Second Day of Trekking in Nepal: A World of White & Fuschia

The trek from Gandhruk to Ghorepani winds through Nepal’s famous Rhododendron forests. The next morning, after sampling eggs and Tibetan bread, we begin to climb once again. School children bound down the steps with their satchels, trading cheerful Namastes with us. Old women sweep their verandas. Higher up, in the cool dappled shade of the forest, we walk past icy springs, over little bridges and up more steps. A group of Langurs lounge in the trees. The air at these altitudes becomes a tangible sensation. I can taste the sharp Pine tang, feel my lungs filling up with the fuel. Despite the hours of walking, my step lightens. Around a sharp, narrow bend, I hum along with my IPod. By the time we get to Birenthanti for lunch, even the rain doesn’t bother me.

Out of the sooty and dark Nepalese mountain kitchens, I have tasted some of the most tasty and fresh food in all my travels ever. The lentil soup and the vegetables wrapped in steamed Chappatis hit just the spot. And after such necessary tasks as the removal of sneaky leeches from our legs, refilling our water bottles and taking much-needed toilet breaks, we are on our way again.

The mood outside is dark and thundery. But soon, while we cross a churning stream, nature becomes positively aggressive. Rain freezes into hailstones that strike our heads and arms and make us yelp with the surprisingly sharp pain. In a matter of not more than fifteen minutes, the forest is transformed. The mossy floor has disappeared under the white snow, intensifying the Fuschia of the Rhododendron blooms that continue to drift down silently from the trees. Treading carefully on the virgin snow, we pass a herd of Yak grazing in the forest. The silence is complete. Only occasionally, it's punctuated by the tinkling of bells or the sound of laughter and groans.

Without much warning, the forest gives way to a clearing at the edge of a cliff. Here, wildflowers create a shameless riot of colour. A vast vista of verdant green mountains and floating clouds opens up below us. I feel a jolt in the pit of my stomach. It’s hard to believe we have actually walked all the way up there. The wind picks up and it’s just around sunset that we make it to Sunnyside Lodge in Ghorepani. There, a fire, food and hot chocolate await us.

First Day of Trekking in Nepal: A Tale of Endless Steps

It’s almost midnight and I am lying in a narrow bed with a searchlight strapped around my head, reading Tilled Earth, a collection of short stories based in Nepal. Just outside the big picture window, the ground drops several thousand feet into the valley below. Against the invisible horizon stand the chiseled white peaks of Annapurna South and Macchapuchre, making their mighty presence felt even in the deep dark that has descended over the Nepalese village of Gandhruk. A mere thirty-six hours after leaving Dubai, I couldn’t have been in a place more different. And I have probably never exerted myself harder to get somewhere.

Earlier that morning, we began our trek in the village of Nayapul (900m), one of the starting points of the Annapurna Circuit in the Himalayan foothills of Nepal. It had seemed easy enough then, walking through Nayapul, where daily life spills out of the small wooden houses into the verandahs and the narrow, unpaved lanes. There is great industry and energy but the pace is charmingly unhurried. The Nepalese sweep their small shopfronts, feed the chicken, wash the laundry, bend over sewing machines, comb their hair and shout after their children. Around a sharp bend, a low chant emanates from a small, semi-dark hut. A group of bodies sway inside.I stop to watch but a fleeting sensation of being an intruder into something intensely private makes me move on.

Along the sluggish Modi Khola, the sun beats down on our heads. A little wrinkled woman in a red batik skirt stops to inquire where we are headed. In the huge conical basket strapped around her head, the chickens raise a raucous protest. ‘Ah, Gandhruk!’ She smiles, raising her eyes to an alarmingly high point in the mountains. Lunch is at Riverside Guest House that extends a ‘Heartly Welcome’ and claims to have clean toilets. Indeed, the hole in the floor is basic and you have to bring your own loo roll but any nasty smells or sights are mercifully absent.

After lunch, we begin to climb. Rocky, uneven steps cut into the mountainsides are the only way to reach Gandhruk at 2000m above sea level. First-time trekkers like me soon feel winded and light-headed. I begin to wonder exactly what I have signed myself up for. But gradually, as we climb higher, the first feel of sharp mountain air laced with the smells of forest cools our hot faces. Panoramic vistas open up at every new turn. Above us, mountains swirl in mists. Below, they extend in lush terraced hillsides. Far below in the valley, the river appears nothing more than a silent grey ribbon.

It begins to rain. At a tea house, we stop to pull our rain ponchos out from the backpacks. An old man in a traditional Nepalese hat sits on a rickety picnic bench at the edge of the cliff. Fat drops of rain patter down around him and on his head. But he seems oblivious. We fill up on water and apples and move on to climb more steps.

