Foundation Course at Mussoorie. What it is and Why it is and Other Such Ungrammatic Questions.

Why flog a dead horse, you ask?

Why bore people further with undead blog posts, you ask?

This blog was supposed to rest and relax in Cloud Heaven, with its well deserved company of virgin blogs. Why bring it back to the land of the dead?

Altruism is the word.

A new batch of civil servants has been revealed to the world few days ago. There were heart warming stories and symbolic achievements. Most of the 'achievers' would now bide time till the 7th of September whence Foundation Course commences. Rumour has it that the Foundation Course may be offered at one venue for all the services, subject to accommodation constraints. The venue being The Academy, of course. Be as it may, whether at much romantic Mussoorie or much more prosaic Hyderabad, Foundation Course is an exciting phase for a civil servant, budding or budded. The constant gardeners of The Academy shall keep all civil servants properly pruned. 

The hills straighten a lot of attitudes, to begin with. For the plains creatures, a hill journey would start with a symbolic and literal emptying of belly on the way up the sinuous roads from Rajpur to Library Chowk. Enroute, you would pass by the NIVH. Ladies and gentlemen, if you see to your right, you would be looking at NIVH. This is one institute, in fact the first institute, you would call on during the FC. When one had passed by the NIVH for the first time less than a year ago, one had a sense of deja vu. Illustrious seniors had written about their visit to the NIVH and Raphael, in gushing words, and one read their blogs with breathless excitement imagining life at The Academy. A month ago, while climbing down the Mussoorie range after completion of Phase 1 of Professional Training for IAS, one felt a double deja vu. 

Most blogs you come across would only talk of the going up. No one talks about the coming down. Your heart would be heavier than you weighed at the start of the FC, when you leave Mussoorie for the district training. Oh, the weight. Be prepared for a shock weight loss during the Grand Himalayan Trek. Unless you live off Universe Dew and Sweat of Heavenly Beings and or shrubs and roots and wild berries, one is assured of a weight loss during the week long trek. Should one be worried about one's fitness levels? No, if you ask me. Whether you are a well rounded personality or all angular and bony, whether you ran marathons galore or scarce moved out of your couch, or whether you get in to a bout of fitness frenzy before the start of the FC, all, and I repeat ALL, would huff and puff and pant equally when going up the steep incline from the Ganga Hostel to the Mess for the first few days. 

That is how it is. The mountains, I tell you. Over time, and especially if you are in the IAS where you would have more of the said over time, you will come to love the hills. The trek not only breaks fat molecules, it also breaks down icy personalities and bonds people unlike any other experience. The trek builds up a fortitude that will stand you in good stead in the future. Regarding the bonding. It will be of a rather unique character. You would have had made, erm, potty buddies. For, despite the Mission level importance accorded to free the country of Open Defecation, there are certain places and circumstances when if one has to go, one goes out in the open. Before dawn. Under the stars. With each other and few Himalayan bears for company. Relax, it wont be that bad. Just the stench will keep away the bears.

Normally the bear would be running away...from your stench. Image source:https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/53/c5/e1/53c5e1d9bc88435681fff0350ea08b6a.jpg

Not unless you have few extra pounds to spare. Image source: http://cdn.running.competitor.com/files/2013/09/5.jpg

 For the ever keen type 'achievers.' Nothing you pre-read and re-read for the FC will help you. The FC exams will be a googly anyway despite your PhDs and Post Doctorals in Economics, Political Science, Probability and Statistics, Management, Public Administration, Law and in Hindi. So, relax, brush up only your teeth (a fresh breath helps in finding a suitable boy or girl, tooth paste research shows) and sleep tight. Or not. It would be of help if you can culture yourself a bit. A dance form or two. A loosening up of vocal cords. Nothing too fancy, just the basics would do. And please, if there is a real, felt need at The Academy, it is for good comperes and emcees. If you can be witty and keep the audience from yawning, what more son, all the world and the Academy will be yours.

What else can be yours? A bride or a groom as per your cadre, convenience, caste and choice. The choice will be of your parents'. In fact, ignore everything you read above. The hills have had a reputation for being the playgrounds of Cupid. If you do fall, you would only throw away your heart. Skinned hearts are no worse than skinned knees.

