Page 26 - Seniors Today - May21 Issue
P. 26
Meals were in the kitchen, the verandah or River Beas, runs east, through a steep-sided
Raja’s bedroom, which doubled up as a sitting valley from the town of Bhuntar, in the Kullu
room around a welcoming fire, where one district.
could get out of the many layers of clothes It is a land where myths are alive and touch
one otherwise needed to wear. Raja, his wife, all aspects of the lives of the people living
daughter and I would spend every evening there.
there. The Pashtun girl and her friend joined It is believed that Shiva, the destroyer,
us sometimes. Her German boyfriend soon meditated in the mystical valley for about
arrived, and she disappeared only to be seen 3000 years. He sat here in the form of a naked
on our treks and at breakfast. The other guest ash -meared sanyasi or a naga sadhu. Seasons
had friends in the village and we would meet would come and go, and one day he looked
her occasionally. out at this untouched, perfectly sculpted
landscape and named it after his consort,
Parvati.
Another famous legend says that eons
ago, Kartikeya, the younger son of Shiv
and Parvati, meditated here for a thousand
years. While he was here, Shiv and Parvati
occasionally came to see him. Parvati would
make kheer for him. A natural spring
bubbling with sulhpurous hot water, thus
came to be known as Kheerganga.
The greyish colour of the Parvati River is
I nearly forgot to say that the cuisine also attributed to the culinary skills of the
available in Kalga was unreal. Chinese and goddess.
Italian struggled with dal bati churma, Each day started with a morning walk,
makkai ki roti/ sarson ka saag and Himachali breakfast and then the daylong trek lasting
food, all cooked in little homes and the for five to seven hours up the mountain,
occasional restaurant. following one route and coming back down by
another one.
The route to Kheerganga was not fully open,
so we made our way ably guided by Raja
passing through several snowfields. I am at
a loss for words to describe the sheer beauty
of nature – her glorious colours of green, rust
and white enveloping us. It was wild and
magical. Nature is alive and talking to us, the
trees telling us stories of yore, the mountains
the silent witnesses to everything that the
earth has endured, I thought to myself. I
The Parvati Valley is situated in the wished that I could stay longer amidst this
northern state of Himachal Pradesh, from breathtaking beauty.
the confluence of the Parvati River and This was unfortunately not to be. I was
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