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 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. :)

On a Peak and Summiteers

There were many kings of the hill, a much quarried limestone hill. A hill that appealed to Sir George Everest enough for him to set up a bungalow and an observatory for him to compile the results of the Great Indian Arc survey. The bungalow is now in utter ruin, visited annually by various batches of OTs, cows, goats and other wild creatures. The kings of the hill all talked but could not decide on who would be the summiteer of the peak of the quarried limestone hill.

Speaking of peaks, the Peak XV, later to be named as Mount Everest, has an interesting story behind its naming. This article from The Himalayan Journal by William Aitken is an engaging read.

An enquiry in to the real name of Mt. Everest

The Tibetan name for the peak, Chomolungma, has a sweet meaning. It means 'Snow Blue High Queen.'

The trek to the Sir George Everest estate, a gentle walk on the road, was done with the group configuration for the first time. The group members and their leaders were kind enough to check on my welfare and position from time to time. No child left behind was implemented in letter and spirit.

There were Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags, clouds and needy photographers around. The result is few photos for your viewing pleasure.

The Lone Trekker

A cross current of prayers

Eternal prayers

On a Social Experiment and on Imposition

'Data will confess to anything if you flog it hard enough.'

Over four years of working with data has one develop a healthy suspicion of data. Not all data is suspect, of course. But then not all data is data. A lot of it is fiction. Most of the rest is noise. The current hot phrase 'big data' may yet be the next big thing in the world of technology. How do you use big data in administration?

While we are on the topic of data, let me share the results of the social experiment performed over the past few days. The experiment in itself was simple-the experimenters (two males, socially unremarkable) claim a specific spot of 'in-demand' real estate in the mess during the meal hours and observe the reactions of the OTs to this deliberate attempt at encroachment. The result of this experiment was consistent- almost all OTs desirous of occupying the prime real estate assiduously avoided the chairs next to the experimenters. Few had expressions of irritation writ large on their faces at the inconvenience, few others could mask their emotions well. Few OTs who initially were inclined to sit next to the experimenters would change their seat at the last minute on finding OTs from their 'group' elsewhere. After close to a month at the academy, it is the transitional phase when the OTs would move from the awkward group formation in to their comfort zones. The experimenters desired to gauge the effect of external stimuli in assessing the cohesiveness of groups. The number of chairs left vacant next to the experimenters, even during the peak mess hours, was indicative of the OTs' affinity towards their homogeneous groups and their aversion towards unfamiliar, heterogeneous groups. The ideal group size, we deduced, was 7. Anyone above that number becomes unwieldy in terms of communication. Therefore, 7 is the core group membership. There are associative memberships as well. The peripheral members move fluidly between different groups. These try hard to belong somewhere, anywhere. Unless one has strong social bonds, the ideal nuclear size is 2. Group accretion does not start easily below this size if the individuals at the centre do not have compelling social aura around them. Service, geography, gender, regionality, ranks are the usual suspects in promoting homogeneous groups. The only notable exception was when one lady OT broke the valence barrier and took the trouble to make small talk with the experimenters, occupying the chair next to them. We need more time to understand this aberration.

That then was our experiment. It was pseudo sociological, yes, but it was fun. Apologies for my engineering friends for using non-technical sounding jargon. Apologies too to the serious sociologist types for trivializing your field with these engineering incursions.

Irrespective of the experiment, I had had a chance to listen in to a rather entertaining and insightful monologue of a fellow OT at the dining table tonight. I shall present the monologue in a suitable format at a later date.

Before signing off, I would like to ask what we are imposing and what we are superimposing. Can we 'impose' secularism? Can we 'impose' religious intolerance? Can we 'impose' peace, love and brotherhood among people? What do we impose and what do we displace?

I remember imposition as a punishment at school when one had to write out apologies on the blackboard. 

The trek routes have been finalized, the group leaders, assistants, navigators, communicators, treasurers and bookkeepers have all been appointed and prepped. We look forward to 8 odd days in the Himalayas. But before that we have to survive the PT, intensified many fold with the ostensible purpose of toughening us for the Great Himalayan Trek. Yours truly will be on a route to Dodital. Details at a later time. For the present, one has to match Sir George Everest and trek to his bungalow tomorrow.

In general

The batch got a wake up call, so to speak. Probably it was deserved.

People are busy researching on places from the upper Himalayas as a part of the trek path to choose from among many options. It is always a hard choice when one relies on Wikipedia, Google and Indiamike to decide on which path to trek. Why not leave the choice to the fates and be merry? Anal retentive civil servants believe they have things under their hand, in their control. How long would it take to disabuse them of this notion?