Skinned knees and sprained ankles are taken care of at the dispensary near the Sardar Patel Hall (SPH, a class room where Phase 1 OTs are trapped and trained, as opposed to SA, Sampoornanand Auditorium aka ultra luxe sleeping quarters for FC OTs). There are no salves for skinned hearts unfortunately, except a well made drink and a friendly ear to chew out. The drink can be had at the Officer Trainees' Lounge in the Karmshila complex which also houses the awesome library and Officers' Mess and class rooms. The OT Lounge is a nice place to laze around post lunch. Plush carpets, cushy couches, LCD TV, disco-lights, wood floor dancing area etc are but few creature comforts that await a weary OT in the lounge. 

The Officers' Mess is an institution. A venerable institution. It not only provides sustenance but also views of the Himalayas. The views are more fulfilling than the very nutritious food and it is no exaggeration. Appropriate dress code is prescribed for the Mess and it is advisable to follow the code, to respect the institution. Check out the gallery of the Mess. The trophies and mementos will spring a surprise or two.

The library is a treasure house. If the printed word means anything to you, then you will find the Gandhi Smriti Library a fruition of that meaning.

There are many more wonders of The Academy with which a fresh OT  would do well to be acquainted. We leave descriptions of such wonders for another post? Oui.

On Leadership and Farewells

Lao Tzu says "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."

Is such a leadership suitable for the civil services? Can a civil servant be not seen? Should a civil servant be not seen?

The Leadership Module scheduled over two and half days aims at mapping the leadership competencies of the OTs, the future leaders to use but one cliche. The workshop exercises were heavy on crayon sketching and might have resembled a kindergarten class of overgrown OTs drawing their hearts out while the benevolent faculty looked on.

Preparation for the one act play is in full swing. Natural and unnatural actors are emerging. Hope it will be an entertaining evening. [Full disclosure: I am involved somehow with the play].

It seems only yesterday when I started blogging with a very narrow mandate. I had referred to the quintessential bureaucratic process of 'no-dues.' It is time for the 'no-dues' dance to begin. Books have to be returned, accounts settled with the juice-wallah, the Home Turf, Plaza Cafe, Ganga Dhaba, forgetful Bihari friends and so on.

One has grown fond of the fellows who would be completing their professional training at their respective service's training institutions. Future CAG, Chairperson CBEC, Chairman CBDT etc have made excellent friends. Their presence would be missed. 

Another four days remain for the FC to be wrapped up. I may not get time to say goodbye to most friends owing to the hectic schedule. I thank the readers of this blog for their sustained interest. Without your consistent encouragement it would not have been possible for me to write. If writing the blog is half the picture, you readers sitting in front of monitors or smartphones hearing me out patiently, bearing with my rants and acid laced barbs and bureaucratese infested event updates are the other half.

I may yet continue blogging of events in Phase 1. However, it will not be the same. I may start a new blog for that phase. As of now, these are the last few posts for the 89th FC blog. I have had fun writing, as much as I could. There is nothing of interest to the UPSC Civils aspirants and that is how I meant it to be. No coaching advice, no motivational quotes, no challenges to your dignity or mine.

Notwithstanding anything I might have said in this blog, the Officer Trainees of the 89th Foundation Course batch are unique, purpose driven and ambitious. Most are empathetic, concerned citizens. The Rainbow Batch, as I had called it, shall be looked up at to achieve great things.

On a Sunday walk to Landour

One develops a territoriality, stakes a claim on a specific spot at their frequently haunted place. It is as if one has acquired ownership rights by virtue of planting one's behind on a seat for long. How much more rightful must the peasant feel who tills the land!

The library has a peculiar smell. It is the smell of books of old, the letters, the pages, the ink, the binding and the glue, the pictures, the characters and the abstractions of human thought- all breathe. They inhale and exhale, a smell of knowledge, a smell of parched curiousity quenched by a rain of Dewey Decimals.

One sits and breathes. Forget sometimes to exhale and sometimes to inhale, according as the plot rises or falls.

One gazes out of the window from time to time, a day changes, days change- yesterday is like tomorrow which will be like today. A bird sings in the back ground, melancholia filters through air thick with the spirits of the unread books, thick with the spirits of books thumbed through, licked, torn, highlighted, mutilated, loved, issued, returned, stolen.

