Walking and Talking, Thinking and Seeing: October 2007

First off, logistics and the weather report. I’m still in Kedarnath, and barring unforseens will be here until November 11th, when Kedarnath closes and the procession departs for Ukhimath. The monsoon has been officially over for about a month, but weather up here doesn’t seem to have received the message. The month of September, which is supposed to be the best month for trekking, instead of being 30 days of clear temperate bright weather, was about 15 days of clear temperate bright and 15 days of rain, much of which was continuous. And now in Kedarnath it is officially cold, and I’ve been watching the snowline come gradually lower and lower and it is fairly certain that within several weeks there will be snow here as well. Nowadays when the sun is out it can be so strong that one can’t sit in the sun for so long without getting sunstroke, and when the sun isn’t out the temperature starts to approach 0 degrees celsius (32 f), and I have to say that with the wind and other intangibles it feels much colder than that. But, on the good news board, Bhupendra and I put plastic over the windows and we have an electric heater (when there is electricity), and have gas and kerosene, and are as ready for cold weather as anybody here.

It’s been a long time since I wrote (especially if you missed the posting on loneliness that I took down because everyone thought I was lonely which of course I am but wasn’t the point of the posting, thus the taking down of it). What has happened? Well, there was a lot of monsoon induced funkiness, for one. There has been a great deal of hanging out without a lot of hard information to show for it, which one could either chalk up as the gradual accrual of symbolic capital or something else much more perjorative (choose your own adj. ). I’ve definitely become an official citizen of Kedarnath. The other day I made a first visit (there are still many places and people here that I have yet to meet and see for the first time) to the “Pandit’s Tea Shop”, a particular tea shop just across the river from Kedarnath proper where pilgrimage priests drink chai, play cards, and wait to see whether any patrons from their particular areas of responsibility have come. So I went there for the first time and said to the proprietor that I knew he’d seen a lot and probably knew everything that happens in Kedarnath and that I wanted to interview him. He said that of course he did, and he knew everything about me as well! So I sat there for several hours, and anwered lots of questions about America (spent lots of time on health insurance), at the end of which it was declared that I am an official member of the Pandits Chai Dukan! :)

I also did things like watch 18 year olds gambling fiercely, with flowers. I watched half of an Indian Pakistan cricket match on the roof of a building in the bazaar, until it started to rain. I got to play in a cricket match that took place in what must be one of the most amazing places a sport has ever been played: at approx 12,500 feet, just behind the open air temple of the protective deity of the area, Bhairavnath, in a small side valley whose bowl shape kept out most of the wind. I actually managed to hit a couple even though my batting style is somewhat unorthodox. I watched deities come on pilgrimage with people from their villages. I took a couple of trips out of Kedarnath as well, most notably to Madmaheshvar, another form of Shiva who is for locals the most important and powerful form of Shiva in the area, perhaps even more so than Kedarnath who tends to hover over the entire area like an old paterfamilias but doesn’t get involved very much in peoples’ lives (except of course to be the base for the economy of the entire region). Going to Madmaheshvar involved a two day walk up a different valley, and Madmaheshvar itself is quite small – a temple, 4 or 5 lodges and a couple of private buildings. But during the 3 days we were there it was filled and overflowing, as an entire local village came to Madmaheshvar (the first time they had come together as a village for 45 years) to be cleansed and forgiven for an offense to the god that had happened some years before. No one wanted to say what the offense had been. Every family did their own puja, and finally after several other expiatory rituals there was a collective fire sacrifice, and then several deities possessed several mediums / oracles and the good news was declared that the village was in the clear. On our way back from Madmaheshvar we stopped in Rhansi, where every year for two months (Shravan Bhadon) in the temple of Rhansi-Mai they sing the entire story of the Mahabharata, taking it an hour or two at a time after evening arthi.

I’ve been steadily getting fitter as well, which means that it only takes me twice as long to get somewhere as it does a twenty something fit Garhwali. Two days ago I managed a ten hour approx 14 km trek to Vasuki Taal and back again (or, if you will, the lake of the serpent king) which is situated between 15000 and 16000 feet, meaning that it is high enough above Kedarnath that the valley floor seems like it is almost in another county. I don’t think I ever need to go higher than that. Climbing mountains is a powerful experience: there is fear and exaltation and spurts of religiosity take one unawares, and one always wants to just keep going higher and higher. But I think I’ve had my fill for the moment.

The other day I saw a document that took me utterly by surprise. The pilgrimage priests here keep records of their patrons in books that are called bahi, and these bahi usually go back at least three generations and sometimes as far back as several hundred years. There is one pilgrimage priest here whom people call Padre, as traditionally some of his patrons have been English, and he had mentioned that he has some old bahi that have English names in them, so I asked to see. So a couple of days ago I had a chance to sit down with him, and had a look. One of the names had a bizaarly personal resonance for me: Evans-Wentz, professor of comparative religion at Oxford, 1911, author of The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries. The thing is, I KNOW this book. I can easily and vividly remember, in the first throes of my academic awakenings, going to the Haverford College bookstore and looking in the Folkore and Mythology section and drooling over the various titles, and purchasing several, one of which was this book. Right now it is on one of the bookshelves in my parents’ house reserved for the books of mine that I chose to not bring to Emory. How about them apples?

Ah yes, apples. Naming this piece apple toast was not a non sequitur. Last week I was feeling (particularly) bored with the available food and decided to make someting new. So I took apples and sugar and cloves and raisins and boiled them until they were nice and smushy, and then Bhupendra and I used them as filling inside roti-like dough envelopes, which we then fried and dusted with lemon sugar. Bhupendra christened them apple toast.

p.s. I'm looking for places to crash in London around the end of December and first part of January. Any suggestions?

This is me plucking a brahmakamal (a brahma-lotus). These flowers only grow above 14000 feet and are offered to Shiva in remembrance of the devotion of Brahma, who tore out one of his eyes when he found out that he did not have the correct number of flowers to offer during his puja.

This is a brahmakamal.

Here is the valley whose slope we then ascended in search of flowers. Getting to this valley and up one of its sides was one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life, as for reasons of purity we had to proceed both barefooted and fasting. It took me about 10 hours to cover perhaps 10-12 kilometers, barefoot.