Actually, the completion of the Kedarnath trek is indeed by God's grace. Anything and everything could go wrong. Sure, the Yamunotri trek is tougher still, steep climb as it is. The road winds and winds to eternity. Each turn leads to another still steeper, still more difficult. It is hardly twelve kilometres both ways, but it appears literally hundreds.
As for Kedarnath, practically everything could go wrong. First and foremost, it is the climate, the weather. It is absolutely ephemeral. Can change faster than even the moods of the cranky and the crafty. Luckily, my pilgrimage was blessed with wonderful climate. In fact, it was sunny throughout.
The other problem is acclimatisation to the climate. It is cold, with C bolded and on font size seventy two! Sure, one catches up with it, and fast. Yet another problem is the roads. Sure the roads are not paved with tar, the way they are at the Vaishno Devi at Katra. They are hence both natural but arduous.
Yet another issue is the mode to trek. One would climb it up. For sure, one could trek it down, what with the Himalayas and the gravity working in your favour, not withstanding the not so gentle murmur, eh, creaking of the knees. But for that one would need lots of time on hand!
But the worst that goes wrong is the attitude of the locals. Sure, tourism often is their only source of livelihood. Agri business would be minimal as fruits are not forever, only seasonal. Rice, wheat, potatoes could not be beyond mere sustenance. Yep, mining, sure to ruin the region very soon, could be another source of livelihood. Right now it is tourism.
And are the tourists the milch cow! Sure hiking up every ounce of material with the help of the horses and mules, treated the worst way ever possible, is unbelievably costly. Yet tourists' money is hard-earned, too, right? Difficulty cannot be the close relative of manipulation, right?
Luckily for me, the doli/palakhi-wallahs up the hike and the pittu wallah down the trek were simply Good. They were all young boys in their early twenties. I treated them with utmost kindness, fed them sumptuously, chatted with them. I did feel bad to use such human services, no alternative though. I was told that they had no other way of livelihood, and hiring them was helping them! Anyways, they told me I reminded them of their mother, a great compliment I would say. Yet even these unfortunate Nepali boys (their wails about their life were tough to bear!) would be advised to fleece me! Luckily they did not!
The pittu wallah from Gauri Kund to the hotel charged me one thousand for two kilometres. I had decided to pay a little extra to the elderly person. But each time he felt like resting, he would keep the pittu atop a small square pillar of a bridge overlooking a deep trench of some sixty metres, a valley with waters gushing! And he would order me not to move.
He was not answerable to anyone. Just like the very many ghode wallah's (horse rides, difficult to decide whom they are crueller to, the animals or the tourists!), the pittu wallah's or the palakhi wallah's. Actually, they are given permits which MUST be checked. Safety, otherwise, would be an imminent danger as every one is at their mercy even when walking it up/down as they push past everyone on a road slippery with slush and dung.
For the hoteliers, every drop of water is to be calculated. Of course, many tourists, too, demand impossible advantages they would not even dream of at home! Tough is the money game, In brief, for priests as well as people, money is honey!
Pratima@Pilgrimages need not produce piety!
N.B.: Oh, yes, the police! Could they be less indifferent and more polite!?! In the Devbhoomi come pilgrims and tourists from all over the world. Literally! Why misrepresent one's own state to the big-n-bad world!
N.B. 2: Sand mining has to be big business here. The rivers, singly and/or as confluence, prove it. Hope there is not any Santosh Deshmukh though!
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