The favours of Goddess Nandadevi

Mountains are always associated with all that is holy and sometimes also of things supernatural. The rarefied air and dizzying heights permeate an unworldly atmosphere which easily drives away a person’s atheistic beliefs and skepticism which may be the unshakable core of his beliefs while living in the plains. The mountains unsettle you and you begin to feel that perhaps it may be wise to believe just this once, for awhile, at least until one returns safely to civilisation. Events and chance coincidence may reinforce this belief. But as always the mountains return you to civilisation a little humbler and more understanding of your own miniscule standing in the cosmos.

As part of the celebrations of the Golden Jubilee of our College in 1993, the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army decided to try their hand at Nandadevi, 7817 metres high, located in a protected valley between Garhwal and Kumaon, close to the Tibetan border. Nandadevi, that most beautiful of peaks, outshining in splendour all other Himalayan mounts of greater height. Nandadevi, that holy mountain, second only in holiness to Kailas, the abode of the Gods. Nandadevi which resisted every attempt to find a path from the Milam road to her feet for over fifty years, from the first attempt in 1883, right until Shipton and Tilman reached it in 1934. Two years later Tilman and Odell climbed the mountain for the first time. Tilman served with the Bengal Sappers in World War II.

The majestic peak of Goddess Nandadevi

In the fifties, an American mountaineer, Willi Unsoeld, awestruck at his first glimpse of the magnificient Goddess, had vowed to name his then yet unborn daughter after this most beautiful of mountains. He returned in 1976 with his daughter, Nandadevi Unsoeld, and the Goddess had taken her for her own. The last time in 1980, when the Sappers had attempted to climb the peak, the Goddess had denied them her blessings and they had returned safe but unsuccessful, thwarted from an altitude of 7600 metres. As that grand old mountaineer, Mr GK Sharma of the MES, told me, “we could not have defied the obvious signs of bad weather, since the Goddess, who is a manifestation of Shiva’s consort, Parvati, is not known to take kindly to defiance.” A couple of years after that, the paratroopers had climbed Nandadevi, but not a single summitter returned alive.

Nandadevi, is surrounded by a cohort of supplicants, the lesser peaks of Dunagiri, Changabang, Rishipatthar, Trisul, Nandaghunti, Nandakhat, Mrugthuni and Maiktoli, who form a more or less an impenetrable ring around her. Too many expeditions into the catchment of the Rishiganga, which arises from the bosom of Nandadevi peak, had ravaged the fragile ecology and as a result in 1988 the govt had declared Nandadevi off limits by making it a National Park with the mountain in the core zone and had also designated the area around the National Park as a Biosphere reserve. And so Nandadevi had been left severely alone for five years by mountaineer, forester and poacher alike. It was obvious to the team right from the beginning that success would depend greatly upon luck, as you may call it, or the Goddess’ blessings as we called it. We hoped she would give her blessings since we were not only climbing, but also carrying out a complete ecological study and also cleaning all the trash left by previous expeditions. Yours truly was put in charge of the wildlife and ecologicy guys, but that’s another story.

Nandadevi is served by only one entry point – a high altitude track leading from the bugyals of Lata Khadak and Belta Khadak, on the outer slope of the watershed in the west, across a precarious track to the Dharansi pass and to the first campsite – a picturesque vale called Dibrughetta. A pioneering effort to enter the sanctuary by Capt Vivek Gupta, found the Dharansi pass was snowbound and impenetrable in late April forcing Maj VK Bhatt, our expedition leader, to enter the sanctuary through the Rishiganga gorge; we would need to cross the Rishiganga five times before we hit the traditional beaten trail at Dibrughetta.

After much wangling and a lot of luck, the expedition got the vitally important clearance required from the State Govt and the team moved from, where it had arranged its administrative loads and rendezvoused at the Bengal Sappers Centre at Roorkee. After much feting by the Bengal Sappers, the team moved off to Joshimath, in time for the traditional opening of the Badrinath road and the blessings of that deity were obtained by all. Daily training treks now began to Auli to toughen the members who received as a daily reward the ‘darshan’ of the mountain from the ski slopes of that famous winter resort.

