Skip to main content

Gomukh and all


When I took up my present job in Delhi at the age of 41, leaving my previous job in a romantic place like Shillong, what I really wanted was a nice place to live and enough money too.  It didn’t take me much time to find the present place and job which fulfilled both conditions.  An excellent campus (a school) with more greenery than most schools in Delhi can afford. 
What Providence (I am an agnostic, please) gave me was better than what I had expected.  A green campus, enough place to move around even in the kitchen of the accommodation that was provided, and – best of all – a cool environment all along the scooter ride from where the city ends (Chattarpur).  I used to love those scooter rides.  Even my wife did!
That was 11 years ago.  Today, I wouldn’t like to go out of the campus.  The moment I step out it’s the devil of a dust that greets me anywhere.  Gone are the days of a nice environment.  The environment has been killed.  The marble industry took over the road from Chattarpur to Fatehpur Beri.  Industrialists of other hues too grew in stature – by-products.  Too many cars ply on the road now.  For the sake of those cars the roads are constantly under repair.  Dust is a by-product and it does not affect those who sit in air-conditioned cars.
The area is becoming DEVELOPED. That’s important.  Development is important.  Otherwise the government will fall.
Where do I go from development?
I am going to the Himalayas.  No, I’m not going to ascend Mount Everest at this age.  Nor am I going to become some Nirmal Swami. 
I am going to Gomukh (13,200 ft).  For a trek with a few of my students.  Granted by my school.  As a gift for my services.
The next blog will be after I return (rejuvenated) from Gomukh.

Comments

  1. I have been to Gomukh . Thats because its enroute to the Shivalinga peak. The best part is that even if you manage to get a dip in the bone-chilling glacier at Gomukh, you wont fall sick probably because the microorganisms cant live at such high altitudes. But the locals have even attached some story with it.
    I am happy for you. The trek especially from Bhojbasa to Gomukh is very scenic. Though sir, I should warn you that rain might play spoil sport and make the way slippery.

    Enjoy sir!

    ReplyDelete
  2. All the best, Matheikal. I am sure that you will enjoy the trek,though I understand that Gomukh itself has become a disappointment and it is hard to believe that it could be the source of Ganga.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bon Voyage Matheikal! I second Aditi as a good number of my friends have been to Gomukh and I hear it from them too. Nevertheless, compared to dusty hot plains it sure will be a heaven! Enjoy the divine mother nature:)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Have a great trip. I look forward to hearing about the trek.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Now, I am sure to get a poetic description of the last 18 or so kilometers. I, along with my wife, went up to Gangotri but could not muster up the courage to go up to Gomukh though we had planned for it.

    Now I will know what I missed.

    RE

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Second Crucifixion

  ‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita:                         For certain is death for the born                         and certain is birth for the dead;                         Therefore over the inevitable                         Thou shalt not grieve . At that time Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare were moving to Retiring Room Number 6 at the Old Delhi railway station. They walked like thieves not wishing to be noticed by anyone. The early morning’s winter fog of Delhi gave them the required wrap. They found Nathuram Godse already awake in the retiring room. The three of them sat together and finalised the plot against Gand

The Final Farewell

Book Review “ Death ends life, not a relationship ,” as Mitch Albom put it. That is why, we have so many rituals associated with death. Minakshi Dewan’s book, The Final Farewell [HarperCollins, 2023], is a well-researched book about those rituals. The book starts with an elaborate description of the Sikh rituals associated with death and cremation, before moving on to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and finally Hinduism. After that, it’s all about the various traditions and related details of Hindu final rites. A few chapters are dedicated to the problems of widows in India, gender discrimination in the last rites, and the problem of unclaimed dead bodies. There is a chapter titled ‘Grieving Widows in Hindi Cinema’ too. Death and its rituals form an unusual theme for a book. Frankly, I don’t find the topic stimulating in any way. Obviously, I didn’t buy this book. It came to me as quite many other books do – for reasons of their own. I read the book finally, having shelv

Cats and Love

No less a psychologist than Freud said that the “time spent with cats is never wasted.” I find time to spend with cats precisely for that reason. They are not easy to love, particularly if they are the country variety which are not quite tameable, and mine are those. What makes my love affair with my cats special is precisely their unwillingness to befriend me. They’d rather be in their own company. “In ancient time, cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this,” Terry Pratchett says. My cats haven’t, I’m sure. Pratchett knew what he was speaking about because he loved cats which appear frequently in his works. Pratchett’s cats love independence, very unlike dogs. Dogs come when you call them; cats take a message and get back to you as and when they please. I don’t have dogs. But my brother’s dogs visit us – Maggie and me – every evening. We give them something to eat and they love that. They spend time with us after eating. My cats just go away without even a look af

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation