Chota Kailash

I have heard a lot about " Manimahesh Yatra (मणिमहेश यात्रा) " from Kangra residents,where I was posted after confiramtion of my job.One of my colleague  went to the yatra religiously eversince he knew the importance of the yatra. The Manimahesh Kailash peak that stands high close to the lake is believed to be the abode of Lord Shiva (Hindu deity). This place is believed to be second to the Lake Manasarovar in its religious significance.
 He kept on convincing me for the yatra till I agreed to go with him during the next yatra season. The yatra is just after janmashtami for fifteen days.I was not too keen on going there leaving my family and small kid in new place with little acquaintance.Besides the climate there is very hostile  and specially in case of heavy rain & snowfall  and it is also coupled  with less oxygen content in the atmosphere.The area may be cut off from the whole world till government agencies help does not come .

The trekking on this yatra is quite enervating for person from plain area as the route is mountainous high altitude  along the river to its source point.I was confident of trekking it easily due to my sainik school training ,where we used to follow a well devised regimen & rigorous physical exercise. I just needed a  warm up session one or two weeks   prior to the climb.The group had their own air resistant waterproof tent of international make  that added to my solace. We had hired a Toyota qualis for the motorable part of the journey till Hadsar( Bharmour) & back to Kangra. We reached  Bharmour same day  by the evening of the start of the journey and stayed overnight there. Early in the morning we reached Hadsar ,the last motorable point for the yatra.The rest of the path was to be covered on foot, about 13 km of steep climb by the banks of Manimahesh Ganga, which originates from the Manimahesh Kailash peak.

As we started to trek we all felt that the  place was  a paradise for amateur trekkers, especially for those who wish to witness nature still in its pristine form.The entire trek to the top goes by the side of the rivulet: Manimahesh Ganga, a tributary to Ravi River, which arises from the the lake at the top. We covered the half the journey and stayed overnight at Dahnchow in our tents. There is a huge waterfall in the Dhancho ,the thundering sound of  water falling kept us wake for the whole night. When we got up in the morning  we could see the dew drops on our tent  frozen to ice. As there was no arrangement for hot water ,the morning freshening up became a nightmare with freezing cold water.We proceeded for the last part of the journey to the Manimahesh Kailash peak . The vegetation en route was becoming less and more herbs &smaller plant dotted the the trek. We came across exotic trees like "bhojpatra" , the ancient saints used to write vedas & ancient scriptures on bark of these trees.The herb from which dhoop is made was also availble in plenty on the bank of the river-let. As our further ascent ,we could feel   breathlessness  ,due to the less oxygen content in the atmosphere. People said the the herbs at these altitude could make one  hallucinated as one has consumed some heroine or some drugs .Hopefully, I did not feel anything that sort during the trek on that stretch. It was almost dark ,when we reached the lake.The lake was actually a prize for those who get there. When we looked up we could see the mighty Kailash in its full grandeur and small Shivlingam was clearly visible in  the  white snow. We camped near the lake and erected our tent very quickly because everyone of the group was enervated and our body  wanted rest immediately. It was fullmoon night and as the moon appeared   behind the mighty Kailash mountain  the moon-rays reflected from the jewel was visible in the Manimahesh Lake as it was clear full-moon nights (which is a rare occasion). It was more likely to be the light reflected from the glacier that adorns the peak, like a serpent on Shiva's neck.The name Manimahesh signifies a jewel (Mani) on Lord Shiva's (Mahesh'es) crown. The whole experience was breath taking and I was mesmerized by the sight...my eyes were glued to the mountain peak for at least ten minutes.

Next day we got up for the pooja of  Lord Shiva by the lake side, when we got down to the lake to bath ,to our astonishment  the whole lake was covered with a thin layer of ice and What  possibly we could do best was to break the ice and take bath by taking water  from a mug . The water was  freezing cold, for few seconds our body parts were senseless  ,but after pouring few more mugs of water  on our body it came to senses. After the bath we were as fresh as mountain dew, the bathing was so refreshing that it had given a new lease of life to all of us. Never in my life I was this much fresh after a simple bath, our pains had vanished like miracle. Then  I realized that why some places on earth  are  so pious to hindus or any community  because they have some miraculous power attached to it.  After the pooja , we had our breakfast and started our descend to the Hadsar. By late evening we had reached Hadsar . For the the night we stayed in Bharmour and next morning we proceeded for our journey back to Kangra.

