Boyhood lesson of not giving in

The mountains have always had an ethereal attraction for humanity through the ages. One interesting trek undertaken during my schooldays was to Churdhar Peak. We set off at a quick pace down the hill towards Sukhi Jori, where we hitched a ride on a passing truck and somehow got to the road-head Naura. From there, it was uphill all the way. The terraced fields soon gave way to oak forests wreathed in mist, moss and lichen. As we climbed higher, we encountered snowy slopes and musk deer. The most beautiful sight was when we came across a family of monal pheasant. We were barely able to register the beauty of their colourful, metallic feathers, as they disappeared in a whirring blur as they flew downhill at an unbelievable speed!

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Soon, the oaks gave way to snowy drifts that covered the rocks and soft snow started falling. Within seconds, we were in the midst of a blizzard. Somehow, we soldiered on, found an abandoned Gujjar hut and took shelter.

Snowed in, with the blizzard raging outside, we got into our sleeping bags and tried our best to get some rest. At an unearthly hour, we espied a ghostly figure emanating from the narrow entrance of the Gujjar hut. Much to our surprise, it turned out to be an ascetic wearing nothing but a dhoti. His torso was bare and he was quite unmindful of the cold. Even as we lay in our sleeping bags, shivering in the bitter cold of the night, with the wind blowing buffets laden with snow into the hut, he seemed untouched by the inclement weather and the raging elements. He quietly took up a place against the wall and was gone even before dawn.

The next day dawned clear and cold. We had brought along an air mattress and we took turns going down a snowy slope on it. It was a wild rush down the slope, our lives dependent on the friend seated on the very first place, holding onto the two corners of the mattress to guide it down the slope. Those seated behind him had no chance of influencing the trajectory, let alone choice in the matter, once the air mattress had begun its wild careen down the snowy slope!

It was only many years later in a foreign land that I realised that what had been undertaken as a boyhood outing was, in fact, an attempt to scale the highest peak in southern Himachal Pradesh, and that too in adverse conditions. We never even once wondered whether we had conquered the mountain or the mountain had conquered us. However, it was a certainty for all concerned that we had returned undefeated. It was certainly a testament to the never-give-in attitude that is a credo that we still live by!