Does the village exist? The one that hugged the cliffs of the Badrinath mountainside or has it been rudely torn away by the flash floods of the Bhagirathi and Mandakini? I do not know and do not want to enquire, as I’m afraid that there is no such village now and that its people are deep in mud and silt.
A few years ago, I went to Badrinath with family. We travelled up in two cars. When we arrived at our hotel, I could hardly walk. I had a splitting headache and was filled with nausea. I went straight to bed, utterly miserable. I realised I could not stand heights. The family went down for a bath at the hot springs near the temple before entering it. My husband returned and dragged me, saying the hot springs would do me good. With great effort I made it to the spot where many women were dipping themselves in the steaming water. It was very hot and I gingerly put my foot to test its warmth and then took a plunge. I came out feeling absolutely fit!
On the way back we took the curves of the mountain and saw the Bhagirathi splashing and crashing down as if in a hurry to its tryst with the Mandakini at Rudraprayag. We stopped and went down the mountainside to have a dip where the two rivers met. The family left, but I stayed on to drink in the scenery. A beautiful village nestled on the slope of the mountain giving its residents a million-dollar view. A few old men sat on the rocks nearby watching us with curiosity. Soon, some children from the village came by to have a look at me, a visitor. I opened my handbag and gave them some toffee. Within minutes from nowhere I was surrounded by kids, all clamoring for what I was distributing. They surrounded me and would not let me go. I had no toffees left but they seemed to enjoy my discomfiture more than the anticipated toffee. I did not know what to do. Rattled, I shouted “Go! Go away!” and when they did not, I said, “Ja! Ja!” The men looked at me in amusement and then one of them got up and said something that hit me hard. “Go! Go!” he mocked, “Where will they go? It’s you who will have to go.”
I knew that what he said was right. I would have to go back to Chennai and live imprisoned as it were in a flat. The noise I would hear would be that of honking horns and not the babbling of brooks. He would enjoy the cool mountain air, while I would feel claustrophobic in an air-conditioned room.
I often think of him and my trip. Where is that hot spring that so refreshed me? Did it return to the bowels of the earth from where it came? And the picturesque village with its children and people? Were they washed away and buried by mud and silt, “to be rolled round in earth’s diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees?” I do not know.