In the last week of April, the team staged forward to Lata village, for all practical purposes, the gateway to Nandadevi. Lata village stands poised on the western slope above the Malari road on the western slope. The track to the high altitude bugyals of Lata and Belta Khadak begins here. Very importantly, the temple of Lata village is consecrated to the goddess Nandadevi herself, so the team came here first of all to propitiate the Goddess. The prayers were accompanied by vows of abstinence by the complete team of liquor and cigarettes. The entire team felt that it was on a pilgrimage to pay homage to the this holy devisthan. We prayed that the Goddess had accepted our offerings. Since the roadhead was Lata, a couple of jawans remained there throughout the expedition as a radiolink. More about them later.

The expedition began on 01 May 93 with a stiff march up the Rishiganga along steep pine slopes of the Raunthi forest on the southern bank. On the morning of our third day, we had our first river crossing. A few logs felled zig zag across the river between rockfalls in the stream bed, with a single horizontal rope for help in balancing, was all the support one got to cross the river. Balancing precariously the team began to cross carefully. At mid-morning however, a porter carrying a gas cylinder, slipped and fell into the torrent. The body could not be recovered. Naturally, a grim mood settled on the team. While writing the sitrep, Maj Bhatt asked the porter’s mate as to what name this crossing place was known by. He replied ‘Kalikona’ (Corner of Goddess Kali).

There was pin drop silence as both the expeditioon members and the villager porters realised that no propitiation had been done before crossing at that spot to Goddess Kali who signifies the destructive aspects of Shakti. This was invariably the practice in the past, but since the sanctuary had been closed so many years hence, even the porters who belonged to that area had forgotten about it! It looked as if the Goddess Kali had taken a ‘jivdaan’ herself when it appeared that she had been forgotten. The performing of the puja accompanied by a ritual sacrifice of a goat lifted everybody’s spirits and returned the previous vigour and enthusiasm to all concerned. And true to reputation, this and all subsequent river crossings were attempted successfully without untoward incident. Coincidence or divine intervention – this was the first manifestation of the supernatural.

As one penetrated deeper into the sanctuary, the landscape and mountain light took on a unreal clarity and brightness. The air was fresher, the breeze colder, the morning sunlight sparkled off the dew drops and glistening streams bubbled between rocks. As we climbed higher – the vegetation changed. Oak and deodhar forests were replaced by stands of pine and birch and later by hedges of dwarf rhododendron and finally by large meadows of wild flowers. Ghorals, which populated the cliffs above the Rishiganga, were replaced first by musk deer at Dibrughetta and the next few marches and then by Bharal or Blue Sheep above the tree line. The ravens at the roadhead vanished and that ubiquitous companion of high altitude, the yellow-billed chough made its presence felt. On the alpine meadow of Sarson Patal, rare snow apollo butterflies flew amongst the myriad wild flowers. Everywhere old skulls of bharal interspersed with dried scats spoke of the mysterious and elusive snow leopard.

Reaching Sarson Patal requires two days of stiff climbing. The first day, we ascended Swarg Sidi (Ladder to Heaven), a razor-thin path skirting steep cliffs over deep gorges which had just enough space to place your boot and where fixed rope and pitons had to be placed for us to climb. This lethal path is one of the most dangerous spots in the Himalayas. However, we felt the Goddess’ favour on a number of occasions. No matter how carefully you traverse, a slip on rubble or overbalancing while crossing a bush protruding from the rock-face may become a headlong descent into a turbulent river deep below. Yet each time, there was a timely hand of support or jerk of the rope or an icepick extended in anticipation and our large column of mountaineers and porters climbed the stairway to heaven safely. I was myself saved on more than one such occasion. The second day we stepped around a veritable devil’s maze of sharp rocks and chasms, as we crossed Patal Khan, the mine of slate. Again, we negotiated this obstacle with supreme confidence and more importantly without injuries. None of us could deny that divine favour shone upon us.

