The Call of Kailash

Om Nama Shivaya

One may slip and fall a dozen times in a hundred feet between the front door and the car, and perhaps never even make it in the end. And yet, one may traverse thousands of miles across fifteen timezones and three continents traveling through airport security and desert sands, over high mountain passes and suspended bridges in the space of a few incredible weeks - and find oneself being providentially lead to where one was called - with nary a scrape or a bruise.

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

Hari Om

*****

A parched river Yamuna snaked through the ground miles below, as I peeked into the window on my left, looking past sheets of white clouds gently gliding west. And then out of nowhere, a snow capped peak glistens in the distance, bursting through the clouds far to my left. I would find out later based on the location, that this peak was part of the famous Annapurna massif, one of whose peaks is the the 10th highest in the world at almost 8100 m. And soon I saw another one. I leaned forward in my seat quite suddenly, like a zombie brought back to life.

It was so true, it was believable. I was on a plane to Kathmandu, on my first stop from New Delhi on a yatra to the sacred Mount Kailash and lake Manasarovar. Organized under the aegis of the Chinmaya Mission under the extraordinarily blessed guidance of six friendly and venerable Acharyas (five Brahmacharis and one Swamiji) this trip was the first time I was going to be this far up in the Himalayas, and the first time I was travelling with such a large group of co-passengers - there were 63 other saha-yatris (verily the modern avatars of the 63 Nayanar saints?). If I had any reservations about traveling with such a large group of people - mostly elder to me - I did not know it, for I had unconsciously invoked the most powerful mantra for exactly such circumstances, thanks to my association with the Chinmaya mission for over a year.

Yes, it is a two letter, single syllable word, not native to English. But if you're thinking about Om, the answer is no - which is actually not a word, but a sacred, mystical,universal, all-pervading, primordial sound. But I digress.

It is ji, the suffix that magically transforms even the grumpiest of dispositions into a loving smile, and by the respectful utterance of which, people have been known to willingly give away all their wealth, and volunteer their time and service and generally do anything the entreating party woud ask them to do. Armed with such a potent mantra, I was able to hypnotize several elderly people into believing that I was the most helpful, kind and obedient young man they would ever meet. Except Subburam Chandrabose, that is. Bose didn’t need to hypnotize or cast his ji spell, as his half-smile would suffice, for he hardly ever spoke a word on the yatra, much less ask a question, or say no to anyone.

Most yatris probably remember the first time we heard about the yatra, and the exact situation when we decided to go on this yatra of a lifetime. In my case, while I had not decided to go on this yatra on a whim, it was definitely instinctive. Now when I think back to the day I told Br. Uddhav Chaitanya-ji that I was on for the Kailash-Manasarovar trip, without even knowing the exact dates, it feels like the decision to go came so naturally (I just remember immediately telling him “Yes” and him sealing the deal with a characteristically broad smile and a high five), it was like responding to someone calling your name. In fact, quite simply, there was no decision to be made at all. I only had to think about how I was planning to go, and it would all be taken care of, including getting a break from work for twice the number of vacation days I was eligible for.

*****

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.

-St. Augustine

I found this quote hanging on a banner at New Delhi's new airport terminal on my return. Taking the analogy from this quote further, if the world is a book, then traveling on a pilgrimage is not just like reading, but understanding the most important pages in the book. And of all the pilgrimages, going to Mount Kailash is one of the toughest and the most blessed. Indeed, this is like finding the most complicated and important page in the book, and seeking to understand, memorize and internalize it, and perhaps even write your dissertation on it. Like Mallik-ji did on the trip (well, at least in Kathmandu!). The magnificent tradition of Sanatana Dharma is unequivocal about the virtues of going on a pilgrimage or yatra, as described in numerous scriptures. In fact, the importance and value of going on pilgrimages is a leit motif in the Skanda Purana, the longest of the Mahapuranas.

Then, I wondered as I wrote this, if God is everywhere, why do we have to go to some remote place to seek Him? I guessed that the answer is that God is certainly there all around us, it is only that we aren’t able to see Him or seek Him. If we had never opened our eyes, we can’t blame anyone for us having seen nothing but darkness, even as the Sun shone around the world. And if we really wanted to see a glorious sunrise, we'd have to wake up really early, and head outdoors to a place where there would be a clear, unobstructed view, perhaps far from the city.

