1.
All of the day before, I’d walked from Marpha to Lete keeping on the west side of the river, on the gently undulating, gravely motor road. On the other, east side was where the winter trail ran, threading tiny little-known villages hidden in the cypress forest or forgotten at the end of a long, solitary climb. This morning I see clearly the broad bend in the river I’d only glimpsed last evening. The cook of my guest house explains enthusiastically that if I was heading towards Ghasa, I could walk through Chhayo, a village near that bend, and pick up the trail from there. I walked out of Lete that morning, through some fields, a beautiful pine grove, and over a steel bridge with the Kali Gandaki raging below in its monsoon fury. Chhayo was a bunch of dilapidated stone houses, and the few people I saw on the street had dirty, gnarly faces, like potatoes just pulled out of the earth. They neither wished nor cared to acknowledge my polite namaste. I walked to the end of the village and ended on a pretty path lined with willows. I was standing at the edge of a pebbly river bed, as large as a football field, where I’d imagined seeing the broad river from Lete. Back at the beginning of the village, a rudimentary map showed the route to the next village – Jhipra Deurali – and extrapolated the path to Ghasa with a few ellipses. The cook, I remembered, had explained the route with a similar disregard for distance, time and the fact that it had been raining these past two weeks. I started walking towards Deurali, keeping near ground level, skirting the river bed. When I reached the village, situated on top of a lush hill, a local informed me that the path from there to Ghasa was quite long. I should turn back and walk to Lete, then take the much shorter motor road from there. I thanked him for the info but kept on. When I noticed two dogs trotting beside me, my resolve was hardened. Just a few minutes away from the village, the path vanished into tall new grass. I cut across a patch of steppe fields, when the hill suddenly plunged down to the river. Clouds were coming uphill and the dogs kept nudging and shoving me aside, wanting to play. I ribboned my way down the steep grassy slope, hearing the river far below. The man at Deurali had said that the path went down to the river, then up another hill. Slowly the path started to surface and the ground turned rocky as I descended and entered the ravine. When I reached level ground, I saw a hut not far away, a heartening sight. Upon approaching, two large, ferocious dogs charged right past me and chased the two pooches right up the hill we had just descended. I shuddered. Near the hut, a dark topless man sat weaving a basket. There were bamboo strips everywhere and a few incomplete baskets. One or two other huts completed this village – Chyachu – but I saw nobody except the topless man. He was more approachable than the residents of Chhayo. He told me I was on the right path and if I continued walking briskly, I should reach Ghasa in about two hours. The stream was still far below when I crossed the steel bridge past Chyachu. After crossing that bridge the trail entered dense evergreen forest. With the clouds just above me, the bridge strung high over flowing water, and the forest around I imagined myself walking in Basho’s footsteps. Surely he must have experienced something similar while walking through the remote northern provinces of Japan. A damp darkness began to surround me as I carried on into the forest. The trail was quite prominent and it soon led me down to where the stream fed the tumultuous Kali Gandaki. I realised that I had driven myself to exhaustion. This was bear territory, if there was one anywhere in the Myagdi district. I had been walking with divided attention, or extreme concentration that drives the senses, the ears especially, to their acutest limits. The slightest sound had perturbed me and I kept looking back. Down by the river, the path finally disappeared. There were huge boulders everywhere. The forest continued around the bend and I could see high up on the other side, perhaps a 100 feet above, the motor road. But that side of the hill had suffered massive landslides and was almost caving in. I scrambled around and up some rocks, then retraced my way back a little. My cell phone had no signal. It was muggy and not a leaf stirred. I tried to calm myself by sitting on one of the rocks and drinking some water. I had been sweating profusely under my rain jacket. I took it off. There was still time for it to get dark, an hour and a half at least, I reckoned. Going back would mean facing those ferocious dogs alone. And then what? I’d have to walk all the way to Lete to find a place to sleep. What would I tell the cook? That I got lost and scared? I continued to where the path ended, then kept tearing through thick brush and tangled branches, trying to follow the trail’s natural progression. Uphill was better, definitely, I told myself. Down by the river, there were frightening spots where the steep rock face met frothing water. So uphill I went, chanting om mani peme hum, the Buddhist mantra, often quiet loudly. I strode at an even pace, the mantra taking strength out of my breath but returning calm. And if there was a bear around, it would know that I was there, passing. I was up and around the hill in an hour when the forest migrated further up and the path turned into a narrow ledge hacked out in the rock face. I now walked under dilapidated caves and inverted staircases made from rock fall. I slowed down or quickened my pace according to the broadness of the ledge and the slipperiness of the rock underfoot. And I had the mad river keeping me company, its loud onrush annihilating my anxiety. This must be a goat’s path, I told myself. I was still walking without a clue as to how far Ghasa was. This was the deepest gorge in the world, falling right in the middle of two tall mountains, Annapurna and Dhaulagiri. Then I saw the two bridges in the distance. Nearer, three men with a camera and tripod. Some tahrs above me. I walked past the people without a word, walking with a firm, even stride, trying my best to appear graceful for emerging out of the wilderness alone. I crossed the first low bridge over to the motor side and realised how hungry I was.