The base camp was reached and camps established smoothly. The establishment of camps and upward ascent began smoothly and on 13 Jun at 0320 hrs, the summit team, comprising Maj Amin Naik, Capt Anand Swaroop and Mr GK Sharma, was poised at Camp IV for the attempt on the summit. The Goddess gave the team one shot at success and they set off at and climbed the peak at 1710 hrs. Maj (now Maj Gen) Amin Naik recalls, ”When we reached the top, it was completely white bound. We could not see the mountains all around us. We planted the flag, thanked the Goddess, took photographs and immediately began our descent back while the weather was good. We reached back only at 2330 hrs!”

The Goddess had favoured them en route – Amin Naik had a very close call when he slipped just short of the summit but could miraculously recover on his own. On the return back, the Goddess allowed the exhausted climbers to reach back safely – a privilege she had denied the Paras in 1982.

The summit team had sent a success signal at around 1730h on the short range radio set to base camp. Base Camp in turn relayed this wonderful news to the ecological team who were at Ramani to relay it to Lata and then onto Joshimath and New Delhi. By the time, the radio message could be passed to me at Ramani through the crackle of the ether, it was dark and around 1845. After much trouble I could get through to the Lata radio detachment. On getting through, they immediately congratulated me profusely, which came as a surprise to me, but I assumed that somehow the message must have got through. Almost immediately the fog came down and our communications also snapped. I put the matter outside my mind.

The very next day the monsoon broke and since we had already climbed the mountain and finished our ecological studies, the leader called off the expedition. Since the Rishiganga was now a monstrous torrent which could not be negotiated under any circumstances, we returned via the traditional Dharansi route which was now clear of snow. On the 21st, the expedition marched into Lata and camped down at the confluence of Rishiganga and Dhauligangs on a flat bank below Rini village for rest and celebrations. The main celebration was a tremendous campfire dinner with the porters and villagers of Lata and Rini. The villagers sang Garhwali folk songs and the school children danced their traditional dance to the Goddess! I still remember them saying ,”Nandadevi <something something>, godi mein Lata Reni”.

We plied the villagers with rum while they plied us with their traditional rice-beer and rice-wine. I found myself standing next to the signal NCO who was in charge of Lata village. I remembered and asked him – how come he had come to know of the success of the exhibition before I told him.

He said ”Sahab, we were sitting in the temple courtyard that afternoon and around 5 O’clock, all at once, the bells began ringing. Since there was no one inside the temple, we were amazed. The villagers started jumping around with joy saying ‘Nandadevi Mataji ne darshan diya’. We then climbed the ridge and looked at the mountain. It was stormy, with thunder and lightning all around, as if the mountain itself was celebrating! We realised that this must be the case and hardly had I got back when your call came through!” The village patwari of Lata hastened to corroborate these events.

Divine providence? I like to think so. The Goddess had shown her favour to the team who returned safe and sound having achieved all their objectives and bringing back over a thousand kgs of garbage from the mountain.

Notes

• Image of Nandadevi – author Anirban C8. Used under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. See Wikimedia Commons Sourcepage
• MES – military Engineering Service, the parent organisation of Mr GK Sharma.
• darshan – audience, as that given by a religious head to his congregation.
• bugyal – high altitude meadow.
• sitrep – situation report.
• jivdaan – ritual sacrifice of a living creature.
• puja – religious worship ceremony.
• Deodhar – Himalayan Cedar (Cedrus deodara)
• ghoral – Himalayan Ghoral (Naemorhedus goral), a goat-antelope.
• bharal – Blue Sheep (Pseudois nayaur)
• patwari – village headman.

Don’t forget to read – Sarson Patal.

A vigil in the dark

Things change after dark! The harmless hedge in your garden that beckoned you with its fragrant blooms by day, now threatens to harbour snakes and other myriad creepy-crawlies by night. The dull, noxious neighbourhood nallah suddenly metamorphoses into a romantic riverine rendezvous by moonlight. So it is with the CME Lakes.

Sitting by the lake late at night offers an experience radically different to the familiar scene during the day. At first when you wait on the lakeside culvert, it is dark and cold, the senses seek light desperately and your mind rebels at this seeming waste of time. It takes a good quarter of an hour for the mind to settle down. You get used to the cold breeze, the pupils of your eye enlarge and amplify the scant night-light. Your ears attune to the sounds. And then, imperceptibly, you plunge through the rabbit hole and enter wonderland. Slowly, the world comes alive by night.

