“WHY EVERYONE MUST TREK TO HIMALAYAS AT LEAST ONCE IN A LIFETIME?”
Sitting at one place for a year, day in and day out is a boring job which is what I practically did for most of 2017 while preparing for my post graduate entrance exam. So, once the exams were done and dusted, I along with 4 of my college friends decided to do something thrilling to push ourselves out of the comfort zone, physically and mentally and we could come up with nothing better than to trek in the mighty abode of snow- the Himalayas. Since our exams finished in January, the only possible winter trek available to us was Sandakhpu, near Darjeeling along the Indo-Nepal border.
To acclimatize for the trek, we went to Darjeeling a couple of days earlier and to get our adrenaline racing we did river rafting in the freezing cold waters of Testa river. The starting point of our 7 day trek was a tiny village named Jaubhari which is two hours’ drive from Darjeeling at an altitude of 6400 feet. From Jaubhari we trekked 40 km in 4 days to reach the highest point of our trek, a village named Sandakhpu which could be best described as a dream castle floating above clouds at an altitude of 12000 feet above sea level. The road to Sandakhpu which passes along the periphery of Singalila national park, home to the elusive red panda and the exquisite rhododendrons, is a smorgasbord of landscapes we learnt in our geography textbooks. We would walk through the rough rocky terrains, dusty roads, steep slopes, through fluffy clouds and tread on fresh morning frost along the way, sometimes with our right foot in India and left foot in Nepal. The thing which kept us going was the spellbinding sight of the snowline of Kanchenjunga in the foreground which resembles the image of a giant sleeping Buddha (as can be appreciated in one of the photos). The unique feature of this trek which attracts trekkers from all corners of the world is that it is the only trek from where you can see 4 of the 5 tallest mountain peaks in the world- Mount Everest, Kanchenjunga, Lhotse and Makalu.
The difficulty level of the trek is rated as moderate but with temperatures dropping sub zero, nights could be very cold. However, our trekking organization, Indiahikes ensured that we stayed sufficiently warm in the quaint tea houses which served as our resting places for the night. Often, after our day’s trek we would huddle up in these tea houses, sipping hot cup of soup and listen with rapt attention to stories of mountains and trekking expeditions narrated by our trek leader or play a game of Antakshari or listen to Nepali songs from our guides while steaming hot rice with dal and sabji were being prepared in the kitchen. The best experience however was on the night when we had to stay outside in the tents. We were taught how to erect a tent and we had a session of stargazing outside our tents and woke up in the morning to the most beautiful sunrise above clouds with sunrays painting a magical golden hue on Kanchenjunga.
One of the things which fascinated me about the people living in this part of the world is the minimalist lifestyle and the attitude of gratitude which they seemed to have been blessed with. And the interesting part of the trek was to have such locals as your guides. Our guides, Mr. Ajay and Vijay were simple, soft spoken men who would often softly sing a prayer each time they caught a glimpse of Kanchenjunga, India’s highest mountain peak, during our trek."Kanchenjunga is the real breadwinner for us", Mr. Ajay told me once when I was observing him chanting a mantra looking at the mighty mountain. He was merely stating the obvious but it was something which we as city dwellers hardly give a thought to. Do we think of our work, our job, our source of livelihood with as much respect as these local guides do for their forests and mountains? An image of a diminutive 5 feet 4 inches tall man from Mumbai bowing down to the 22 yards strip of red clay on the day of his retirement at Wankhede stadium came rushing to my mind. It is not hard to surmise why people with gratitude tend to be the ones most successful.
As I continued the trek, I realized how we crib and cry over innocuous, insignificant things, making much ado about nothing whereas the people here in the mountains were just happy if they could see a glowing Kanchenjunga in the morning from their windows for it meant the weather gods were happy.
