Asha
Photo: Karan Madhok
‘I missed the recklessness of youth and wanted to prove to myself that I could still test my limits—if only for a weekend.’ Unguided, unprepared, and unfazed, Karan Madhok recalls the horrors and hope from a fateful Himalayan trek to Nag Tibba.
I was a month shy of my thirteenth birthday when I peaked.
I had spent most of my childhood in school in Mussoorie, tucked above the Doon Valley in the lower Himalayan region. During one of my school’s annual excursions, I was in a group of other Grade 7 students—led by adult chaperones and outdoors instructors—that climbed the highest peak in the region: Nag Tibba. At ten thousand feet, it was our own little Everest, the most-satisfying hike I had ever done.
From up here, we felt above all of the world, the other mountains, rivers, villages, and human civilization. Everything in my horizon was quiet, clean, unblemished.
I never forgot that trip.
Photo: Karan Madhok
At 18, I left the protective bubble of the mountains for the ‘real world’. I was now a small-town boy in bigger cities, and much of my naivety about the world and its people was shattered. There was no more innocence of the mountain hamlet of my childhood; my attitude towards others ‘normalised’ like every other big-city dweller, polluted by the speed of quick change and industrialisation, tense under the stress of hot summers and crowded platforms at the Delhi Metro. Every smile was suspicious, every interaction with the stranger was a transaction, every offering of help came with a debt.
By 25, I realised that I needed a break from the city-lifestyle and allowed myself to succumb to the nostalgia of the Himalaya, to memories of mutton fried momos, long walks through the green, lush hills, breathtakingly beautiful sunsets, and friendly residents. I returned to work in Mussoorie. It took only a couple of months of getting reacclimatised to this lifestyle before I suggested to two of my new friends—Prateek and Ady—that we should go to Nag Tibba over a weekend. I told them I remembered the way from 7th grade and could lead them up—no problem.
Prateek and Ady had been friends for nearly a decade before they first met me. Both had grown up in Lucknow, the capital of India’s most-populated state, and had lived in big cities most of their lives, too. Both were relatively new to the mountains, and because of our shared sense of humour and an honest curiosity for new adventures, we formed a natural friendship. They didn’t need further convincing for my plan.
Photo: Karan Madhok
In early October that year, the three of us acquired a tent, hiking gear, and water purification tablets from the school’s Outdoor Education department, and headed out. We wanted to keep our bags light and carried only packaged, ready-to-eat food like granola bars, raw noodles, and nuts. I planned the itinerary I somewhat remembered from childhood: taxi from Mussoorie to the Thatyur village on Day 1, walk from Thatyur to Devalsari to camp out there on our first night, wake up early for the gruelling thirteen kilometres of trek up from Devalsari to Nag Tibba on Day 2, stay overnight at Nag Tibba, and then trek back down to Thatyur to catch our taxi in the evening of Day 3. If we left on Friday morning, we would be back in our homes, sleeping on our comfortable beds in Mussoorie by Sunday night.
Alas, I had allowed my confidence to cloud my true abilities. The three of us were absurdly underprepared. We were all in our mid-20s, in relatively good physical shape, and enjoyed walking around the hills. But none of us had ventured out unguided to such an expedition. Even with my vast school-days trekking experience, I had little outdoor intelligence, relying on others to erect tents, build fires, and cook meals. And yet, I was impatient and flippant about my ignorance: After all, if I climbed Nag Tibba at 13, why couldn’t I do it at 25?
We took a taxi to Thatyur, and, as planned, reached the Devalsari camp-site in the afternoon of Day 1. We befriended the two elderly caretakers of the camp: Vinod and Budhau. It took time and patience, but Prateek and Ady somehow succeeded in pitching our little tent (we named her ‘Anika’) in a vast, clear campsite, surrounded by lush curtains of sky-scraping deodar trees.
Even with my vast school-days trekking experience, I had little outdoor intelligence, relying on others to erect tents, build fires, and cook meals. And yet, I was flippant about my ignorance: After all, if I climbed Nag Tibba at 13, why couldn’t I do it at 25?
That evening, Budhau hiked up the jungle and brought us back a clear bottle of cheap country liquor. It smelled like petroleum and tasted like potent rice wine. And yet, it sparked the beginning of a beautiful evening. Vinod made a bonfire on the open field, cooked us dinner, and narrated—with alarming nonchalance—stories of bear attacks in the dark forest above us. Vinod judged early that we were novices to the outdoors and advised that we hire a guide for five hundred rupees—less than half the cost of our taxi there—to lead us up to Nag Tibba.
Still confident in my memory and tracking ability, I declined his offer.