You are alone but not lonely. The full moon shines down delicately scalloped by the cirrus clouds high in the stratosphere. A large yellow Venus and a small Jupiter shine high on the horizon. The stars are veiled by the clouds; most will appear once the clouds have crawled past. A soundless blinking pair of lights reveal the path of an aircraft making its way across the peninsula to some magical destination in the Far East. In the distance, around the lake shore and slightly above the waterline, a beautiful necklace of yellow and white pearls amongst the dark trees trace the industrial area around CME’s perimeter.  The shadowy outline of trees on the far bank are silhouetted against the night sky brightened by urban glare. The lake water is dark, patterned with varying shades of black and gray with wavelets in the gentle breeze rippling the moon on the water.

But it is not very quiet. No, peace and quiet comes much later on a Saturday night. The night-wind carries sound faithfully across vast expanses of land. The rattle of a goods train crossing the Mula River and the plaintive hoot of its engine are as clearly heard as the DJ mixing numbers in the Officers Institute or the racy Hindi songs at a marriage in Dapodi. The barking of dogs in faraway Se La road provide a contrast to the miniature fireworks display far away beyond Kasarwadi, no doubt to celebrate a marriage, festival or a cricket victory. But these noises can never drown out the whine of mosquitoes which hover around you. Down the road toward the Cadets Training Wing, a pair of cicadas serenade each other through the night.

The concrete culvert feels hard, rough and cold even through the thick denim of your jeans. You turn up your collar to reduce the prickles and shiver the breeze brings on. The nose wrinkles first at the odour of Odomos that surrounds you to keep the rapacious mosquitos at bay. The faint stench of decaying vegetation in your nostrils now penetrates through you. It is only if you walk along the shore that you can partake of the delicate aroma of a night-blossom  beckoning its lover-moths to pollinate her.

The fish are the first living things to draw your attention. A large splash, followed by a black stain on the water indicate where a large Rohu, probably in his second year, comes up by night to draw in oxygen through his mouth. Confident of safety from the legions of herons, storks and cormorants who wait for them by day, the fish surface every few minutes. That itself is worrisome, is an  oxygen deficit building up in the lake?  A small plip on the water surface followed by a flickering little flying shadow is the only indication of some small insect bats hawking flies and sipping water from the lake surface. The water birds, who are a riot by day, are quiet except for an occasional squawk from the lake which tells us that the favourite jester of CME, a purple moorhen, has just offended his neighbour.  Now, a pale streak across the sky shows the path of a small meteorite burning to oblivion as it enters Earth’s atmosphere.

A few birds can be seen dark stationary silhouettes perched on stumps or on a lonely vigil among the reeds. The duck sleep on the shore with heads turned back and bills shielded in the feathers of the back.  A soft chuk, chuk, chuk churrr behind me in the grass beyond the road, tells tales of an Indian Nightjar, a secretive and nocturnal resident of CME. There is harsh kwiirik chuk in the trees by the roadside. Their author is not hard to find despite his small size. The pint-sized Spotted Owlet is perched on a branch with a commanding view over where his prey, the metads and field mice, could gambol. A pair of dark animals with long snouts and long thick tails must surely be a pair of palm civets out to trouble the denizens of Bhosari. They pause at a wet trail by the river, but the water-snake which made it has long gone by and they turn away – they have bigger fish to fry. A soft whirring tells of hawk-moths which have finally arrived at the night-blossoms, plunging their extra-long and thin proboscis deep into the corolla of the Raat-ki-Rani flowers to get at the sweet nectar and leaving behind a few grains of precious pollen for the plant. An ominous shaking in the bush turns out to be nothing more than a cow grazing in areas where she is normally driven off by day.

