Gulu our driver asked us: I bet you plainsmen can’t see a
thing, can you? We couldn’t disagree and his novel and slightly cheeky term
of reference to us made me smile . To
plainsmen like us the visibility beyond the windscreen was a couple of
metres caused by a thick fog from the
Dirang River, 1,500 metres below. It was as if a cloak of cotton wool
had enveloped us. Without foglights we focussed on the windscreen, really hard,
like chess players concentrating over a board.
Gulu with big lungs and thick legs was from the shadow of
Anapurna and a mountain-man through and through. We took some comfort from the
fact that he was for 9 years in all-seasons the driver of the “Night Super”, a
minibus which took 20 bone-shaking, spine-compressing, neck-jerking hours to
get from Tezpur in Assam to the Himalayan town of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
We tried to discern something, anything, from the cotton
wool windscreen, a bit of a grass verge? Was that a catseye? Was that a
roadside shack? As soon as they emerged in view, disrobing their cotton wool we
had already passed them. Every now and again, memorial stones appeared through
the fog, perched on the side of the road, testimony to departed souls, a
poignant and reminder of the huge drop to the valley on our right.
Our mountain man Gulu, he of the x-ray vision, stuck his
neck out of the window, one hand on the steering wheel, to get a better view.
My brother-in-law Amitabh in the front passenger seat looked back at me
eyebrows raised. After about half an hour at a slow pace, we passed through the
blinding fog, able to see reassuring views once more like someone whose
cataracts have just been removed. It was about 3pm. Signs written to help motorists
became visible:
Some poet had painted a sign in bright yellow:
IF YOU DRIVE,
WHISKEY IS RISKY.
On another,
IF YOU ARE MARRIED,
DIVORCE SPEED.
They ranged from the incongruous,
LEPROSY IS CURABLE,
To the inexplicable,
IF YOU HAVE EDUCATION
YOU DO NOT NEED A STANDING ARMY.
We had just left Bhalukpong about two hours earlier where we
stopped briefly at a barrier to show the Arunachal Pradesh Police the Inner
Line Permits. After a stop at the Durga Mandir we then ascended 1,500 metres on
a winding road when we hit the patch of
fog on our drive to Bombila, the stopover hill-town to our journey to Tawang.
By 6pm we had passed an army barracks at Tenga, the
militarisation of the place manifested by jawans , jeeps and transporters. Soon the sun had set, we were at 2,000 metres
altitude, and passed the unmistakable silhouettes of pine trees, and fraying
Tibetan prayer flags flapping in the wind. Tibetan stupas stood by as we drove
in to Bomdila’s electric lights detractorsof the full moon above in the chilly
night sky.
We stayed the night in Bomdila in a hotel opposite the
stadium. The next morning, we left Bomdila at 6am. The sun was up already and
we turned the corner to see a wonderful view of pure white peaks. Gulu pointed
high up to a patch of white snow, the Sela pass, the second highest pass in the
world to which we were headed.
The road up to the Sela pass has been considerably improved
and it was wider thanks to a Border Roads Organisation project. In November 1962 the road was little more than a mule track
too narrow for lorries; Indian jawans had to go in jeeps to fight the Chinese
invaders from the north.
We breakfasted at a small shack with phulka and aloo bhaji,
a quiet humble place with a brown dog and
black and white pig lying outside. Resuming our journey, we meandered
upward in a series of hairpin bends and I measured the altitude changes on my
watch and compared them to ones I had recorded in previous holidays: 1,600
metres altitude already higher than Denver, the USA’s “Mile High City”; 2,000
metres altitude already higher than Ben
Nevis, Britain’s highest peak; 3,200 metres , higher than the altitude of Cusco
a pretty town in the Peruvian Andes.
At 4,000 metres we reached the Sela Pass, the second highest
pass in the world. I had a snow ball fight with my co traveller Amitabh
Agarwala who was seeing snow for the first time. It was bright on top with the
noon sunlight reflecting sharply off the snow, forcing us to squint. We entered
a small wooden shack for tea; inside was the owner, a young, bespectacled Monpa
lady, a small girl aged about 7, and a soldier in uniform sitting next to a
warm, shiny, bikari, its flue disappearing in to the wooden slats of the
ceiling.
The shop was a curiosity in itself. Where else at 4,000
metres altitude could you buy tins of mackerel, noodles, cigarette packets and
sweets; the owner had done a sterling job for maintaining this much needed
respite from the road. The small girl brought us our lunch of eggs, toast and
tea and then they all huddled round me, curious to see my mountaineer’s watch
which showed compass bearings, altitude, temperature, barometric pressure. And
of course , the time , which was approaching 1pm.
In the afternoon, clouds overran the sky and we set off, a
further 4 hours east to Tawang. We passed a lake which in the mornings froze
over. The scenery changed fast in to craggy rocks, barren hills. There started
to appear yaks grazing, and fast meltwater streams as we descended the
snowline.
There were several army buildings, munitions dumps and
bunkers and sign that warned:YOU ARE NOW IN THE DANGER ZONE. NO STOPPING. Gulu
explained, due to the altitude cars can experience fuel flow problems if they
stop their vehicles and temporary stop can end up as a permanent one.
