Mahantji Memoirs

SHRI MAHANT INDIRESH CHARAN DASS JI.(Photo courtesy sgrrdarbar.org)

One of the fondest memories I have from SGRR school days is meeting with Mahantji. Even though, there were several branches of SGRR school throughout Doon and adjoining areas, the talaab branch was especially fond to him since it is probably one of the first branches of the schooling system set by the Gurudwara Sahib. The location of the school is very strategic as well. There is the Gurudwara Sahib and the Jhandaji on one side followed by a big talaab (pond) and then right across the talaab is the school. Because of the vicinity of the school, he would often come to the school during his spare time in the afternoons. These were really special times for all of us kids at school. Clad in starched cotton coat, turban and white churidaars accompanied by juttis, when he spoke in his powerful voice from behind his white moustache and beard, he looked damn impressive. It was an important task for all of us to touch his feet, and we took great pride in being able to do so. He would sometimes hold one of us in his arms, and that made the day special.

Facade of Shri Guru Ram Rai Darbar. Our school was right across.(Photo courtesy sgrrdarbar.org)

When he wouldn't show up at the school, bunch of us kids would take it upon us to meet him at his quarters at Darabar Sahib. These visits were very special as we really enjoyed exploring the rest of the Gurudwara besides meeting him. There were dingy and dark corridors with very old rooms, and ghosts and witches surely lived in some of them, we believed then. There were stairs going up from several places and if one took them, it would be very hard to find one's way back. Besides loitering around in the corridors, we also enjoyed playing in the garden area. We were especially fond of the the supari trees and the shahtoot trees. These served as nice dessert after our lunch nibbles. One of out favorites pastimes was to sit by the fish pond in front of the marble minarette Gurudwara Ji. Small, colorful fish swam in the crystal clear water under dense trees, and soothed our souls. Even though I was really fond of studying and used to have a good time in the class, this particular activity would become hard to leave behind during the lazy afternoons. Mahantji's chamber was kind of in the center of the living area of the Darbar Sahib. It was a big room full of old and heavy but interesting things. Right across the door was a big chair where he would sit and receive us, and adjoining the living room was his private chambers. Sometimes, when he was resting there, we would get a chance to play in the main room. We would jump on the thick mattresses and study the inornate objects strewn around. But, he would always come out of his bedroom sooner or later and would sometimes offer us something nice to eat.

A supari tree.(Photo courtesy en.wikipedia.org)

During early eighties, he seemed especially concerned about our english speaking abilities. Even though the school was english medium, the spoken english wasn't enforced in any sense. The medium only meant that the books were all in english. With so much emphasis on english language and it deciding the quality of a school and the students alike, he took some special measures to bring up the quality. Young teachers, who recently graduated from "true" english medium schools of the likes of St. Joseph's Academy, were hired. They were really impressive, especially to me, for first, they spoke fluent english, and then they were young and creative unlike many of our other teachers. I will perhaps talk about teachers in a separate entry. Grammar cheatsheets, that had simple sentences covering basic rules, were distributed to all. A retired teacher from the Doon school was also hired as the principal. He introduced one-to-one discussion sessions based on stories from text books with one student asking questions based on stories and another answering. The teachers tried and made sure that all the possible questions and answers were covered and learnt by heart in an attempt not to ruin the sessions that nonetheless beat the purpose of it. In the end they turned out well, though and gave Mahantji some satisfaction, and us a foundation of spoken English.

Mahantji passed on a few years ago but these and other memories remain etched in my heart. May his soul rest in peace.

Trip to Butoli-(Flora and Fauna- Goodbye)

One shy little bird Chriped in our ear...............' We shall overcome'

Mr Langhoor does not want to be photographed.

......Here we are(goodbye my dear)

Trip to Butoli - (Concluding part) Taking a bow to majestic Bhadraj

When we reached the head of the river we were to take down, we realized that this river was actually starting from the Bhadraj itself (at least we thought it was Bhadraj and would to like to keep it that way). In fact, from where we were standing, we could clearly see Bhadraj, standing tall and proud. In fact, it was so close, we could have almost stretched and touched it.