But then again, why such remote places? So that we don’t come running back to our city, home and our small world immediately after watching the most beautiful sunrise that we had ever seen. But there is definitely more to it.

From the Yajur Veda, which contains the Sri Rudram, at least two names of Lord Shiva give praise to this attribute:

namo kig-m shilaya (salutations to one who lives in rocky uninhabitable places),

and

namo giricharaya (salutations to one who walks or wanders the mountains)

It is so clear, concise and helpful. Just in case we have trouble seeking Him in the world, we are reminded that He is also available in remote places and on mountains, including His abode on Mount Kailash - where we may become ready and available to seek Him, because when we go to such places, we only take along the essentials we need, ridding ourselves of the baggage of excessive materialism, if only for a week or two. Well, that certainly had to be the case on this Kailash yatra, particularly on the 3 days of the parikrama, where all we had with us was a backpack filled with modest subsistence items including two pairs of clothes, woollens, medicines, water and snacks. I’m sure on any other yatra,all of us (well, most of us, anyway) would have brought along our Blackberrys and vanity bags, business cards and shopping lists. But more than these distractions, what we would have brought with us is loads of our mental and emotional baggage. On this yatra, however, with Swamijis’ continued guidance and exhortations, we strived to travel light and stay mindful and focused on the true purpose of this pilgrimage.

*****

After the three-hour flight from New Delhi, the descent into the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on a summer morning was delightful, with lush green hill slopes lined with terraced plantations and houses perched at almost inaccessible heights, making one wonder how often the people that lived there went down to the city to get about their jobs and provisions. As we exited the modest terminal building after the immigration processes, our local guide Hrittika awaited us in a charter bus, and after half an hour’s drive through the centre of the city - including a drive by the Pashupathinath temple - we arrived at our hotel, Park Village in Budhanilkantha, 10km northeast of the airport at the base of the Shivapuri Hill. The narrow entrance to the hotel belied a much larger resort, spread over 5 acres and designed largely as a calm and exclusive haven for foreign tourists seeking refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city. After enjoying a leisurely lunch, we slowly settled into our rooms and began packing or re-packing our duffel bags for the trip. Later that evening, we had our first evening Satsang with a few lead and follow bhajans, and had our first encounter with Pitchammal Amma’s crisp and mellifluous voice breaking into stirringly devotional tunes. Soon after, we had our orientation session, which was crucial in helping us all get our doubts answered, concerns alleviated and expectations aligned; we were also formally introduced to Swarn-ji, our tour organizer and guide, and her team of local guides and sherpas.

Early the next morning, we left for the Pashupathinath temple, situated on the banks of the Bagmati river and steeped in history and prominence in the Hindu religion as one of the most important temples of Lord Siva, with a five faced (clockwise from east, they are called Tatpurusha, Aghora, Sathyojata and Vamadeva, and the skyward facing Eeshana) linga at the location where the Nandi had emerged out of the ground after entering it at Kedarnath. The temple is as unique as it is beautiful, crisply combining Indian and East Asian architectural influences. While on the one hand you had the prominent golden pagoda-like architecture above the sanctum sanctorum (rather than a sikhara or vimana seen in Indian temples) that melded into a bright red upward sloping frieze above the entrance, there were also elaborate and richly sculpted panels on both silver and wood on the four sides featuring entrances to the temple, that are common in India. All around the sanctum sanctorum, the complex also houses many smaller shrines including one for Vasukinath and another one for Adi Sankaracharya, who had visited this kshetra centuries ago. As it was a Saturday - a national holiday - the locals thronged the temple in the morning, and we jostled with the crowd to get a darshan of the nearly three-foot high linga, however briefly it may have been. From there, we stepped back out into the street and made our way to a store nearby, where all the yatris religiously plunged into a feverish purchasing frenzy, whether it was eka-mukhi rudrakshas, assorted rudrakshamalas, Sphatika lingas, saligramas or other sacred stones, gems and curiosities.