The sun rise was spectacular today.

A sunrise to watch

The full moon loomed larger than life while the sun light lit up the tops of the hills one by one.

Full moon crashing on to pine trees

Vincent Hill catching the first light

We figured a revisit to the Lal Tibba might be a good idea, now that the snow peaks seem tantalizingly close. The sky was a fifty shades of blue.

A shade of blue

However, the view itself was a disappointment, from Lal Tibba. For one, the trees block the view. And the two tourist traps of cafes/tea stalls were closed and access to the 'Govt Approved' binoculars was cut off by multiple locked doors. There were other places from where the view was quite good, like the point where the road forks, near chaar dukaan. Swargarohini massif was yellow beryl in the first rays of the sun. The honour passed to the Gangotri range peaks-Srikanta, Kedarnath and Chaukhambha as the sun light found these peaks at length. One can spot the various buildings of the academy from afar. The maligned Polo Grounds look innocuous enough from these great distances.

Spot the Polo grounds if you can

The quiet of Lal Tibba yielded fantastic opportunity for bird watching. The quiet also attracts the quiet minded people.

One can reach Lal Tibba by taxi but the fun is in walking and taking in the sights. Then there is Doma's Inn, a restaurant with kitsch interior decoration.

Cute kitsch.

It is a good place to pack in some calories exhasuted by nearly 2 hours of walking and pack some more for the next two hours of exhausting walk. All in all a day well spent.

On a ruined building and a boring movie

There are good places for a short walk of less than an hour around the academy. One such place is the ruins close to the Mussoorie Modern School. A road branches off to the left when one comes from the Library Point towards the academy. The ruins are visible from afar. One reaches them by a short walk on a gravel path, the stone chips under the shoes sound as if a giant has been munching potato wafers underfoot. The fried variety, not the boiled ones.

The ruined building with a fire place had an eerie feel to it. The roof had caved in and the walls too would follow. The premises were free of tell tale signs of tourist abuse-graffiti, declarations of love etched in to the plaster on the walls, bottles of beer or cheap whisky, ugly plastic wrappers of chips packets etc. 

The neat ruins were a contrasted juxtaposition on the nature of the ruined building. The decency and the cleanliness with which its walls still stood lent some solemnity to the ruins. Access to the building might have been regulated or outright banned for there was a rusted old sign prohibiting trespassers and glaring dire warnings. However, the paint was lost with large flakes of rust and the unkind admonition was ignored, with good results.

Immediately behind the ruins was a rocky outcrop which has the best views in Mussorie and of Mussoorie. Seated there on the ledge, with the sun rising ahead of you, a sapphire blue sky above you and yellowish green mist and grass and the trees beneath you, one can see the snow peaks and the massifs (Swargarohini, Bandarpunch, parts of the Gangotri range) to the north, Dehra Dun to the south east and the twin towns of Mussoorie and Landour to the north and the north east. A near panoramic view.

One dreads the day when one has to leave these hills and the pleasant winter mornings and go back to the grey, dreary, joyless cities, crowded, polluted, soulless artificialities dead to beauty.

An occasional foray to Dehra Dun reinforces the dread. Add to the toxic fumes and the intemperate city spirit a headache of a movie, the 3D version of Exodus: Kings and Gods and etc. Ridley Scott terrorized us with Prometheus with atrocious dialogues as this.

"Janek: You know, if you wanna get laid, you really don't have to pretend to be interested in the pyramid scan. I mean, you could just say, "Hey, I'm trying to get laid." Heh.
Meredith Vickers: I could. I could say that, right? But then it wouldn't make sense why I would fly myself half a billion miles from every man on Earth if I wanted to get laid, would it?
Janek: Hey, uh, Vickers. Hey, Vickers. I was wondering... Are you a robot?
Meredith Vickers: [scoffs] My room. Ten minutes."

He continues the streak with Exodus too. There seems to be a prudish turn to Scott which makes him approach the subject of sex with stilted dialogue.

This is but a minor niggle compared to the lugubrious length of two and half hours aided by a very thin, familiar biblical plot. In the end there is only so much a director can imagine and it shows. The only effort seems to be in trying to provide a pseudo scientific explanation to the 10 plagues visited on the Egyptians by the god of the Jews. This effort too gets abandoned midway. The movie therefore was a disappointment.

The last week of FC is hard upon us. And so are the deadlines for pulling a rabbit out of one's hat and organize the one act play. A last gasp of strenuous activity.

The academy wore a deserted look today on account of a host of people going home for the weekend, the usual Delhi suspects, people taking part in river rafting at Rishikesh, organized by the Adventure Club and by people visiting the Rajaji National park.

On a sunset

The sun set on the 3rd of December was the best so far.

The Himalayas were mountains of the moon, shining jagged pieces of blemished silver, looked so sharp and bright as if pain got personalized and projected on to looming granite. Lustrous. The sun did its business for the day and came home for the night, met by the blushing mountains, blushing of the night ahead.

The valleys filled with a gray black haze, a miasma arising from the depths of the earth and filling up the hollows, the crooks and the deepnesses of the valleys while the sunlight fled up the slopes, anti gravitic, hurried and ungentlemanly. The darkness was the ink into which an accidental writer dipped his pen and sketched scenes from memory.

Motor cars turned corners on roads stencilled in to the hill sides, their headlamps intermittent fireflies. Or they were sprites of the seas playing peekaboo with the intense looking sailor gazing at them from the portholes of the upside down star ship Mycadea. The sailor plodded midway through a thin book of stars to chart a course for Mycadea. It was slow work, involved turning pages aided by the infrequent wetting of the index finger tip to provide a grip. The sailor was confused, tired and he clicked the pages with his index finger thinking they were virtual. He felt stupid and so gazed out of the window. It has been 93 days since Mycadea crashed on to this strange sad planet. He had been asked to plot a course to Phase 1 star system. He did not understand the point of the exercise when their star ship was stuck headfirst on a hill on earth. How was the captain planning on getting them unstuck, for instance? How would they be airborne? Do they have enough fuel even to upright themselves? He had no answer and the captain was his usual inscrutable silly self. The cadre comet was a fizzle compared to the anticipation it created. The Toughened Operational Turnips (T-OTs) had already calculated the trajectory and the probable crash points of the comet and braced themselves.

Exhaust vents of Mycadea

The middle ranges were bald nude brown in the sun light and in the rapid night rise were menacing hulks of negative space. Villages on the slopes shone in clusters of light and, to the sailor disoriented by his thoughts, they looked like boats tossed about by gigantic waves. The star ship made sense, but it has capsized, and the aliens and the T-OTs were breathing air trapped under the belly of the boat.

He felt heroic, clever even, for having thought of this analogy. He felt sea sick too, imagining the mountains as waves and himself as driftwood. The villages must be underground cities, populated by pretty mermaids. He thought of all the hill women he saw, prettier than pearls. He wondered if he could stay back on this planet, live in a village for a while, love a lovely hill woman, move to another village, love another woman, an itinerant romantic in eternal search for happiness.

Just then the captain Chip Spik bellowed at him for day dreaming when on the job. He wanted the course on his desk five minutes ago and warned the sailor that in case he falls behind schedule one more time he will be delivered to Ming the Merciless.

 

On few eateries

The Home Turf Cafe is a cozy, well furnished, economical place to have one's snacks or non alcoholic beverages. The snacks are all popular stuff, momos, maggi, egg bhurji, sandwiches etc. The menu at Home Turf is a welcome departure from the monotony of the Officers' Mess. The Home Turf staff is efficient, cordial and talented. The Home Turf is a favourite haunt for OTs who have had their fill of Pooja and Ganga dhabas. The decor is that of a hang out for sports lovers. Therefore there are few board games, posters of sports icons and sports equipment. There are also flash cards with quiz questions on sports. Quite thoughtful, I think. Quite did not understand what the bean bags are doing there, though.

Home Turf, interior.

Illuminated Home Turf

The way to a man's heart is through food...or eyes.

