It was like another Friday morning in my 2 BHK apartment at Gurgaon, rented of course. I unlocked the door and got surprised while encountering the serene dining room at 9 A.M. Usually, my roommate Rahul stays busy in getting ready for his 9 to 5 but, that day he reminded me with a yellow paper table note written, “Off to Tania Di’s wedding, See you on Tuesday! Take Care!!” This raised my tiredness to another level thinking how all my mates will have a 3 day gala experience in Tania Di’s wedding And here, I am the one who will spend the whole weekend at the balcony by watching the roaring vehicles moving from one place to another aimlessly like myself; missing all the colors and cuisines of a big fat Bong Wedding.
With all distaste and anxiety, I retired on my bed with a plate full of chicken pasta and switched on the laptop to watch The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Remember, the 2013 fantasy drama of a man living a dull life dreams up romantic and action-filled scenarios in order to escape from monotony. That’s how Wikipedia defines the film and I too opted the same description as it was closely applicable with my life then. Well, another purpose of choosing that film was someone very special to me was recommending the film to someone else quite sometime back. I just had it in mind for that day. You may wonder what have you read so far thinking about it a travel blog. Everything that has significance takes time to roll on.
The mouth-watering pasta, the blue ray version of American snow showed in Walter Mitty and, a face created a fantasy in me for another 2 hours. I could identify the same crisis what Mitty was going through and by the film ended, I took my call of making this weekend a perfect moment of a solo trip, MY FIRST SOLO TRIP TO PARASHAR LAKE, located at a height of 2730 m above sea level in the north of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.
Choosing the destination was quite easy, the Parashar Lake was on my mind for long (Thanks to a friend’s Facebook wall). The difficult part was the thoughts that were coming in mind whether I should go alone or ask any other person, will it be too boring, one trip can never change the decided Mondays of my life, etc, etc. But then, I realized certain thoughts like solo tripping never came to my mind in all these years but that day. There must be some reason and this is the best time to figure things out personally. I finally, made up my mind and booked the bus tickets for Mandi to experience the weekend at Lake Parashar.
The bus journey was quite usual, people traveling to Manali with the onset of the peak season and early snowfall during mid-November. Early morning around 6.30 I reached Mandi, a hot glass of tea came to my rescue from the sudden drop of Mercury at higher altitude. It was pretty evident that mountains were welcoming me, a gush of ecstasy was pumping the adrenaline.
So now for reaching Parashar, there are local buses that leave for Mandi around 8 AM and run up to Parashar Lake. The trek starts from Baggi village and it takes 6 KM approx to Parashar. I could have made the trip luxurious and can hire a private car but, the magic of solo trip lies in connecting with the communities and lifestyle of the commoners residing in the destination. The local bus ride to Baggi Village helped me to connect with the rural chord I was aiming at. An immediately striking conversation with an elderly gentleman sitting next to me in the bus valued with a piece of information on the ritualistic practices on the celebration of a local religious festival in the Parashar Temple coincidentally matched my date of journey. As the bus moved forward deep into the mountain villages, there were school kids marching towards school in brighter uniforms, people transporting milk and other essentials, busy with their daily work projected an engaging human settlement. This bus plying on these villages once a day is the only lifeline for the local villagers. Being in the fast-changing corporate structure, I practically developed a lot of respect for these underprivileged Indians after witnessing their effortless and light-hearted behavior in sustaining such communities and traditions. Their smiling faces and humble natures, the landscape started functioning as a detox to my soul. The 2-hour journey resulted in the changes in temperature, landscape, human limitations and finally, I reached Baggi, the starting point for the Parashar trek.
Baggi is a very small Himalayan village with a handful of houses, local shops/cafe where tourists halt for breakfast in order to avoid an empty stomach trek. A simple yet so tasty breakfast at one of the cafes triggered my spirit of an explorer and everything so far was falling on the place. Soon enough my meditation broke by the thought that I had a mountain to climb. While asking for directions I was alarmed by the local villagers that it could be difficult to navigate the route through the mountains alone; that too for a one fine morning bulged belly adventurer like me. So, the plan was to go ahead slowly with the initial directions and then join any of the local guides who usually remains present in the trek route. But, no trek guide was there till then with whom could I dare to reach Parashar.
That very moment I realized, unplanned solo adventure trips look cool only in American movies but in reality, my condition was as worse like a worried cow fatigued out of milking.
My first litmus test started with crossing a river where I ended up tiring my feet with soaking boots and cotton socks. A glimpse of school days featured in my eyes when rainy days were celebrated on wet boots and stinking socks, followed by Mom’s scolding and late night fever. The water was cold enough to dry down my sweats. Somehow, managed to cross the river in alerting footsteps. The untrained limbs required some rest and, I rested for some time by sitting on a boulder leaving my boots and socks for drying.
The next phase was a steep climb on to the actual path, a climb of 500 mts. This was scary and I was feeling heavy after the short balmy rest. I waited for some more time without knowing if anyone would be coming up for rescue. The sun rays were changing the colors, the cool breeze was like cold warnings rather before dipping into the adventure. I understood the value of patience that day.
Passing an hour on the solitude, I utilized the time on diary writing – the first draft of this trip. In the meantime, the rescuer appeared in my vicinity. From a distance, he understood my situation and guided me with a suggestion that this steep climb could be avoided via the route he was about to take up.
