[Between early June and early October — except when landslides triggered by monsoon storms block the mountain roads — hundreds of Sikh pilgrims tackle the trail each day. When I was there in late September, it flowed with people eager to worship at one of the holiest places in the Sikh religion. Many traveled as families, most of them headed by bearded men in colorful turbans. Some wore traditional kurtas or blue warrior robes, others wore jeans and sweatshirts. The most devout walked barefoot. Some who couldn’t manage the climb rode mules. Others sat on wooden litters carried on the shoulders of four men, or in wicker chairs hauled like backpacks by porters. The latter two options, I thought, surely belonged on a list of “stuff in India that you’d never see in the United States.”]
By Michael Benanav
Deep in the gorge that
it carves through the Himalayas, the Alaknanda River rushed beneath a
footbridge. On the right bank sat a busy Indian village, Govindghat, its one
street lined with spartan hotels and shops brimming with Sikh religious items
and souvenirs. On the left bank, a man wearing a frayed sweater-vest and a ski
cap greeted me imploringly.
“Horse?” he asked,
hoping I would hire his mules to haul me and my pack up the path to Ghangaria,
an isolated mountain hamlet in Uttarakhand state. Ghangaria is the base for
visiting the legendary Valley of Flowers National Park — where some 300
varieties bloom in peak season — and Hemkund, a lake and sacred Sikh pilgrimage
site in the Garhwal Himalayas.
“Horse?” he repeated.
“Five hundred rupees...”
I thought about it.
Ghangaria can be reached only by foot, hoof or helicopter (the latter being way
beyond my budget). The route is about eight miles long and climbs some 4,000
feet, to 10,006 feet above sea level. It was already afternoon and I’d eaten
only a few biscuits that morning. But it was a brilliantly sunny day and I felt
energetic. Even as the price dropped to 400 rupees — less than $8 — I declined
and headed up the first set of switchbacks, knowing I could eat Maggi masala
(Indian ramen noodles) at a trailside stand and hire a “horse” along the way if
I changed my mind. (Eventually, I did).
The cobblestone trail
rose through a valley flanked by steep, forested slopes, capped by bare cliffs.
Below, the Lakshman Ganga — a tributary of the Alaknanda — surged with
startling force, as glacial snowmelt poured down over huge boulders.
Between early June and
early October — except when landslides triggered by monsoon storms block the
mountain roads — hundreds of Sikh pilgrims tackle the trail each day. When I
was there in late September, it flowed with people eager to worship at one of
the holiest places in the Sikh religion. Many traveled as families, most of
them headed by bearded men in colorful turbans. Some wore traditional kurtas or
blue warrior robes, others wore jeans and sweatshirts. The most devout walked
barefoot. Some who couldn’t manage the climb rode mules. Others sat on wooden
litters carried on the shoulders of four men, or in wicker chairs hauled like
backpacks by porters. The latter two options, I thought, surely belonged on a
list of “stuff in India that you’d never see in the United States.”
Shortly before dusk I
reached Ghangaria, where it was so cold I was soon wearing every piece of warm
clothing I had with me. My hotel room, like all others in town, had no heat;
hot water was available only in buckets, for a small fee. On the plus side, the
bed was piled with blankets, and prices were negotiable (I paid 300 rupees,
about $5.50 at 55 rupees to the dollar.)
By the time I set out
for Hemkund the next morning many pilgrims were already on the trail. We’d have
to climb another 4,000 feet in just four miles to reach the hallowed lake,
which sits 14,200 feet above sea level. The place had to be special, really
special, to inspire all of these people — most of whom wouldn’t be described as
“outdoorsy” — to undertake this kind of trek. There was clearly something at
stake here beyond sightseeing, which I reflected on as I hiked.
Pilgrimages, religious
or otherwise, are inspired by stories — some true, some fictional and some in
which fact and legend are seamlessly stitched together. Regardless of their
veracity, these stories resonate. The places where the stories are set become
salient landmarks in the geographies of our imaginations. They seem to call to
us from within, urging us to go to them and promising to complete us in some
way if we do. Think of Jerusalem or Mecca, ground zero or even Graceland; these
are not mere dots on a map, but places loaded with meaning that draw travelers
to them. And when we go — when we reach these places that through their stories
have reached into us — it’s as though our inner world unites with the outer. At
least for a little while.
The story behind Hemkund
relates to the 10th and last Sikh guru, Gobind Singh, who lived from 1666 to
1708. Arguably the religion’s most influential founding father, he introduced
many of the practices that define the faith to this day. Gobind Singh wrote
that in a previous life he had meditated at a mountain lake ringed by seven
peaks; there, he had become one with God, physically as well as spiritually,
before being reborn as the great guru.
