Life’s #trek in calm hills of #Garhwal

Hand-in-hand with closed ones, in pursuit of rejuvenating effects of nature and its beauty....

How? Read on...

Life becomes the most beautiful when your entire family is with you. Yes, this time, every branch of my paternal family tree appeared and the leaves bloomed together.... to make their presence at the house warming function of our re-built home in #Bhararidhar, a village in #PauriGarhwal, #Uttarakhand.

Our beautiful home in the middle,painted in English pink! 

 Unquestionably, my grandparents must have blessed us from the heaven and felt even above cloud nine seeing the congregation of their kids, grand kids and grand-grand kids at the renewed ancestral home.  Yes, more than 30 of us travelled up the hills to feel the ‘feeling of love and respect that each of us carries for each other.’

Even our two-year-old #Chiya, with ten-year ones like #Hrishu and #Kuckoo, felt equally enchanted and rooted. Besides, other kidos like #Ady & #Naishu and #Arshi & #Adu paired up to have their own-styled chill thrills. None of the parents looked concerned about their kids as we were in the purest of the pure lands, where God is there to bless us with pure souls around (in the form of our people in the village who live very simple and are away from the city’s dinting rays and hustle-bustle).

Now talking about us- the ‘grandkids’, who struggle, literally 16X7 in the city including travel time, with barely 6-7 hours of sleep, to make the living look respectable enough...... looked to be the happiest souls after reaching the ancestral land. Why? Obviously, because we were aloof from our day-to-day tensions for whatever days we spent together.

Enjoying morning tea in the serene environment

Some of us must not even have had realised a life like that.... where we wake up with the chirping of birds, sip morning tea/coffee under the blue sky with gossamer clouds and amidst serene greenery, savour food which is made from fresh veggies from the fields- immersed with love and laced with pure ‘ghee’, and at times, walk together to reach the peak of hills or down hills to the river. Yes, life looked beautiful there! 

I don’t want to bore you..... with what all we did, but will certainly share our Unforgettable Adventurous Day- The trek through river and unmanned fields on the second last day of our stay in the hills. Notably, it was monsoon season and the rains drops poured at their own whims and fancies.

It was August 14. The house warming puja was successfully performed by our paternal panditji, followed by the village lunch. Now what next as we were to return to our homes in Delhi/NCR the next day?

We all decided to make the day memorable one by doing some masti. As our kids were after our lives to go to see the river which flows at the foothills, we decided to go there to experience a joyful afternoon with some photographic actions and carefree thrills.

The trek through the hills (The adventurous journey to follow...)

After chit-chatting, throwing up jokes on each other while sitting in the fields adjacent to the hills, dancing to the tune of the bluetooth #JBL speaker which was adulterated with the gurgles of the river (I don’t know the name, but it’s a sub-tributary of river #Kosi) that was flowing alongside the terrace-farmed foothills, posing for to-be-framed pics and taking few dips the river water, which kind of soothed our souls, we all decided to move to #BhagwatiTaliya, a place that houses a small market for the day to day needs of about 25 villages. The idea was to have a #noodle party with sips of aerated drinks.   There were two ways to reach there: One was the long-way, to begin with climbing up the #Bhararidhar hills and then sliding down; and the second one- presumably short-cut, was to walk through the fields adjacent to the river. We decided to choose the latter; thanks to my dear 13-yr old cousin #pappu who lives in our village only, as he overconfidently guaranteed a way alongside the river.  

All of us together for a pic by #Pappu

#Pappu- our jungle boy,
who was instrumental in our
scary adventure trek through the river

And, we started! We had to cross the 18-feet-wide (maximum width) and three-feet-deep (maximum depth) river to move up the so-called barren fields, however overgrown with at least two-and-a-half-feet long weeds and jungle grass. The fun began with the thudding fall of my brother-in-law Manoj who had hopped in the middle of the river on a slippery big oval-shaped stone for safe traverse (the depth of the river was hardly one-feet at that patch). The inevitable, yet fun-loaded slips were followed by my cousins like Anniruddha and Abhinav, and thereafter continued with the drop of my newlywed sis-in-law Asha. 

Throughout the trek over the fields and river, almost all of us fell or almost fell at least once, experiencing the knee-dip or waist-dip soaking. During the journey, many of our footwear either flowed with water as we loosed the grip or they strapped off, resulting in good sales of the shoeseller at the #Bhagwati Taliya market.

Our trek pic - crossing river...  traversed many times
both sides towards our way to #Bhagwati Taliya

Crossing all hurdles hand-in- hand

Phew!!!! There was a time, when we realised that we could be in a great trouble owing to monsoons and there was no clear pathway or track to walk along the fields. The reason: Rains tend to bring out snakes from any spot or corner, and leeches are unavoidable in water.  As we were almost half-way through our journey, we were to look forward only with our prayers on, given we had kid from the age group of 5 to 13 with us.  Everyone cursed my dear cousin #Pappu for this dangerous adventurous. We felt like “Khatron ke Khiladi” (or Threats player).

The best part of this scary, yet lovely adventure trek, was: We were there for each other, holding hand in hand, supporting each other while expressing our love and care, which never reflected or was experienced in the past. The idea was to reach the destination safe. The video uploaded here can narrate the entire story about our adventure-filled experience (Courtesy: Abhinav and Anshuman - my brothers for helping me with the making of this video and Tanya- my colleague for putting the small videos together. It's my first video, am yet learn its art. And thanks to everyone in this video for the the most memorable and cherishable trek of my life) 

However, the journey also, saw unpleasant slips of my two cousins, one-by-one in a deep trench, dupably covered with dense shrubs, yet, we all reached completely safe at #Bhagwati Taliya. There we ordered maggi and cold drinks. As it was to take about half an hour to cook for 21 of us, we, instinctively, thought of paying visit to the nearby #BhagwatiMaa temple.  Now I realise, our energy was impeccable. As per our parents who first scolded us and then said: “Our Gods protected us and we were naturally pulled (though unplanned) towards the temple for expressing our gratitude to the Gods and Goddesses there, for our safe return.”

Last but not the last, a big thanks and lot of gratitude to my lovely parents and my uncle-aunts, who joined hand-in-hands whole heartedly to accomplish my grandparents’ dream, which clearly reflects in our beautiful home and our wonderful family!