How far is faraway?

Gurudongmar Lake in vertiginous, wind-swept north Sikkim is as remote a spot on the map as one can ever access on wheels. But here, too, on local lad Lobsang8217;s mobile, an explicit MMS is only a few clicks away

His composure drenched by copious quantities of gin, Lobsang reeked of new verve. Post-dinner, he fished out the Nokia Nseries from his pocket and a few button clicks later, gleefully showed us the animated porn queen8217;s slow stripping on his screen. A friend from the plains sent him the MMS, and at 9000 feet above sea level, in the small North Sikkim village criss-crossed by icy winds and snow-capped mountains, the explicit skin show ensures Lobsang never feels the distance. Nothing is too far for him to reach, thanks to technology.

Early that morning, when icy winds attack the skin the way stingrays would and the Teesta charges towards the North Bengal plains, Lobsang revs up his jeep. Inside, we are cosy in the belief that at well over 17,000 feet, and within a gunshot from the Chinese border in Sikkim8217;s north, Gurudongmar Lake is a safe bet for a faraway destination.

From Lachen, the languorous hamlet where we had stayed over for the night after an entire day8217;s travel from Gangtok, Lobsang8217;s jeep had puffed its way up the gruelling incline. The metalled road had given way to a rock and pebble path, the snow-covered peaks that surrounded us during the gloriously moonlit night at Lachen now a mere jog away. Tufts of cloud drifted in and enclosed mountaintops in their opaque whiteness. By the next hairpin bend, the clouds had moved on, allowing the snow to sparkle in the early morning sun.

The road signs, with their point-blank reminders of human frailty on mountain roads 8216;It8217;s better to be 15 minutes late in this world than to be early in the next8217;, 8216;On whisky, driving risky8217; which stared back at us on our way from Gangtok to Lachen, had now been substituted by a message more alien, more ominous: 8216;Beware of flying rocks8217;.

This is wind-swept country. What Sikkim, one of India8217;s smallest states, lacks in size, it makes up with not just an overflowing basket of natural beauty, but also height. Height, after a point, forbids trees, and the lack of trees allows winds to have a free run over exposed mountainsides. It is then that stones start flying in the air, warns Lobsang. Somebody rolls up the window in our jeep.

An hour after Thangu, and into a terrain and altitude that starts teasing our unacclimatised bodies, it becomes imperative to roll up the windows, if not for a misplaced sense of security but against the icy thrust of the wind. We are driving through miles of cold desert flanked by white-striped mountains, tyres leave behind trails of dust, vegetation is extinct. We seem to be running straight into an ice cream cone-shaped peak, on top of which sits scoops of snow. 8220;That8217;s Raja, Rani is next to it,8221; says Lobsang pointing at the mountain, before applying the brake.

The Tibetan family, led by the old lady with genial wrinkles lining her face, gets off in the middle of the flat country. They had got into our jeep at Thangu; here they walk into what seems nowhere. I was wrong about the lack of vegetation; the Tibetan family makes a living from cultivating potato here. They work on their little patch of land during the day, and wait for an Army truck to return them to Thangu in the late afternoon. The presence of India8217;s armed forces is palpable here8212;the terrain is often pockmarked by bunkers, wire fencing have been put up at places to keep people away from landmine territory, and only Indian residents are allowed to travel this far. At this oxygen-starved height, tantalisingly close to the Chinese border, you are not too far away from a skirmish, an encounter, war.

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Finally, Gurudongmar Lake8212;blue, green, virginal and reflecting some of the white of the mountains that surround it. We try to complete the circular walk around the lake; lack of time and oxygen stop us mid-way. From its left rises a mountain, where snow is sprinkled as if from an artist8217;s paintbrush.

Soon, a fierce gush of wind. It propels us forward. Time to return. Lobsang too is in a hurry, he has to return to the place in two days. With more tourists. Nothing, as we know, is far away for him.