Back in Oregon we called them hikes. Here in the Himalayas, they’re treks. Same movement of body across landscape, listening to breath, feeling legs do their wondrous work, pacing oneself, and simultaneously absorbing your surroundings while not falling off a cliff. Visitors like myself do this for fun…
For the Jaunpuri people who live in the tiny villages perched along the mountainous terrain around Musssoorie, it’s how you bring milk and vegetables to market, get your kids to school past the 8th grade, bring back building materials to build a concrete house.
Men smoke bidis and ask for their photo to be taken. Criticize my composition (I’ve gotten the laundry in the background) and show me where to stand to secure a proper shot.
A woman retreats inside to make us chai. Friends from home have sent me off with little plastic bottle of bubbles and the kids pass the tiny wet wand around to blow. A small girl asks an older one to read the print. “Made in China,” she reads, and we both laugh. What isn’t?
Another girl has a Bob Marley “One Love” earring poked through her ear. At fifteen, the older girls stay at the school in Mussoorie and come home on breaks. When the tea is ready, I join the women and girls on the bed inside to drink it, the others outside on a porch buoyed by elaborate ancient wooden posts.
On our way. The rains have finally stopped, and chilies are out on rooftops drying. Bedding aired. Fodder prepared for the coming cold of winter. The land changes with each south-facing slope, each gain and loss in elevation. The forest is thick and cool in some places, brought to life by verdurous streaks of parrots. In other places, it is thinned to brush, rough machete hacks marking the slow progress through the thicker boles. Rani, a local Landour woman, is our guide. Here, she strikes a pose…
The land levels and opens and suddenly I hear the Sound of Music soundtrack in my head. Cows steadily graze while bulls waste time and energy tussling listlessly. On a bewildering expanse of flat land, a cricket field has been created, defined by a border of freshly grabbed leaves. Upon it, boys play cricket, pillars of stones as wickets.
They invite us to join. In the outfield, a boy named Manjeet shows me where to stand and whispers, “Chocolate? Chocolate?” and informs me that Australia won the match in Chandigarh the day before.
Meanwhile, women and girls build a stone wall, working under the Gandhi Work Scheme for 142 Rupees ($2.32) per day.
With a little wooing, we get one girl to set down her stones and join us. She proves herself a heavyweight batter. The older women continue to work.
Men are nearly absent. When I ask, I learn they are working in Mussoorie, Chandigarh, Delhi. They are working in kitchens, driving taxis, contributing to the building boom, keeping watch over homes that are far from theirs.
The sun is moving across the sky and we have a long ways to go. Onwards. On an open stretch of the trail, a shadow crosses over me and I turn to see a vulture fly by, below me, feathered fingers extended. It rises and rises and others appear: one, two…four others, catching the invisible thermals. I am thrilled. I spot cliffs that look like perfect habitat. See the whitewash that symbolizes life (and excretion). My companions aren’t stopped in their tracks like I am. They know not the love of raptors.
We’re all alone again, step after hypnotic step, and then round a bend to see a girl on a path, a boy with his goats. A village where someone, once said, “Let’s stop here.” An orange tabby kitten decides we’re more interesting than watching chilies dry and follows us until snagged by an older woman, who shows us a shortcut, kitty clutched in her arms.
Steps after we enter a village, we’re past it. We travel down rocky trails, take switchbacks, cautiously navigate a landslide, pass a bat cave. Then we descend towards a river at the bottom of the chasm.
And then it is up. And up. And up. Two and half hours and 3000 feet of vertical climb. The long needle pines and deodars remind me of ponderosas and cedars in the Siskiyous of southern Oregon. Always, always, our minds searching for the familiar. We’re following the route of the 8″ water pipe that serves all of Mussoorie, past two thundering pump houses. Up and up.
When we near the road, euphoric at the sound of a car horn, just in time as thunder rumbles in the distance, we pass women carrying colossal bundles of grass, storing up to feed the livestock through the winter. The strongest of us tries to lift one of the loads and cannot.
And then we return to our city life in the village of Landour — hot food and hot showers, creature comforts we think we can’t live without. A Sunday evening of scooters and paved roads and beds that allow a deep deep sleep.