From there we headed to the Boudhanath Stupa, one of the largest and holiest Buddhist stupas in Nepal, making it the center of Tibetan culture in Kathmandu, and is also believed to house the remains of sage Kasyapa, who is venerated in both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. On the top of this imposing stupa is a square tower (harmika) - painted on all four sides with a pair of omnipresent Buddha eyes, described variously as mysterious, indifferent, compassionate and knowing - that in turn is topped by a 13-step pyramid that culminates in a spire to which are tied prayer flags. The stupa is also rich in symbolism, with the view from the top looking like a mandala representing the universe, while the structure of the stupa itself represents the elements (from gross to subtle) from the base platforms (earth) where the devotees go around the kora rotating the prayer wheels chanting “Om Mani Padme Hum”, upward on to the dome (water), rising into to the pyramid (fire) that melds into a gilded canopy (air) and the spire (ether/space), from where the flags take the prayers heavenward. After doing a kora around the stupa, we left for the eponymous Budhanilkantha temple of Jala Narayana to pray at the feet of Lord Vishnu, who was reclined supinely with his legs crossed on a giant 11-hooded Ananta in a square pool of water. While Ananta’s hood shielded Lord Vishnu from the scorching midday sun, the devotees were spared scalded feet by a tarp that was stretched across the pond. Soon, we returned to the hotel and were served a nice lunch, after which some yatris arranged for taxis to leave for Thamel - an area that can only be described as downtown Kathmandu - ostensibly to take care of some unfinished business: shopping.

The next day began early, with Rudrabhishekam at 4 am, and breakfast by 6 o’clock, after which we watched our identical, red duffelbags loaded onto the roofs of four minibuses, and eventually left the hotel at 7.30 on a five hour drive to Kodari, a town on the border of Nepal and Tibet, that was only a tantalizing 75 miles east of Mount Everest, as the crow flies. A friendly group of ten sherpas joined us as the bus journey took us an hour east, then four hours north on the Arniko Rajmarg, the main highway that snakes alongside the muddy Bhote Kosi (literally meaning Kosi from Tibet) river that flows south from Tibet into Nepal forming the Sapta Kosi which eventually joins the river Ganga in India as its tributary, the Kosi. We stopped for lunch at Barabise, 15km from Kodari, going past the only bungee jumping location in Nepal - with a spanking 160m drop from the deck of a suspended bridge in a canyon above the Bhote Kosi river, certainly one of the highest, wildest and exotic jumps in the world - at a resort that was appropriately named The Last Resort. Soon, we disembarked at Kodari, a small town on a hill slope at 7000 ft elevation and bustling with cross-border trade and walked half a mile to the Friendship bridge that is built above a gaping gorge that marks the border between Tibet and Nepal. After a routine passport check, we were allowed to cross over to the other end alongside modestly built local men and women carrying huge boxes and sacks making the day’s wages, then past stern looking security guards and into a well-built granite building housing China’s border post. After a slow hour-and-a-half trickle including baggage checks and further passport checks in a hundred foot long hall that had no less than a dozen security cameras installed, we finally made our way to the pre-arranged Land Rover jeeps where our Tibetan drivers were waiting for us.

In the half hour drive up to Zhangmu, four in each jeep in addition to the driver, the first major town on the Tibetan side, the air became noticeably cooler in a gentle drizzle as we gained a further 500 ft in elevation, with the views growing visibly more stunning whether you looked down into the valley or up into the clouds and cascades nestled in verdant hills. Clearly, the grass was looking greener on this other side.

After an agonizing hour-long wait while we waited for our duffel bags to get loaded onto a truck, we resume our hour-long drive to Nyalam, on a drive so scenic that I couldnt fully appreciate how beautiful it was until our return to this stetch, ten days later. This was going to be our first night-halt in Tibet, and already for most of us, at about 12300 ft this was the highest elevation we had ever been to, by a good stretch. Inevitably, some of us did not take to this nearly 8000ft gain in just over 12 hours too well, with some feeling shortness of breath, some coming down with a headache, a few throwing up, and many others feeling generally indisposed. To add to the high altitude and the steep drop in temperature, the Shisha Bangma hotel where we stayed at Nyalam was several steps down on the scale of comfort compared to Park Village in Kathmandu, and so it was an even bigger adjustment to make. On the bright side, we had a good Satsang in the evening, a warm bowl of soup to drink and our first dose of Diamox, the high altitude sickness medicine whose popularity would skyrocket in the days to come, while also earning several honorary degrees of medical doctor for Srinivas-ji, our ubiquitous and ever-smiling drug peddler. After we had the dinner the Sherpas had prepared for us, eventually, we all went to bed, except that some of us were unable to sleep. Some rooms, like the one I was in, had few or no windows and the doors were closed to keep the five or seven of us, warm at night. As the hours went by, I felt suffocated and my chest was heavy under the twin layers of the quilt and the blanket. However, thanks to Br. Vinayak Chaitanya-ji, and luckily for me, the Dhanvantri mantra came to the mind, then to the lips and then to the rescue and sleep ensued, if still fitful.

