It was a thrilling experience, not only a superb mountaineering experience but also a revelation to theology for me.

During the long summer break after completion of my bachelors’ degree, I was introduced by chance to a game – “The Age of Empires”. It soon became a fixation for me – playing day in and day out trying to defeat the Romans. It came as slightly surprising to me – that as the civilization progressed religion became of foremost importance. Initially, one had to build various structures, train armies, produce food and research for improvement. Then came trading with other civilizations and building wonders. Building temples and training priests was considered to be one of the most powerful aspects of a civilization. It startled me to think that religion would hold such an important position in a civilization – in fact it was considered to be one of it’s finest refinements. I had never really bothered to think about religion in any way.

We boarded the Rajdhani on 9^th June on our way to Haridwar – “Door to Hari”. On our itinerary was Kedarnath and Badrinath. To go to Kedarnath, one had to make a 14 Km uphill trek from Gourikund. While we panted and puffed our way to the top for a journey of more than 7 hours, it amazed me to see the pilgrims. They had come in bus loads from all over India – many of them too aged to properly walk, a few of them bent almost at a right angle. But, those same persons became men possessed on the way up. They were going as if in a trance – uttering cries of “Har har mahadev” or “Jay Shiva Shankar”. They were a living proof that physical strength came to a naught when compared to mental strength. And this indomitable strength they garnered from religion. Anyway, Kedarnath was a journey worth undertaken. The scenery there was simply breathtaking. It reminded me of the phrase – How green was my valley. And surrounding the green valley was snowcapped mountains. My ardent desire to climb one of the snow-capped peaks was spoiled by my sickness brought about by the freezing temperatures. Thus I had to come back the next day without taming the Himalayas – well at least one of the ranges.

After that we were on our way to Badrinath. The road to badrinath was a thrilling experience – one way for most of the way ( sometimes half way, because of slides). Badrinath was also surrounded by big mountains on all sides. We went to the Badrinath temple ( rather I was taken there) – air was filled with cries praising Shiva & others.

Pretty bored, I undertook the expedition to go to a mountain. It was around 4:30 PM & I was supposed to be back to the hotel by 7:30. Initially, there was a trail (pakdandi) for sometime. Then I left it to climb shear mountains. Initially it was pretty brisk. After sometime, the ascent became very steep & I had to use all my four limbs to get grips. For sometime, the surface became a almost 70-80 degree rock surface. It was very time-consuming & tiresome to climb, as one has to survey the neighborhood after every few steps to get the proper gripping points. After the rocky part, the ground was grassy with ground hugging shrubs. Those shrubs were pretty strong to take my weight, but as it was full of thorns, my hands were becoming pretty bloody. Still, each time I looked up at the peak of the range I was climbing I found renewed enthusiasm. A small group of tourists had gathered below to follow my climb – I admit that this was also a added impetus. Thereafter the climb was pretty steep throughout without break. I came to a desolate stone house after sometime – very prettily built but empty. The view of the badrinath town as I was climbing was becoming increasing small and beautiful. I stopped to take snaps often.

After huffing & puffing for some more time, I came to a cave. This cave with flags in front of it was visible from below. I saw a sadhu sitting outside the cave in meditation. He was looking at me a bit incredulously. I was tired & also felt the urge to know about him. He invited me over. The cave was very neat. It had all the logistics (rice, oil, dal. Etc) stored in tins. He stayed in the cave throughout the year – even during the 6 month winter, when the whole of badrinath town is closed. He showed me a spade, with which he had to dig the snow out of the entrance frequently in winter. There was also a small aperture in the natural cave which allowed for air to come in when the snow could not be removed right away. He lit up a stove and started making tea for me. All along we were conversing in hindi. Then probably taking pity on my hindi he asked – “tumi ki bangali?”. I answered in the affirmative. He was also a Bengali – it came out. He had come to the Ashram in Haridwar at the age of four after his mother expired. He took a 4 year long journey throughout India in his early years. After that he settled in the caves above Badrinath. Why, I asked? He replied – that he was frustrated with everything down there. It is filled with cheats and false godmen. He lived very happily up here with one of his disciples. He asked me about myself & blessed me. Rarely do people come up to his cave. He was very surprised to learn that I was a Bengali – Bengalis are always never amongst the visitors at his cave, they are not adventurous at all. He told me a few stories of Vivekananda – admired by both of us equally. He had gone to Manas Sarovar 4 times after walking for 10 days through the mountains. It was really fun, I thought if one could visit such exotic places. The tea prepared was really refreshing – mixed with some Sanjivani leaves for renewing energy. I told him about climbing to the peak, which was still halfway up. He advised me against it saying the it would become dark soon & the climb was very difficult. But, I was prepared to take the risk.

