bout de papier, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1987) — Fall 1987 // Automne 1987, p. 12
Ever want something so bad you could taste it? Ever wake up on posting and think, “If I have to spend one more day here, I won’t be responsible for the consequences”?
Nearly three years of unremitting Indian sunshine had taken their toll. I was desperate for brisk dawns and sweater evenings. I wanted to sleep snuggled under a quilt and to stand in front of a fire with warm hands and cold cheeks.
I wanted to go camping, Canadian style.
High in the Kulu Valley, 800 kilometres north of New Delhi, is a memorial to an Indian who fought and died with British Columbia’s Rocky Mountain Rangers in WWI. In his memory, his father brought a little touch of Canada to this far corner of India.
Part of this memorial is a massive boulder carved with commemorative text, the rest is a cluster of log cabins which huddle beneath ancient evergreens along the edge of an escarpment.
These cabins became our destination.
For a homesick Canadian, the rushing stream with its stone grist mill and water wheel, the waggy-tailed sheep in the lush meadow and the cold pure mountain air made the sweaty, unpredictable drive through the Punjab worthwhile.
The pine trees reared up in triumphant splendor; the mountains soared in purple majesty; the log cabins glowed warmly in hospitable welcome. I clutched my jacket around me, collected pine cones, dabbled in the brook and wallowed in nostalgia. However, behind the familiar facade lurked the reality of another culture.
The differences tiptoed up on me and for a time I resisted their intrusion. I did not want to be unblinded but India, as usual, refused to be ignored.
The cabins offered beds, flush toilets and electric heaters but nothing to cook on except a recalcitrant clay oven on which it took four hours to brew the morning coffee.
In the market one could buy beautiful wool shawls but no meat, coca cola but no charcoal. Chapati flour, cooking oil and salt; a few expensive onions, carrots and potatoes; tumeric, dried chilis and tea were the luxuries that the people worked long hours to afford.
Children waved gaily and both men and women climbed the steep trails with towering loads but were old at fifty, or forty.
The cluster of tents in the valley did not belong to happy hikers but were instead the yurts of Tibetan refugees. Every tall tree had its top festooned with strings of their prayer flags.
The two lane highway was not to ease the labours of the populace but, this close to the Chinese border, for military traffic. We would be allowed into the mountains beyond the village only on the sufferance of the local military commander.
Drawn by the lure of snow on the mountains farther up the road, we obtained permission to drive to the top of the Rotang Pass. Any farther and we would have been on our way into China.
Two hours and thirty-five kilometres of tortuous turns later saw us at the top of the pass and five hundred metres from the snow line. We started up the gentle slope only to collapse to the ground after a few metres.
New Delhi sits 10 metres above sea level, our cabins were at 2200 metres but the top of the pass was at 4500 metres. The ignominy of it all was that little boys had run up the mountain paths beside our van and happily played chase as we gasped for air.
After reassuring myself that I was going to survive the experience, I became aware of the awesome surroundings in which I was resting. The silence was absolute. No birds, no trees, no cars, no habitations. There was only the soundless vigilence of a stone prayer cairn erected by Tibetan refugees who believe that their gods live in these mountains.
As I stared at the rows of snowcapped peaks that stretched to every horizon, I believed it, too. Man could not have conceived or constructed anything so audacious, so humbling.
Finally, cold and hunger forced us off the mountain and back to our campsite where a delectably pungent curry dinner awaited us.
The rice was fluffy, the chapatis were tender but the lambs of mountain sheep have to be tough, and it was a characteristic they refused to relinquish, even on the dinner plate.
It was not wasted, though. As in campgrounds the world over, there was a big, friendly golden labrador retriever who did not object to handouts. That, at least, was the same.
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1987) — Fall 1987 // Automne 1987, p. 12. Read the rest of this issue →
