Heights of Passage

The idea is to to beat the sun and be there in time for when its first rays catch the tip of the highest point in India. Of course, we could have done the same thing from somewhere more comfortable. We could have watched the same rays catch the same tip of the same highest point in the country on the same daybreak, from a safe, hassle-free distance.

About 64 km away from where we are now negotiating loose rocks and a chill-to-the-bone-marrow factor, at Tiger Hill near Darjeeling, countless Bengalis in monkey caps and woollen gloves, I knew, were taking measured sips of tea and waiting for the first ray to ignite the tiara of the great white outline. Mount Kanchendzonga.

My first introduction to the aura of the peak happened in typically Bengali fashion—no, not through Ray’s Kanchenjungha, but from Tiger Hill, with family, and as an obedient, father’s handholding child, the memory of which is firmly recorded in the family photo album. Years later, on a November visit to Darjeeling, I was caught unaware and utterly captivated, when on turning the corner of the crowded Chowrasta, I saw the mountain, its snowy spread sitting like a stately crown on the northwest horizon of the busy hill station, 28,169 feet above sea level.

Sukma, our able guide during a two-day trek to Sandakphu, had enchantingly pointed out the larger significance of the five peaks of Kanchendzonga to Ria and me. ‘‘That’s the forehead, now notice the nose. There you see, that’s the chin and there’s the belly,’’ Sukma said. Early morning in Sandakphu, four of the world’s five highest peaks, including Everest, jostle for attention.

But we were completely taken in by Sukma’s artless description of The Sleeping Buddha. It was almost cathartic, its magnetic tug almost fatalistic. I wanted to get close to it, touch it. But now, I can’t drag myself any further. Six days of relentless trekking from the 5,500 ft height of Sikkim’s Yuksum to Samiti Top at around 15,000 ft, a bad cough, incessant altitude-induced headaches leading to fears of encountering the dreaded, life-threatening Acute Mountain Sickness, hill diarrhoea and a reluctance to give up, are all adding up and taking a toll.

Alokeda, Patda, Souvik, Ani, Ashish, Ria, our Nepali guide Sambhu, porter Daju and me had braved the snow that melted into our tents at night in Phedang and Dzongri, sleeping bags that refused to zip up, a staple Maggi-and-not-much-more diet, twisted ankles and sore toes, to be here, frantically sucking on air that’s getting increasingly thin. Goecha-La, our final destination, I realised, will remain an unbridgeable two hours away for me.

The legendary climber George Leigh Mallory must have been irritated when he was repeatedly quizzed on why he wanted to climb Everest and famously quipped: ‘‘Because it is there’’.

Eric Shipton in his book, Upon That Mountain, finds ‘a grim satisfaction to be derived from climbing upwards’. Veteran mountaineer and author of High Exposure, David Breashears, chose the Himalayas as background when he exchanged wedding vows with fellow-climber Veronique. And one of the reasons American socialite Sandy Pitman wanted to climb Everest in 1996, notes Jon Krakauer in Into Thin Air, was to be able to send direct satellite dispatches for an NBC programme.

Once he has had enough chang, Patda philosophises that the ups and downs of climbing reflect the roller coaster that is life. But it’s been up, up and only up for Joe Brown and George Band, the members of the British expedition that first peaked (they stopped a few metres short to respect Tibetans’ belief in their holy mountain) Kanchendzonga in 1955—the golden jubilee is being celebrated this year.

Everyone finds their calling from the mountains. And from where I stood, reverently transfixed and close enough to hear the menacing sound of early morning avalanches on the mountain, close enough to have the light reflected off its snow cast a shadow behind me, but not close enough to be able to touch Kanchendzonga, I found my own raison d’etre.