Possibly Bhadraj from out point of descent

There was just a little bit of stream in the river. The water was crystal pure and flowed with beautiful, soft sound that echoed through the entire region. Once again we didn't see a single human being througout our descent, only a few langoors (Dinu, can u post a pic). The river was full of loose soil that made walking a little difficult. As we descended, the air got purer and purer as if this part of the world was never corrupted by man. We sat down in the middle of the river with high hills on either side and birds humming a beautiful song. That one intimate moment was worth the whole trek I thought, such was the kick of it. Dinu then played nice soft music on his cell phone at one point that just melted away in the ears creating an instant meditative effect.

We took this river on the way down

The trek down was really long I have to admit. There was no strain on any part of the body but the knees that took all the pressure. When we hit the plane, the sun itself was preparing for its final leg of the day's journey but decided to give us one last darshan setting on the edge of one of the hills. The coolness of the wind was most welcoming. We were not too sure of how to get to doonga or belonwaala at this point. We just continued walking. Surprisingly, at several points, we noticed some life like movement, but when we went nearby, there was nobody to be found. Dinus called it hallucination like seeing water in a desert, but I disagreed. I thought there was defintely a wandering soul trying to tell us something. At one point, though, we did find a couple of local boys who were trying to catch fish in the little water that was there in the river for dinner, and got directions for doonga from them. We also decided to finish off the rest of the food at this point.

Sunset near Doonga village.

At the same time, on the other side of India, Mayank was riding the train to Doon. Little did he know of the sinister plot that was at play that was about to strike him. Mayank, may be you can write a bit about the incidence and your observations and theories about the incidence.

Doonga was still abt 100m or may 200 higher than the river, and one last ride up was a challenge. Dinu was absolutely broken by now, and I had to resort to the military tactics a little bit to motivate him to continue climbing. We covered the distance in no time, passing the ruins of the temple that was once location for a mala sinha movie (anybody knows which movie, please!). Just when we hit Dinu's uncle's house, the last streaks of daylight passed away. Uncle had, anxiously, his eyes set on the road as it got darker and darker. He had just started to get worried about us, but eventually Dinu kept his pride of a garhwaali and we made it back just in the nick of time.

In retrospect, we couldn't conquer Bhadraj, but the fact is, somewhere inside, we never thought we could even make it to Butoli. So, it was a good starter trek and something that motivated us to continue exploring the great himalayas as and when time permitted. Lets plan for something bigger, next time, Dinu !!

Trip to Butoli- Flora and Fauna (I)

Wild Animals as expected by Alok were not there, in thick of afternoons you do not encounter 'Guldaars'(Its a small panther like hill cat known to lift cattle and babies and very frequent in this area) but creepy spiders thick like palm of your hands were aplenty.(Sorry for interruption, to be contd.)

Trip to Butoli - (Part 4) Tea at panditji's house

With our souls replenished, we started with full vigour, marching on towards Butoli. This leg of the trek was all uphill, and the entire area was covered with dense trees. There were no phone signals, and no other person to be seen anywhere. The thought of getting lost and not being able to contact anybody outside was dreadful. But the intimacy with the purest of nature kept us going. Before the start of the trek, Dinu also mentioned about the possibility of wild animals in this forest. Other than langoors, we didnt really encounter much of wild life, though. On one occasion, we came face to face with a herd of buffaloes who were probably coming back from their lunch trip. Both them and us stood still on either ends of the trail for a long while, confused and scared not knowing what's going to happen next. In my mind, I was seeing them running towards us with their horns aimed directly at us. In that case there was no way for us to escape because on one side was the hill and on the other valley. But the buffaloes turned out to be more intelligent than us. They discovered a side trail behind the trees, walked up there and waited for us to pass. We bowed to them, took a sigh a relief, and moved on. All the hard walk up made us really thirsty and we ended up drinking a lot of water. I started worrying about the shortage of water, but gods were with us that day. Just when we thought this trail was never going to end, all of a sudden, we descended on a flat area, out into the open. This point gave out a spectacular view of the valley and the villages on the mountain on the other side of the valley. Clearly, Butoli wasn't far, now.