When one is feeling lethargic, it is recommended that one stuff oneself to the gills. What better place to accomplish this noble deed than at Momo's, the place for all edible things Tibetan?! Momo's has an attiribute that sets ia part from other eateries/restaurants in town, namely, consistent quality. The food is tasty and it is so every time one has had the opportunity of dining at Momo's. Consistent quality performance and promise of good quality is an essential element of branding. If they do not do too bad in the future, Momo's will be a strong brand to reckon.

A light fixture at Momo's

The afternoon was given off so that the serious OTs can prepare for the end semester exams. The non serious types went for lunch and since it was a balmy day, decided to take a stroll through Mussoorie town. Hence, Gun Hill was visited, for the first time after all these months. And what an utter, utter disappointment! The area is smothered by tacky commerce. What might have been a good view point-Gun Hill is the 2nd highest point in the local area, highest being Lal Tibba- has been spoilt by greed. We have a talent for killing the golden goose. Take Kempty falls, for example. The area surrounding the falls is infested with tin shed installations blocking the view of the falls. So it is with the Gun Hill. The area was boxed in by tin shacks, tourist traps. There were shacks with games of chance and skill, shacks with shiny clothes, snack shops and a 'binoculars point.' There are 3 binoculars and the slick businessmen characteristic of tourist places charge Rs.30 per person for peering closely at the snow peaks, the same peaks which are visible to the naked eye.

View from the Gun Hill, from the Binocular Point

A sample of shops at the Gun Hill

Temple Bell

The chronic disappointment of the Gun Hill was however offset by the pleasant walk on the Camel Back road. The quiet back roads were a good place to watch birds. There were many pretty bungalows as well.

Blue Whistling Thrush

The longish walk from Gun Hill via Camel Back road, Waverley road and to the academy was timed for the sun set. Sun rises and sun sets have been spectacular of late in these areas.

The after glow

Stairs near the AN Jha Plaza

14 days yet to be chopped.

On A Cat on Cold Tin Roof

I came across a cat in the academy today. In itself it is nothing to write about. However, it is the first time I have noticed a cat. Dogs, monkeys and langurs make up the fauna of the academy. Stray cows too. A stray cat is a strange sight and hence it merited a mention. It jumped in the cold air from the Happy Valley Hostel, sauntered across the 135 degree wide stairs and leaped on to the Unhappy Plateau Hostel roof. 

Cat on a cold tin roof.

The cat then proceeded to the Gandhi Smriti Library and pawed at books yellowed from the Hippie days, the pages brittle as the bones of the rainbow generation. The curious cat browsed through the books kept at the shelves at the end of the book racks, the books that the batch of OTs had gotten issued, read and returned. There were books on law, public administration, warfare, economics, poverty. The cat's curiosity was aroused, however, by the books at the English fiction section. Camus and Wodehouse were being read. Good for the batch, the voyeuristic cat thought, good for the batch for reading more than PowerPoint presentations of subjects, good of them for consuming more than mere slide handouts. But what is this? 'Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul'?!

The thought of chicken soup made the cat hungry. The cat went to the A.N. Jha Plaza cafe for a cup of coffee with a dash of strawberry syrup and pretty lady OTs for company.

The cat walked in to the Sampoornanand auditorium and listened in on few lectures. Insincere sounding media men and earnest senior civil servants lectured on topics dear to their hearts. The OTs nodded in agreement or in sleep. Few OTs  spoke among themselves. Their thoughts were bubbles rising from vats of boiling tar, the thoughts were tar bubbles, ink black demons and they rose from the mouths of these OTs, floated up a little and then burst, staining the shirts and sticking to hair of fellow OTs, irritating them. The cat decided to shred the demons of distraction to shreds and scratch the presumptuous OTs, scratching away the thick blanket of arrogance with which they cloak themselves. These narcissistic fish think nothing of talking aloud in the class. They love to hear their voice and think everyone does too. 

'Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.' (T.S. Eliot)

Our cat makes short work of these blow fishes, leaps across the valleys, ridge to ridge, peak to peak, in to the distant sun set, in to reluctant night, in to chalked out horizons.

The cat then woke up and found itself in the Happy Valley Ground, it appeared from a winter of discontent. It performed slick moves as an aerobics practitioner, all the while imagining the feline female forms in unitards, actresses escaped from Cats.

