A Song of Many Rivers Page 7

  The watchman was most offended and refused to tell us anything about the Sagpa and Sagpani; but Bisnu knew, about them, and later, when we were in bed, he told us that they were similar to Snowmen but much smaller. Their favourite pastime was sleeping, and they became very annoyed if anyone woke them, and became ferocious, and did not give one much time to start running uphill. The Sagpa and Sagpani sometimes kidnapped small children, and taking them to their cave, would look after the children very carefully, feeding them on fruits, honey, rice and earthworms.

  ‘When the Sagpa isn’t looking,’ he said, ‘you can throw the earthworms over your shoulder.’

  5

  The Glacier

  It was a fine sunny morning when we set out to cover the last seven miles to the glacier. We had expected this to be a stiff climb, but the last dak bungalow was situated at well over 10,000 feet above sea level, and the ascent was to be fairly gradual.

  And suddenly, abruptly, there were no more trees. As the bungalow dropped out of sight, the trees and bushes gave way to short grass and little blue and pink alpine flowers. The snow peaks were close now, ringing us in on every side. We passed waterfalls, cascading hundreds of feet down precipitous rock faces, thundering into the little river.

  A great golden eagle hovered over us for some time.

  ‘I feel different again,’ said Kamal.

  ‘We’re very high now,’ I said. ‘I hope we won’t get headaches.’

  ‘I’ve got one already,’ complained Anil. ‘Let’s have some tea.’

  We had left our cooking utensils at the bungalow, expecting to return there for the night, and had brought with us only a few biscuits, chocolate, and a thermos of tea. We finished the tea, and Bisnu scrambled about on the grassy slopes, collecting wild strawberries. They were tiny strawberries, very sweet, and they did nothing to satisfy our appetites. There was no sign of habitation or human life. The only creatures to be found at that height were the gurals—sure-footed mountain goats—and an occasional snow-leopard, or a bear.

  We found and explored a small cave, and then, turning a bend, came unexpectedly upon the glacier.

  The hill fell away, and there, confronting us, was a great white field of snow and ice, cradled between two peaks that could only have been the abode of the gods. We were speechless for several minutes. Kamal took my hand and held on to it for reassurance; perhaps he was not sure that what he saw was real. Anil’s mouth hung open. Bisnu’s eyes glittered with excitement.

  We proceeded cautiously on the snow, supporting each other on the slippery surface; but we could not go far, because we were quite unequipped for any high-altitude climbing. It was pleasant to feel that we were the only boys in our town who had climbed so high. A few black rocks jutted out from the snow, and we sat down on them, to feast our eyes on the view. The sun reflected sharply from the snow, and we felt surprisingly warm.

  ‘Let’s sunbathe!’ said Anil, on a sudden impulse.

  ‘Yes, let’s do that!’ I said.

  In a few minutes we had taken off our clothes and, sitting on the rocks, were exposing ourselves to the elements, It was delicious to feel the sun crawling over my skin. Within half an hour I was postbox red, and so was Bisnu, and the two of us decided to get into our clothes before the sun scorched the skin off our backs. Kamal and Anil appeared to be more resilient to sunlight, and laughed at our discomfiture. Bisnu and I avenged ourselves by gathering up handfuls of snow and rubbing it on their backs. We dressed quickly enough after that, Anil leaping about like a performing monkey.

  Meanwhile, almost imperceptibly, clouds had covered some of the peaks, and white mist drifted clown the mountain-slopes. It was time to get back to the bungalow; we would barely make it before dark.

  We had not gone far when lightning began to sizzle about the mountain-tops followed by waves of thunder.

  ‘Let’s run!’ shouted Anil. ‘We can shelter in the cave!’

  The clouds could hold themselves in no longer, and the rain came down suddenly, stinging our faces as it was whipped up by all icy wind. Half-blinded, we ran as fast as we could along the slippery path, and stumbled, drenched and exhausted, into the little cave.

  The cave was mercifully dry, and not very dark. We remained at the entrance, watching the rain sweep past us, listening to the wind whistling down the long gorge.