*****

Our first morning in Tibet began with Rudrabhishekam and Lalitha Sahasranama parayanam, and even though it was a very chilly morning, post-breakfast many of us began to feel a little more normal again. Later, we set out on a trek aimed at getting us acclimatized to the high altitude, and after a short walk on the road back towards Zhangmu, we began to climb the hill that was directly behind the hotel, but not before some bhajans segued into a spontaneous Garbha on the middle of China National Highway 318 and the mandatory pose for a group photo. Soon, the group started to spread out in a few directions - with Br. Jaganmitra Chaitanya-ji taking off in a sprightly manner far to our right and a few us leading the way towards the left - but generally everyone was moving skyward. The air was fresh and pleasant, and the yak were grazing in the slopes nearby, while far to our right in a southwesterly direction, we could see a snow-capped peak. Setting myself a target to reach the prayer flags visible at the top of the hill in a rush of adrenaline, I climbed steadily without caring to see if I was following a trail, if there was one at all, but making sure to walk at a pace at which I could still breathe normally with my mouth closed. Turning around occasionally to look at the sweeping expanse of the valley below me, I found that at one point, I had unwittingly assumed the role of leading the group - at least directionally - being closely followed by Subashini-ji, Mallik-ji and Bhavna-ji and most of the rest group following thereafter. From that point on, I climbed a lot more deliberately, trying to find the paths that would be the easiest to traverse without necessarily being the shortest route to the top, hoping that would ensure that the most number of people could climb as far as they could with the least effort possible. In just under an hour, I was at the top where there was nothing more than a small concrete structure and a prominent pole to which several strings of prayer flags converged. As I sat there enjoying the brilliant views all around,noticing some yatris were slowly beginning to turn around half-way or three-fourths of the way up, and some others just happily clicking away,I was pleasantly surprised to realize that at least twenty-five yatris had made it to the top - if not more - but an even bigger surprise awaited me: among the joyfully tired faces at the top was the sparklingly white-bearded, bespectacled face of Gopikrishna-ji, who was feeling distinctly unwell the night before, and who, even just over an hour ago, at the start of the hike had said he was only hoping to go for a gentle walk along the road. After we returned to the hotel, many of us ventured further down the road into the market locality nearby,whether to make a few phone calls or some more shopping.

Later that night, in the hallway on the third floor, we had a special treat waiting for us. Swami Shivayogananda-ji - almost apologetically informing us that he would give us a brief but important talk instead of the regular Satsang -gave us an unforgettably inspiring and uplifting message on the significance of Mount Kailash citing anecdotes from the Mahabharata with the ease with of a seasoned jester cracking Sardarji jokes. Going well over the usual one hour routine we were used to - while hardly any one moved from their positions whether seated or standing - Swamiji also explained the reverential attitude to be assumed while doing the Parikrama and the only thing worth praying for at the feet of Kailash in the form of Lord Dakshinamurthy: a sincere prayer to receive the Highest knowledge of Shiva-tattva gnanam which is nothing but the quintesssential goal of life, of Self realization or Atma gyanam.

Day five of the yatra brought a bright and sunny morning, with all of us visibly chirpy and energized, as we got into our jeeps and set off westward, crossing over a bridge on the Matsang river and continuing on China Highway 318, also known as Friendship Highway. About 15kms away, the convoy stopped along the road to visit the site of Milarepa’s cave, where the eleventh century Buddhist monk was believed to have spent several years in meditation. The cave is now part of a monastery built around it, that sits facing down a valley that has large green tracts of crop fields and not too far from the Matsang river. We walked down to the bottom of the cave complex, only to find the entrance to the building directly above the cave locked, and it appeared that neither one of the two monks who were the resident caretakers of the monastery were around. And so, some people just danced, while others walked around or huddled for photographs hoping to buy some time in which the monk could return, but when he did not return for nearly half an hour, we walked back to our jeeps. But we did get to peek into the interior of the cave through a small window in a passage, and saw that there were a few small bells on a wooden table that was facing a wooden chair with silvery white clothes and bands that some devotees had probably left behind, probably at the spot where Milarepa had once sat in meditation.

