Temple Run to Tohru
Technically, this is not my first article over the web but the first about my experience of a trek that I recently had. So sit back. relax and enjoy the journey.
INSIGHTS: Tohru temple is in a village in Himachal that is visible from naked eyes on a non-cloudy day and my hometown lies near the border of Himachal in Uttarakhand.
It was Saturday evening when I called my friend Nagin to relive the plan of a trek together which was postponed since or before the lockdown. I called him and he was as usual busy getting free. Our convo went like:
Me: Let’s go tomorrow to Tohru.
Nagin: Who is accompanying us?
Me: me and you.
Nagin: Ok, I’ll be at your home to discuss further.
Call ended.
He reached my home at dusk and while we were about to ride the bike. Three of his millions of friends got in our way. Though we were a large group of 2, we wanted more people anyway. The proposal was liked by one of them named Arry and he was ready to come along. Told him our plan timing and we parted our ways. Bought some Maggie, beverages and staples for the journey.
Next day Sunday
It had rained all over the night and when I called Nagin in the morning to check whether he’s alive or not. I found we were struggling to make the decision either to drop it or continue but then the conclusion came “What could probably go wrong, Let’s go!”
Got ready by 6 am and all three of us went all the way walking through the border, over the bridges and we finally started our trek. At first, our path was big enough to even let a car pass without much of an uphill slope but after around 3KMs, as soon as we reached the tribal area things started to get challenging as planned. Now the grass was taller, the slope was steeper. We even found many places waterlogged and it was all muddy as well as slippery. At a place, we even found Premchand’s Heera and Moti too,
resting on our way to glory. Do you think they could have stopped us? Naahhhhh.
We carried on and on for the next 4KMs now we found the end of the Jungle and the starting of the mountain area. There was a permanent road which was the easy way to reach the Temple but we were under the guidance of our one-and-only Starkid boy Bear Bhatt sir a.k.a Nagin. Arry and I both saw some stars shining in his eyes as if we had made it but we didn’t. We chose to have a shortcut that is tougher to go on with but we were alright with Nagin sir leading the way, our DJ wale babu Arry sir and at last me carrying all the weight except water bottles. This part of the trek left all of us breathless, with cuts and bruises over our hands. We even climber 15 meters at 80 degrees too., nearly chasing death. At some point, I remember that both these highly reputable personalities don’t even smoke and I lost the hope of eating Maggie at the top.
Faith and belief can make a big leap.
Before the last 500m to the temple, there was a village which had a shop for us to provide matchsticks and now I was the happiest person on the earth at that moment, we’ll be eating Maggie which I longed for throughout the journey.
When we reached the temple it was way bigger in size than it appeared from our home’s rooftop. It had space enough to accommodate around 100 people at a time but we were the only one out there. As soon as we reached we bowed our head, closed our eyes and started to pray for the safe journey we had and half of it we have in front of us. In addition to it, I prayed for the bigger brains and better common sense of my companions (though this application is still being processed, I wish it to get approved ASAP).
Surprisingly, that place was well equipped with carpets, a water tank, electricity and a coal stove with wood coal present at the place too. Meanwhile, Nagin and Arry brought out the carpet and started to unfold it to have a rest after tiring 11KM, I started to prepare for food. It rained heavily last night so the temperature was quite low but the wood was all wet and took me almost an hour to fire up the stove. Now when the fire was up, Nagin brought some water in the pan, I peeled off the onions and chopped it along with cheese, maggie went all in and so do the spices, then we realised that we didn’t bring the plates and spoons for serving. Then they both ran to bring it and I waited beside the fire to guard the fire but later I got engaged with the localities working nearby, helped them collecting grass for their cattle.
The time they arrived with plates, maggie was ready to be served and we had it with chips toppings all over it. Now with all the hard work we did, it was the perfect time to had some rest. I don’t know why but we were uneasy doing it, we somehow managed to pass time till 2:30.
Time to go back home
Now we took the road, least taken. It was so steep that we can’t even put both of our legs in the same place altogether, we walked past thorny bushes all again without caring about the cuts. This time way took us to a much beautiful place than that was before and we enjoyed all of it. We discovered an open tank that was deep enough to sink all of us like the Titanic. We even crossed a step farm too which was full of chillies, ladyfinger and pumpkins. I even brought some chillies with me which turned out to be tasteless. We took half of the time compared to what we took to climb up the mountain. This time we even crossed a small river which was so mesmerising that our Starkid even took a bath, probably after Holi 2020. There I made a new friend which was probably an Indian sheepdog by breed and with it our Mountain region ended and we came to the forest area where we even found some Army aspirants practising for the run.
It was already evening and our famous star kid again got lots of fans waiting out there when we reached our hometown all the way home. At last, we enjoyed a hefty meal of momos before heading home.
Overall it was a journey completed exactly in 12 hours of timespan but the experiences and bonding we brought back home are invaluable and irreplaceable. That place was so beautiful and we stopped everything for a moment and just stared at the beauty all around. It all felt like scenery oil painted with a magical brush in the space. The freshness in the air made us stunned and relaxed at the same time. The monkey mind came to a standstill and we lost ourselves to the moment. We can capture long places with just simple movements of our eyeballs. It was all like a lucid dream come true. Next time we might plan to go back there for camping as that place had very low light noise which is best for astrophotography.
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