On FC midway point, movies and on absolute anonymity

Exams may come and exams may go, but I can not shake off the habit of watching movies and reading fiction and eating more than twice the daily calorie requirement during exam time. I watched an anime, 'Perfect Blue' (1997) by Satoshi Kan (who also directed 'Millennium Actress' (2001)) and the ever green big daddy of cool movies, 'Big Lebowski' (1998) (The Dude abides!) by the Coen brothers. 'Perfect Blue' is the source/inspiration movie for 'Black Swan' (2010). In fact, many think (including me, after I have watched the movie today) that 'Black Swan' draws heavily from 'Perfect Blue.' Among the many critiques and analyses available on the net, I found this to be the best that compares and contrasts both the movies.The caffeine driven binge movie watching then dovetailed with listening to the OSTs from both the movies and then reading reviews from various fora.

Do my batchmates realize that the 89th Foundation course is half done already? The 'mid term' exams cleave the course duration in to two neat halves. How do you feel now that the course is half empty (or half full, as you wish). The defining event of the Foundation Course, the Great Himalayan Trek is over. Other high points that the OTs may look forward to are the village visit and the India Day. I am guessing the cultural programmes due every fortnight will have been a matter of routine by the end of the course and not many may be enthused by the cross country run and the athletic meets. So what do the OTs look forward to, now? Many deadlines for submission of essays on various topics and reviews of books etc loom on the horizon, like the snow peaks of the Gangotri group, Chaukambha, Kedarnath groups visible from the campus. We move ever closer to scaling new heights.

There are two places in the campus from where one can get unhindered views of the snow clad Himalayas- the library reception area and the mess hand wash area. The Gandhi Smriti Library reception area has the added benefit of having an almost panoramic photograph of the Himalayas on the horizon, labelled with the peak names pasted on the wall above the window making for easy identification. The bronze plate with the peaks marked on it, on the Kalindi Guest House lawns is of no use. The peaks do not correspond to the direction in which they are present and trees in front of the viewing area spoil the views. Other areas in Mussoorie from which an unhindered view of the peaks can be had is the Lal Tibba. Even the Nandadevi peak is said to be visible from there. A visit to the Lal Tibba on a clear sky day is due. The Chaukambha peak group is the most impressive among all the peaks visible from the campus.

Half way through. I am guessing the academy will be a much duller place once the OTs from services other than the IAS leave after the Foundation Course comes to a close. We will think about it when the time comes. As of now, I am yet to know most of my batch mates and vice-versa. The situation can get a bit comical at times, like how in a class of just 7 OTs (a language class), a lady OT wanted to know if I were in the same class as her. After about 50 days in the academy and after as many as 10-15 language classes, I suppose it was a rather tragi-comic statement on many things. Namely, that mere physical presence does not get registered. That people are likely to mistake me for a wall paper. If it were the first time that this has happened, I would be wallowing in self-pity. Alas! This is the umpteenth time that people wake up one day to find that I have had been their group/team mate/coworker etc for quite some time. My colleagues from my stint at a private MNC would identify this incident with that of the 'kind stranger' moniker. I only hope this sort of presence whitewash does not happen with my wife to be. Imagine the awkwardness and the embarrassment if the future wifey wakes up one day and wonders aloud and in alarm as to what I am doing in her house. 

This level of anonymity has its advantages, too. I am seeing a bright future for myself in the world of espionage where the ability to pass off as a wall paper is a great talent to possess. A fly on the wall type is just the kind that a wannabe spy has to be proficient being.

I sincerely hope that by the end of the Foundation Course there may not be many fellow OTs who mistake me for a wall paper.

On Sex in the Snow

The Himalayas 'encourage men to search for something as exalted as the summits he can see.' For some, the ultimate exalted summit is love. Love that can not be found in the plains, at training academies etc is sought to be found at high altitude. From my observations I can only say that love is as elusive at 4000 m as it is at sea level. Then there are searchers like me, content with sights of the craggy peaks, forested hill sides, moon lit valleys and a million stars in the sky. I am a plainsman who grew up in the flat lands of the Godavari river delta. The highest point I had climbed in my childhood was a guava tree. Therefore, it is with wide eyed wonder that I view these glimpses of the Himalayas. I can identify with the Lama from 'Kim' by Rudyard Kipling who when he steps in to the mountain region in his quest for the River of the Arrow says of the mountains, "These are the hills of my delight! Shadows blessed above all other shadows! Here are my eyes opened on this world...out of the hills I came- the high hills and the strong winds. Oh just is the Wheel."

