I. The Beginnings, Reaching Maneri
I remember it completely, it was one of our summer holidays. It was a yearly thing which we would so look forward to and wait for it every year. My dad was posted to this place called as Maneri in Uttaranchal. A place without electricity, and stories of wild tigers around it. We three brothers were super excited to go to this new place. We started off from a bus from Jammu to Rishikesh. Now this bus itself was a wonder, it was a luxury bus as they called it, and in 1996 or so, luxury just meant that your seats would have some kind of cover, and its a bit more than just sitting on a wooden plank. Not to mention that we were of course surrounded by people travelling to Rishikesh for a holy dip in the Ganges.
We were in Rishikesh in the morning and my dad was supposed to pick us up to carry on with our journey to Uttarkashi, the town nearest to Maneri. Mobile phones were non-existent and communication was a mess. My dad was stuck in a landslide somewhere on the way to pick us up, landslides being a common thing in the Himalayan terrain. That was just a guess because we were told my dad left to pick us up, but never reached Rishikesh. Rishikesh- Uttarkashi is about only 130 Kms. away, but it takes around 6 hours to complete this distance. The roads are as worse and dangerous as they can be. This ride is adventure in itself. Anyhow, with my mom getting more and more worried and my dad somewhere in the way without any idea where we are, my mom decided to hire a car at around 2 in the evening to Uttarkashi. We had planned to complete this journey and reach Uttarkashi by 8 PM. It gets dark early around there, but it was a fair guess and reasonable enough to go on. Because lot of other things were uncertain. We hopped on to this Jeep (that's very popular around in the mountains to survive this terrain) and we started off.
Rishikesh is where the plains end, and if you look around this city you would see huge mountains, part of the lower Himalayan ranges standing in all their grandeur. Within an hour of our journey, we covered about 15 kms, with the city of Rishikesh still visible, but getting more and more smaller as we climbed up the mountain. I was a kid and i could not really appreciate the beauty, but i remember this very clearly. There were numerous times when we were moving dangerously close to the edge of the road, and any vehicle coming from the other side forced us towards the edge. These were some very narrow roads. There was a time i actually started crying when i looked out to find out we were on the edge of a deep gorge. I could see nothing but fog and a drop would be a drop into the obscure. Well, one of the first times when i cried because i thought i am gonna die. I was just 13 or so, so well, yeah, i could cry. But the reality is, it was scary. It was about 4 PM now, and the next place where we could get a phone was still 30 kms away, which meant we still had no information about my dad. The only common link between us and dad was this army telephone line, which was at my Dad's camp. At around 4:30, we finally got to a PCO and luckily the phone was working. I made the call and handed over to my mom ,where we came to know there was still no call from Dad. We were hoping that my dad could reach some place where he could call and get to know our whereabouts. The anxiety, worries and adventure they all continued. My mom had three young kids to look after in this place without much help. No phones, no hotels and with no sign on my dad, our only hope was to somehow make it to the town of Uttarkashi safe and waiting for Dad there.
Now well, the summers in North India are bad, they are very bad. And one good thing about the Himalayas is that they are not only a relief from this hot summer, but there are times when you have to wear woolens in June. While we stopped at this place to make a call, i saw three shops. One guy was making tea and Pakora, next to the PCO where an old man wrapped in his woolens was probably waiting for a customer like us. In those 20 minutes or so, hardly 4 vehicles passed us by. it was very foggy, it was getting a bit dark and while my ears cleared out of that hazy sound which you always have after you get out of a long, tiring drive, i heard some kind of heavy buzz in a distance. A very heavy, rock solid and ferocious continuous sound of moving water. I looked out in the distance and the mighty Ganges revealed itself for the first time to me deep down there. For the next two months, i would be waking up to this sound and this sound would never be out of my reach. Some things are over whelming even to kids like me. My mom told me that its the Ganges and we did bow to her. Call it the divinity or bowing to the power of mother nature, which has the power of making even the biggest and the most powerful humbled. I could see the worry in the eyes of my Mom, and i was the eldest of my brothers. Manish and Kumud were enjoying among themselves and Manish being the most intellectual and smartest of us three did tell my mom. "Don't worry mom, we will reach there and dad is fine". I believe after that he and Kumud went back to eating that packet of Uncle Chips, well they were popular, very popular at that time. That green bag of chips, much before Lays and the likes?
It gets dark in the mountains early, because this huge landscape blocks the sunlight much before the sun actually sets off in the plains. Though it was summer, it was already going to be dark in some time. The driver was making every effort to help us reach before 8, because after that there would be hardly anyone to be seen. Truth is, even he would be in trouble if we din't make it.
It was pitch dark now and we were about an hour away from Uttarkashi. We stopped by to make one more call to my Dad's place and to our relief, we found out that though he had never reached Rishikesh because of a landslide, he was now on his way back to Uttarkashi. I bet it would have been a huge relief for my mom, it is not easy to be with three small kids, travelling alone in the hills where there is no certainty and with the worries of my dad whereabouts.
We reached Uttarkashi at around 9 P.M. It was pitch dark, there were no street lights, nor there were any people. We reach the town taxi stand where again there was no one. We waited for 30 long minutes for my dad and suddenly, in sometime, far away in the distance we saw two headlights racing towards us. Now, this is a place where at this time there are minimal chances of any vehicle whatsoever. There were all chances that it was dad and indeed it was. I never saw it, but my Mom would have had some tears in here eyes. A lot of reasons, first all was good, we made it safe. And second, we were seeing each other after almost a year now. We all waited for it.
However, the journey just din't finish yet. This place Maneri, a small village was further up by 15 Kms. and we headed on. Talking, cheering and laughing. I never realized we reached there, but we were greeted by pitch darkness, and it was a small Army camp. Two people came and took our luggage, and i could not see a thing in that dark. We had someone who brought a torch. And that was when, we first saw the two dogs that would become our friends for the coming months. Dabbu and Bunty. Their barks were the only sounds breaking that calm and silent apart. We walked in to our rooms and we were told by dad that there was no electricity here, but there was a generator which would work for limited hours. And so we had our first dinner in Maneri at 1 a.m., admist the sound of the Ganges, in the brightly lit kerosene table lamp, with our cook bhaiya having cooked this awesome food. It was splendid, and it was one of the best family dinners ever.
That was how i spent my first two days travelling to Maneri. In the next two months, we explored, played cricket everyday by the Ganges, read a lot of Comics in the lantern, heard about tiger stories from our very own Dad and other people in the camp, caught fishes from the river to bring them back in buckets and have them eat lot of flour.
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