The mountains
tives that change and grow with every retelling; the sense of peace and the sense of danger; the laughter and the pain.”
Born of the tumultuous union of two vast land masses, and one of the youngest ranges in the world, the Himalayas might be violent at times and unpredictable always. The author shares that she had her fair share of difficulties. “We have often been frightfully cold, seriously unwell, or just plain, awfully dehydrated and hungry. But every time we retired to the plains to lick our wounds, we realised how happy we had been up there,” she shares. In fact, Sohini suffered serious bouts of acute mountain sickness twice, and was once almost killed by it.
Giving an insight into her journey, Sohini says, “Our cars have rolled down slopes in reverse, once on the highway to Nako Lake and another time at Ravangla. A massive boulder — the size of four loaded trucks piled two by two — missed our car by seconds while on the way to Gurudongmar Lake in North Sikkim. To add to our troubles, in Kathmandu, my travel partner Sumita Rakshit was embraced by aggressive monkeys; in Patan, I was slapped by an old Nepali woman. Of course, there were the usual incidents of theft, bandhs, chauvinism and sexual harassment.”
While on her travel expeditions, Sohini reveals, she met several locals — some interesting, others inspiring. Narrating the story of one such gentleman, Sohini says, “We were trekking down from Chandrashila peak above Tunganath temple to Chopta, Uttarakhand. After a steep downward slope, we came to a tea stall by the winding route. The old tea-seller made us some black tea. While we sat sipping the hot brew gratefully, the old man chatted on about Mokkumath, his village below the mountain. In the middle of the conversation, he got up suddenly, went behind his shop and rang a large bell with all his might. The sound echoed all over the range. Then he came back to sit with us again. “‘Why did you do that?’ we asked him. In a gentle, soft voice, he explained, ‘You see a lot of people climb up the mountain to have darshan at the Tunganath temple. But this is a difficult, steep climb, and many want to give up and go back. But if they hear my bell, they think it is the temple bell, and so they keep climbing. And once they reach me, I tell them that they just have a little more to go before they see the shivling.’ He was an illiterate villager of indeterminate age. But, thanks to him, hundreds of devotees succeed in climbing up to a temple at 12,000 ft, every day.”
The author also came across various tribes living in the mountains. With varied communities dwelling there, Sohini got to taste some exotic food too. “We have been open to tasting local food, which varied widely, not always to our advantage. We got to taste the ubiquitous black beans curry and rice at almost all lunch halts in Himachal; the thukpas and yak butter tea of Ladakh; a light curry made with fresh cream-green bamboo shoots (somewhat like cabbage, but tastier); and boneless chicken stuffed inside short bamboo poles and roasted at the fireside by an Apatani lady in Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh,” she shares, adding, “There were, however, some dishes that didn’t work for us. For example, a Sikkimese pickle made of fermented bamboo shoots and a fiery red chilli called dalle is quite an assault on the taste buds as well as the olfactory.”
Adventure-freak Sohini wishes to go on the Kailash-Mansarovar yatra some day. Apart from travelling Sohini has varied interests too. About her hobbies, she quips, “I dabble in too many. Photography of course. And experimental cooking, which does get good reviews from long-suffering friends.”