  ‘It will take some time to stop,’ said Kamal.

  ‘No, it will pass soon,’ said Bisnu. ‘These storms are short and fierce.’

  Anil produced his pocket knife, and to pass the time we carved our names in the smooth rock of the cave.

  ‘We will come here again, when we are older,’ said Kamal, ‘and perhaps our names will still be here.’

  It had grown dark by the time the rain stopped. A full moon helped us find our way, we went slowly and carefully. The rain had loosened the earth, and stones kept rolling down the hillside. I was afraid of starting a landslide.

  ‘I hope we don’t meet the Lidini now,’ said Anil fervently.

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in her,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t,’ replied Anil. ‘But what if I’m wrong?’

  We saw only a mountain-goat, the gural, poised on the brow of a precipice, silhouetted against the sky. And then the path vanished.

  Had it not been for the bright moonlight, we might have walked straight into an empty void. The rain had caused a landslide, and where there had been a narrow path there was now only a precipice of loose, slippery shale.

  ‘We’ll have to go back,’ said Bisnu. ‘It will be too dangerous to try and cross in the dark.’

  ‘We’ll sleep in the cave,’ I suggested.

  ‘We’ve nothing to sleep in,’ said Anil. ‘Not a single blanket between us and nothing to eat!’

  ‘We’ll just have to rough it till morning,’ said Kamal.

  ‘It will be better than breaking our necks here.’

  We returned to the cave, which did at least have the virtue of being dry. Bisnu had matches, and he made a fire with sonic dry sticks which had been left in the cave by a previous party. We ate what was left of a loaf of bread.

  There was no sleep for any of us that night. We lay close to each other for comfort, but the ground was hard and uneven. And every noise we heard outside the cave made us think of leopards and bears and even the Abominable Snowman.

  We got up as soon as there was a faint glow in the sky. The snow-peaks were bright pink, but we were too tired and hungry and worried to care for the beauty of the sunrise. We took the path to the landslide, and once again looked for a way across. Kamal ventured to take a few steps on the loose pebbles, but the ground gave way immediately, and we had to grab him by the arms and shoulders to prevent him from sliding a hundred feet clown the gorge.

  ‘Now what are we going to do?’ I asked.

  ‘Look for another way,’ said Bisnu.

  ‘But do you know of any?’

  And we all turned to look at Bisnu, expecting him to provide the solution to our problem.

  ‘I have heard of a way,’ said Bisnu, ‘but I have never used it. It will be a little dangerous, I think. The path has not been used for several years—not since the traders stopped coming in from Tibet.’

  ‘Never mind, we’ll try it,’ said Anil.

  ‘We will have to cross the glacier first,’ said Bisnu. ‘That’s the main problem.’

  We looked at each other in silence. The glacier didn’t look difficult to cross, but we know that it would not be easy for novices. For almost two furlongs it consisted of hard, slippery ice.

  Anil was the first to arrive at a decision.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s no time to waste.’

  We were soon on the glacier. And we remained on it for a long time. For every two steps forward, we slid one step backward. Our progress was slow and awkward. Sometimes, after advancing several yards across the ice at a steep incline, one of us would slip back and the others would have to slither down to help him up. At one particu
larly difficult spot, I dropped our water bottle and, grabbing at it, lost my footing, fell full-length and went sliding some twenty feet down the ice-slope.

  I had sprained my wrist and hurt my knee, and was to prove a liability for the rest of the trek.

  Kamal tied his handkerchief round my hand, and Anil took charge of the water-bottle, which we had filled with ice. Using my good hand to grab Bisnu’s legs whenever I slipped, I struggled on behind the others.

  It was almost noon, and we were quite famished, when we put our feet on grass again. And then we had another steep climb, clutching at roots and grasses, before we reached the path that Bisnu had spoken about. It was little more than a goat-track, but it took us round the mountain and brought us within sight of the dak bungalow.

  ‘I could eat a whole chicken,’ said Kamal.

  ‘I could eat two,’ I said.

  ‘I could eat a snowman,’ said Bisnu.

