The elusive Himalayas

 

At the little outdoor cafe in Dhampus, waiting...

(Image credit: my dear friend, Deepa)

Encounters with high mountains burn the fat off one’s soul ~ Ernest Hemingway

In April 2019, my best friend Deepa and I visited Nepal to catch up with an old friend, and to catch a glimpse of the magestic Himalayas, perhaps even it’s highest peak, Mt. Everest!

After the chaos and crowds of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city, we travelled to the lake district of Pokhara, which boasted amazing views of the Annapurna range of the Himalayas on a clear day. But we were greeted by cloudy skies. We waited patiently a few of days, taking in the local sights and sounds around Lake Phewa, and I even got to realize my long-cherished dream of Paragliding. Undoubtedly one of the BEST experiences I’ve ever had, it’s the closest I’ve ever come to flying, and it took my breath away and made me feel “free as a bird” for a while—but I will save that story for another day.

Disappointed by the cloudy skies and no sign of the mountains yet, we decided to trek up to the little village of Dhampus—to get away from the crowd of tourists, and experience a more rustic scene—but also in the hope that being highter up will give us a better chance of catching a glimpse of the beautiful Himalayas. After a 2 hour back-breaking trek up hundreds of stone steps, lugging our heavy backpacks with us, we reached the picturesque village of Dhampus. The difficult journey had it’s rewards—wildflowers, plateaus of green paddy fields, amazing views of the valley below and the green hills around us, even vultures circling overhead (which we jokingly said were waiting for one of us to drop in exhaustion!)—but still no sign of the mountains.

The view from midway up the trail from Phedi to Dhampus

When we reached Dhampus—once again, we were greeted by cloudy skies. The locals kept pointing to places in the sky where the mountains usually were, but all we could see were overcast skies. We stayed at a small bed and breakfast place with it’s small outdoor cafe and colourful prayer flags flying in the wind, and were happy for a hot meal, a bath and a warm bed for the night. Deepa and I awoke early the next morning—it was cold, but we wrapped ourselves up, and, armed with steaming mugs of coffee, we sat at the outdoor cafe waiting for Sunrise—in the hope that the warmth of the sun will clear the clouds enough to catch a glimpse of the snow-capped mountains. As we waited, the sun rose behind the veil of clouds, but the skies remained a dull gray. Deepa played with the cats at the hotel, and I sat doodling on a piece of paper, and eventually sketching the beautiful rustic landscape of Dhampus—mesmerizing, as we waited patiently.

The product of all that patient waiting..

Suddenly, without warning, the hotel in-charge ran towards us pointing up at the sky. I had my back to where the mountains were (I couldn’t have known because there was nothing there all this while), and as I turned, I saw a patch of sky slowly clearing, and suddenly this massive snow-covered mountain peak appeared out of nowhere—Annapurna. It took my breath away! Although it was the clouds that were moving, it looked like the mountain was moving and making way for itself amidst a sea of clouds—a veritable iceberg in the sky! It only lasted a couple of minutes, just enough time for me to grab my phone and take a few pictures, and then further away I caught a glimpse of the “fish tail” mountain, Machapuchare, the sun glinting off the “fish tail” shaped peak—and then it was all gone—lost in the swirling mists, like it had never happened—like it was just a dream.

The reward - Annapurna

If anything, that one magical glimpse left us wanting more—longing for just one more view of the beautiful Himalayas. We stayed a few more days in Dhampus, walking around the village, visiting a Buddhist monastery, hiking through the beautiful countryside, but we never caught sight of the mountains again—hills all around us, but no Himalayas in sight.

We headed back to Kathmandu, and the locals told us about Nagarkot, a one hour drive uphill from Kathmandu, where on a clear day, one can catch a glimpse of Mt. Everest, the tallest and most spectacular peak in the Himalayas. We needed to try—one last attempt. On the morning of our departure, an hour before sunrise, we took an early morning cab ride in a rickety old cab, its windows falling to pieces, holes in the floorboard through which we could literally see the pot-holed roads of Kathmandu, racing with the sun, eager to arrive at the viewpoint just before sunrise (that’s when you had the best chance of seeing the peak, we were told—just as the sun was rising, melting away the clouds and casting its golden light on the mountains). When we reached the view point, it was still cloudy, and we were the only ones there, save for one more determined soul—a local photographer. As we waited and waited, sunrise turned into late morning, but the clouds stayed put. Then the photographer came over and told us not to feel too badly, he said in all his life in Kathmandu, he had only ever caught a glimpse of Mt. Everest about 3 times! That’s how rare it was to have a clear sky in that part of the world!

As we boarded our flight back home, we felt a bit cheated. In our search for the elusive Himalayas, we had only caught one glimpse of the beautiful snow-capped peaks in our entire 2 weeks in Nepal. As the plane took off, I wished that somehow we would see the mountains from up there perhaps, but then realized we would be flying south, so that was highly unlikely (What I didn’t know was that the plane was making another stop at Delhi airport first, meaning, we would be flying parallel to the Himalayan mountain range for a while!). I looked out at the sea of clouds below me, feeling dejected. And suddenly both Deepa and I saw something amazing—we could not believe our eyes—it looked like an eye in the sky, opening up in the bank of clouds below—and there rising magestically out of the eye-shaped opening, were snow-covered mountain peaks—icebergs in the sky! When I saw those icy peaks emerging from the clouds like a Divine “eye in the sky”, I knew I was witnessing Divinity manifest in Creation—the Source of everything. I can only assume one of them was Mt.Everest, being the highest peak and high enough to tower over the thick swirling clouds. The pilot made an announcement over the intercom that we were passing the Himalayas now, and most everyone just ignored the announcement. But Deepa had tears in her eyes, and I felt the Universe move within my being—“Seek, and you shall find”(Matthew 7:7)—as we soaked in our last rewarding view of the elusive Himalayas.

