Amarnath Yatra

 

Lucky are the ones who get Mahadev’s blessing to go on Amarnath pilgrimage.

Lord Shiva agreed to tell the tale of immortality to Ma Parvati. With sweet resignation to His wife’s insistence, He, with an enigmatic smile, took care that there was no one apart from Mata Parvati to hear even a single world about the secret of His immortality. Gods have mystical sentries guarding the entry and the exit to the portals of real knowledge pointing to the ultimate, unqualified reality, the absolute truth. The gem of truth is hidden in the chest of illusions, the manifesting maya. That’s why this remote cave, the holy shrine of Amarnath, was chosen for the purpose of telling the tale of immortality. It’s a remote area in high Himalayas, the barren cliffs covered with snows for most of the year.

As the Lord told the tale in a pensive, loving and kind tone, perchance (or was it secretly planned by destiny acting independent even of the Gods’ will) a pair of pigeons overheard the story and became immortal. The pilgrims get excited and feel validation of their faith if during their darshan in the holy cave they see white pigeons fluttering under the high, craggy roof of the cave.

The holy cave is located in a narrow gorge at the farther end of Lidder valley at an altitude of 4000 m. Since that mythical episode, beyond time’s whence and thence, the ice lingam kept waxing and waning with the moon in complete solitude and isolation for many centuries. The cave is mentioned in ancient scriptures but was lost to humanity for many centuries. Finally, about 150 years ago a shepherd named Buta Malik discovered the cave. He was grazing his sheep and goats when he met a sadhu. The sadhu gave him a bag of coals. Back home when the shepherd opened the bag, he found gold coins instead of coal. He ran back to the place to find the sadhu. Buta Malik found the cave while he was looking for the sadhu. That’s how the Muslim shepherd found himself face to face with the holy ice lingam and two more ice formations, which we now revere as Ma Parvati and Lord Ganesh. A sadhu appeared (believed to be Lord Shiva Himself) and asked the Muslim shepherd to make arrangement for annual pilgrimage to the cave. Unfortunately, these days there is a mischievous effort to separate Hindus and Muslims from each other’s religious places.  

Buta Malik’s descendents took care of one of the holiest sites in India? Did that diminish its holy status? No. Then times changed and religious polarization became a major factor in Indian politics. In 2008, Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) did away with Malik family’s management of Lord Shiva’s shrine. There were three parties involved: the pundits of Mattan temple, the Mahant and the Malik family. The SASB offered 1.5 crore each to the parties to abandon their custodianship, so that SASB could be made the sole guardian. The two parties accepted the money but the Malik family refused the money. A gentleman of modest means from the family told the governor, who heads the SASB now, that mosques and temples can’t be valued in terms of money. They maintain that they were never after the proceeds from the offerings; rather it gave them spiritual satisfaction in doing this seva work. They still keep a charity medical stall to give free medicines at the shrine. In remembrance of the old, more secular times, many sadhus visit the Malik family during their stay at the Nunwan base camp before taking the arduous journey.    

It’s a difficult trek, especially for the common plainsmen like me who are at the most below average amateur trekkers. Barren, stern mountains stare down at you with a foreboding look. You gasp for breath and take a grasp at your faith to help you struggle ahead. I have been lucky to visit the shrine thrice so far from the Baltal route, which is a short-cut but involves a very steep, risky climb. It might be difficult to look at the pilgrimage as one unit. We have been conditioned to deal with parts and fragments. So that’s how one can proceed to make it easier. Baltal to Domail is 2 km. Walk with spring in your steps. Give your best and focus just on reaching Domail. From here on, brace yourself with a bigger challenge. Domail to Barari is 5 km. This is where you are supposed to be steady, almost warmed up, your lungs now inhaling the thinner put pure air with increased efficiency. Barari to Sangam gives you a 4 km of tougher challenge. Most of the walkers are now on the down-slope of strength and energy. So add your voice to the chants of Lord Shiva to give a kick to your lungs and legs. The 3 km final stretch from Sangam to the holy cave is the most arduous one. Each step a milestone on the path of faith. Here one leaves oneself to the Lord’s mercy. This is the classical calculating way to rationalize the tough pilgrimage. One can mix it up with the poetic, romantic approach as well to make it more joyful.

Why not reach three days in advance before your scheduled registration date for the climb? Your lungs and legs will get acclimatized to the high altitude conditions. Roam around leisurely like you are at a funfair. It indeed is a big festive environment with tents, music, dance and free feisty langar food in plenty at the Baltal base camp. Go on small walks in the picturesque Baltal valley on the foothills of Zozila mountain pass. Enjoy the encouraging escalade of Amarganga on whose banks Baltal base camp is situated. Amarganga emerges from the glaciers around the holy cave. The joint flow of five streams from Panchtarni meets Amarganga at Sangam. Further on from Baltal another stream from Machoi glacier joins Amarganga to become Sindh river. The latter flows for 108 km to join Jhelum, which in turn rests in the lap of the Indian ocean. So enjoy the langars, dance to the devotional music and enjoy strolls through Baltal valley meadows, which further extend to Sonmurg’s golden meadows few kilometers down the valley.