2.
It had been weeks past June yet the rains hadn’t arrived. Each afternoon, the sky would cloud over with ominous heaps of nimbus and it would feel like evening, night even, and the thought came that today, it would rain. But the sky kept ripening like a fruit that wouldn’t fall. In the dense, humid heat people and animals festered to pulp like insects. Being out in the streets was like waking up with a terrible hangover and those three or four weeks, we tottered to work through the haze of common misery we called weather. Then the first shower came. It came without warning, without the dark clouds brewing through the afternoon. Like the long-awaited union of lovers it came fiercely and with terrible disregard for lives. It poured through that first day and night without pause. The day after felt like night. It poured endlessly for another night, and day and night, dissolving their differences, proclaiming itself supreme. They say that in the first days of the earth, it rained like this, without avail, for months and years, rained and thundered over the sea which rolled unimpeded by continents. If it rained like that for a month, the city would have been washed away. But it relented and people were left to take account of their loss. In those first weeks of July, when the heat went to your head, Laxmi’s eldest came down with flu and her mother came over to nurse him. Then, a few days later, when she returned from work, she saw her youngest and third child Nani red in the face from crying. Her mother reported that the child would not stop, no matter what she did. A couple of other women from the neighboring rooms had gathered. They suggested Laxmi take her to the hospital. Laxmi called her madam, whose house she would have gone later in the day to sweep, mop and wash dishes, and informed her about the situation, that she wouldn’t be able to come. An auto was called. And just when the vehicle had left the neighbourhood of Ambedkar Nagar, the downpour began. The driver drove on, cursing the rain and the failed windshield wiper, which he operated with his left hand. Nani was covered in a light linen cloth. She was barely five months old. Laxmi wrapped her further in her saree, for the rain was blowing in on the gust. They were two or three kilometers away from the hospital, on the old bypass road that cuts through a wooded patch, when the engine choked and died. The driver swore, tried the hand-start, went outside and tilted the auto like a scooter, then tried to start again but each time the engine only gargled as if with rain water and fell silent. Nani had been crying on top of all this. Only the cascades of rain were louder than her cries. The driver put the vehicle in neutral and began pushing it from behind. In a matter of seconds he was drenched. The rain banged on his skull like ball bearings. He quickly gave up and came and sat on his seat. Nani hadn’t stopped crying. Laxmi said she would just walk to the hospital but the driver explained that it would be madness, especially with the child. They waited in the auto for a few minutes. A long quarter hour passed. Then the driver did something strange. He ripped off the roof with his metal badge, cutting the part over Laxmi and the child last. Hooded and huddled under the black sheet, the two began walking. Nani was quiet now. Laxmi quickened her pace, thinking that finally the child had fallen asleep. The driver kept apace. He told Laxmi to give her the child – she must be tired clutching the sheet with one hand and carrying Nani in the other. He saw a strange and distant look in her eyes. She had not heard him at all. She clutched the child tighter and kept striding. He saw that the baby had gone quite limp in Laxmi’s arm. Rivulets flowed down towards them when they reached the crossroads, a few minutes from the hospital. Soon they were up to their knees in quick mucky water, walking upstream. Laxmi squealed. Something had caught in her feet, bit her. She gave the baby to the driver, to bend and remove the second slipper. The driver took the cold, limp body in his arm and shivered with disbelief. The downpour was now louder than ever and they trudged the last few steps to the hospital, their faces streaming with rain.
Snehal Vadher
Author
Snehal Vadher is a wanderer at heart. Having roots in Mumbai he now works as an educator with one foot in Bangalore and an other in Dharamshala. He has a background in creative writing and literature. He has been part of many interesting writing residencies and his work has been published in many platforms like The poetry foundation.
Pavan KJ
Photographer
Pavan K J is an artist who’s art finds its expression through photography, music, design, acting and some yet to be discovered kind of ways. Based in the city of Mysore he has many solo and group shows to his credit as a fine art photographer. He has a very interesting Instagram page.
More Conversations
The Private Tiger
Tiger Prabhakar is a popular Kannada film actor who acted in the movies between late 70s and late 90s. He started acting in small negative roles, usually one of the villain's goons who gets beaten up by the protagonist. Tiger had worked his way up to become a lead...
This is not me
I suddenly felt it in the most unexpected place. I was sitting in a room full of people at an auditorium. People had gathered here to attend an event. It was a mix of old and the young with the old outnumbering the young. I was tired with the circumstances of my life...
The Lucky Fish
Majorda, a place in the southern part of Goa has a beach that shares its name. In June, when the region is drenched by consistent rain, the beaches are mostly deserted, marking the off-season. For the third time in the past decade, I found myself in Goa during this...
0 Comments