We stopped by at Jaswant Garh , a memorial that is now a
shrine to a brave soldier who lost his life in action in the 1962 Chinese
Aggression. We looked across the valley and tried to reconstruct in our minds
how it must have been like that cold November over 30 years ago:
Hand grenades exploding, spraying fire and tossing up sods
of earth. Acrid black plumes of artillery smoke wafting upwards in the
direction of dead souls. The juddering of rounds of machine gunfire and the
bitter-tangy smell of ignited gunpowder. All around the fluids of war: mud,
sweat, blood and tears. Piercing cries in Chinese ordering an advance, yells in
Hindi to repel the invader for Bharat Mata. Screams in the language of
pain.
Today the area couldn’t be further from the experience of a
battle. Today on those slopes where soldiers fell, yaks graze purposefully in a
blissful silence. Clouds and fog glide majestically through and consume the
memorial which is solemn and tranquil.
The shrine, under a white roof, houses a photo and the personal belongings of Jaswant Singh,
Garhwal Rifles, MahaVir Chakra.
About two hours from our destination, we could see in a
north-westerly direction, Tawang sitting majestically on a distant hillside.
The neat gold roofs of the main monastery and adjoining buildings looked like a
cluster of dandelions on a far-off meadow, striking by their uniqueness if you
notice them, but so far off that you wouldn’t unless they were pointed out.
We passed through Monpa villages in Tawang district where
houses were wooden beamed and made of stone with tin roofs. Children with rosy
cheeks fattened on yak butter ran to wave at us as we passed. The houses, like
the people, are small and have piles of firewood stacked outside. The entire
area has telephone and electricity and we stopped by to see a hydroelectric
power station, next to a waterfall, a picturesque scene used as a film location
in a recent Hindi film Koila.
By 2pm after an 8 hours drive, we arrived in Tawang and
settled in to our hotel. The clouds by now had parted and there was a storm and
we lit a candle in the powercut and waited in the hotel for a while. By evening
we took a stroll down Tawang’s single High Street. Due to the powercut, the
shops were lit up in candlelight, giving each shop a homely look, with an
illuminated curious face above the wares, watching us walk past.
I spotted now and then a monk in dark red robes would pass.
One of them whizzed past on a motorbike. For me he symbolised Tawang: an age
old place brought in to the 21st century. The town where the 6th
Dalai Lama was born, one of the holiest places in Gelukpa Buddhism with ancient
monasteries, which served as a refuge for the 14th and current Dalai
Lama against the advancing Chinese army. Today the town has electricity,
telephones, a snooker room and is an army base with helicopters. Its markets a
whole variety of things I spotted one that was selling a Britney Spears jogging
bottom alongside traditional Monpa dress. In the twilight we admired the view
of the monastery , close enough now to make out its myriad of buildings and
ascended some steps to Tawang’s cybercafe. There I wrote some emails back home
to London and drank a coke to the sounds of the Back Street Boys.
In the morning we woke early and drove down the main road of
Tawang – some people were out washing their faces and brushing their teeth.
After a few minutes we were outside the main monastery. A group of monks were
busy reinforcing the road with tar in preparation for the Dalai Lama’s visit in
a few weeks time. The courtyard we entered was spectacular with the brilliant
white of the gompa, yellow roofs and multi-coloured decorations. The murals
have recently been repainted and for object so old and spiritual, the lacked,
for me, a certain aged reassurance.It was the same feeling when I viewed
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel with the older paintwork covered over by newer.
Inside the Gompa is 40 foot statue of the Buddha, a monk chanted and lit a
butter lamp. Ancient silks adorn the walls to give the place an intensely holy
ambience. Outside the main temple, some monks had laid rice grains to soak up
the sun , and one monk was perched precariously up a 100 foot flag staff
adjusting it. We visited a museum close by where we saw statues some 400 year old,
of the previous Boddhisatvas, including a blanket of a disciple of the second
Dalai Lama. Close to the front gate there was a water wheel which had prayers
inscribed on it; every time the power of the water spun the wheel a prayer was
said, imparting holiness to the water.
We then went to visit an Ani-Gompa, or nunnery close to
lunchtime. On arrival we saw several of the nuns were busy heating large tawas
of wheat. They still managed to offer us cups of salted yak-butter tea. On the
way back from the Ani Gompa we passed a sign that showed the road to Bumla,
Lhasa and Peking. The road is strictly out of bounds, and grass covered
military bunkers were everywhere. The final Gompa we visited was the one where
the 6th Dalai Lama was born in the 18th century. It was
quiet and homely and had an outdoor staircase that took you up to the main room
where a cabinet housed the foot prints of the 6th Dalai Lama in
stone. The lawn outside had bushes with tiny strips of cloth attached to its
branches which fluttered in the wind invoking the prayers which were written on
them. A huge tree stood grandly by the entrance, said to have been planted by
His Holiness Himself centuries ago.
We started the next day started at 5am. The two plainsman,
now mentally prepared for the drive, were able to enjoy the winding, beautiful
yet still daunting journey home. We breakfasted at a cold Sela pass at 7am, no
longer strangers to the bespectacled lady owner and her young assistant. After
11 hours of driving we were back on the plains. The yaks had now changed to
cows, the pine trees to banana plants, and the precipitous slopes were now
embankments to paddy field. The air was thick and warm again, and a mosquito
entered the car.
We were tired but happy. Tawang, with its mystical charm
seemed miles away but somehow, strangely , deep within us still.
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