The more you observe, the more you learn and know, the wiser you become, the better life seems. There is more light under the sun of understanding.

Snow leopard is the flagship species here. They have become rare but you can visualize the silent snowy serenades of this solitary hunter on the slopes surrounding you. In the nearby meadows enjoy the violet or dark blue Himalayan bellflower and colorful dwarf rhododendrons. Inhale the freshness while walking through vibrant herbaceous community of aster, jurinea, morina, anemone and primula. See the stoic muse of the willows lining up along the shallow mountain streams. Peek into the lofty heights surrounding you and have a feel of the cold, imploringly impartial and majestically neutral game of mother nature where snow leopards and Tibetan wolves hunt mountain goat, goral, blue sheep, serow and Himalayan tahr. Open your face to the blue vault of open skies where avian predators like lammergeier, golden eagle and Himalayan griffon scan the predator radars for more colorful and agile preys like blood pheasant, western tragopan and Himalayan monal.

There are bouquets of beauty waiting to welcome you everywhere. Do your research on local flora, fauna, geography, culture and places. This knowledge and understanding gives a totally new meaning to your presence here. If you are an above-average observant of what passes on your path, just start soaking the unfoldment of mother nature in your journey from Srinagar itself. Pale yellow elderberry flowers hold a bouquet of their gentle smile by the roadside as you move from Srinagar to Baltal. Pines on the hillsides stand with grand elderly patience and fortitude. Say hello to the fresh, summer meadows blooming with roseroot, poppy, lousewort and aster flowers. Feel your ascension into higher mountains from the paradisiacal valley as the tree line gradually gives way to twisted, stunted rhodendron, juniper, stunted birch; green coniferous forests slowly surrendering to alpine shrubs and grasses between the tree line and the snow line. Keep going, following your faith, pampering the adventurous pilgrim in you, to reach the dark brown barren mass of sky-kissing rocks and cliffs wearing snowy tiara, finally to pay homage to the divine ice lingam, God. Feel the change in life forms from chinar and willows in Srinagar to the divine ice stalagmite formation as the drops of divinity from the cave roof fall for the benefit of devotees to form the representative of the majestic Lord.

Taushif, the taxi driver, is a happy man. An expert driver with quicksilver reflexes he would grasp narrowest chances to overtake on the heavily burdened narrow mountain road. At the dead-ends in traffic jams he flaunted an army taxi vendor card to get a special privilege to proceed. The long line of faith slowly crawling to the Lidder basin, a 40 km long and roughly 3 km wide escarpment surrounded by Pir Panjal and Zaskar ranges. And there the Lidder river fed by the glaciers at the looming heights flows to the tunes of mountainous serenity. Among all this snowy barren wilderness stands the holy cave made of limestone and gypsum. The people of faith from the plains make their way up panting for breath. The local Muslim Bakarwal Gujjars offer their services to the Hindu devotees.

We had to wait for a couple of days before we could start our trek from Baltal. Landslides in the upper reaches kept the pilgrimage suspended. The rains made the route to the holy cave very dangerous. Finally we found ourselves moving in the squelching mud while it was still dark early in the morning. By daylight the mass of pilgrims formed a bottleneck at the check post where one has to show the required papers. It comes a big reprieve to come out of that tight squeeze.

Our ageing bodies not up to the mark of taking up this difficult track and return in a single day, we got ponies as we struggled in the squelching mud on the narrow foot track. With three days of pilgrims stranded from both sides struggling to push and jostle ahead there was a thick wall of humans, ponies, horses and palkis. At a place the palki bearers slipped on the treacherous slope. They rolled down the stony slope like melons. Thanks God they didn’t fall into the narrow gorge below.

It was taking too much time to move even a few yards. It was a frail pony I was perched upon. It was shivering even under my modest weight. The owner would wallop it cruelly from behind. I felt like a culprit torturing this poor, weak, possibly ailing pony. To avoid being the cause of its death, I got down, paid the owner full fare and started walking. I was lucky to even find some place to dismount. It was just a foot away from the edge of the dirt path overlooking a deep fall. I was even scared that the shivering weak pony might fall and roll down taking me with it. So kindness and fear were both equally involved in my decision to start walking on foot.

My friends had sturdy ponies bearing them and they were so stuck up among a mass of ponies that even to get down would be a serious challenge. I left them in their jammed, crammed security and comfort. It had been a gloomy, overcast, freezing day. It started drizzling on the way to the holy cave during the last phase of walk in the gorge.

It was something beyond tiredness. You get numb. You realize the significance of a single step. I walked past the makeshift tents bearing shops, night-stay accommodation and bhandaras hardly able to think anything or even feel. There were long lines of pilgrims stuck up on the wet steps leading to the holy cave. It started raining a bit more intensely and I simply allowed myself to be pushed by the crowd, letting myself to be moved by the energy of the humans squeezing from all sides. An early evening fell as I reached the holy place.

