Bhunter

We got down from the bus around 6am.

The place was called Bhunter. Unlike my three colleagues who had already acquired taste for trekking, I was still wary of the idea of trekking for straight 6-7 hours, that too in the Himalayas itself. Sure I had been on short treks in the Western Ghats earlier, during my stays in Pune, but undoubtedly the Himalayas came with a different kind of personality.

We had been posted at Chandigarh for some days. So my colleagues were more than excited to go on Kheerganga trek. I, honestly, could have been contended with long drives to Kasauli and Shimla, but, be it peer influence or the fear of missing out on a good opportunity; any ways I had given in, and had decided to accompany them.

We had taken a bus from Chandigarh and travelled overnight to reach Bhunter. There, we were supposed to wait till Sunny arrived with his car to drive us up to Barshaini. We would then start trekking up from Barshaini. Sunny was an acquaintance of Sumit, one of those three colleagues I was with. Sumit was an ace trekker, and he was posted permanently in Chandigarh. So he used to be a frequent visitor to these places, and had thus developed friendship with the localites of the mountains, like Sunny who would know the routes and drive well on hilly terrains.

When we got down at Bhunter, it was dark. Although it was a little past 6 in the morning, it looked as dark as 2-3 am in the night.

"Should we have tea?", asked Abhirag.

Abhirag was originally from South India, but he too had been posted in Chandigarh for close to a year. So he too had developed fondness for the Himalayas.

" Yeah! Sumit is trying to contact Sunny...meanwhile, we can go figure a tea stall," added Utpal, cleaning the mist off his spectacles. Utpal was my batch mate in the company. We both had come to Chandigarh together that very month. But I didn't have even half of his enthusiasm about difficult treks.

I was still pulling myself out of sleep. Once the bus left, I rubbed my eyes to adjust myself to the darkness. Very slowly, as my eyes got accustomed, I could figure out silhouette of a black range of mountains against deep slate colored sky. I felt I was in awe partly in the sleepiness, partly in the adventurous feeling of being so close to the Himalayas after years, (my last trip to the Himalayas was when I was in engineering, close to a decade ago), partly due to nostalgia ( as far as my memories went back, the first long vacation beyond sea beaches in West Bengal and Orissa, that I would recall; was in Shimla ,Manali and Rohtang with my parents, when I was in class 3. So visiting the Himalayas always made me feel closer to childhood and Mom).

Grey colored clouds wrapped around the dark mountain range like a heavy shawl, giving the already-serious hills the look of a no-nonsense, gigantic guard, watching over the small village.

A shiver passed through me as a combined effect of the chill and the realisation of the mightiness of the mountains.

"It looks so amazing! It almost looks haunted yet safe", I muttered in a daze as I kept staring at the massive clouds covering the crowns of the hills.

"Before you talk more random stuff, we need to get you some tea,come.." Utpal laughed as he patted my head to draw my attention towards a small tea stall that had just started opening up for the day on the other side of the road.

As I turned back and crossed the road with them, I noticed that many small shops were on the verge of starting their business.

The tea shop owner had lit the stove , already cooking some fried snacks, while taking our order for the tea. We took turns and brushed our teeth at the small sink behind.

Getting awakened after having my first cup of tea, I stepped out of the shop and stood on the road to get a better view of the place.

There were tourist buses and trucks plying that road. Travelers would often get down at that place to grab snacks or tea. Since most of these buses plied overnight, this was a crucial time for the shop owners to do business.

I looked on the hilly side, the sky had started getting slightly pale, although it was still dark and grey. I could now make out pale clusters of small houses residing amidst the mountains. There was silence, there was discipline, there was a mystery.

On the other side, were shops lining the road with fires lit for cooking the first snack of the day for customers.

I felt at that point I was witnessing what "life" could be pictured as : intrinsic core of discipline, keeping all your secrets hidden, while going on with your day lighting your own fire, beating the chill, and without waiting for the darkness to retreat; because it would anyways eventually fade away.

I smiled with the realisation, as the stall owner came out and handed me my second cup of tea.