I strongly reckon this has got something to do with how shut off these people are from rest of the world. I was so glad to have found that the Airtel 4G girl was a liar. To be honest, I would want the 4G girl to remain a liar. I want the Himalayas to stay this way. Let them not be bothered by whatever shit humans are doing sitting on a toilet sit and typing frantically, "We will not let Padmavati release in theatres" in the comments section of a random social networking site. Digital detoxification is the need of the hour which is why I would urge people to embrace the mountains and happily get disconnected from the noisy world around us and get in touch with the sound of their own hearts beating with joy with each footstep closer to the summit.
Trekking at such high altitudes needs strong lungs, stronger will power, discipline, team effort and balance. A small mistake and it can prove fatal."Mountains don't give you a second chance", our trek leader Mr. Vikas, one of the nicest guys I met on the trek, said on the first night of our trek. This line stayed with me throughout the trek. In many ways, along the trek, at various points, I realized mountain was just a metaphor for life. If you look at it, we are always walking on the edge of the cliff, physically or metaphorically. The question is do you peep down in the valley and see death staring at you and get frightened or do you look up and see the giant mountains beckoning you to summit them. The choice is always ours.
There are challenges during the high altitude trek but then there is an opportunity to outgrow them as an individual and as a group. Each trekker has a different pace and while some might reach the summit earlier, the trek leaders and guides ensure that everyone makes it to the top. I think there is a wonderful leadership and life lesson to be learnt in this.
While I have tried my best to provide some insight into this beautiful trek, no number of adjectives can do justice to the feeling you get on completing a high altitude Himalayan trek because-
Once you surrender yourself to the Himalayas;
Once you have seen the radiant sunrays painting magic on the snowy canvas of Himalayas;
Once you have imbibed this minimalist lifestyle;
It will be hard for you to not realize that there is so much to life than the mad rat race for marks, ranks, positions and riches.
When I left the city to go to the mountains, I thought about the people there and how they have nothing.
When I met them, I got to know they had everything that I ever needed.
Perhaps Gandhi ji was spot on when he said, “The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed”.
- Dr.Devashish Palkar
(Photographs attacheded with(out) permission from Shail Shah's camera. )
Sitting at one place for a year, day in and day out is a boring job which is what I practically did for most of 2017 while preparing for my post graduate entrance exam. So, once the exams were done and dusted, I along with 4 of my college friends decided to do something thrilling to push ourselves out of the comfort zone, physically and mentally and we could come up with nothing better than to trek in the mighty abode of snow- the Himalayas. Since our exams finished in January, the only possible winter trek available to us was Sandakhpu, near Darjeeling along the Indo-Nepal border.
To acclimatize for the trek, we went to Darjeeling a couple of days earlier and to get our adrenaline racing we did river rafting in the freezing cold waters of Testa river. The starting point of our 7 day trek was a tiny village named Jaubhari which is two hours’ drive from Darjeeling at an altitude of 6400 feet. From Jaubhari we trekked 40 km in 4 days to reach the highest point of our trek, a village named Sandakhpu which could be best described as a dream castle floating above clouds at an altitude of 12000 feet above sea level. The road to Sandakhpu which passes along the periphery of Singalila national park, home to the elusive red panda and the exquisite rhododendrons, is a smorgasbord of landscapes we learnt in our geography textbooks. We would walk through the rough rocky terrains, dusty roads, steep slopes, through fluffy clouds and tread on fresh morning frost along the way, sometimes with our right foot in India and left foot in Nepal. The thing which kept us going was the spellbinding sight of the snowline of Kanchenjunga in the foreground which resembles the image of a giant sleeping Buddha (as can be appreciated in one of the photos). The unique feature of this trek which attracts trekkers from all corners of the world is that it is the only trek from where you can see 4 of the 5 tallest mountain peaks in the world- Mount Everest, Kanchenjunga, Lhotse and Makalu.