As the fire dwindled, the night sky above us became perfectly clear with stars, clearer even than our homes in Mussoorie, and much clearer than the polluted skies we had left behind in the cities.
On Day 2, the real hike began. It would take us up to six or seven hours of a relentless climb to the peak. I had assumed from memory—wrongly, I would later learn—that there was a well up in Nag Tibba, and predicted that we would easily be able to filter out more drinking water once we reached our destination. My friends trusted me; each of us carried only a few litres of water among us as we waved farewell to Vinod and Budhau.
Photo: Karan Madhok
We passed by the last settlement on the way, the village of Aunter, where the Pradhan offered us chai and rusk, and like Vinod, suggested that it would be smarter for us to take a guide to lead us up the right way. Again, I politely declined.
There was one more, final bastion of human presence after Aunter: a small hut about an hour further up from the village. The Pradhan’s daughter-in-law lived here alone with her cattle and her dog, taking care of her family’s wheat farm. As we passed her hut, we waved a quick ‘hello’ at her from outside, while her angry black bhutia barked over our conversation. She was dressed like most women in the mountains: choli over her mid-riff, lehenga tied around her waist, red sweater over her shoulders, and a red cloth wrapped like a tube over her hair. She would have only been in her mid-30s, but the lifetime of physical labour made her look decades older. She spoke a strong dialect of Pahadi, and we could only communicate back in Hindi; but we learned enough of the way to keep marching on forward.
Ady, quick with his legs, kept up with my impatient pace. Prateek walked slowly behind us. We walked up some trails shaded under cool, tall deodar trees, and some trails under the direct anger of the morning sun. We walked slowly through a part of the trail covered in sharp and uneven stones. We took turns carrying Anika, our heavy tent. Our lunch break was at a cliff-edge that overlooked an expansive valley of woods in the mountains below us. We drank from our bottles of water and kept walking, sure that we would make our destination well before sundown. I was convinced that I recognised parts of the journey, even though the memory was from half a lifetime ago. We didn’t see anyone else on the way.
Somewhere along the journey, we reached a split in the path. The wider side was criss-crossed by wooden sticks blocking the way, a clear sign—we would later learn—warning of wild animals like leopards or brown bears that strayed in that direction. The other path was narrower and bushier at the split. Unable to recall from memory, I chose the wider ‘blocked’ path.
Photo: Karan Madhok
It was a mistake. For a few more hours uphill, I adamantly believed that the trek was still familiar from my childhood, but in the late afternoon, as the sun began to descend and we were no closer to any clearing or elevation that hinted at the peak, I grew concerned. We had hiked for nine hours that day and weren’t anywhere close to what looked like a destination. The path we were on became much narrower until it disappeared into the grass. We reached a dead end: behind us, a steep jungle of deodar; in front of us, an-almost vertical mountain face with a drop of thousands of feet in the abyss below. It got darker and there was no flat ground to camp. More worryingly, we were all down to our last sips of water.
I was still convinced we were close to the peak, and if we went straight up the mountain face, we could make it. The vertical climb would only take a few minutes, I believed. Prateek and Ady hesitated, so I decided to give it a go by myself. With a backpack and Anika strapped over my shoulders, I began to climb up the mountain, nearly on all fours, grabbing on rocks, thin branches, and shards of grass. I have read that the adrenaline rush of fear can propel the human capacity to unnatural abilities. I ignored anxious calls from my friends below, and ignored the deep drop below me. I had no harness, training, or common sense.
Never before or since have I attempted anything as life-threatening. When I turned around and looked below, fear struck me: the fear of the fall, the fear of death.
But I feared something more: I feared life. The life I had led since leaving the Himalaya seven years ago. The mundanity of a city life, a life without risk, where I felt I had suddenly grown too old and too static in a short period of time. I missed the recklessness of youth and wanted to prove to myself that I could still test my limits—if only for a weekend—in any circumstance thrown my way.
Fear makes you stronger—but sometimes, it makes you stupider, too.
I pulled myself higher up the mountain face, using muscles on my back, forearms, and quadriceps I didn’t know existed. Tunnel vision. I just had to get to the peak.
Human beings can apparently survive three days without water, but I don’t think scientists had considered our panicking, sensitive bodies. If the wild beasts didn’t get us, we decided, we would probably die of thirst, or if we survived that, of embarrassment.
But when I finally reached the top, I saw that it wasn’t the top at all. It was a small, rocky shelf. There was another, longer climb going much higher up into nowhere.
I quit.
“This might be the wrong mountain,” I shouted down to my friends.
