<6AM
alarm beeps>
Husband:
Good morning
Me:
<rubbing eyes> Good morning
Husband:
Jai Mata Di
Me:
<yawning> Jai Mata Di
That is how
most of the days begin for me. I am not overtly religious but saying
' Jai Mata Di' is almost a ritual and a placeholder of 'hello' since
I got married into the Chhabra family (now my family :D ) . Soon
after we returned to India after a year long exile in the United
Kingdom immediately after marriage (Yes i call that an exile and at
times kaale paani ki saza too but that is another story all together)
,we decided to go on our first family vacation. Names like Agra,
Kerela, Andaman, Goa popped up but the eternal love for mountains and
'Mata ka bulava' won over beaches and Breakfast in bed. I suppose we
Indians feel so guilty about a vacation that we often camouflage the
luxury of it by going to a religious place.
7th March 2017
We started
our journey from Indore to Jammu via Delhi. Talking about the layover
in Delhi: I guess I have spent more time on Delhi airport waiting for
the next connecting flight than all of my airport journeys put
together. In India if you have to travel from a non metro to another
non metro city, marking attendance at the Indira Gandhi International
Airport is a must. I suggest one should take a train in all possible
cases. Surprisingly this way you'll save time, energy and a lot of
money : no I'm not talking about the fare difference but the
overpriced eating one does at airport restaurants and the unnecessary shopping to pass time.
As obvious
as it sounds, we reached Jammu after adding some extra pounds to our
bodies and luggage. With so many men in uniform around, it seemed
like we were some VIPs . But then everyone is a VIP there. The
airport is under severe security all the time. We had to travel to
Katra from Jammu so we went to the taxi stand. While my husband and
father in law started to speak at the taxi stand, I realized that
jammu was indeed an extension of Punjab.
Everyone
was conversing in Punjabi and i was deriving the little meaning I
could. At times I wonder how a small state like Punjab encroached
into the whole world with its language and food. As if Punjab, Canada
and Delhi weren't enough, Jammu's national language was Punjabi too.
Our driver uncle started the engine and said “bolo Jai mata Di'. We
recited in unison and began or journey to katra. The whole journey
was dominated by bhakti songs on the car stereo and conversations in
Punjabi. My mother in law made sure she translated the conversations
to me while she hummed along the bhakti songs. To me it was more of a
guessing game so as to which bollywood song the tune resembled to. '
Maa murade poori karde halwa baatungi' to me was ' mera babu chail
chabela' etc etc. I felt like an alien who had just landed on the
planet trying to learn the ways and language of the people around. I
vowed to mug up all the songs and learn to converse in Punjabi. (Its
been a month since this incident and i am still on E0 level)
Owing to
the early morning flight and the chilly weather, really soon we were
hungry and craving for a hot meal. Our driver uncle assured us of an
unforgettable chai and pakoras in a few miles. We stopped at the
dhaba/restaurant and were served hot chai and paneer pakodas with
garlic chutney. It tasted blissful and that is the least i can say to
desribe the feeling. My mother in law decoded the ingredients of the
chutney but tasting it and also taught me why these pakoras tasted
different from the regular pakoras. The technique was double deep
frying ofcourse. She made sure I got it right so much so that I can
replicate the same when his son craves for it. Mothers and their love
for feeding their children is no more an astonishment to me. Having
witnessed it for nearly three decades now, I have stopped questioning
the rationale and reason behind it.
After the
hearty meal we reached our hotel and crashed into our rooms promising
each other to get ready by 6:30 so as to begin our march to the
mountain top by 7AM. With veterans by my side, (my FIL and MIL have
visited vaishno devi for about 40 times and my husband was mostly
marking his silver jubilee trip this time) I was assured that we will
start by 7AM and be back by 5PM to the most.
8th
March 2017
We
were late but by Indian standards very much on time. It was just
7:30 AM. We started our
journey and husband dearest declared that he will go by the stairs
because that's what he has been doing “everytime”. My FIL and MIL
started the walk and we started climbing the stairs. Those stairs
could easily give inferiority complex to the hurdles in a hurdle race.
I was panting for breath and calling out at my husband to slow down.
I was counting the number of stairs and assuring myself that only few
hundreds are more to go and that the inclined path had horses and
their waste and that this path was at least clean and
safe................ I had numerous motivational thoughts in my mind.
We stopped occasionally for nimbu paani
to charge us up. The fight
however was not with just the fatigue but also the numerous primates
around. So there were monkeys, langoors, horses at some instance and
very huge sheep. We finally reached the point where we had to submit
our luggage and begin the final 500 meter journey to the main bhavan.
A distance of 500 meter can easily be covered in 5 minutes or even
lesser if Usain Bolt targets for the same but for us it was a whole
hour and a half. The weather behaved against the predictions of
accuweather and it started raining followed by hailstorms. We were
not prepared for the weather mentally or physically. With any
attempts made to proceed, we were stopped by the snow and the rain.
We stepped barefoot on the snow, covered our heads with hands to
avoid the snow and rain and had numerous coffee breaks in the mere
500 m distance. With numerous attempts, we however reached inside the
cave. The nanoseconds of darshan and our presence there however made
up for all the hard work and turbulence we went through. It was
totally worth it!!!!!!
We began
our descent. We stopped at a restaurant on the way and ate the most
fabulous kadi chawal, chole bhature, rajma chawal............... and
basically everything that was on the menu. While the ascent was full
of skepticism, inadequacy and tiredness the descent was full of
content, abundance and yes much more tiredness. We reached the hotel
by 7PM. Photos were exchanged, calls to relatives were made, the day
was talked about and a hearty dinner was hogged.
Starting
then to around a week I couldn't feel my legs while i was sitting and
felt only the pain while walking. Every time i climbed on or off
stairs, I uttered ' Jai Mata Di'. I guess that's how the Goddess
blesses you and makes sure that you FEEL the trip in every corner of
your body days after the trip ends.