The difficulty level of the trek is rated as moderate but with temperatures dropping sub zero, nights could be very cold. However, our trekking organization, Indiahikes ensured that we stayed sufficiently warm in the quaint tea houses which served as our resting places for the night. Often, after our day’s trek we would huddle up in these tea houses, sipping hot cup of soup and listen with rapt attention to stories of mountains and trekking expeditions narrated by our trek leader or play a game of Antakshari or listen to Nepali songs from our guides while steaming hot rice with dal and sabji were being prepared in the kitchen. The best experience however was on the night when we had to stay outside in the tents. We were taught how to erect a tent and we had a session of stargazing outside our tents and woke up in the morning to the most beautiful sunrise above clouds with sunrays painting a magical golden hue on Kanchenjunga.
One of the things which fascinated me about the people living in this part of the world is the minimalist lifestyle and the attitude of gratitude which they seemed to have been blessed with. And the interesting part of the trek was to have such locals as your guides. Our guides, Mr. Ajay and Vijay were simple, soft spoken men who would often softly sing a prayer each time they caught a glimpse of Kanchenjunga, India’s highest mountain peak, during our trek."Kanchenjunga is the real breadwinner for us", Mr. Ajay told me once when I was observing him chanting a mantra looking at the mighty mountain. He was merely stating the obvious but it was something which we as city dwellers hardly give a thought to. Do we think of our work, our job, our source of livelihood with as much respect as these local guides do for their forests and mountains? An image of a diminutive 5 feet 4 inches tall man from Mumbai bowing down to the 22 yards strip of red clay on the day of his retirement at Wankhede stadium came rushing to my mind. It is not hard to surmise why people with gratitude tend to be the ones most successful.
As I continued the trek, I realized how we crib and cry over innocuous, insignificant things, making much ado about nothing whereas the people here in the mountains were just happy if they could see a glowing Kanchenjunga in the morning from their windows for it meant the weather gods were happy.
I strongly reckon this has got something to do with how shut off these people are from rest of the world. I was so glad to have found that the Airtel 4G girl was a liar. To be honest, I would want the 4G girl to remain a liar. I want the Himalayas to stay this way. Let them not be bothered by whatever shit humans are doing sitting on a toilet sit and typing frantically, "We will not let Padmavati release in theatres" in the comments section of a random social networking site. Digital detoxification is the need of the hour which is why I would urge people to embrace the mountains and happily get disconnected from the noisy world around us and get in touch with the sound of their own hearts beating with joy with each footstep closer to the summit.
Trekking at such high altitudes needs strong lungs, stronger will power, discipline, team effort and balance. A small mistake and it can prove fatal."Mountains don't give you a second chance", our trek leader Mr. Vikas, one of the nicest guys I met on the trek, said on the first night of our trek. This line stayed with me throughout the trek. In many ways, along the trek, at various points, I realized mountain was just a metaphor for life. If you look at it, we are always walking on the edge of the cliff, physically or metaphorically. The question is do you peep down in the valley and see death staring at you and get frightened or do you look up and see the giant mountains beckoning you to summit them. The choice is always ours.
There are challenges during the high altitude trek but then there is an opportunity to outgrow them as an individual and as a group. Each trekker has a different pace and while some might reach the summit earlier, the trek leaders and guides ensure that everyone makes it to the top. I think there is a wonderful leadership and life lesson to be learnt in this.
While I have tried my best to provide some insight into this beautiful trek, no number of adjectives can do justice to the feeling you get on completing a high altitude Himalayan trek because-
Once you surrender yourself to the Himalayas;
Once you have seen the radiant sunrays painting magic on the snowy canvas of Himalayas;
Once you have imbibed this minimalist lifestyle;
It will be hard for you to not realize that there is so much to life than the mad rat race for marks, ranks, positions and riches.
When I left the city to go to the mountains, I thought about the people there and how they have nothing.
When I met them, I got to know they had everything that I ever needed.
Perhaps Gandhi ji was spot on when he said, “The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed”.
- Dr.Devashish Palkar
(Photographs attacheded with(out) permission from Shail Shah's camera. )