All in good time maybe.

On a trek to Lal Tibba and blue berry cheese cake.

Here is the trek description in a more readable form.

• Trek from the academy to Lal Tibba.
• Started at 7.30 am.
• Downhill walk till Bhilaru pump house.
• Salt sprinkling ceremony to ward off leeches and to maintain pH levels, slaughtered few mountain goats to propitiate trekking gods (ok, this part is made up, the sacrifice part).
• Some more downhill walk on algae covered paths (slippery as hell).
• Bicchu buti kisses in between (painful, painful, irritating initially, but one forgets after a while as the aches in legs from climbing overtakes the bicchu buti sting). Nobody quite grasped the nettle!

  

  Beware of bicchu buti.

  
  

• 

  Some mushrooms enroute.

• Dead wood blocks the narrow path; OTs slide on their bottoms in order not to roll down 80 ft before the fall is broken by trees. Fat bottomed OTs you make the rugged world go round!
• Crossed leech infested area near a pool of stagnant water and a ribbon of a stream that has the deceptive roar of a raging torrent, somehow. Yours truly mistook the leeches for earthworms, steps in to the pool, soggy shoes and socks torment for the rest of the trek.
• Climb begins in earnest. Narrow, gravelly path. Precipitous drop one one side and stinging nettles on the other.
• Crawl on all fours at a place. Palms still sweat when one thinks of that part. Happy because of the paunch which lowered the centre of gravity.
• Climb past hamlets, barking dogs, flatulent cows.
• Climb past fruit bearing trees (apple, apricot), 'mansoor' shrubs
• Climb ends at Lal Tibba view point. Two sleepy, generic cafes. A binoculars on a roof top. Cloudy so could not see any of the upper Himalayas. Do ends justify the means? Not for Lal Tibba trek I say!
• Pleasant walk downhill and some more climb up to ITM lawns for lunch.

• 

  A bee going about its business.

• Kellogg Memorial and St.Pauls churches, old and redolent of 19th century Raj era.
• Char dukaan disappointed few motor vehicle borne pretty young things. Heard the pancakes are worth making the trek to Landour. Should check out the said pancakes.

  

  Signboards at a cafe.

• Kulri bazaar home to quaint shops. Antiques store was a shortcut to an indeterminate past, in to lives of others, memorabilia mundane and mysterious. Reminded me of the saying that love is greater than truth. And commerce in nostalgia did not seem an example of exploitative capitalism.
• Serendipitous discovery of Clock Tower Cafe by friends. Blueberry cheesecake was out of this world. The ambience made it especially noteworthy.

  

  The interiors of Clock Tower Cafe.

  
  

  

  The coffee was good.

So that in nutshell is an account of the trek. Was it tough? You bet it was. Was it memorable? Every bit yes, especially the scary bits. Was it worth all the sweat, salt, fat etc? I suppose so.

A larger collection of photographs of the trek can be found here.

Below is the trek account in its original form.

Lal Tibba earned an enemy in me today. The trek was 18 km long. The unsuspecting batch started a slow walk downhill till we reached a point where we sprinkled liberal amounts of salt on our shoes (a pointless exercise, for dry salt does not stick to dry shoe surfaces), socks and inside the shoes. This pickling of ourselves in salt was to deter potential dependents in the form of leeches. Once sufficiently salted, the batch made its way through a narrow path surrounded by an abundance of bicchu buti. A handwritten caution note pinned to a tree does not prepare one to the full scale horror of bicchu buti rubbing against one's shins and arms, even through a layer of cloth. The resultant sting was bitter, intense for the initial 2-3 minutes and the itch fades away in to the background remaining a persistent irritant for a time. There was a spot in the descent where a fallen tree caused few anxious moments as the OTs had to go around the gnarled roots on a narrow path and descend some 12 ft in an almost vertical drop, land on another narrow strip of loose dirt path of 1 ft width failing which the OT would take a tumble down an abrupt drop of around 80 ft. It was the first instance when one feels a bit of trepidation. One also imagines Final Destination 1 to 5. Then there was another point in the climb where the loose gravel and a slope of close to 60 degrees meant one had to cling to tufts of grass or shrubs and climb on all fours. It was not a dignified sight for the civil servants to crawl on the sides of the hills, but between the indignity of crawling and the reasonable certainty of a headlong plunge to the very bottom of the valley some 1500 ft below, rational human beings choose crawling.