Five hours and extremely sore legs later, we trundle up the last few flights of steps to Annapurna Tea House in Gandhruk. There’s nothing like being exposed to the elements to make you appreciate the warmth of a family-run lodge or ‘real’ toilets and hot showers, even temperamental ones, for that matter. The dining room is rather drafty but the hot Yak Cheese Pizza and deep-fried Apple Donuts warm us up. Behind the kitchen counter, a baby slumbers deeply on a flat wooden bed, oblivious to the trekkers from all corners of the globe who, for a short while become a part of his home and family.

Gandhruk is home to the Gurung tribes and the famous Gurkhas of Nepal. Here, there are no cars and very little electricity. For someone just out of the concrete jungle, it is hard to imagine life in a place like this that reverberates with a deep silence and the awe-inspiring beauty of the proud Himal.

[Photoessay] Nepalis- Fleeting Impressions

Bhai Sahab, aap convince hogaye ya main aur boloon?

I am always telling stories about myself. Not the kind of stories we read in books, nor usually incidents that have happened to me. By stories I mean that my conversations with people are an ongoing narrative about me. I have had this rather uncomfortable realisation for some time past now. I am eager for people to see me in a certain way- the way I perceive myself to really be- intelligent, sensitive, thoughtful, progressive, kind, ambitious, tolerant, friendly, witty, well-read, funny, trustworthy and so on. But what a very long list this is!

And so when I am in a conversation, I construct my discourse to reflect this. I am too quick to jump in with my own opinions, my own views, my own ' I knows' and 'I thinks' and 'I feels' and 'I believes'. In short, there is too much I floating around me, enveloping me, at times deafening me to them. I am scared that if I don't make my voice heard over others as quickly as I can, I won't be heard at all. In other words, I would be brushed aside as stupid and boring- someone with nothing to say at all. And that would be an injustice as I know that that's not who I am.

And there I go again with my 'I knows'. The truth is that I crave approval. A not so unusual desire, you might say. Yes, in some ways, we are all looking for approval, from parents, friends, managers, even our children. Yet, I hear myself say all the time- oh, I don't really care what people think. But I do. Oh yes, I do. And hence the verbal diarrhoea centered around 'I'.

Reminds me of a scene in Jab We Met where Kareena Kapoor says to the ticket inspector on the train Bhai Sahab aap convince ho gaye ya main aur boloon? Alas, my daily social encounters are not so straightforward, nor am I as unaware of myself as Kapoor's character in the movie. You already read the long list of great qualities I think I possess.

I am too aware of myself. I am too much about me.

I wish to be like the few gems I have come across who listen to me and make me listen to what I am really saying. They have this serene look on their face and an absolute lack of the need to cut in with anything that begins with an 'I'. They don't need approval or affirmation of their qualities because they don't think they are all that anyway. They don't tell too many stories about themselves not because they are smug and already sure about their greatness but because they genuinely believe that others' stories may be more interesting, more educating.

That I believe is the origin of that serene look....the death of their egos. The scarcity of self-centered stories....

Watching My Name is Khan: I feel bruised and confused

Watching My Name is Khan is like being kicked in the stomach, punched in the face, wrung by the neck, armlocked, headlocked and bent over backwards. All at once. But there are some moments of reprieve too, especially in the first part of the film, moments cruelly tender, as we are circled and rounded and primed for the double, triple whammy that's about to hit us. Yes, My Name is Khan is ALOT to take in in one cinema sitting and in my opinion, almost thirty minutes too long.

I love Karan Johar's ambitiousness, Kajol's amazing black eyes and the way she slips so effortlessly into the mature romance thing. Shah Rukh Khan has been redeemed in my eyes after Om Shanti Om (yes, i have just barely forgiven him for the rebirth and yes, I do hold long grudges). The India of Khan's childhood is real and immediate; the autistic boy's backstory is delivered efficiently, economically and with alot of empathy. Great start.

Moving on to 'lover meets fatherless boy', I was preparing to cringe and silently pleading with Johar not to make it a Kuch na Kaho type sickly sweet instant-best-buddies-soup relationship. And congratulations to him, the rapport that builds up between the two is kept endearingly down-to-earth. Much later in the story, Khan does go on to call the boy his best friend, but that's more upon reflection on the character's part rather than any preconception on the directors'. As viewers, our intellect is held in some regard, at last.

Cleverly, we are lulled into a suburbian bliss- school runs, soccer practice, marital banter, birthday parties and dinner at the neighbour's. All this ofcourse, so the big blow truly leaves us fighting for breath at the same time as wiping off unashamed tears in the darkness of the cinema. From here, the plot turns into a bit of a mission. Infact, a big mission, as the austistic Khan sets out to meet the president of the United States.

It's not Johar's fault. Doing a film on the twin tower attacks, life in post 9/11 America; touching on the following wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Hijab, beards, power of the media, hurricanes, treatment of African Americans by their government, all thrown in with an inter-religious marriage and a little-understood disability like Austism is like trying to contain several genies in one bottle. Perhaps, Johar believes that the Indian cinema audience doesn't find it their money's worth if it's not BIG. Or may be, that's just his style. But in the second half, the plot kind of lost its tightness and in a way, it's hold on reality.