  ‘And I could eat the chowkidar,’ said Anil.

  Fortunately for the chowkidar, he had anticipated our hunger; and when we staggered into the bungalow late in the afternoon, we found a meal waiting for us. True, there was no chicken—but, so ravenous did we feel, that even the lowly onion tasted delicious!

  We had Bisnu to thank for getting us back successfully. He had brought us over mountain and glacier with all the skill and confidence of a boy who had the Himalayas in his blood.

  We took our time getting back to Kapkote; fished in the Sarayu river; bathed with the village boys we had seen on our way up; collected strawberries and ferns and wild flowers; and finally said goodbye to Bisnu.

  Anil wanted to take Bisnu along with us, but the boy’s parents refused to let him go, saying that he was too young for the life of a city; but we were of the opinion that Bisnu could have taught the city boys a few things.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Kamal. ‘We’ll go on another trip next year, and we’ll take you with us, Bisnu. We’ll write and let you know our plans.’

  This promise made Bisnu happy, and he saw us off at the bus stop, shouldering our bedding to the end. There he skimmed up the trunk of a fir tree to have a better view of us leaving, and we saw him waving to us from the tree as our bus went round the bend from Kapkote, and the hills were left behind and the plains stretched out below.

  Tremors in the Night

  Not to be discouraged, we left the ghost town and continued our journey upriver, as far as the bus would take us. The road ended at Uttarkashi, for the simple reason that the bridge over the Bhagirathi had been washed away in a flash flood. The glaciers had been melting, and that, combined with torrential rain in the upper reaches, had brought torrents of muddy water rushing down the swollen river. Anything that came in its way vanished downstream.

  We spent the night in a pilgrim shelter, built on a rocky ledge overlooking the river. All night we could hear the water roaring past below us. After a while, we became used to the unchanging sound; it became like a deep silence, and made our sleep deeper. Sometime before dawn, however, a sudden tremor had us trembling out of our cots.

  ‘Earthquake!’ shouted Sunil, making for the doorway and banging into the wall instead.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ I said, feeling panicky.

  ‘It will pass,’ said Buddhoo.

  The tremor did pass, but not before everyone in the shelter had rushed outside. There was the sound of rocks falling, and everyone rushed back again. ‘Landslide!’ someone shouted. Was it safer outside or inside? No one could be sure.

  ‘It will pass,’ said Buddhoo again, and went to sleep.

  Sunil began singing at the top of his voice: ‘Pyar kiya to darna kya—Why be afraid when we have loved’. I doubt Sunil had ever been in love, but it was a rousing song with which to meet death.

  ‘Chup, beta!’ admonished an old lady on her last pilgrimage to the abode of the gods. ‘Say your prayers instead.’

  The room fell silent. Outside, a dog started howling. Other dogs followed his example. Not to serenade us, but a mournful anticipation of things to come; for birds and beasts are more sensitive to the earth’s tremors and inner convulsions than humans, who are no longer sensitive to nature’s warnings.

  A couple of jackals joined the chorus. Then a bird, probably a nightjar, set up a monotonous croak. I looked at my watch. It was 4 a.m, a little too early for birds to be greeting the break of day. But suddenly there was a twittering and cawing and chattering as all the birds in the vicinity passed on the message that something was amiss.

  There was a rush of air and a window banged open.

  The mountain shuddered. The building shook, rocked to and fro.

  People began screaming and making for the door.

  The door was flung open, but only a few escaped into the darkness.

  Across the length of the room a chasm opened up. The lady saying her prayers fell into it. So did one or two others. Then the room and the people in it—those who were on the other side of the chasm—suddenly vanished.

  There was the roar of falling masonry as half the building slid down the side of the mountain.

  We were left dangling in space.

  ‘Let’s get out of here quickly!’ shouted Sunil.

  We scrambled out of the door. In front of us, an empty void. I couldn’t see a thing. Then Buddhoo took me by the hand and led me away from the crumbling building and on to the rocky ledge above the river.