We were lost, hours away from help, too late in the evening to make it back in time, short on food and water, in a part of the jungle where few—if any—had ever ventured out to. Cell phone service hadn’t worked for us since Thatyur.
Photo: Karan Madhok
We had to camp now—somewhere, anywhere. We turned around back to the forest to look for a stable clearing between the deodars. The ‘flattest’ land we found was on a 45-degree incline, and we decided that this would have to do. The yellow sun had now darkened into a worrying dusk and it got colder under the trees. Prateek set up the tent while Ady and I rushed to gather wood, twigs, our trash, anything to build a fire.
As it became dark, we sat around the bonfire, as I tried to the mask of humour and jokes to disguise my fear—and disguise my shame. We ate raw packets of noodles and held off water for as long as we possibly could. We wondered if the fire was likely to scare away or invite wild predators. Human beings can apparently survive three days without water, but I don’t think scientists had considered our panicking, sensitive bodies. If the wild beasts didn’t get us, we decided, we would probably die of thirst, or if we survived that, of embarrassment. We amused ourselves with banter about our co-workers. With naïve melodrama, we each recorded goodbye messages on my camera to our loved ones.
Our plan now was to officially abandon dreams of conquering Nag Tibba; we hoped to be up as early the next morning and rush back down the mountain to find water. We slept side by side in ‘Anika’, slipping down numerous times in our sleeping bags over the slant we had camped on.
Early the next morning, we packed up under the spotlight of the full morning moon. There were some slivers of daylight by the time we began hiking down.
Photo: Karan Madhok
It took around four hours before we finally saw the first sign of human life. It was the woman who lived by herself in the hut above Aunter. We were hungry, thirsty, dirty, tired. Her dog greeted us with its hostile barks. She was far more hospitable.
Her name was Asha, she told us, which means ‘hope’. She had every reason to spurn away three uninvited guests showing up raggedly at her door, but she didn’t. She welcomed us up to her cowshed with a wide, toothless smile. She offered us water and, as an extra bonus, gave each of us a small, clay bowl of sweet yoghurt, probably from milk from her own cows. After a long night of fear and panic, the yoghurt felt like elixir to a new life.
This moment remains with me now, even over a decade later. It was the happy taste of relief after a day of horrors. We never saw her again but spoke of Asha’s small act of kindness for years. My faith in the generosity of strangers—disturbed after years of the grind in overpopulated cities—was somewhat restored.
She offered us water and, as an extra bonus, gave each of us a small, clay bowl of sweet yoghurt, probably from milk from her own cows. After a long night of fear and panic, the yoghurt felt like elixir to a new life.
We felt replenished after the yoghurt and water, reenergised, and happy to be back among friendly civilisation when we walked back down to Aunter. A few hours later, we had found a taxi on the motorable road near Thatyur, and by late afternoon, were back in our homes in Mussoorie.
That evening, after washing up and a little rest, the three of us caught up again in the Mussoorie bazaar. We ate samosa-chholas followed by multiple happy beers, and marvelled at how improbably dire our situation had seemed less than 24 hours ago. We were awash with paradoxical emotions of bravery and idiocy.
A few years later, now accompanied by more experienced hikers, Ady safely got to the top of Nag Tibba, and returned to remind me of exactly where I had led us wrong. Later, he climbed higher Himalayan peaks and tested his outdoor abilities far more than our little weekend trip. More recently, Prateek rode his motorbike up the treacherous paths to Kashmir, surviving snowy weather and icy roads across some of the highest mountain passes in the world. The experiences changed both of them, helping them understand their own limits with more carefully-planned excursions.
As for me: the trip to Nag Tibba helped rekindle my love for the Himalaya. I never found myself in a situation as reckless as that lost hike to Nag Tibba again, but I took many more adventures to refuel myself with the outdoors whenever possible. That weekend in October made me realise that my incessant need to reach that peak was a pursuit in self-definition: I needed to rediscover myself, question who I wanted to be, and who I actually was. I began to spend much more time in Mussoorie with Prateek, Ady, and other friends. I found home once again.
I haven’t attempted to climb Nag Tibba since, but the next time I scale that mountain, I’m definitely going to accompany a guide.
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Karan Madhok is a writer, journalist, and editor of The Chakkar, whose fiction, translation, and poetry have appeared in Gargoyle, The Literary Review, The Bombay Review, The Lantern Review, F(r)iction, and more. He is the founder of the Indian basketball blog Hoopistani and has contributed to NBA India, SLAM Magazine, FirstPost, and more. His debut novel is forthcoming on the Aleph Book Company. You can find him on Twitter: @karanmadhok1 and Instagram: @karanmadhok.
