When I was about to set foot
in Spiti, I knew it to be the land of extremes
A land of staggering
landscapes, ancient Buddhist culture, yet simple genes
I was all set to trek up to
the Dhankar lake & camp at night near Chandrataal
& ready to face the
chilly weather with double dose of gloves, mufflers & all
I planned to visit the highest
motorable villages in Asia (Langza & Komic)
& post a letter or two
from the highest post office in the world, Hikkim (sic)
But I never knew that 30 more
minutes of sleep could leave us praying for life
& that angelic snow I
was chasing all along would pit us into a deathly strife
For when we left our guest
house, the light was still behind those mountains
But our driver didn’t let us
forget that it had snowed last night after the rains
Homesick, we sat in his run-down
Innova one last time for more pics & fun
muttering his prayers, he
turned to us, ‘We really can’t afford to see the sun’
We lunged towards Losar crossing
river Spiti, blinking past the prayer flags
& got an eyeful of the Kye
Gompa meditating above the Himalayan zigzags
The mountains began to blaze
golden as the sun soared up from the sphere
& the landscape was more
like a goulash of soil, stones, snow & sleet here
Cold eggs & sandwiches popped
up for breakfast at the forsaken check post
The drive was mostly uphill
from here & that is what we all feared the most!
No comments:
Post a Comment