Mum’s the word

11.7.19.

Mum’s the word

Shaun and I had become the best of friends on our frequent travels up the mountain roads of Uttarakhand. We both loved the mountains, the sheer thrill of death that curdled our blood in our hearts and yet the sheer joy of conquering those fears. Shaun was from the US (Love that country.) This time Simon, the quiet Kiwi, accompanied us. And so did the 2 German girls. Well –Germans are, ahem Germans: Quite serious about everything and contemplative. Gosh, girls you reminded me of Kant: Seriously.

We went driving high up into the mountains. We whizzed past Tingling Point, and looked down at the blue waters of the Tehri Lake. We stopped at this wonderful place that I had christened the Whispering Pines and had chai and omelettes and my mandatory ‘Gold Flake’ there. Then we climbed all around the hill. From the top we could see clouds around endless horizon and the pines, they sang a song of their own. At Whispering Pines a happy bunch of local senior citizens sitting at the foot of the ancient pines invited us to be happily drunk with them. ‘Royal Stag’ was the poison of choice for them that day. But being good boys and girls as we were, we politely refused until the next time. We had miles to drive and places to see before we slept.

The road got awfully scary as we drove higher and higher up. It started to drizzle; we drove faster to go higher up and leave the rain below. The drizzle became snow very soon and caught up with us. When we reached above Harshil at Sukhi Point the snow caught up with us full blast. This place, in the middle of a deserted highway was better than the Mini Switzerland of Uttarakhand, below. Predictably, Shaun the American, was as happy as an 18-year old boy after his first sex! Anastasia and Andrea, the German girls, were quiet all along, but unpredictably they became sombre still. They shivered in the cold (Strange and Ominous as this was) they locked themselves in the warmth of the Bolero and predicted even more ominous things ahead of us as they seriously surveyed the roads and the weather at hand. Simon, the quiet Kiwi, was studiously and quietly clicking whatever caught his quizzical eyes. And this Bong-Boy was in his heaven. When our fingers and toes were about to die of frost bite and we saw our pee streams barely melting the snow at our feet and the breeze froze our balls, we boys decided to run to the warm shelter of the Germans and our Bolero.

Oh the hospitality of frozen Germans! God bless Germany. They were ready with the hot packs full of Parathas and pickles that we had packed from below. “Here, take ze plates and here take ze parathaz,” said Andrea. “We shall zerve. We love to zerve,” were the robotic words full of love. Oh momma, how it moistened my Bong eyes and soul!

The food having done its work and the heater of the Bolero faithfully heating our fingers and feet, we started to drive down and reached ‘Gangnani’: the sulphur hot spring. Here the German girls wanted to take a skinny dip in the hot spring because, “We do not carry eggstra zet of bikinizz. So we skinny dip the ze hot pool.” Well, the Germans were thoroughly made aware of the social tremors of seismic proportions that their skinny dipping would have caused and they desisted from the dip. They put on quickly bought Bermuda -shorts and vests and had their dip in a sanctimoniously sanctified separate ‘For ladies’ only area, while we boys were left languishing in the company of some filthy looking locals and tramps from the surrounding mountains; otherwise the splash in the hot spring and pool was other-worldly.

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But what goes up must come down. We all came down to Bhatwari village to have a fellowship meal. “What the fuck is that, man?!,” quizzically asked Shaun. I raised my Bong eyebrow with a quiet reprimand and told him in effect to shut the fuck up and eat. The Germans seemed to mechanically comply and the Kiwi was quiet. We all sat around the dinner table to ‘partake of the food and be blessed by the fellowship’, as it was announced. Oh, I lost myself in the mountain goat that was slow-cooked with organic spices over wood-fires. Between the food and happy talks of the drive we noticed there was this venerable-looking gentleman amongst us from the Indian state of Kerala. Our host introduced him as a man with a vision to save Uttarakhand. “Oh well, God save Uttarakhand”, I mumbled to myself in between my morsels of mountain goat and chapattis. “Are there no men left in the UK of India to save themselves or have they all become mountain goats that they need to be saved, or devoured?” But that was just me, who cares; I even didn’t care what I thought. The food was too important. I can’t and won’t multi-task while eating. Now this Saviour from the South often travels to the US, Sweden and Germany, we were told. Someone asked him how did he like life in the West? He dropped his fork and spoon on the china with a clang! He closed his eyes as if his soul was being wrenched out of his chest. He wrinkled his nose as if to avoid some stench. “Lascivious, lascivious, wery wery lascivious living, these people hau. I could not enjoy a moment there in any of these countries. I did not stay a day more than I needed to.” Words fell from his lips with sheer force of unwarranted hatred.

I lifted my Bong eye brow for a second and then concentrated on the goat, the one on my plate, that is, and not the one at the table. Shaun coughed, “Oh…!” Anastasia asked, “Why then do you visit us and our country when you hate us so much and our way of life that iz very dear to us?” I grimaced. Simon looked at everyone, quietly. Shuan put down his morsel of well-loved and well-cooked mountain goat and demanded in a very American way, “Yes I wanna know why. Like right now.” His tone was either you say it or I’ll beat it out of you. Heaviness hung in the air over the sumptuous dinner. Moments lingered too long. Finally, the German Andrea cut through the awkward silence, “Oh maybe professor you like the Euros and the American Dollars and the Swedish Kronor more than ze people in thezee countriz, iz it not? And yet you have not any love and respect for ze people in these countriz, who pay you money, there very hard earned money, so that children in your country can study and fill your begging-bowl? Now that izz a shame, izzz it not? The anger was obvious.

I said to myself what Tintin, the Belgian detective, had taught us Bong boys back in school, "Mum’s the word."