I started climbing up again at a brisker pace. I had to stop for breadth every alternate minute – the air had become very thin. After scrambling and climbing for ages, I reached my desired pinnacle. The view was breathtaking – snow filled mountains all around, Badrinath town seemed like a toy town – so small. I took my picture with the timer – a difficult job with balancing on the rock that made up the peak. Clouds were rolling in fast & the area was fast becoming dark. My clock showed 7:00 PM.

I started my descent. It was easier than expected initially, ground was grassy so I could slide down. Then the slopes became more steep & rocky. Down below I could see a pathway, which I had to reach. I was climbing down pretty fast, stopping my slide with the thorny shrubs & rocks. I had come almost halfway down when I reached a cliff. It was sheer vertical and rock. I was stranded. I have vertigo and the sheer drop sure made me queasy. I started to climb again after surveying that there was no way I could proceed sideways. It was then that I realized why people say – climbing mountains is far easier then coming down & why most of the accidents occur on the descent. I had to climb almost halfway back till I got to a place, where I thought I could start climbing down again. Again the dangerous climb down. I kept myself facing the opposite of the mountain, so that I could see the places I could place my limbs on. I had seem that mountaineers always descend facing the mountain, but that proved to be a very difficult task. I could not see where I was placing my legs. After climbing down some more, I was really shocked. I saw that I was again facing a sheer cliff. I was really frightened – it was fast becoming dark & very cold. I calmed myself. I started throwing rocks below to judge the depth. But the rocks vanished below without once bouncing up to show that it was not all that steep.

I simply threw up my hands in despair & fright. My clothes had become totally soaked from the strain and from fear. I realized I had made a Abhimanyu (remember Mahabharat) out of myself. One of my brothers is a skilled mountaineer having completed courses from Himalayan mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling. He has gone on a number of expeditions. Once I had gone with him to the salt lake stadium complex – there was a rock climbing wall there. I saw him climbing up very diligently – always on the lookout for cracks and crevices and jumping, swinging & straining every limb to push the body up using the fingers. This was very useful today when I was climbing. I used pretty much the same techniques I learned and had become quite efficient after the long climb. The mistake I commited was I did not carefully observer him coming down. To myself scaling the peaks was challenging, scaling down was not. I was wrong, oh, so gravely wrong. I could not climb down. Hence same as abhimanyu I became. But, I did not want to suffer the same fate. I felt tears trickling down – I was never so afraid in my whole life. Then I did the unthinkable for myself – I took names of all the chants that I had heard - “Jai shiva shankar”…. It really worked. I was the most vociferous atheist if ever there was one. But, in that moment of desperation life seemed so dear, so nice. I gained a lot of renewed energy. I had learnt earlier that mental strength was far more powerful than physical.

I started once more to climb up. After reaching a small plateau, I surveyed the land around for considerable time. I thanked my lucky stars that I was wearing my only wrangler – it took a awesome amount of load, tore itself and saved my skin. The extra soles on both of my Nike had come off halfway. Thankfully the Swiss knife was with me – I tore away the rest of the sole. Now, my shoes had absolutely no grip what-so-ever. I found another probable way down and proceeded. After sometime I came across a almost similar situation. But this time the sheer rock wall was not more than 12-15 feet down and I could see ground beyond that. I would have to conjure up all my skills in the effort to climb down that 15 feet. Beyond that I could see was easy descent. I turned myself facing the mountain. Gripped the scattered rocks and shrubs and swung my feet down. My right leg found a grip after some searching, but my left leg could not. I swung myself again to alter the position and could descend a few more feet. Then absolutely no cracks on the wall. I looked below and saw the ground to be a bit grassy with rock around. I took my chance and leaped the next 10 feet. I rolled some distance and hit a rock to stop the motion. Now I was done. The path from then was easy. I ran down – it was almost 8 PM. It would be pretty dark but because of the full moon. I crossed a stream and at last came to the desired path. I met a man on that path – first living creature after the sadhu – who told me that I would reach badrinath within 15-20 minutes if I followed that path. That person had come on a mountaineering expedition with a team to scale the mountain beyond the one I climbed.

I reached the hotel at 8:30 PM to see a very worried mother standing on the road outside. I collapsed from exhaustion on reaching the room and had 4/5 glasses of water and horlicks. This was another mistake I had committed – I did not take any water.

This adventure will remain one of the most memorable. It was immensely satisfying to be able to scale the pinnacle. I had a good climbing expedition at Panchmarhi in MP but nothing compared to this. But, it taught me to take risks but not unnecessarily. What I had attempted was foolish given the resources and my experience. But ultimately, I was successful, wasn’t I?

Thanks for reading the whole story, you are the n-th person after me . J

Santashil Pal Chaudhuri