A Happier Horizon

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”

Marcel Proust

Adventure and travel serve to awaken. Understanding different cultures, life styles, languages, landscapes and food not just broaden horizons, but give fresh perspective to jaded and mundane everyday sights. Perhaps the greatest take- away of travel is that the world is vaster than imagined and most of us are mere specks floating along on the winds of chance and change, soaking up different experiences and emotions: excitement, tranquility, patriotic fervor and rage, which strangely combine to give rise to contentment.

Just when I thought that life had settled into its humdrum and even keel, fate, that capricious mistress, shepherded me to a land so enchanting that it could have been something out of a dream. A land of inspiration, of beauty, once torn apart by war but now glowing with a hard-won peace. A land far to the east, India’s very own salute to the rising sun, Arunachal Pradesh.

It had not been without a lot of trepidation that I set out eastwards on this trail, literally trailing the spouse, having left a rather disgruntled offspring behind in the care of a venerable parent, both fending for each other on the West Coast. The mere thought of having to undertake an entire day’s journey back were anything to go wrong on the home front had already left me with a slightly hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. I needed much more than a wheel and a prayer, or so I thought. Little did I know that I would be encountering both soon enough, lots of wheels enclosing prayers, the fabled prayer wheels of the Buddhists, and so much more besides.

While driving through the lush green foothills of the eastern Himalayas in the tea garden state of Assam carried a soothing charm of its own, it was the tantalizing glimpses of snow- capped peaks far on the horizon which were truly awe inspiring. That we were to scale those lofty heights in as little as three days and try to discover the stories that these silent sentinels had to offer, left not just the head, but also the mind slightly dizzy.

Unlike Oliver Goldsmith’s famous play, there was no stooping but floating down the impossibly blue Kameng river, serenaded by bird song and rocked by eddies and swirls to conquer the windswept mountainsides which dared us to summit them.  It was a convoy of sturdy vehicles, expertly steered by even more sturdy helmsmen that began the ascent, brows knitted and teeth gritted, in concentration. The drive became one of the most enduring images of the whole journey: the endless road, flanked by impossibly tall craggy summits, covered in forests in varied shades of green, some dappled, others dull and yet others full of vibrancy. Images whirled past outside the windows, lit by a sun which seemed to have forgotten the advent of winter. The sky was deep turquoise, fading to a mild cornflower in the distance, shades of blue which I did not believe existed in nature, until I saw them for myself in this part of the world.

As the way wound deeper into the state and scaled the heights, I decided to stop furiously clicking pictures and capture what I could in my mind’s eye instead, to be perused mentally at leisure, like a favorite sepia tinted album, glowing with the gentle patina of wistful memory. For every view was a picture post card to city dwellers, like most of us. Picturesque little hamlets dotted the Dirang valley, flanking crystal- clear rivers forded by rope- and-wood foot- bridges. Guest houses boasted orchards laden with kiwis, persimmons, pomegranates and sweet lime. Women wrapped in shawls calmly went about, diligently constructing roads, with rosy cheeked toddlers strapped to their backs. Yaks could not even be bothered to lift their heads to looks at us, used as they were to gawking touristy crowds. Tall stalactites of icicles clung to rocky outcroppings like giant, upside down, gleaming swords and sabers.  Monasteries reared their tall slanted roofs, trimmed in gold paint and teeming with prayer wheels inscribed with ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’, an enormous statue of the Buddha holding sway inside. Thanks to friendly monks, we were able to discern quite a few of the meanings of the icons, statuary and history within. A quaint museum attached to the Tawang monastery offered insights into the life and times of the old Buddhist dynasties which once ruled this part of the world.

Once called NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency), Arunachal Pradesh does such a wonderful job of hiding its war-ravaged face under its pristine natural beauty and sweet- natured people, that were it not for the constant convoys of army trucks, defense stations, battalions and war memorials galore, it would have been almost impossible to recognize it as the same place stained with the blood of more than two thousand martyrs of the Indo-China war of 1962.  Abandoned stone bunkers dotted the hills, gory ghosts of the past, mute witnesses to a war fought against horrendous odds, thanks to the short-sight and misplaced confidence on so called ‘moral high-ground’ of the powers that were in Delhi back then. The heart wept and blood boiled for those brave soldiers of ours who sacrificed everything at their disposal (and trust me it was pitiably little in terms of the equipment provided), including their lives, so that an entire generation of Indians could grow-up in peace. The sound of their eternal silence reverberated from the walls carved with the names of the fallen in the Tawang war memorial arousing that much more patriotism in our voices when we proclaimed “Bharat Mata ki Jai” at the end of the unforgettable light and sound show, which was completely worth the wait in the bitter night winds.

That the dark hour of defeat had passed giving rise to the dawn was evidenced soon after, when we visited the Bumla Pass. If the rapid work of the Border Roads Organization and morale of the Indian troops who guarded this part of the Indo-China border was anything to go by, it was clear that lessons had been learnt from a dark chapter of our history. It was even clearer in the confident way a lone interpreter was replying to a Chinese soldier who was in the middle of a voluble tirade regarding some construction over the border. New India flexed its muscles in the deep baritone of the brave heart who told us that the Chinese were friends as long as they stayed on their side of the border, but should they repeat the folly of crossing over ‘to the other side’, they would be summarily dispatched to another unearthly realm permanently.

The calmness of such beautiful lakes like Sungester Lake, Sela Lake (at the enchanting Sela Pass with its backdrop of yet another haunting war story) and the Pang Tseng Tso Lake drove home the truth that long after we were conscribed to distant memory, this land would still remain blessed as it deserves to be. That vast fields of icicles and massive snowscapes would still melt into rills and springs which would keep gurgling their songs as they tripped over smooth stones to find eternity. That this region is home to more than a hundred tribes, each with their own costumes, traditions and language was delightfully depicted by the Monpas, who danced their traditional dances for us to the beat of folk music, just as it had been played for aeons.

It was only on returning and seeing the sun set over the Western hills that the true legacy of Arunachal Pradesh unfurled gradually, like a flower awakening with the light. It was felt in the company of the wonderful people I travelled with, in  Shiva Gurung and his comrades, who drove us safely over treacherous terrain and gave us impromptu local history and Nepali folk music lessons, in all the home stay hosts who fed us simple but wholesome fare flavored not just with fiery chilies, fragrant rice, savory yak cheese and robust wild mushrooms, but also with their affection, in bowls of steaming, spicy thukpas and momos, in the glow of wood fires lit to ward off the cold, in the night sky awash with a million stars, the mighty Jang waterfall cascading down in a roar of misty sound and in the silhouette of the soldiers on sentry duty unblinking eyes on the far horizon, so that we slept in peace.

Perhaps a lot has changed since Rajendra Krishan wrote the famous song ‘Jahan daal daal par sone ki chidiya karti hai basera’, but he must have had this land in mind when he chose to write:

‘Jahan Suraj sabse pehle aakar daale apna phera

Wo Bharat desh hai mera!’

 To my everlasting good fortune, I visited this happier horizon.

Pictures:  Kind courtesy of Dr. S.Soppimath