Within the next couple of hours, we had driven perhaps another eighty kilometers along winding roads that afforded breathtaking views of the scorched valleys on the one side, but also of the cloud-covered Shishabangma (Xixiabangma) massif on the other. The tallest peak on this system was the 14th tallest peak in the world at 8013 meters, and the lowest of the Eight Thousanders, the group of tallest mountains in the world each above 8000 m. Soon we were at the top of Lalung-la pass, the highest motorable part of the whole journey, from where on a clear, sunny day, we could get wonderful, unobstructed view of the Shishabangma peak. While, we hung around the prayer flags taking photos and videos, the cloud-cover had resolutely stayed in front of the peak, and so we carried on. From the top of the pass, the road brought us back down a few thousand feet on the other side, and while the Friendship Highway continued another 800 km to Lhasa, we headed westward toward Saga after reaching the bottom of the valley, and entered a new domain altogether: the dirt road.

We were forewarned umpteen times that the experience of sitting for hours in a non-air- conditioned car on an unpaved road with the windows rolled up on a hot summer afternoon would be among the most cruel things one could do to oneself. Ranking right after an appointment with the dentist and a loud, yelling, ill-tempered verbal duel with one's spouse - both of which I have luckily never experienced. Anyway, the joys of driving through the endless Tibetan plateau made this portion of the journey a little more digestible.

That is, until the truck broke down, or got stuck in the mud, or found some other novel way to refuse to cooperate with the driver's instructions - and considering that one of the truck drivers was a teenager, while both the trucks (yes, there were two, so that we could have twice the delay;)) were old enough to have retired from service soon after World War II, it was hardly a surprising outcome, but I was surprised when it was first reported that it happened. This was right before we stopped to have our pre-cooked lunch, at a small motel sort of place, very close to beautiful Lake Paiku (or Paiku-Tso) with its turquoise-blue water and white-sand beach And then, I was foolishly surprised again, when I heard it happened a second time soon after lunch, and then the next thing we knew was a few jeeps being earmarked as the "rescue teams" to bailout the poor, old, offending truck. But we drove on, along side sandstone colored canyons with sculpted faces, over sand dunes with desert flora and past a large salt flat before going up and over another major mountain pass on a well-tanned mud road, when the truck finally broke down right in front of our jeep, somewhere around 4pm that afternoon. Eventually, a few hours after the first jeeps had reached the Saga hotel around 6pm, the lagging "rescue team" jeeps would also find their way to Saga, on the banks of the Brahmaputra river, which when parched in the summer in these parts, is far from the menacing torrent that it can be in Eastern Indian states.

The town of Saga is relatively well developed, and Saga Hotel itself was a multi-storey facility adjacent to a Chinese army installation or training campus that blared out old Western military music until the night fell dark. Warnings about the confiscation of cameras from people taking any photographs through the rear windows of the rooms were plastered everywhere.Interestingly and unexpectedly, the hotel had internet access in the lobby and televisions and electrically heated mattresses in the rooms. Water, though, was a scarce commodity. Especially hot, scalding water. And given that the river was running dry, it was also available only from 8pm until it ran out, that too, from an ultra-sensitive binary-coded bathroom shower that only dispensed freezing or boiling water. Still, most yatris managed to take a bath by dint of patience or forbearance. The Acharyas, however had an entirely different strategy: by filling their bath tub full of boiling hot water, and consuming it after moderating it with cold water - otherwise know as plain-old hoarding. While this was an impeccably innovative approach, two rooms down from them, unsuspecting yatris like me were dealt a shocking body blow when, at the exact moment when I had finished applying shampoo to my hair, the hitherto moderate water - which I managed by an improbable balancing act of the faucet - would first stop, sputter, and then turn instantly freezing with the blistering, vengeful force of a villain from a Bollywood movie. Mustering all the courage I could find in my guts, I finished washing my hair by repeatedly sprinkling cold water on my hair, and somehow, managed to survive the night without catching a cold or fever.

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