Matheran Masti

Ever since I read about the UNESCO heritage site officials visiting the Matheran Hill rail ,as I had already travelled in Kalka Shimla toy train ,which on UNESCO heritage list ,I made up my mind to visit Matheran. I manged to convince five families for the joyride as it would have made the whole journey a picnic affair. The toy train was at 8.50 am from Neral. We started at as early as 5.45 am from our home to catch 6.00 am train from Borivali to Dadar. The confusion of managing 5 families led to missing one or two locals and the whole group reached Dadar in three different locals. The last family reached around 6.53 am just few minutes ahead of the connecting local from Dadar to Neral and to add to our anxiety the reserved tickets printout were with this family only. The train coming CST reached Dadar exactly at 7.03 am . To our surprise it was jam packed and the group willy nilly divided in two and any how managed to board the train. The ladies with kids in their lap manged to get seats but for masculine members the journey from Dadar to Neral was journey on any week days on central line locals. The local was adding passengers on each stations till it reached Badlapur,where few people got down to our respite and for us to breathe easy "dheela ho jao" as we say in local parlance. We reached Neral exactly on time . The whole train got down at Neral . I was little bemused to see so many people as the toy train had only 3-4 bogies with less than 100 seats. There were more than 50 persons in the que for booking the one unreserved coach of the toy train. The kids were gungho to see the toy train ,they screamed in joy.After a little bit of confusion about seats and few mutual exchanges ,we settled down on our seats. As the train moved from Neral and left the hustle bustle of town , the green paddy fields welcomed us with the children singing in chorus " dhadak Dhadak seeti bajaye rail".With ascent of few kilometer as the train whistled through woods we could feel the fresh cool breeze of the hills.It prompted me to compare the earlier journey we had just few hours ahead in the karjat local.There was stark diffeence between the two, one filled with pain & this one filled with joy.Since our journey was neck to neck and there was not considerable time gap between the train rides ,we had brought some homemade snacks for breakfast.The three course breakfast of sandwiches, puri-chane & idi chutney was finished whithin half an hour,this incident propmted us think that an average mumbaikar feasts on snacks.The end of snacking session left children with no engagement ,then elders gave them the cue to start to play antakshari between the two sides, after few minutes on intial inhibitions the whole bogey was playing antakshari. The kids had great fun singing latest bollywood numbers ,where as elders sticked to old classic melodies.Amid the screams & excitement of toy train journey, he train crawled throgh the serpentine tracks & reached Dastur Naka. Here one could see the buzz of tourists on horse back & hand pulled rikshaw as this is the last motor-able point.The hand pulled rickshaw one gets kolkata is different from what u get in Matheran. Here it is necessity ,where as the people had denounced the inhuaman mode of transport where one man pulls other one sitting on the rickshaw in kolkata.Within few minutes we reached Matheran , the journey from Dastur naka to Matheran was amid thick woods as in Ruskin Bond stories. After paying the toll charges we were on the main road of Matheran ,the place resembled any street of Mahabaleshwar.We thanked Hugh Poyntz Malet, the then district collector of Thane district in May 1850 ,Lord Elphinstone, the then Governor of Bombay & Sir Adamjee Peerbhoy who built Matheran Hill Railway in 1907. As soon as we came out of station we were surrounded by horse wallahs & hotel agents. We rushed to our holiday home for freshen up. After that we straight away approached the horse wallahs for a bargain. As we were group of 10 adults & 6 kids ,we needed 14 horses . The horses were quite long & sturdy. At last we agreed for Rs 250 per ride for five points , it just reminded me of Chetan Bhagat Five Point someone.

We sat on our respective horses ,as it moved through the Matheran bazaar ,we felt like we were part of some ancient army as there was no automobiles not even cycles ,and the road were made of red mortar. As fleet of horses were moving the red dust rose around us . The horses always moved in pair,pony wallahs had story to tell that they were either siblings or partners. When we moved slightly out of the bazaar and approached the woods ,the whole environment was filled with red dust. During the slopes , i felt like i would fall down ,but the pony wallahs told us to lean backward to balance the weight.As we approached the lake ,the pony wallahs told that there are three points around lake . We felt cheated for a while ,but once we approached the lake ,we were happy to see such a water body at such a height. The lake was small but surrounded by thick green forest,which added to its beauty. We struck poses on different bollywood poster style to be clicked . There is one small lord Shiva temple ,when we entered the temple ,we were quite impressed by the serenity of the place. Just outside the temple was the way to lord's point. From Lord's point one can see 180 degree view of the valley below. Kids did rock climbing near the suicide point . I did not go to suicide point ,but one of our friend quipped to his wife ... I am going there ..do not wait for me .....if i do not come within 25 minutes. The pony wallahs took us to two different points ,which seemed to be non descript for our group as most of us had already been to most famous hill stations of the north like Shimla, Manali, Mussurie,Nainital ,Dharmshala , Mcleodgunj,Dulhosie ,Khajiar & Chamba.

As we were hungry like we rushed to the nearest restaurant for the lunch .The lunch served was nothing special to write about except the puran pollies .After loitering around for half an our we thought to start the descend to catch the earliest local for neral to Dadar. We had planned to return by shared taxi to save time & our trekking skills would also be tested in the 3 kms walk to dastur naka. The walk was a specail experince, as we were moving down , the pony wallah hussled past us in true cowboy style, the dust rising above & fainting sunrays of the dusk passing through woods made it specail to put in any artist canvas.After brisk walk by kids we felt that it would too enervating for smaller kids ,so we rented rikshaw for the young urchins.

The taxi took just 30 minutes to reach Neral station. We thought wise to take return jouney from Karjat to avoid Sunday rush at Neral ,which was also tempted by the morning lesson in the Dadar Neral ride.

We reached around 10.30 pm at our boriwali residence. Some one asked me how was the experience ,i told them " sometime in life journey is important not the destination" and everyone agreed that the best part of our journey was the toy train ride.