There was this funny thing of feeling giddy the moment one raises their head to admire the vista of trees of the deepest tree-green covering folds of earth, like vertical love handles, the tremendous middle Himalayan Mussoorie range. So, to avoid falling off the mountain side, one tends to keep his head down, eyes peeled to the path, belabored breath like a sputtering engine. Keep one's head down and climb and climb and climb. Through rocky paths strewn with slate slabs, dried cow dung, an accompanying dog and a racket of dog barks. Climb till you wonder if you are ascending to heaven. Climb some more till your calf muscles turn in to mountain goat muscle. Stringy and tough.

After all the climbing one reaches Lal Tibba. The point we landed up at after the rather difficult trek was a small piece of tarred road and couple of cafes. Since it was overcast there was no chance of seeing the snow-clad Himalayas and the prominent peaks. The culmination of the trek was underwhelming to say the least. Post lunch one was free to move to the academy as per one's preference and I opted to walk down to Landour, along with few friends. Landour was pretty as a post card. Of special mention was the Clock Tower Cafe, a delightful cafe with superb views and a blue berry cheese cake to die for.

Trek to Benog Tibba

Benog hill is a squat hill 2104 metres in elevation located 9 km west of Mussoorie. From the academy it appears like a cute, fat, shy, distant school going cousin who has come visiting your home during his vacation. You would want to pinch his chubby cheeks, muss his hair and be the patronizing all India or group A service elder brother/sister. Only when the squat fellow gets comfortable and fast loses his inhibitions does he show his true colours. He would kick you, punch you, pinch you, mess up your neat system, bite your calf muscles, sit his heavy self on your thighs, make you sweat buckets in order to catch him. Benog hill is that exact cousin.

The 89th FC batch trekked to Benog hill this week. Unlike the underwhelming trek to Kempty falls, this one was a pleasure. The initial 6 odd kilometres were no trek at all, having only to walk on undulating road till the Clouds End, a holiday resort which was constructed in 1838. 1838! Mussoorie is steeped in antiquity and one discovers it everyday. Convent of Jesus and Mary, 1845, Clouds End, 1838. The trek starts to mean business from then on, a steady climb to the top would take around two hours. One gets beautiful vistas of Hathi Paon, Aglar river valley, Dehradun valley and other peaks of the Mussoorie range from atop Benog Hill. There is a temple, Jwalaji Devi temple at the top. The descent from the apex to Rabbit Farm point was the most memorable part. The trail was non existent at few places, very steep and slippery at other places. At these places, the OTs descended with the help of a rope. It was a pretty sight watching the unlikely mountain goats. We passed by the Murray Pumping House, built in 1907. The colonial era building houses a still functioning pump and remnants of another one of another era. The pump house supplies water to the Mussoorie town.

The supremely difficult part of the trek was the final leg that involved a steep ascent from the pump house to the Tibetan Homes Foundation complex. It took a good two hours. However, that does not capture the burning in the legs, the feeling that one's lungs would burst from the effort of breathing, the protest of body that has not been pushed like this in a long, long, long time. Push we did, clawing at the air, slipping, skidding but somehow climbing, pushing against gravity.

Photos from the trek can be seen by clicking on this link.

A fist full of salt.

Leeches are as leeches do. They are much maligned creatures. One expects them to be engorged with blood from a hapless victim, sinister creatures with no morals, blood suckers, etc. In reality, they are no more than an inch in length and quite often can be mistaken for earthworms, except for their colour. A leech that has partially fed itself looks like this.

Yes, it is not a pretty creature. And judging from their desperation to cling on to anything, they remind me of eternal romantics, dil phenk characters that I run in to from time to time.

I encountered leeches in good number in our trek to the Kempty falls, some 14 km from the academy as the road rolls. The trek path may have been much shorter- not more than 15 km in all. There was a trek briefing yesterday, complete with Google Earth view of the trek path. Needless to say, the GPS-computer jazz did not resemble anything we have seen on ground. That much must be obvious. Doh.

The trek briefing had specific instructions on how to deal with leeches. A fistful of salt liberally applied on parts of the body vulnerable to leeching, would get rid of the creature. I saw it in practice today when a sprinkling of salt antagonized the leech. They were present in full numbers in parts of the trek through the mulch and dense undergrowth.

The trek in itself was uneventful. The upper reaches of the Kempty falls have improved a bit, with cement pavement in place of boulders behind which the tourists would unburden themselves.

I shall continue this post at a leisure time. I need to sleep now.