Udhampur, Patnitop and Batote, Jammu & Kashmir - 8th March 2011

We reach at 2am and you’d think they’d dial down the drama at least now.

Haha.

Think again.

After dinner, we all turn in and Rakesh goes to his room, and just closes the door behind him, he doesn’t lock it. After a phone call (yes at this time) he tries to open the door and it’s stuck! He’s yanking at it and it wont open! Maybe someone locked it from outside? Rakesh hears Justin’s (One of our local guides) voice outside and hollers for him to come open the door. Justin comes and there’s a bang and then another bang but the door stays.

“Ravi!! Oye Ravi!! Arre come fast!”

There’s another bang as Ravi tries to kick the door open.

“Arre, ye to sach me band hai..”

Then there’s a pause as Ravi opens the door opposite Rakesh’s, goes all the way to the back of the room.

“Ghabrao mat Rakesh Bhaiya! Main aa raha hoon!”

And he runs towards Rakesh’s door at full speed. With a terrific smash the door flies open. 

Rakesh = Relief.

But it’s not over yet.

“Bhaiya!!”

Ravi dramatically flings his arms around Rakesh and cries on his shoulder.

Boys. I tell you..

In the morning we head out to Udhampur, about 65 km from here. The dream of traveling to Srinagar remains unrealized because it had been raining for the last 4 days and the traffic had been stopped. Now it would be released from Srinagar so travelling up there would be risky. Anyway, we continue our journey with the same enthusiasm.

 I notice that the air is so fresh here. So cool and clean and complemented with soft, warm sunshine. In other places, the sun beats down on you and in my case, I need to cover up to save from getting tan (I tan very easily). But here the sun was so sweet that I didn’t feel the need. As if it was filtered through the clean air and made gentle in the process.

On the way, I’m looking out the window and notice a Mosque as we drive by. I’m guessing that’s common here. But as we travel like 10 meters ahead, there’s a Temple right next to it. It felt so nice to see that. Especially since we’ve heard such horror stories about this place.

After breakfast under the calm sun at Udhampur, we continue through the hills towards Patnitop. We got to play in the snow a bit (A new experience for many of us) and to mark the culminating point of the K2K journey we waved our National Flag and sang the National Anthem.  It was a poignant moment for all of us, full with celebration and joy of making it to the second ‘K.’ I know each one of us is gonna remember this time forever.

I found a fresh patch of snow and made a hand impression in it. Just looking at it and as the snow reflected the sun, made me think about all the places we had ‘touched’ through our journey and what ‘impression’ we might have made on them. And the look that ‘reflected’ back on their faces after our programs. So full of understanding and appreciation.  It was a quiet, solitary moment for me, despite the snow throwing celebration around, and also very deep.

Later we move further up the hills to Batote. Here the hills are different from what we’ve seen elsewhere. The vegetation is still thick, all nice and green, but the trees close to the road have wiry branches with few leaves. Or maybe the leaves will come out in spring. Whatever it was, it looked a little unsettling. I wonder how all the rest of the trees and plants have leaves while these don’t..

There’s also a brook that was running at the foot of the hills through boulders and pebbles. And in the distance, we could see mountains – snow capped mountains! What a mix.. Green hills with a river running below and snow covered mountains when you look up. It almost looked like a scene from a film, it was so beautiful..

We make it to top in Batote where there’s St. George’s Convent School and we reach to find the 3^rd standard all standing out in the front. Since our program at Srinagar got cancelled, this made for a magnificent opportunity to make up for that. Rakesh and all started speaking to them about the environment and Millennium Development Goals (in simple language of course) but they were soooooo receptive! And Prashanth taught them an action song and they picked that up soooooo fast too! It was a really a delightful time, to have our last audience here be our youngest and so responsive.

Later we go for tea just a pathway further up to a home where the view of the mountains and the surrounding beauty was unobstructed. Everyone’s having tea and joking and laughing and I’m standing off to one side looking at the mountains listening to the chiming of the laughter in the background. Looking at the peaks, it hits me that we’re at the peak of our journey right now.. The road up was rocky and unpredictable, but it had its smooth times too, but the most important thing is that all of us never gave up, especially when things got tough. Each step up was an experience worth remembering and learning from and I know that we and the people we interacted with are changed for the better with the encounter.

We reach Udhampur for supper and just as we’re finishing up Rakesh gathers us. He says, “We would like to acknowledge and honour all the women with us on this trip today, it being International Women’s Day. I am a son, and I don’t have any sisters. But many of you here have loved me and cared for me and have become like my sisters and we, all of us have learnt so much about ourselves and also about you throughout this journey, and we are richer for having known you and learnt from you. So on the occasion of International Women’s Day we would like to honour and appreciate your being here with a rose and with an apple, symbolic of Adam’s Apple.”

It was such a sweet gesture and we were never expecting it at all.. Sometimes boys can be such fools, but sometimes they are equally caring and considerate. Thank you all for your concern and love and care and support.. It means a lot..

We reach back and after dinner Ravi is washing his hands. There are like 4 sinks in a row for washing the dishes when you’re done, and a 5^th on the right of all of them for hand washing next to the window. A towel hangs between the first 2 sinks. Ravi washes and absent mindedly turns to his right to wipe his hands and end up wiping them on the curtain. And they’re already dry before he realises anything. Another example of the boys being fools thing.

It was quite an eventful day both within and on the outside. Got to see so many sides of life – foolish, thoughtful, coming together, children, innocence, solitude, witnessing, living, culmination of sorts, new beginnings.. Sometimes I wonder if we’re actually human to have all these experiences in the span of one day and have the capacity to have more the next day.

It's just incredible...