Infact, it got to a point where I felt like I was watching several little films in one. In particular, the episode of Khan's return to hurricane-hit Georgia was too obvious as a plot device to give him something of the underdog hero status in the public eye. In other words, it interrupted the momentum and just felt contrived. The arrival of his relatives and a whole other group trawling water and carrying boxes of aid over their head had me groaning out loud. My husband, ever conscious of making the slightest noise in the cinema, had to elbow me. But I caught him shaking his head too.

Here on, everything just felt like the means to an end. An end that definitely should not have included a fake Obama. That made it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief, in other words, think of the story as anything but that. Why did Khan have to meet the president? I feel that Johar did enough to open Mandira's eyes to her love for Khan and in the process, drum in the message of love over hate/peace over war that he had set out to deliver. Rizwan Khan didn't need to see the president. It could just have been a symbolic goal.

But no, Johar couldn't resist the drama. And perhaps, it's the cynical old me who thinks it was totally unnecessary. But for me, it diluted the strength of the message and the amount of fun.

Do I think the Shahrukh/Kajol/Karan Johar trio did a good job? I think they did a fantastic job in entertaining us. However, My Name is Khan is no Forrest Gump, as I heard someone claim. For that, Johar would need a tighter grip and sharper focus on his plot than he managed this time round.

Let's wait and see what he does with the next big one...

Value for money? 8/10

Three Cups of Tea, Anyone?

This book is one hell of an inspiration. So I finish reading it, pass it onto my mother in law, who reads it like I have never seen her read anything except the Quran; then I come across the sequel 'Stones into Schools'; can barely put it down. All the while, The Realist Novel is screaming at me, my first essay deadline is staring me in the eye. But I can't stop following Mortenson's amazing mission, his mind-boggling devotion and the progress he made, defying the many many obstructions....

I keep thinking of the time I went to Kaalam,a valley in the foothills of the Hindukush mountains, many years ago now. At Maghrib time, one evening, my family and I did Wuzoo by the River Swat and climbed up this path to a house perched on the terraced hillside. A house very typical of the region, a long, low structure with few windows and little light. After the idyllic surroundings of trees, mountains, goats and children playing about while women shyly covered their faces on our approach yet extended a warm welcome, the first thing that assaulted us upon entering the house was THE SMELL. The smell of - I don't know- damp corners never touched by sunlight, lingering smells of food and bodies and acrid butter tea that were never swept out by the wind. I remember we could barely breathe as we offered our prayers. We tumbled out of the dark and fell about gasping for air. Well not really, but you get my point. And that wasn't to be the end of it. The next day, we all broke into this strange rash- blotches of angry red all over our bodies- bug-bites, I believe. Back home, my wise doctor-to-be cousin made us bathe with water in which she put some purple solution. You can imagine how we turned our noses up at the whole thing, how smug we felt about progress and cities, how relieved we were being back in the impersonal, arrogant jungle of concrete that we called home.

And here's this American man, with no connection whatsoever to Pakistan or Afghanistan- the cruel mountains, the harsh life people live at the edge of the Karakoram and over on the other side, the freezing plateaus of Afghanistan, in houses that we found so dank, so inadequately equipped with the necessities of life. Yet, over the last decade or more, he has lived with them for months at a time, not only sharing cups of tea but slowly, patiently, initiating the sea change in these impoverished mountain people's lives by educating their boys and girls, empowering their women, investing his life into a mission that takes years, sometimes decades, to show measurable results.

What drives him?

Perhaps I should ask, what keeps us so complacent?

A Charity Appeal: Help Me Raise Money For Educating Poor Children in Pakistan

Can you help me raise AED 1500 or £270 for the countless children of Pakistan who need to be educated?

These children have never seen the inside of a school and are this very moment, probably labouring away somewhere in a factory, a footpath, a shop, a roadside restaurant or a rubbish dump.

To help educate them, I have decided to support The Citizens Foundation, a charity that has so far built 600 schools for these very children in the most impoverished areas of Pakistan. To raise awareness and funds for TCF, I am participating in a charity challenge. I must:

1- Raise a minimum of AED 1500 or £270.
2- Trek to the Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal in April.

I am bearing all of the costs associated with the trek. For the funds I must raise for TCF, I am starting by contributing AED 100 to their cause.

Will you help me raise the rest? Even an amount as small as AED 50 or £10 can make a difference!

Please open your hearts and donate generously.

If you are in the UAE, give me a call at 050 153 1652 and I'll collect personally.

For outside the UAE, drop me an email at shum.ahmed@gmail.com and we will arrange something.

For more information about the trek and my participation, contact me or TCF UAE's Buisness Development Manager Sarah Siddiqi (info@tcfuae.org)