Thursday, May 20, 2010

Vacation Report - Nathu la and Baba Harbhajan Singh

We started at 8 on a moderately sunny day. The day before, some vehicles luckily escaped getting grounded - of a sudden snow flurry. Half way up, one thought kept looming in front of us all: had this been any Western country, no one would have been allowed on roads such as these. Not just were these roads perilous by Divine ordain, it was given a generous dollop of perilous-ness by teams doing simultaneous construction and repair work. Yes, it made for unintended exhilaration, mostly in the way of yelps followed by sighs from us (minus the driver, who, like all pahadi drivers, leave decisions such as safe completion of a treacherous drive to Divine powers. This helps them to be guilt-free when the passengers die of fright)

This is not to criticise the Border Roads Organization - codenamed Swastik - I'm sure they sure do fantastic work. It is not that things don't work - they do, miraculously! It is helped in no small measure by the general Indian attitudes of looking for jugaad at all costs and a disdain for human lives. This lethal combination of attributes has ensured that we do not strive and do not expect to have excellence in systems, public utilities and infrastructure. The flip side is that we generate (eke?) money out of activities like tourism earlier in the lifecycle.

The tragedy of Indian public life is that we are eager to grab the early fruits and utterly neglect the aspect of building excellence. There is no reason for the roads in this country to be so decrepit; no reason for our cities to be so ugly - take a look around you, each building is a monstrosity; no reason for non-star hotels to be so...so average; no reason for the railway stations to be several sizes smaller than current requirements; no reason for airports to be dank, unlighted, cluttered and chaotic. No, the reason of us being a third world country does not cut the mustard. All of us who watched the recent 2020 world cup remember the shots of the streets and the townships of several Caribbean third world countries. What did you see? My brother returned from Nairobi, Kenya; and swears that it is a fabulous town, beautiful and stately - Wodehousean English, even.

My goodness! What a tirade! Now after that digression, back to Sikkim and Nathu la.

We passed several lakes on our way up; including Tsomgo (also called Changu) which we had planned to see on the return. Nathu la is at 14500 feet and I underestimated the might of nature as I stepped out of the SUV - it was bitingly cold because of the stiffish breeze - and a few brisk steps later my head was spinning the way it had done in the New year's party of 2006, my worst experience of getting drunk. It took 5 minutes of deep breathing and controlled calmness to return to normal. After that I took small steps and rested copiously for the short walk up to the Chinese border. Admittedly all of us were under-dressed: no thermals, gloves or double-socks; I was even wearing rubber-soled denim shoes. So much for cuteness!

There is nothing really to see up there. An Indian building, a much larger and gleaming Chinese block (check my pictures later and you'll know what I mean); couple of very young and smiling Chinese soldiers offering us ciggies; and two benevolent-looking Indian soldiers (after accepting the ciggies) keeping a close eye on what we clicked. A curious thing happened: as we were talking to one of the soldiers, the officers marched in with the entourage. The CO ignored my greetings, looked through me as if I did not exist and walked on ignoring the rest of the 6 civilians there. The lesser officer, however stopped, wished back and even engaged us in a conversation. Perhaps that is how the officers of the Indian Army are trained - to create this caste system, if you will, between them and the hoi polloi, the civilians. Perhaps it helps them to be dispassionate and tough. I will wait for further enlightenment on this.

I will digress a little again - humour me please. On our way up we saw several bunkers and camps. In one of the camps we saw artillery carriers - which meant that the main artillery gun, the Bofors was also positioned. Now, you can't have Bofors deployed in any significant numbers by trundling them up trucks or even in the French equivalent of Chinooks that we have, it's too slow and too, too expensive. Cargo planes like AN 32 would be required - especially in light of the strategy of rapid attack envisaged under IBG (read here for further details). This meant that there had to be an air-strip up here. And since we were looking for it, we saw where is could be: a mile-long plateau on the top. It was further reinforced when we saw a road branching out from our's towards that flat and the sign, 'Entry Prohibited'. Of course none of us took any pictures that we thought were delicate so I cannot share the thrill of spotting the possible air strip - it is etched in my mind. Seeing all these preparations of protecting our country and the incredible difficulty that each soldier faces 24x7 (we spotted numerous half-concealed shelters spread across the tops and slopes. They were tiny, which meant only one, possibly two soldiers in utter and total isolation), I found myself reacting incredibly emotionally - proud and teary at the same time.

This proved to be merely the prelude to a larger emotional jhatka a few minutes later. The all-faith temple in the remembrance of Baba Harbhajan Singh. Here was a structure created out of a belief in a human being and there were hundreds of plaques saying, 'Baba bless us'. And these were from the battle-hardened soldiers of the Indian army. While I was there I saw groups of soldiers of various faiths doing darshan and offering sealed bottles of Bisleri as a gift to the memory of the Baba. There is a certain innocence and goodness required to believe in all this if you are a soldier. To see these large, well-knit men pay obeisance to an idea of faith was humbling; these same men would not hesitate to kill an intruder and an enemy. I did not have the heart to take pictures of the soldiers while they were praying - it felt odd - so I took several of the plaques and flags and the lovely poems on the doors, probably of Guru Nanak sahib. It is cold up there and the face muscles go numb, so one does not realise when things run down the face for all to see. It meant a hasty retreat to the edge of the mandir for me. An odd, irrational, heady and cleansing moment.

It was Tsomgo lake next - yaks and yak-touts, people everywhere. On the way back to the hotel, just minutes from Tsomgo, the dark clouds came rolling in. Much of the 90 minute drive was done through 10 meters of visibility, sometimes less. It was very tiring to keep checking if this time we passed 3 inches away from the edge of the precipice and doom. So I curled into my seat and went to sleep.

1 comment:

  1. Nicely narrated travelogue... While reading felt as if I was there with you. Enjoyed it. Quite often I wonder what really drives these soldiers to battle out the harshest conditions day in day out. They are special... Must be special.

    Dharmesh

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