The village across the valley - the first glimpse of civilization after out hard trek uphill brought warmth in our eyes

Just a little later, we also met a herder, who confirmed that the village around the corner was indeed Butoli. We had made it. We were not at the roof of the world, of course, and yet we felt at the top. Bhadraj of course was totally out of the question at that point. In fact, just the thought of going back by the same trail, another encouter with buffaloes and hopping in the river sent shivers down our spines. What if it became dark while we were still in the river. For a second, I thought it would be nice to just spend the night at Butoli and proceed to Bhadraj the next morning. In fact, the Butoli resident was a nice host and offered several times, a resting place for the night. However, Dinu got suscipious and we decided to start descending. Luckily, we were told about a couple of alternate trails to go back down. One of them, that we settled for, was to take a river all the way down. This river of course was different. There were no boulders and there was no water. We thought anything other than going back through where we came from would be a good route at this point.

Butoli village. We were more than happy to make it this far and miss Bhadraj

Before we did that, though, we got to spend some time at Butoli. It was a very small village with just a handful of people. We met Babu, there, who was painting the house of one panditji who lived somewhere in the city and came to the village on Diwali. The residents were mainly farmers and herders. In every family, according to Babu, most kids were given education and then were sent to the city for a job, but one kid stayed behind to carry on the legacy of the family, take care of the fields, pet animals, etc. Babu was that kid for his family. Again he was very polite and nice to talk to. He brought out chairs and had his wife prepare tea for us. It was a bit odd to accept tea from a stranger like that, but the fact was we were so tired, we were in no position to say no to a hot cup of tea. Having rested well and savored the tea in a nice steel cup, we started our descent back to Doonga and from there on to Belonwala. (To Be Contd.)

Chilling and discussing life with Babu at Butoli.

Let it snow.. let it snow.. let it snow !!

The first substantial snow of the season hit Chicago over the weekend. As traditional, a couple of deers showed up in our backyard in search of food. This was pretty exciting for Kabir & Krishi. They dressed up in heavy clothing they could hardly walk in and helped me with shovelling the snow away from the driveway. Neighbor across the road had just put up the christmas lighting the day before that created a nice contrast against the white blanket over the area during the lazy hours of the morning. Here, posting some pics.

Trip to Butoli - (Part 3) Red bridge conquered !

This is where we couldn't find another trail. This marked the merging with river and ending of the canal on the right.

Even though we had still covered a good distance and had enjoyed the natural surroundings thoroughly, yet we thought that if a mission was set, it ought to be accomplished to some extent. We were not sure of Bhadraj anymore, because we knew we wont be able to make it back before dark now when we had lost track, but we surely wanted to make it to Butoli. On one side of us, on the mountain, we could see a beautiful field that we initially mistook for Butoli or at least we thought that that would lead us to Butoli. After searching for a while, when we couldnt find any access to the field, we turned around and took to the canal once again hoping to find another outlet to Butoli. Luckily we met a khachar-waala (donkey man) not too far away who gave us clearer instructions this time to Butoli.

We were very much right on track. We were supposed to walk through the river up and that's when we would find a bridge and from there we had to go left to Butoli. So we turned around once again, came back to the river, and then started the hardest part (at least we thought so at that time). There was good enough water in the river and it was laded with big boulders everywhere. We hopped from boulder to boulder, walking sometimes on one edge and sometimes the other. Dinu had become a little sluggish because of over-eating puri-aloo which i tried to stop him from eating that much, who can stop a wild boar when he is eating. In his sluggishness, he stumbled in the middle of the river a few times and completely wet his socks, shoes, and trousers. He took it in the stride though and accepted that as part of adventure. We kept our spirits up and energies intact, and continued hopping on.

The treacherous river that took us to the red bridge, eventually.

And then we spotted the old but awesome red bridge in the distance. This was indeed a moment of triumph. We were no where close to Bhadraj, but still it was a milestone that we initially thought we wouldnt be able to accomplish. Little did we realize that even Butoli wasn't that nearby either and we were actually standing at the foot of the hill that we had to climb to reach Butoli. The next leg up to Butoli was the toughest test of our rusted bodies we had taken in a long time. (TO BE CONTD.)

The triumphant duo take a breather on the bridge.