travelling with kings, saints and bad boys, part 1

Kaushal had been suggesting a trip to Himachal Pradesh for a while. He couldn't go, but he told me he'd set it all up for me with a good friend of his who I could trust. He would take me trekking to a very special, not well known mountain temple, ChuDhar. Great I thought, just tell me when. But when can come quickly when you don't know the language and don't know what's going on around you. Suddenly I had 1 hour to pack and then I got the details of my trip. From Kaushal - "I take you to bus at 5am and my friend meet you, but he no English." That's what it's like for me here. Suddenly someone says Marcie, come and I come, Marcie, we go and I go. It's never gone wrong yet, but it's still pretty crazy. Though I can pack for any situation, known or unknown, in about a minute now. I laugh at how much stuff I used to bring and the time I spent preparing for little journeys. In fact, not much is needed. I'm glad to know that.

So off I went, not even having the right pronounciation of the village or my host's name, but things worked out, as they do. Like at the first stop of the bus when I desperately needed to go to the bathroom but no one spoke English. I called Kaushal on my brand new cell phone, handed to me minutes before, and asked him to ask the bus driver where was the toilet and when the bus driver handed the phone back to me, the battery was already dead! But time enough for someone to lead me down the road, into a building of long hallways and up some stairs. Public toilets are not readily accessible. I've learned to carefully moderate my liquid intake.

A bit later and the bus is starting to climb in the mountains and we stop at what looks like a new temple inauguration. I'm taking pictures out the window of this big steaming vat of who knows what and suddenly they hand me a leaf bowl of a hot steaming delicious sweet potato connoction with some kind of yummy nuts on top. Then they start handing them to everyone on the bus and it's a 30 second party of enjoying fingers in delicous mushy stuff and we're off again, but now I'm friends with the boy next to me who looks about 25, but tells me he's been married for 20 years and this is his 18 year old son sitting in front of him. He starts rubbing the head of the boy saying, lovely son, lovely, lovely, lovely son. It's so beautiful I just decide to believe as we bump along unpaved mountain roads, laughing together when we nearly hit our heads on the ceilings, ignoring the pain upon landing. Luckily I'm off the bus before he's completed arrangements for the marriage of me and his son.

And there waiting for me is Karanvir, the handsome grandson of the King of Jubbal. At this point I still don't understand that I've landed with royalty, but indeed I have. Over the course of my 2 week stay I met at least 50 people from 4 royal families and heard many stories, saw many antiquities and rarities and experienced a family of such love and integrity, I was constantly humbled. I didn't even realize how I too have all my unconscious judgments. It was with horror that I saw too I am a victim of American superiority thinking. But, as we say in Breema, gratitude for the seeing. The King of Jubbal was an educated forward thinking man, the first to bring electricity into the area, the first to cultivate apples, a great source of wealth for the local people, and many other impressive things in the field of education and improving life conditions. A good and respected ruler, but independence came and the family lost much of their vast holdings, though the palace remains. Everyone still has some big chunks of land and heirlooms, but each generation has hit harder and harder times though I certainly didn't hear any complaints. There's not much complaining in India in general in fact and more on this point later. But it was certainly fascinating to both hear of the past and to be participating in the present, seeing what fate has brought these good people. Thinking too of my own humble background - my father's father a junk dealer and window washer who didn't make enough money to feed my own father during the Depression. It's been only anecdotal to me with the short sighted understanding of a materially well off child.

But back to the bus. Karanvir in fact doesn't speak English, so I'm in follow mode. Here, there, wait, sit, chai, sit, wait. Then I'm at someone's house and I find out I'm to stay there which at this point wasn't great for me because I've been around a lot of people with almost no English and this was not the only time I've longed for solitude. But there I am with Karanvir's cousin brother, Kuldeep. The trek is confirmed for tomorrow and off Karanvir goes. I take a nap and then slowly begin to get to know Kuldeep and his family. His house becomes my home base and his family my touchstone. Kuldeep is a slow, thoughtful man who speaks slow, thoughtful English and I go to him many times with questions of India and the religion and I learn much. His mother, Krishna Kanwer, had become a major inspiration in my life. At age 50 she started an NGO, a non-profit to benefit the local women and children of the nearby villages. This is a rural area and it seems to me I've forgotten to say it's incredibly beautiful. But life is hard. A small house here and there, many without roads, it's a 20 minute steep walk to Karanvir's house and he's fairly close to town. Krishna has been working tirelessly for more than 20 years. Now, at 75, she gets up at 6 every morning and spends 2 hours in spiritual practice and then she works for the NGO and then she cooks all the family food. And she's always smiling and laughing and well, radiating. She spoke not a word of English, but I was so honored to connect with her deeply. We shared some very special moments and there was love there, no doubt.

Writing that reminds me of a moment much later when we were at someone's house watching an extremely hunchbacked old Muslim man laboring up the road. The kids are twittering and again I don't see my judgments happening until someone starts translating for Krishna as she says how he was burned in a fire and tells of his difficulties and those of his family. Even writing now I want to weep as I can still hear the compassion in her voice as she spoke. I forget all is love, though I remembered at that moment. My friends, I must confess, I forget a lot. I forget my aim, I forget God, I forget goodness is possible. But I met a saint and she took me into her heart, a heart big enough to hold all. Thank you Krishna. How lucky I am, how blessed, to have met such as she.

Meanwhile, I've only been in this small town of Nerwa for a couple hours when it starts raining. Global warming, folks, no rain at all last rainy season and it's never rained in April before and now it's thundering down. The trek is postponed because it's snowing at the higher elevations, but that's OK with me because now I'm going to visit one of the village health programs with Kuldeep and his mother. Plus I've had quite a surprise in terms of this trek. Kaushal had asked me if I could hike 6 kms - well of course! He neglected to mention it was straight up, not even switchbacks, climbing from 5,000 to 13,000 over the course of that short distance. And the report is that there's thigh high snow. I'm kind of nervous about the altitude, so a few day's delay is A-OK.

The next morning I get up and do my yoga and take it easy because we're leaving at 10. At 9 I'm finishing breakfast when Karanvir and his cousin Bobby arrive. Let's go, they say. What? The trek is on! So we agree to only go for the day and just to the snowline and I make my peace with some secret relief that I won't be going all the way to the temple. I grab a couple things real quick, put on my trekking shoes and off we go with Kuldeep's son, Dishu, who's also coming along. I never did make it to an NGO event.

And the next post will tell of the trek and of Bobbie, the most dangerous and sexy man I've ever met.