The symphony of shadow and sound continues throughout the long vigil and the ambience mesmerises the senses. The soul begins to meditate and just as you reach a state of bliss, rude reality bursts into your presence. In this case, its the increasing screech of a Dhai-Ton truck, carrying the armed patrol of the College on its nightly round. The vehicle soon recedes with a dull roar, but takes along with it the very special moment. No doubt, you will experience something like it some other day, but today’s deed is done. You will have to return home to a different set of pleasures.

As you move off, the lake and its life continues in its endless cycle of existence unaware of the happiness they have given you.

Notes

• CME – the campus I stay on.
• Nallah – a stream or dry streambed. Water not necessarily fresh.
• Rohu – Labeo rohita, a freshwater carp often cultivated in Indian water bodies and very good to eat!
• Dhai Ton – a light military truck. (Dhai = 2.5 in Hindi)

The winter visitors are here!

The CTW Lake, CME, Dapodi in Oct 2008

The hottest thing happening in town is that hundreds of really good-looking birds are here all the way from Russia, Siberia and Central Asia and having a great time at our very own lakes. And with the decline of Pune’s traditional wetlands of Mula Mutha and Pashan, for Pune’s wildfowl, CME is the happening place in town.

A flight of resident Spotbill come in to land.

Our staid resident community of a three hundred Spotbill duck have been enlarged by the arrival of almost a thousand migratory duck. The first which you will notice when peering over the embankment of the CTW Lake are the bright chestnut Ruddy Shelducks, known in India as Brahminy Ducks, the giants of the duck community. Faithfully organised in spouse-pairs, they stand uneasily amidst the hoi-polloi of hundreds of Northern Shovellors with brown heads down into the water, their boat shaped bills trawling relentlessly for snacks and their tails wagging as they go about their dodgem race to get at the good stuff.

The ruddy shelduck in full splendour over the CTW lake.

Interspersed amongst them are the Northern Pintails with purple necks and a beautiful white stripe running down their seductive neckline and pointed tail feathers which give them their names. Smallest of all are the Common Teals, their males looking anything but common with shining green and brown heads.

In between the crowd, a few strays – a forlorn female Nakta or Comb Ducks, her white-woolly body peppered with black spots, looks all around in vain for the prominent combed beak of the males of her species. Someone didn’t give her quite the right directions! And all around this fish-market are the cheeky brown Little Grebes or span Dabchicks who dare each other as to how close they can get to this frightful human who thinks he’s invisible to the birds by being half-defiladed behind the bund. Amidst these, bob the plump-staid Coot, residents of CME, looking distraught at the riff-raff which arrives each season. Over head, the Grey Herons and Painted Stork are unimpressed, they have seen all this before. What is much more important is to decide whether he/she should invest in a time-share at this fish-abundant but crowded spot or go to another beckoning shallow with uncertain fish and no jostling neighbours. The Black-headed  White Ibis have no such qualms about fratenising with their cousins, a flock of Glossy Ibis.

The Purple Swamphens who entertained us all summer by their bumbling antics are now joined by the more prim and proper Common Moorhens. The Pheasant-tailed Jacanas, always a treat to watch, are now mostly gone; they don’t like the wood and leaf-smoke which is the characteristic odour of winter in our campus and do not hesitate to make their displeasure known.

The clearing of brush-wood by the roadside has deprived many dozens of Great and Little Cormorants of privacy, shade and perch and they have moved out of CME to the Mula river. However, their absence was not missed as a new bird appeared on the scene in Pune – the Darter or Snake-bird, a pair of which were recently seen at the Middle Lake opposite the Sailing Club.

Record shot of Darter at Upper Lake, CME by Girish Vaze

The hottest chick in town was undoubtedly the solitary svelte Greater Flamingo which daintily trawled her upside-down head waggling her pink body in the tasty swallows in the upper lake. But her arrival put a frown on the foreheads of the bird-watchers – are the CME lakes turning brackish, as every-one knows flamingos are only found at sea-shores and brackish lakes.

However, where duck are plentiful, the birds of prey follow, in our case a pair of Marsh Harriers with gorgeous chestnut coloured neck head and shoulders, causing waves of duck to alarm and fly off as they carry out a low vigil over the reed-filled shorelines.

The Marsh Harrier on patrol.