For centuries, the
location of Hemkund remained a mystery, until it was rediscovered in 1934 by a
retired army officer named Sohan Singh. It turned out to be a lake called
Lokpal, which had long been holy to Hindus. These days, it’s estimated that
upward of 150,000 people make it there each year.
Though I’d gone on
personal pilgrimages before — to the village in Ukraine where my grandmother
lived in a ghetto during World War II, and where much of her family perished;
to the surreal desertscape of Wadi Rum, in Jordan, where T. E. Lawrence, my
childhood hero, once roamed — I didn’t think of my trek to Hemkund in those
terms. Here I was a tourist, not a pilgrim. But even to a nonbeliever, the
allure of a sacred lake high in the Himalayas was irresistible. And as someone
with an abiding interest in the world’s religions, I hoped to get some insight
into what it meant to the Sikh faithful to reach their holy place, especially
after what had to be endured to get there.
After hiking out of
Ghangaria and following the serpentine trail up a mountain for two and a half
hours, I reached the little lake surrounded by rocky peaks. People were
immersing themselves in the freezing waters, eating dal (lentil soup) made by
volunteer cooks at the langar, or communal kitchen, and resting. The
mesmerizing rhythms of Sikh kirtans, or devotional songs, spilled from a
gurdwara (temple) whose multi-angular pitched metal roof made it easy to
mistake for a spaceship.
Inside, worshipers sat
on a red carpet facing a golden canopy, beneath which a spiritual leader waved
a feathered whisk over a copy of the holy Sikh scriptures. In front of him, a
table was decorated with plastic flowers, 11 plush-toy tigers and one leopard.
The pilgrims were exceedingly friendly, and many spoke English. They seemed
pleased to see a foreigner and were happy to talk about their experiences.
“It’s inspirational,”
said Sukhmeet Singh, who is Indian-born but now lives in Australia. He was
traveling with his parents, his wife and two children. For him, the journey
seemed as important as the destination; he compared it favorably to the Tony
Robbins seminars he’d attended, saying that meeting the challenge of the trek
made him feel as if he could accomplish anything.
Others echoed what he
had said. One man told me that sick people dipped in the lake to “cure-ify”
their illnesses. But most of those I talked to spoke of Hemkund as a place of
purification, which would take them “away from all evils” and inoculate them
against future ones for some time.
In the langar,
23-year-old Aman Jot Singh, from Punjab, sat behind a pot big enough to bathe
in, serving hot chai. In his free moments, he read Sikh scriptures on his smartphone.
Every day, he told me, he hiked up from Ghangaria to volunteer in the kitchen.
Every night he hiked back down. All summer. To him, it was a form of austerity
and penance.
“I was like what you
could call a playboy, into drinks and women, and I cut my hair,” he said. “I
had a big ego problem. But last year I decided I had to change, to live right.
And this helps. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
The effects of Hemkund,
he said, would fill him with a lasting peace and keep him on a righteous path
long after he returned home.
In midafternoon, I
descended to Ghangaria for another frigid night’s stay.
The following morning, I
hiked into Valley of Flowers National Park, just a couple of miles upstream
along the Pushpawati River. The trail passed through a narrow canyon, which
opened up into a landscape so sublime — and so different from the Ghangaria
side of the slot — that I felt like I’d been transported to another world.
The three-mile-long
valley was framed by walls of snow-crowned, cloud-scraping peaks. Ribbons of
water plunged thousands of feet down sheer rock faces, then flowed across
rolling meadows. The greens and yellows and browns and steel grays of the
earth, flecked with myriad other colors, were constantly changing hues, as sheets
of cirrus filtered the sun. I scanned the slopes, hoping for a glimpse of a
snow leopard, bear or musk deer, but saw none.
The peak bloom, for
which the valley is renowned, had passed. In July and August, during the
monsoon season, the basin floor is said to be a rainbow of flowers, the equal
of any botanical extravaganza in the world. When I was there, just a smattering
of blossoms remained.
But I had no regrets:
coming after the monsoon meant a much better chance of sunshine and a much
smaller chance of being delayed — or worse — by an apocalyptic cloudburst. And
the valley, flowers or not, was still an alpine paradise.
Very few people were
there. Walking along the trail, alone and unobserved, I could succumb to pure
awe with no taint of self-consciousness.
In a way, I experienced
at the Valley of Flowers what the Sikh pilgrims sought from Hemkund. Maybe not
purification but peace, and a sense of contact with something far greater than
myself: the Himalayas.
Might I make a
pilgrimage back to the valley in the future? Perhaps. It would be
nice to see the flowers.
Hemkund is open from
about June 1 to Oct. 5. Valley of Flowers National Park is open from June 1 to
Oct. 31. Park admission for non-Indians is 600 rupees (about $11) for three
days.
Michael Benanav is the author of “Men of Salt:
Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold.”
