.
Roshan, Man Friday, Saturday, Sunday
