A handful of thoughts

My love for the Himalayas is no longer a thing of surprise for anyone who knows me for a day or so and anyone who has read by blog. But what I am going to tell you today has got nothing to do with my passion for the hills or the snow covered peaks or the vibrant bazaars of the Himalayan towns. Today’s tales are about the beauty of the people of the Himalayas. A people who toil from daybreak to dusk to earn a few morsels of food for their families; who sit down to one square meal at the end of the day - all justly earned by their sweat alone.

Hemkund

At Govindghat, the place where the trek for Hemkund starts, I had tea and snacks at a choti and coolly forgot to take back the change. Halway on my way to Hemkund I realised what I have done and decided to visit the same choti on my way back, to test the honesty of the owner. And so I did. This time around too, I had tea and some tidbits and when I asked him how much I had to pay, he said, “what payment? I’ll pay you. You had forgotten to take the change on you way up? How careless of you? Is this the way you handle your money?”

Kedarnath

My mom dropped her wallet in which she was carrying all her medicines and about 500 bucks. we asked a few locals if they have seen a wallet of such and such proportions. One of them promptly said, “if someone of our area picks it up, you’ll surely get it back, but if someone from your side comes across it, you can’t say.” A little later we found him, rather he found us. A lean man in his fifties, his tattered coat unable to keep the cold winds at bay. We tried to reward him, but all he said was “bina mehnt ka paisa hum nahin leta” (I do not accept money that  haven’t earned). The only thing he reluctantly received was a modest meal of dry Indian bread and vegetable curry.

Manali

We put up at the Tourist Lodge of Manali (it no longer stands; had been washed away by a flood) adjacent to the Beas River. We checked in, dropped our luggage and were ready to go out. But the manager had not provided us with any keys of the room. My dad and I quickly went up to him to ask for the keys and he looked at us as if he has never heard a funnier comment. He assured us with a wave of his hands that we didn’t need to lock up our rooms; nobody does that around here. But we are from the plains. We are accustomed to live around thieves, pickpockets and their likes. So we took the keys, locked up our room but now we had to keep it on the pelmet above the door. But when we came back, the keys were there and not a thing misplaced.

These people are one of the many reasons why I run to the hills at the slightest provocation. Their smiling faces pump in oxygen into my corrupt dishonest plains heart.