I got relieved. Finally, introduced myself with Aziz, an independent trekker from Purani Delhi in my rescue to accompany for the rest of the mammoth journey which had no plan of execution. I started slowly but, my mind was still in a dubious state. Till the time, I was alone it disturbed me for being completely isolated. But when I started with this gentleman, my heart got preoccupied with useless thoughts like – if the man could turn out as a black hat, whom would I ask for assistance. I preferred to talk less and focus on his directions. It was a silent challenge to match steps with his fitness level and expertise. And, I certainly did not want to disappoint me with my limitations. The polite man tackled me with all ease and encouraged me to push boundaries whenever there were situations of steep climbing or edgy walks through the mountains.
The climate was changing with altitude. With time, all my reservations about Aziz and the trek route were getting juxtaposed by the scintillating views of distant mountain peaks. The climb had now become a constant steepness and we were deep into the jungle of pines and rhododendron. Tired of the rat race in regular city days, here I was just keen on completing the trek with numerous halts adjusted by my friend, Aziz.
I took rest as many time as needed for my capacity and continued with my tiresome steps. Aziz was enjoying the leisure walk and kept me busy with simpler interactions. During our dry lunch session en-route, I learned about his other expeditions. He praised my guts of coming all alone in a solo trip that too a trekking experience. I will never forget how he applauded me with words, “I had my first solo trek after thirteen group treks and you made it right on the very first one. This requires valiance brother.” I was so damn overwhelmed that his own prepared spicy sandwiches were no more an issue for me to gobble with smoothness. The lunch ended with a pack of chocolates as a dessert which I bought from a local shop in Mandi. Chocolates work fantastic as a stress buster and it has a no different role to play with changing altitudes.
We resumed walking with all sweetness in taste buds. Suddenly, a strange thing caught both our attention. It was not that horrifying but intriguing. There was a heap of huge bones, fossils we learned long back in school days. At a stretch 4 KM walk, made me witness the first meadow in the route after coming through the jungle.
The next one hour had few more meadows on sight and with every turn, I was wondered by the creations of nature. It was tedious, breath arresting to push steps more but Aziz’s mild explanations about the visuals sustained my passion to meet the optimum.
And, finally, the Walter Mitty in me connected with the scattered snow dropped valleys. Life turned meaningful and so was the risk. The dauntless quest of reaching the Parashar top finally achieved. The setting sun beamed its last rays on the hilltop. That amazing sight was a blessing. Aziz set the mood by offering a cup of black coffee with no sugar and a packet of chips. The burnt flavor of the campsite coffee was another experience for my dried tongue, bitter yet sweet when two strangers became friends over an unplanned experience.
The fog around us created an aura of a mystery play. The show began with a peaceful play of flute by Aziz followed by sips of old monk, a bowl full of noodles for dinner and night stay in respective tents. By the way, Mandi is the last place to get your booze. There is just a single shop at Parashar Lake, where one might get chips and biscuits, but not many options. The night was too cold with temperature dripping around -1 degree Celsius, even sleep was reluctant to shelter in my eyes. The snippets of the whole day’s experience were coming on and off, I was too tired to sleep; Aziz continued with his flute for a while. He was trying a part of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia’s composition. I wondered how a man with a different cultural background can explore Indian Classical with so much devotion. His music played the role of a lullaby, poignant but soulful. The effects of the old monk finally brought the two mystery stars together – my Walter Metty and Lord Krishna in Aziz. How I wish to patronize the Krishna in him and the Walter in me. Let the world practice such harmonic trends of living, just like Walter and Krishna right there. Aziz’s magical performance led to the fall of curtains in my rapid eye movements.
The next morning started with a misty sunrise moment. I came out of my tent fully packed in my obvious woolens, Aziz was busy in preparing the morning tea. Overjoyed by the locale, I clicked some shots for my draft. After attending nature’s call in the Govt. rest house nearby we descended down to Mandi. I was as hungry as a bear and gobbled two double egg toasts and one full glass of tea. It was time to celebrate the glimpses of my last day trek and it wouldn’t have been possible without Aziz. He assisted me throughout even in fixing my haversack at the luggage space of Delhi routed bus I was about to board in a few minutes. We had a great time but the tragedy struck in a different way. In the midst of everything, we both forgot to exchange numbers. Over a thousand face I came across in the name of Aziz from Delhi non matched, I just did not ask him his second name. I was wondering by the window seat, how certain experiences and relationships visit our lives with such pleasant surprises and put things to an end with just a period. The bus was accelerating its speed with every 10 minutes and here my eyes got watery. It was definitely due to the COOL BREEZE landing on my face with memories and mixed feelings. I was feeling extremely hopeful about life due to Parashar. It was like some sort of achievement or confidence building excursion for me. So much confidence that I did not stop in heart reacting an FB post of that special person as mentioned in the first paragraph. Her cross suggestion to someone else worked the best for me in watching the film and visiting Parashar.
The miracle took a different turn. She pinged me, what’s up? I never ever could believe that had happened. Few minutes of silence and I was wondering what to write and then figured out my statement. ‘Returning from Parashar lake sudden solo trip on the influence of Walter Mitty.’ She exclaimed ‘what???’ with a surprised smiley and laughter then added, “would love to know the story behind…someday…”
That someday is today and I am here for her in a cafe nearby to share the story that got developed behind the scenes; over a few sips of life, love, and lemonade.
Hello Debanjan !! This is a test content…
At zerodegreel
every moment will someday make you look back and want to experience it all over again.