  The earth had stopped quaking, but the mountain had been shaken to its foundations, and rocks and trees were tumbling into the swollen river. The town was in darkness, the power station having shut down after the first tremor. Here and there a torch or lantern shone out of the darkness, and people could be heard wailing and shouting to each other as they roamed the streets in the rain. Somewhere a siren went off. It only seemed to add to the panic.

  At 5 a.m, the rain stopped and the sky lightened. At six it was daybreak. A little later the sun came up. A beautiful morning, except for the devastation.

  Ganga Takes All

  ‘Ganga-mai ki jai!’

  The boat carrying pilgrims across the sacred river was ready to leave. Sunil and I scrambled down the river bank and tumbled into it. It was already overloaded, but we squeezed in amongst the pilgrims, mostly rural folk who had come to Haridwar to visit the temples and take home bottles of Ganga water—in much the same way that the faithful come to Lourdes, in France, and carry away the healing waters of a sacred stream. People are the same everywhere.

  In those days there was no road bridge across the Ganga, and the train took one to Bijnor by a long and circuitous route. Sunil’s village was off the beaten track, some thirty miles from the nearest station. The easiest way to get there was to cross the river by boat and then take an ekka, or pony-cart, to get to the village.

  The boat was meant to take about a dozen people, but for a few rupees more the boatmen would usually take in more than the permitted number. When we set off, there must have been at least twenty in the boat—men, women and children.

  ‘Ganga-mai ki jai!’ they chanted, as the two oarsmen swung into the current.

  For a time, all went well. In spite of its load, the boat made headway, being carried a little downstream but in the general direction of its landing place. Then halfway across the river, where the water was deep and strong, the boat began to wobble about and water slopped in over the sides.

  The singing stopped, and a few called out in dismay.

  There was little one could do, except urge the oarsmen on.

  They did their best, straining at the oars, the sweat pouring down their bare bodies. We made some progress, although we were now drifting with the current.

  ‘It doesn’t matter where we land,’ I said, ‘as long as we don’t take in water.’

  I had always been nervous in small boats. The fear of drowning had been with me since childhood: I’d seen a dhow go down off the Kathiawar coast, and bodies washed ashore the next day.

  ‘Ganga-mai ki jai!’ called one or two hardy souls, and we
were about two-thirds across the river when water began to fill the boat. The women screamed, the children cried out.

  ‘Don’t panic!’ I yelled, though filled with panic. ‘It’s not so deep here, we can get ashore.’

  The boat struck a sandbank, tipped over. We were in the water.

  I was waist-deep in water, but the current was strong, taking me along. The menfolk picked up the smaller children and struggled to reach the shore. The women struggled to follow them.

  Two of the older women were carried downstream; I have no idea what happened to them.

  Sunil was splashing about near the capsized boat. ‘Where’s my suitcase?’ he yelled.

  I saw it bobbing about on the water, just out of his reach. He made a grab for it, but it was swept away. I saw it disappearing downstream. It might float for a while, then sink to the bottom of the river. No one would find it there. Or some day the suitcase would burst open, its contents carried further downstream, and the emerald bracelet be washed up among the pebbles of the riverbed. A fisherman might find it. In older times he would have taken it to his king. In present times he would keep it.

  We struggled ashore with the others and sank down on the sand, exhausted but happy to be alive.

  Those who still had some strength left sang out: ‘Ganga-mai ki jai!’ And so did I.

  Sunil still had the sapphire ring on his hand, but it hadn’t done him much good.

  How Far Is the River?

  Between the boy and the river was a mountain. I was a small boy, and it was a small river, but the mountain was big.

  The thickly forested mountain hid the river, but I knew it was there and what it looked like; I had never seen the river with my own eyes, but from the villagers I had heard of it, of the fish in its waters, of its rocks and currents and waterfalls, and it only remained for me to touch the water and know it personally.

  I stood in front of our house on the hill opposite the mountain, and gazed across the valley, dreaming of the river. I was barefooted; not because I couldn’t afford shoes, but because I felt free with my feet bare, because I liked the feel of warm stones and cool grass, because not wearing shoes saved me the trouble of taking them off.