View of the Himalayas from the plane - the peaks piercing through the clouds

And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. ~ Paulo Coelho

Nature is the first Bible ~ Fr. Richard Rohr

* Dedicated to "The Terrible Twins", a term coined by my dearest Dad. :) 

My Dad showed us the cranes

When we were kids, my Dad would show us the cranes flying home each evening in perfect formation. Whenever he saw them from the terrace of our home, he would point them out to my brother and I, and talk about their perfect V or W formations with great admiration. And if we were lucky, we’d get to see them change formation in mid-flight. It was quite amazing to watch. There were a few ponds and water bodies in the area, so this was a fairly common sight each evening, but we never failed to stop our game of cricket or football, just to watch the cranes flying overhead. It usually signalled an end to our playtime, as dusk was falling, and it was time to go indoors.

My Dad had a knack of quietly pointing out to us interesting sights that a kid might otherwise overlook, like the hills in the distance on a really clear day, the golden sunsets from our terrace, the bright orange skies at twilight (he’d say it was a sign there’d be Mackeral at the fish market the next day), the birds, the trees, the flowers in our garden.. there’s so much we learnt from him. He was a great role-model, he took pleasure in the little things, and instilled in us a respect and appreciation for Nature.

Ever since my Dad passed away 7 months ago, I’ve been watching and waiting for a sign - something to tell me that he’s ok, and that he can still see us and be with us in Spirit. My little 2 year old daughter often talks to “Papa” (my Dad) when she passes his photograph in our living room. And I always tell her, “Papa can hear you, he’s your guardian angel now”.

One day she opened the front door by herself to sit on our front doorstep and watch the birds and people passing by. I was in the kitchen and didn’t know she had stepped outside. Suddenly I heard her cry, she had slipped and fallen down the two steps. I ran to her and picked her up, checked for injuries, and found to my relief that she was unharmed. I carried her indoors and told her, “See baby, Jesus saved you.”. She replied and corrected me, “Papa saved you” (she still uses “you” instead of “me” to refer to herself).

One of our evening rituals is to put out breadcrumbs for our little feathered friends who visit our front yard every day - the bulbuls, tits, sparrows, wood pigeons, babblers, and sometimes a mischievous chipmunk or two. My daughter will often see a crow or pigeon flying overhead on their way to roost, and she’d say, “Bye crow, go home safely”. As we were looking up at the evening sky a few weeks ago, I mentioned to her how, as a child, Papa and I used to watch the cranes flying home, and how we’d never seen any cranes here since we’d moved to the hills a year ago (not surprising, since we don’t have any large water bodies in the surrounding area). She had never seen a crane, so while she listened patiently to my childhood story, she probably had no idea what I was talking about.

A few days later, we went outside late one evening after dark (it must have been around 8 p.m.), to try out a “light-up” toy that my husband had bought her. It worked like a catapult and had to be launched high into the air, and then as it came down like a parachute, it’s twinkling lights lit up and twirled around like helicopter blades. It was quite exciting to watch, and as we stood in the dark sending up the little helicopter over and over again, we noticed lightning over the hills in the distance, and suddenly a huge barn owl flew low overhead. As we oo’d and aa’d over these sights, I suddenly looked up to see a flock of cranes flying overhead in the dark, in perfect formation! And just as they flew over us, they changed formation in mid-flight. It was so beautiful to see, and so unexpected, that I was astonished and mentioned to my husband how only days earlier I had been talking about the cranes I used to watch with my Dad as a child.

Later that night, I researched crane behaviour online, and found that they rarely, if ever, fly at night. In many cultures and spiritual traditions, cranes are believed to be messengers between heaven and earth, connecting the spiritual and physical worlds. Since that day, I have been keeping a watch for cranes at dusk or anytime I go out later in the night, but I’ve never seen any. Whether they were just migrating cranes, or cranes flying to a distant home on a route they knew well, the fact that they were flying in pitch darkness and at an unlikely hour, makes me wonder if this was the sign I had been waiting for. Nevertheless, it made my smile and made my heart a little lighter that night. And I felt my Dad smiling back at me.

My happiest memory from my childhood

My happiest memories are from my childhood, to the days when my Dad would bicycle with my brother in the back seat (carrier), and me on a little makeshift seat he had fixed to the crossbar in front, all the way to the railway lines to watch the trains go by. 

My hometown was a quiet little railway colony back in the day, and my brother and I would wait for Sunday mornings so we could go with my Dad to see the trains, and afterward buy crunchy pears and ripe plums from an old lady who used to sit by the railway crossing selling fruit. I can still taste the sweet plums and the excitement whenever we saw her! 

The whole experience was such a thrill for us! And on the ride back, my Dad would happily hum familiar tunes, and the song I remember most clearly is him singing "Put on your bonnet, your cape, and your glove, And come with me...", because I always wore a sun hat on our rides. The three of us would then turn our thoughts homeward, to the lovely lunch awaiting us - most often, fried fish and rice, and couldn't wait to tell my mum all about our adventures of the morning. 

These happy memories of a cherished childhood are all I have now, since I lost my Dad four months ago. And though they bring a tear to my eye now, that will always remain one of the happiest times of my life.