Trekking to Himalayas was the most obvious cliche that I badly wanted to be in. Whenever I travel to places, I sense this feel of incompleteness in the place from what I have assumed it to be. But I always thought my expectations are set high with the influence of materials in world wide web. So, after reading umpteen blogs about the Himalayan treks, I thought to give it a try by under promising myself. I had my own set of expectations and questions for the trek. At the same time, I was safe enough to choose an easy-moderate trek taking my fitness into consideration. Finally, I found myself in this beautiful trek called Mukta top with Indiahikes.

My pursuit to trek base camp through air and land ended exactly after one day in Kuflon. But what happened after that was pure magic. We started our trek through the trail filled with orange trees. They were bloomed enough to give us a warm mesmerizing welcome into the woods.

Trail through oranges

The beginning was all about excitement. The idea of having a trek pole in my hand made me think myself as a trained trekker who can trek as long as the trail goes on. But soon the reality hit me with the thirst. I started fighting my own challenges whenever sun kissed me. At times, I even thought that I wasn’t going to make it to the top and I should have spent this holiday in some sophisticated location without knowing what was about to come in the end. It happened with me in the first two days of my trek at few places as I was itching myself to get to the camp as soon as possible. After that, I never wanted the trail to end. With each step, I started rediscovering myself. All this time, I thought I was a photographer or at least a wannabe photographer. But I hardly took my camera out to capture in the trek. I think most of my fellow trek mates might not know that I had a camera in the bag. I knew I cannot capture the sound of the streams, silence of the shredded leaves, hardness of the rocks and softness of the breeze. Whenever I took a picture, it looked bland to me. That was when I realized that the nature has possessed me to the fullest.

The Magical path

When the days were showing off with such elegance, the nights brought their A game to the fore. We were safeguarded by mountains on all 6 days. Those mountains were good at multitasking. They never shied away from romancing with the stars in addition to the night watch that they were already doing. The result was something that could be witnessed only with the eyes which were blessed. I was fortunate that I had a pair. I slapped myself for thinking the star gazing was about counting stars all this while.

Star gazing at Shiladuni

The one fact about the trek that quite excited me from the word go was snow. I have never seen it in real and to trek on it was a sort of dream for me. As soon as I stepped on it and the perspectives of mine took a hit. I got to know the snow was over-romanticized in cinema just for the sake of heroine introduction scenes/songs. The trekking on snow was as challenging as it could get. It was slippery and deceiving when we neared the top. Every time I fell down in snow, it pumped up my veins to push myself to be on top of it. When we reached the summit, my senses shamelessly bowed down to the snow for being so beautiful. Mukta top was full of awesomeness.

Towards the top

The trek was planned and organized in a minimalistic way to cater the needs of whole trek group. The minimalism taught me a lot in regards to valuing simple things. From food to water, we had limitations in almost everything which reminded me the ignorance that we all have on those things while we are at home. Just because they are easily accessible to us, we are not giving them the respect they deserve. There is a famous dialogue in a Tamil movie that goes like this, “Always have hot water or hot tea, Burn your lips and get reminded of your loved ones”. The next time, that I am gonna burn my lips, I will definitely be reminiscing this trek for fighting out with a bunch for hot water to counter subzero conditions.

This trek was not just about nature and experiences. To me, they were just support mechanisms. The real heroes were people who made me introspect every cup of my thoughts.

When we were struggling even to walk on the trails to reach the camp and the summit, there was a team which was working relentlessly to give us the food and snacks on time. The kitchen team was not just doing the catering for the sake of duty. They always delivered varieties that we could hardly ask for even at home. On top of rotis and sabjis, there were always cherries like gulab jamuns, pakodas and custards. The ultimate surprise was the Christmas cake made of sooji and jaggery. We were wondering throughout the trek on how they pulled off this mystery. On the last day of trek, we had this introductory talk with kitchen team in which they apologized assumingly for any mishits in the cooking. We were shell-shocked as we were already in awe of their work. My heart suffered a knockout punch for bragging myself in the annual review meeting for the work which was not even half challenging as they do.

Kitchen Team

On top of the extremely cold weather, there was an awesomatic coolness that was wavering around us during the whole trek. I would let our technical trek leader Mr.Sunil Rawat (Fondly called as Sunil Bhai) take the credit for the same. Our days always started with his blissful alarm ‘Garama garam chai!’. He never liked to complicate anything and always had a simplistic approach to even challenging problems. In his talk on the final day, he started with apologizing for not being able to allow us more time in the summit. He never had the need to do it as that was done in the interest of us as a precaution for bad weather. But he did. He ended his talk with this exact dialogue, “What to say? You gave me lots of love and I gave you the same. That’s all. I didn’t do anything much”. How innocently and beautifully he has put it. In between the insecurities and the trust issues, I think we are losing the innocence that Sunil bhai has. It’s definitely the time to rethink.

Super Cool Sunil Bhai

 The trek team was always high in spirits all because of our trek leader Mr.Pranav Dharamsey. His energy resonated with the whole team for all the 6 days which gave that extra push which everyone needed to complete the trek. Every time we circled up for warm up and cool down, he started with his trademark “Good Morning people” or “Good Evening people”. To execute such a near to perfect trek in such challenging conditions was a herculean task itself. He was fighting his own challenges as well. But that never showed up on his face. The passion that he had for the trekking was unmatchable. My respect for him went miles ahead when he started for another trek just after the completion of our trek with the same smile that we had seen him with on first day. He will keep winning hearts.

Ever Passionate Pranav

 Last but not the least, the fellow trek mates who had their own set of lessons to feed me with. Every time I felt like I would not be able to complete the trek, they gave me the push to complete it. The passionate guy who has been a Pianist and has been giving out books for free, the girl with strong mental endurance who had fought her way through the mountains with knee pain, the motivated guy who kept pushing people towards the top with his songs and slogans, the hyperactive girl who kept the mood light throughout the trek and many more. I can go on to describe about everyone. But I fear my inferiority complex would grow higher than 11,838 ft. Everyone in the team gave me something to look back at myself which I was munching in my thoughts on my way back while descending.

The Team

I wanted to do this trek to get myself away from humans and get myself immersed in the nature. When I gave myself to nature, it lead me back to these beautiful humans. Oh man, Life is a deadlock!