Extracts from a Diary

To read the previous two instalments, read here and here respectively. <10 th July 2012, 1540 hours, Gopalapuram, Chennai> The next day, Monday or Day 3 of my trip, around afternoon, I leave for Kheerganga, with a plan to spend a night there, travelling to Tosh and then returning to the familiar lands of Kasol and eventually the plains. I started on the trek, as I realised later, quite underprepared and late for it. I was wearing slippers, without carrying any food to munch upon, and barely sufficient water – of course, with a healthy stock of ciggs, though. Definitely not the best thing if you’d be travelling in that region of sparsely located overpriced or often closed dhabas for somewhere close to 6 odd hours (~10 kms) one way. Even in those altitudes, the June sun was making it harder – lazily starting late was obviously not a smart choice – but in those narrow pathways randomly, but frequently nonetheless, appearing stretches of puddles were making the footwe...

For the first part, you might want to refer here . <17 th June 2012 1918 hours, Barista, Ludhiana> I am at a Barista, looking to complete my travelogue from where I left it off. So, I’d reached Bhunter at around 1030 hours, munched a bit of food here & there, before finally taking a bus to somewhere we could start the trek to Malana from. On the way, chatted up with this stranger in the bus regarding the way to Malana, movies, mundane day-jobs etc. It turned out he was a documentary filmmaker & a PR professional going to Kasol for the two day trance party on sat-sun (9 th & 10 th June) there. My friend and I get off at Jari, discuss the possibility of attending the trance party at Kasol, but decide to trek to Malana instead. It is sometime in the afternoon with the sun shining strongly. We are told it is about 4 odd hours and we trek along the area of Malana Hydropower Project – an interesting contrast to the otherwise natural ‘unadulterated’ habitat of ...

<Kasol, 12th June 2012, 2130 hours> So, after resignation, I had 7 odd days of casual leaves remaining and despite the shitload of pending work, on the evening of 8th June, I take off from Ludhiana, reaching Chandigarh at 0005 hours 9th June. A friend from my engineering college is to reach Chandigarh from Delhi at 2am. I wait around jobless, having a swig from my bottle of Bacardi, white rum. I go off to a random tea-shop dweller looking for some ciggs. He is smoking up and my trip to Kasol and elsewhere starts early. I chat up with him to find out that he got his hash from a local farmland in town (and I don't testify to his authenticity). He explains a ring side view of the trade that gets shaped later on in the trip. From local villages of Kasol, namely Tosh, Malana etc., around sept-oct each year, the dealers come to pick up a quintal or two from the then very recent harvest. The most tender leaves go on to become the most sought after - super cream (or simply cream...