The Humbling Himalayan Hike PART-I

Before you are too weak or too old you meet and merge with the beloved Himalayas – it is my wish and my blessing - Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

At last I have found time to write this very special blog. Somehow I did not find time to write this one for so long. The first time when I went to the Himalayas was in 2006 as a part of the Isha Foundation’s “Dhyan Yatra” which I feel made me realise the true essence of a pilgrimage. I actually wanted to write a very detailed travelogue then, which did not happen. But somehow it so happened I had a very fortunate opportunity to visit some parts of the Himalayas once again last month and here I am ready to give you a feel of the mesmerising Himalayan milieu.

It all started from Delhi.....We were roughly 300 people put into mini buses and a bunch of us were put into the so called BUS No -10. This bus was basically a group of like “MIND-LESS” people from Hyderabad and Mumbai who were geared up to have the best trip in their lives. Travelling on road is always so wonderful where in you get to interact with people from different walks of life. During the trip, we got to know each other and that 5 hours to Rishikesh just flew by. Rishikesh was originally a hub of Rishis(Sages) but now it is all kind of commercialized and stuff. We halted there for the night and later in the morning we got a chance to have a dip in the spine chilling Ganga. We were still in the plains and from here on we started our hilly Himalayan Sojourn.

Generally most of the pilgrims head towards Kedar from here, but we headed towards the Shrine of Badrinath. We had to pass through rudraprayag to reach Badrinath which is approximately around 150 kms on a hilly terrain. We reached Badrinath around early evening time and went on a short walk to Vyaspeeth...Legend says that Mahabharata was written here on the banks of the river Saraswati and this place is almost on the Indo China border. What a peaceful place it was!!!Late in the evening we had a bath in the hot water springs of Badrinath which is said to have a lot of medicinal values.

Next day morning was the Auspicious Vijaya Dashmi of the famous Dusshera festival. One advantage going to these places in the off season is the temples are barely crowded giving us a lot of time in the temple. We spent an hour in the temple and then later Sadhguru’s Discourse happened. The discourse gave us a deep insight in to the significance of a pilgrimage. I have travelled extensively but most of my travel was more of sightseeing and seeing diverse life styles but this was the first time I was on a pilgrimage and I was totally in love with the whole new experience.

After lunch we started our journey to Kedar, the equation on a hilly terrain is that 30 kilometres would be covered in a hour and that is if you had to cover around 370 kilometres to reach Kedar you need to travel for about 12 hours. The drives in the bus were always wonderful we were singing, talking, shouting, laughing and what not!!! We could not reach the start point of Kedar i.e Gaurikund by night so we stopped at a place called Pipal Koti which is around 40 kms away from Gaurikund.

It’s a new day and we were all geared up from the 14km trek from Gaurikund to Kedar. This was I think my first trek and that too the Himalayas...The excitement was turning up....I took a stick in my hand and I started on my mission .......whooaaaa!!!!It was all good until the tenth kilometre. I think at the end of the tenth kilometre all my excitement was totally dwindling off, physically my energies were draining off and I never was in a situation like this. Every step every breath I had to consciously pull myself up and at this moment I realised what a pilgrimage is.....it truly humbled me down....I always thought the word “SURRENDER” was only for the weak but here I am counting every ounce of energy and I finally bowed down, yes I SURRENDERED and left everything to what we refer to as god. By doing this I covered another 4 kilometres. Then came the final stretch the last kilometre and at this point all my resources physically and mentally got drained off. At this moment, I closed my eyes, waited for a moment with tears in my eyes and I decided for myself that even if I die it did not matter but I would only die at the feet of kedar.....I took a deep breath and i did not stop till I reached the kedar temple. Meeting the ultimate is not a cake walk.

I still remember I never cherished any moment like this one.......I think the whole exercise of the trek humbled me down to such an extent that I completely surrendered myself totally at the feet of kedar. That is the whole point of a cumbersome trek. The Snow clad mountains, the clear blue skies, Lord Shiva and only me. Looks like the whole thing is going beyond logic but when I was in this place I had to accept that the best things in life are beyond logic.

Next day we started on our journey back and I think you started imagining our situations......aching legs, etc..I just dropped dead on the bed.....and I think this was the best sleep I had in my life. I hope you are not having the best nap of your life listening to my story...anyways take a break.........until I fill in the next part of my Himalayan sojourn.