There I stood staring in awe at the majestic, tall ice lingam representing Bhagwan Mahadev. It felt like reaching home finally. The whitish glimpse of divinity as a prasad for all the troubles faced during the climb. We humans are habituated to link one’s effort with the result or the outcome. We view them as inseparable. From this equation, what a beautiful outcome it was at the cost of all the trekking troubles! Such places are massive spiritual charging ports. We need not do anything special to get a sip of divinity there. All we need is just to be there, open ourselves and allow the high-frequency energies to give us a better alignment as per the natural laws. All that needs to be done for our evolution is done automatically, if we just stand there with acceptance, reverence and gratitude.

The pilgrims aren’t allowed to carry their mobile phones during the pilgrimage, so there was no avenue to get in touch with my friends. As a gloomy, wet, cold night looked imminent, I started for the return journey. And finding it a very tough task to trek in the dark with the rain pouring, and having taken no rest, I hired a horse. I chose wisely this time. It was a robust one and hence costly. But the Lord wanted me to take the entire trouble of walking to bear the burden of my faith on myself. I got my test just 3 km down the trek. It was an impassable jam of ponies and horses jutted stomach to stomach on a narrow ledge. Just a big mass of animals, so thick that one couldn’t see the land below. I had to draw up my legs in order to save them from getting crushed and lacerated by the saddles of others. Ponies from both sides blocked each other’s path in a narrow pass. There was some fresh landslide somewhere. The army had forbidden the movement of ponies from that point onwards. It was a scary night, a freezing rain pouring, and cold wind howled on the narrow ledge where we were stranded.

The ponies would get jittery now and then and a stampede loomed large. If they got out of control, many pilgrims would find themselves in the gorge below. Getting down was the biggest challenge. There was hardly any place to land your feet and if you tried the ponies would squeeze you from all sides. So I struggled to get down and after almost half an hour of effort I was lucky to hang onto the inside cut of the ledge like a little monkey and crawled to the narrow path on which some of the pilgrims were already moving to take the footpath. The horse guy won’t agree to part payment. ‘I’m ready to wait all night and take you to the destination. It’s your choice to get down, I’m not asking you to dismount,’ he had a point. So I paid him the full amount and started my long, struggling walk to the base camp. There was hardly any energy left in me. I was tired to the core of my muscles. I literally crawled, chanting Lord’s name and somehow managed to reach the rented tent in the wee hours.

My friends were more prudent. They stayed at a tent near the holy cave and made it comfortably the next day after a night’s rest. As fate would have it, the next evening after our arrival there was a cloud burst near the holy cave and the rushing torrents of water claimed many lives.

When I dumped myself on the damp bedding under a thick musty quilt, the Pandit ji from Ujjain opened his eyes from the neighboring bedding in the tent. He was sharing the tent with us. He looked at me with genuine feminine compassion in his lovely eyes. I was too tired and fell asleep even before his loving, empathy-full look was over. He had started the trek on the same day and driven by his unquestionable faith in Lord Shiva had made it before anyone of us.

He was a loving man, spoke with extempore musicality of wit and humor or caustic remark as the situation demanded. He loved putting on different avatars. Sometimes a leopard skin print draped around his torso like a yogi; sometimes you found him in a sun hat and goggles in company with a swanky track suit and flashy sneakers like a celebrity from the entertainment industry. He was an impressive narrator of myths, bhajans and stories when the audience was receptive. But he could taunt and shut down the nonsense people with good effect. He possessed a beautiful feminine space in his sensitive loving heart. A sort of shakti looking for solace in her Shiva. He would hold my hand with a lover’s affection and I felt pressure on my palm. I respected his feminine outreach in showing love and liking for someone. I maintained a straight face and responded at a neutral, respecting level. During the time when we were waiting for the trek to open, we had a friendly outing in the pastures around the base camp. He loved getting clicked and honoring his social media needs I tried my best to operate like a professional photographer. On our return journey, I saw him strolling with gentle ease at Srinagar airport as well. He was a head turner with his style, feminine elegance and charisma in his male body. We greeted him and hugged him like real friends.

Me and my friends had stayed at Srinagar for a day before the return flight to Delhi. I gave myself a treat in a shikara in the Dal lake. Naughty boatmen sold beer and cigarettes. With a bang the little boat would meet the shikara and beer cans and cigarettes changed hands and money passed on. I had two bottles of beer. And being a non-drinker who reserves this entertainment for few odd occasions not lasting more than two-three times in a year, I was on a high. I wanted to swim in the Dal lake with my clothes, mobile phone and purse. But my sober friends somehow held me back.

The next morning we hired an auto for taking us to visit Shankaracharya temple, Dilshad garden and Nishat bagh. The auto-driver was a kind fellow giving us full hospitality like a caring host. He also offered salvation in jannat: ‘Hindus are very nice people. If a Hindu reads the kalma, he will definitely go to jannat long before common Muslims like us.’

Well, I know kalma but I somehow didn’t recite it while on the way to the airport. Who knows he would have jumped with ecstasy on seeing a kafir getting salvaged by his Muslim faith and it could have toppled the auto. So I thought it better to end the journey on a happy note. We were nearing the airport, so I thought it prudent to let things remain normal.

‘But we are already in jannat! Isn’t Kashmir jannat on earth?’ I politely asked. He was thinking of some finer argument but luckily we reached the airport and the discussion was left incomplete.