It is getting late now. A flight of elegant Black-winged Stilts resembling the chic models of Vogue as they cross their legs in the shallows, are disturbed by two pesky Green Sandpipers who buzz them as they spot the raconteurs. A flock of 150 Wire-tailed Swallows and Red-rumped Swallows hawk insects in the reddish glow of dusk as some birds take off – a few for their nightly outings for feed, others en-route to communal roosts on the riverside, while the rest settle down in a low muttered squabble for the night.

Hush, night falls in paradise!

( First published in CME Weekly in Nov 2008 )

(Note: Text available under GFDL or Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 . Images  are copyrighted by the authors. Email addresses of Gaurav Purohit and Girish Vaze available on request.)

The Living Lake

The Upper Lake at CME, Dapodi, Pune.  May 2008

If  you approach the Upper CME Lake cautiously on the Nasik road itself and halt a few metres from the culvert right next to the lake, you can see a plethora of bird life on the banks. What appears to be a melee soon distinguishes itself into a large number of interesting objects each asking for your attention.

The grass bank teams with Egrets, completely white with fine feathers on head or chest. Plump Purple Moorhens with basketball shaped bodies and red wattles on their hands gambol around on the mud. Staid Grey and Purple Herons with sharp spear-like beaks and long eyelashes which extend backwards beyond their heads stand immobile with S-shaped necks coiled like springs. Suddenly the bird strikes forward and comes up with a frog which is summarily gobbled up before they strike another pose.

The lake is well stocked with fish and supports a large community of resident fish-eaters such as cormorants, herons and storks. (Photo:Girish Vaze)

The piece de resistance of this view point are the Painted Storks, the largest birds residing here, with long beaks slightly turned at the end, egg yolky in colour, red eye patches and with delicate pink feathering on their backs reminiscent of the flamingo. It steps forth with measured step of an arthritic delicately probing as it goes for delicacies in the mud. Sprinkled amongst the storks are the Black-headed White Ibis, with curved beaks, resembling undertakers. Silently the birds plunge their beak in the morass for titbits for Ibis, unlike other birds, do not call.

The associated reedbeds and grass patches of the CME lakes support inordinate populations of Purple Swamphens! (Photo: Girish Vaze)

The water gently ripples from the breeze of crystal clear air causes the lake to band the landscape. Above the blue-grey water is a green band of grass and rushes. They are punctuated with water birds. Most prominent are the completely black Cormorants which dive into the water, upturn and fish coming up for a breather with body underwater and only the neck above the surface looking like a snake-bird. When the fishing is done, they return to their congregation on a tree next to the culvert or stand on dead tree trunks with wings spread wide open to dry their wings for as you know cormorants lack the oil glands possessed by ducks which prevent their feathers from getting waterlogged.

Speaking of Duck, there are very few on this lake. They are to be found on the CTW, middle and lower lakes with a few skeins at other ponds in the campus. We shall meet them next when we visit the CTW Lake. The black duck-like birds with white on their faces on their foreheads and beak floating amongst the water hyacinth are Coot, a different kind of water-bird. Some of the browner and smaller individuals among them on the shore are the juveniles of the last breeding season which are yet to strike out on their own.

The setting sun hangs a while poised above the horizon as a whiff of the cloying smell of decaying vegetation is whisked on the cool breeze. In the peace punctuated by the squawk of a heron above the low pitched rumple of the rowing channel machinery can be heard coming back to laager after a day’s work. A large fish jumps well out of the water, showing off its scales, confident that there is no danger from the ubiquitous Kingfishers so late in the day.

Slowly darkness falls, the cormorants fly off in batches, aligned in oblique lines to their nesting place across the River Mutha. Occasional Vs of duck can now be seen as they move to their night time foraging in the fields. The storks, egrets and herons settle down on the bunch of trees which they have selected as a heronry on the other side of the lake. It is now time for us to go home having enjoyed some of that quality of life which so many aspire to, so few get and which is already there within reach only requiring us to open our eyes and drink it all in.

(This writeup first appeared on CME Weekly in Jun 2008).

Photo Credits: Girish Vaze. Copyrighted. His email available on request.