The mountains can evoke many passions in men. And women too. A common theme I used to find odd was the constant recourse to mountain backdrops for picturization of 'love' songs (duets, group songs etc) in Bollywood and Tollywood movies. Many melodious songs have been picturized in the mid-Himalayan region and this phenomenon has been explained to my satisfaction in this scholarly article, "Sex in the Snow: The Himalayas as Erotic Topos in Popular Hindi Cinema" by Philip Lutgendorf of University of Iowa. The plains man hero- hill woman heroine romance has been examined and explained in this article, building up on the mythological and cultural depictions of the hills as areas of liberal (liberated?) sexual atmosphere. Since I am constrained with regard to time, allow me to copy paste the synopsis of the article here.

"Fantasies about life beyond the front range of the Great Himalaya have been a trope in lndian literature since at least the period of the Sanskrit epics. The demi-divine beings believed to inhabit the high country were famously sexually active, and even the human "northern Kurus" (as residents of the region have sometimes been called) were rumored to have long, happy lives unburdened by inhibitions, especially in sexual matters: their women were allegedly free to enjoy multiple extra-marital liasons and polyandrous marriages. Such legends appear to persist in popular 20th century narrative through a much-used trope in Bombay cinema: the depiction of the Himalayas as a realm of uninhibited romantic fantasy. Although this trope is often confined to virtually extra-narrative song sequences that whisk the hero and heroine to Himalayan (or lately European or even New Zealand alpine) locales, a number of highly successful films have given it much more extended treatment by romantically pairing a plains-dwelling hero with a Himalayan heroine. This article briefly traces the history of this scenario and then considers the contextual and cultural implications of its use in two notable films: Raj Kapoor's Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1984) and Mani Ratnam's Dil Se (1998)."

Source: Lutgendorf, Philip (2005) "Sex in the Snow: The Himalayas as Erotic Topos in Popular Hindi Cinema," Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies: Vol. 25: No. 1, Article 7.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol25/iss1/7

This article makes for an entertaining read, please do go through it. Apologize for using a classic bait and switch tactic with the use of a titillating title and then sticking a research paper to you. Though one did hear of PDAs in the hills, that is about all I can write here without venturing into tabloid type speculation and outright lies. Let them who search for love find it where they will and those of us unrequited with the mere sight of the exalted peaks may yet summit them someday.

On (in)Human Demands in the Himalayas and Few Photographs

The Gandhi Smriti Library at the academy is a delightful place. There are three fat volumes of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, an absolute must read (or reread in my case) for the weary and tired souls. Or even Mills & Boon series of titles. The variety of subjects on which books are available continues to amaze me. One can find books on topics as esoteric and seemingly far removed from civil service as gardening to thick tomes on a dozen and more varieties of law.

The mountains bring out the best and the worst in man. A common ailment that most people suffer from when they go to the hills is what Bill Aitken in 'Seven Sacred Rivers' describes as the 'altitude's debilitating desire to demand things by right.' Thus, one finds normal, reasonable people turn irrational and demanding, oblivious to the obvious limitations in the higher altitudes. For example, hot water for bathing at remote huts and barely there dhabas. Or, food of sufficient variety to satiate the palate where the best option for nutrition is grass. Or accommodation of a standard not possible in places where the nearest roadhead is 20 km and/or a day's trek away. Of course, it could be that the 'normal, rational' people may not be normal and rational to begin with. Then, they are the worst thing that could have walked the mountains. Loud, boorish, insensitive to local customs and rude, they are anything but civil in trying circumstances. Perhaps I am harsh in my words. My peevishness can be explained by the fact that the endless antyaksharis and the catcalls and whistles and loud conversations scared away the Himalayan birds and animals that I was eager to see and capture on my camera. I was lucky to have heard, even over the man made din, the songs of many birds and spot a few. The guide, a local birdwatcher trained by the Bombay Natural History Society was knowledgeable and readily shared his knowledge of the fauna and flora. Thus one learned of interesting facts like how Ban Oak when yet a plant sports spiny edged leaves so as to discourage animals from feeding on it and as it grows the leaves change shape at the higher reaches while the leaves on the lower branches retain the spines. Like how the 'kutki' plant whose rather bitter roots are supposed to have a diabetes regulating effect besides being useful in treating digestive problems.

