Uttarkashi comes on the way to Gangotri from Yamunotri. The road from Uttarkashi to Gangotri is rough. Its is not a tar road but just the foundation stones and loose soil. Construction of Lohari Nag Pala dams has left over a lot of loose soil on the road. Until the dam is contructed, there won’t be any smooth way.
On the way, I got to read Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer. Its been a long time since I read his book and I did not remember his style. The book is based on the life story of George Mallory. There was one quote that stuck with me. One does not need to be a pro climber to acknowledge it since I could relate too. It goes something like the following. Not exact though.
The irony in a mountaneer’s life is that after all the hard work of getting to the top, you only get few moments to stay on top.
I remember when I was there at Mulainagiri and at Kudremukh, I just had to push myself to leave the top so that we reach before it got dark. On both the occasions I had turned back one last time before leaving to have a look at the top.
One mistake I did was I tried to finish the book quickly in a day and tried to read it in the cab on that rough road. I fell sick because of that. I will never ever read again in a moving vehicle. Anyways I was able to do the honour an hour before I reached home.
The thing I regret was that we took a cab from Haridwar. My idea of going out is to know the place and people. There is no better way but to jump into the local buses, ask people arround for the way, get tickets from the conductor. I had expected to do that but this time, we were advised not to do so since there were some small landslides and that there could be road blocks that could last for two days. We had to take the cab if we had to finish it off in 5 days.
I am back to Shantaram now. The advice to Lin on why there is black market was small. Just that Rupee is a restricted currency and people always try to make more when they are made to conform and are restricted. Someone always comes up saying “Hey I have a better deal for you”. Thats it, nothing else. I am getting wary of his style of writing now. I am getting bored infact. I can exactly replicate his style while describing one of the events in my life… I had written a line long time back after I got the birthday bumps at school. That, in the next post.
