Walking up the Elephants Hump and Sleeping on a Lemon Grass Bed

It has been over a decade since I thought I should go climb Savandurga - the kids call it the sleeping elephant. One can view it all along the Magadi road, after Tippugundanahalli - a giant monolithic rock crouched low, with a smaller head of the sleeping elephant. I have taken this route regularly, every couple of months or so, for this last over-a-decade.

Last Monday I went and climbed the rock.

My son and I decided to go and spend a night there, taking the lesser known and used route to the smaller hump. We carried some food, some water, and our sleeping bags up. It was a difficult but an extremely rewarding trek through dry raspy forests, along fort walls, climbing sheer rock faces with grooves - enough barely to hold with toes, on rock and wood bridges, crawling through caves and thorn thickets, mostly leaning low, sometimes on all fours...birds cooed and called through the still silence, seed pods burst with a snap, twirling silver seeds parachuted down in a gentle dance, golden leaves covered the forest floors. Sheer black rock face set off the neon greens while orchids of purple foliage clung to rocks, trees. Blue gray lichen abounded and ferns of many varieties peeked from under nooks and corners..begonias blossomed in startling profusion...I panted, soaking sweat and smiled.

We reached the top, explored tiny rock pools covered in green, sauntered through abandoned stone shelters and scavenged for wood. We carried stones to make a protected fire and rigged a flimsy grill to roast our potatoes. In the evening we lit a fire - roaring, crackling, snapping - and sat - staring. We wanted to sleep under the stars, but we got a flaming sky at sunset and an overcast night. We lay on sloped sides of the rock - no flat surfaces here - with a stiff breeze , that chilled us to the bone, even inside our sleeping bags. Finally at 3 am, we decided to try the stone shelter. It was protected, flat, and had a bed of lemon grass, ready for us in a corner. After checking the cracks and corners for snakes - we lay down a slept.

Walk to Zangla from Pishu

I walk bent over like a mule. I am weighed down by stones collected since Karsha; stones of many colors, shapes, sizes - irresistibly attractive and impossible not to pick. There are zen stones of quiet and sombre gravity in deep browns, ochres, olive, black and ivory. And then there are those that dance in jewel shades, reminiscent of Persian miniatures in gold, orange, red, maroon, turquoise, jade and emeralds. Loaded, I still bend over to pick up one more gem from this endless quarry, marveling at my good fortune, joyous in my finds.

And so it has been all my life. I have been collecting and gathering gems - of experiences, relationships, possessions - joyous and grateful for my blessedness. I have been collecting and gathering a treasure trove of my many carings and attachments. Each of them speak to me in their own unique way - each with a precious beauty and joy.My life brims with gems of parents, sisters, husband, children and many friends. I love my home, my music, my books and the many artifacts gathered from decades of wanderings - buckets of stones, shells tucked in corners, under my bed, a glass full of feathers and quills, a box of precious bugs and butterflies on the shelf. These gatherings in my life usually keep me so rapt and engrossed, that I am usually unmindful of my weariness and my bent back.

In all these cases, the burden is in making it mine - in the ownership - in the Me. Stones of Zanskar will continue their jewel dance or instill a zen quiet - as is their nature. It is in their possession that I start loading my back. And so also in my life - the burden comes only from the ego of my possessing - bringing expectations and pain. Love continues even without burden of ownership.

It is to seek this lightness and grace that I came to Zanskar.

(from my notes while trekking, in solitude, through Zanskar - one month back)

Coorg Diary: A Trek to Nandi Betta

In my wildest imaginations, I dream of wandering wild places, untouched or scantily touched by human presence-unspoilt, virgin landscapes of dry, golden, desert sands, dense, dark forests, high hills with round views from pinnacle, oceans turquoise to deep navy, extending to infinity.

All Coorg imaginations were green and blue, of shrouded cobalt hills, rolling lilac mists, green wet, growth, at the underfoot, besides me, around me, in my eyes, nostrils, moistness on my skin. I wanted to experience a Coorg that was non-peopled, where elephant herds roamed, wildcats ruled, a land of beasts and birds, butterflies and moths, an abundance of insect world-I wanted a forest trek.

We walked in a single file, through a narrow, beaten, barely visible path, a line of mostly strangers and I-walking a fast pace, brushing past overgrown bush, trees, ferns, stone jumping creeks, balancing logs stretched across bogs, fast, focussed, attentively moving. This was not what I had imagined, but this was real, more real, as were the leeches reaching out towards us from blades of grass, leaves, an occasional branch, ever present, ready, in their bid for survival, to grab warm blood, to suck, to live and propagate. We walked in a voiceless file, with brushes made of a particular tree bark, to flick away the suckers at every rock surface we stepped on;pausing anywhere else was out of question. And, we climbed as we walked, in short steep stretches, slippery in a wet, shiny, clayey way till the trees thinned out to tall grass and flowers, only blue-purple flowers on round bushes, all around, everywhere the eye fell. The ceiling had changed from overhanging many tiered trees and was now a dark, leaded sky-a feeling of space, our smallness, till we were at the edge-of the world. A ledge looking into a blanket, a blankness of being the sky-rolling fluff around, colorless, moist on us, and soft series of gray beyond...we were on Nandi Betta.

First things first, immediately unlacing the shoes, removing the socks, checking if the suckers had got to our insides-most of us had escaped unharmed. Tentative exploring the ledge, the edge, peering to view the beyond. A small fire to the rain gods, for the rains have been less, or should be more, to help the farmers. Huddling around, soft conversation, quiet bantering, some snacks. Then the clouds clear-we view Eden across - steep mountains, thickly forested-Brahmagiri National Park. Silver vertical lines glitter unbelievably, three waterfalls.A white river snakes below in a deep ravine, viewed in bits and pieces between torn clouds, for a glimpse, now there, now gone, of paradise lost.