Kukti- Used in Ayurvedic medicine for treating digestive problems. Image source: http://www.kraeuter-und-duftpflanzen.de/media/image/c94946e555298340c63123700077d590.jpg

Or the pleasant fragrant leaves of the 'atrasu' plant which when brewed as a herbal tea is supposed to warm the body. There were a variety of edible 'bers' and 'jamuns' which the guide was kind enough to point out to us. We had our fill of these berries. Lesson being, a good guide can negate the ill effects of even the worst kind of antyaksharis. There is a wealth of knowledge among the locals. Traditional knowledge systems have to be tapped in order that they benefit the wider community. There is a scope for resource extraction without killing the mountains and cheating the locals. The current practice is of exploitative and extortionary resource extraction where valuable medicinal herbs and forest produce is being pilfered by unscrupulous elements, often being smuggled across the porous border between Uttarakhand and Nepal and then further in to the end market, China. The guide recounted examples of how 'dalaals' (brokers or middlemen) come visiting their villages to offer monopolistic prices for few herbs which they then sell to their customers in China at inflated prices. The guide suggested that the government can and needs to step in to curb the smuggling as well as regulate the trade in the herbs.

Below are few photos of the birds and animals and plants I came across during the trek. Help in identifying would be most appreciated.

Pika- Cute guy was munching on leaves near a place where we were filling our water bottles from a stream.

Pika- Posed patiently for few minutes before withdrawing shyly.

Indian Tortoise shell

Queen of Spain

What crested bird is this?

Berries

Again getting confused- is it a blue throated warbler or oriental magpie?

My camera was good

Sun lovers.

Size does not matter, attitude does.

On restarting blogging after a long trek.

Quick now. The longish absence from blogging can be explained. I fell in love. With the Himalayas. Again.

It was cold at the top and lonely despite the crowd. I loved the moon illuminating the hill sides and the tree tops, loved the way Milky Way took my breath away yet again, loved the many flowers and birds and trees and berries that I came across, loved the moss covered dead wood and the wild mushrooms and the grasses, yes I loved all these. But above all, over everything, I loved the Himalayas. Still do. Will do. Higher than the clouds, disdainful, imperious, alluring, sterile, fertile, seductive, aloof, they simply stood while I tussled with complicated group dynamics, wrestled with conflicting emotions about my fellow humans, head bent and breathing heavy, toiling up and down the slopes at the foot of the magnificent Himalayas. While all along they stood solid, shimmering in the mists and sun and moon light, daring me to love them. I tried. I tried my best.

The trek for 6 days concluded without incident for the group. Sadly, the same can not be said about the other groups. There was an unfortunate incident in one of the groups. Details will be shared when more facts come to light.

The route followed was as follows: Mussoorie->Hanumanchatti (bus, overnight stay at Forest Rest House (FRH))-> Darvadar Seema Range Camp (steep up hill climb, tent stay)->Dodital (stay at FRH)->Agoda (FRH)->Maneri(UJVNL Guest House)->Lata to Belak (steep up hill trek, Gujjar huts)->Budha Kedar->Mussoorie (bus).

The objectives of the trek may have been fulfilled in part. Very well. How much group dynamics can a man put up with anyway?!

There was a literary festival on the 2nd and the 3rd of this month. Think intellectual terrorism and fossilization of mind after 10 years in the service and that would sum up most of the content of the 'literary' festival. The only festival it was was of prejudices.

 Sometimes I wonder if I have grown more cynical than is necessary for my age. Like, cut some slack for the ossified civil servants may be? Go in to a love all free fall, a trippy, sugary, white washed world of absolute non-judgment. Enough of head scratching. The grind restarts tomorrow. I shall try and recount the aforementioned events in as much detail as it can be boring.

Feels good to have been missed, by the way. :)