All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter, Not All Places Must Be Sought

Dunglagepu the tallest.

It’s not like I discovered mountains or spirituality that I write this. It’s that I discovered that places are to be greeted as an individual. I met one on a short trip to the base of the higher Himalaya where the night-time cold had just about dropped to zero. The days were warm, hot even on a climb of a few hundred meters, and mornings and evenings cold. On a clear day, a few cottony clouds clung to the snowless mountains – the winter snow had not begun – the sunshine nourishing my skin.

Meeting a place by happenstance is increasingly rare in this world. A place which simply accepts you, talks to you, and leaves a lasting impression that quite, even if subtly, changes you – how I have yearned to meet if not search for one. Writing about meeting one is tough. It is always overwhelming to describe somebody, a place is perhaps the most complex persona to describe, be it a garden, a grove, or a landscape.

An autumn in the mountains.

Some places ought to be as they are – secrets nowhere on the map, on a travelogue, on a wish list. In order to remember meeting one, I should do so without the ‘where’ and the ‘when’ but focus on the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ – how did we meet is indeed relevant than where we met and perhaps why we met has more meaning than when we met. Yet, it makes sense to describe where and when in terms of not the geography, but a meeting remembered by the season – even the bleakest winter is made pleasant by the warm welcoming embrace of a place.

The long shadow of Dunglagepu.

There is really no true sunset hour in the Himalaya. The mountain slope I stayed on faced south-east, so although I could feel the early winter sun on my skin, I also faced the longest evening as the tall mountains cast their long shadows on the mountain slopes. It started around two o’clock in the afternoon. This after-glow from the mountain, creating a prolonged evening, felt colder than the night. The mountain that looked upon me was not ordinary. It was a massif of rocky angles piling upon one another into jagged steles, stately and menacing. That last bit of sunlight on the head, the rest draped in a blue gloom, resembled ancient giants. The Monpa called the tallest cliff Dunglagepu – gepu meaning King – and the smaller cliffs his minions. Legend has it that this mountain has claimed many lives, from a helicopter that crashed into it to people who never returned. It is the Phu of this region – the mountain deity, moving not only the evenings but the wind and rain and snow.

Boughs and lichens.

Between the first and the last light on Dunglagepu, on my side of the mountain, in the free time between trying to work and trying to keep warm, I looked at everything that moved. Everything was new, light pink cherry blossoms in a swell of blue-green wave, the sound of the wind through the pines, the gnarly fir and oak a testament of storms. The butterflies too quick in the cold mountain air, the birds too difficult to charm. It would take my youth to get to know them, I thought, and I did not have that liberty or time. A restless naturalist ever, I did not consider slowing down would also be about spending less time in getting to know someone.

We were pointed to a walk up the mountain with softer curves easier to live on the shoulder of, forever in the gaze of Dunglagepu. Further up we would reach a mountain-pass, skirting around Dunglagepu to go beyond the snow-clad Himalaya after snow-clad Himalaya. This shoulder was dominated by shrubs, tall hedge along houses, with a few gnarly – ancient – oaks and firs reminiscent of its forested past. Everything took time to familiarize with.

Hodgson's Treecreeper leading to the gompa.

Just as I was to catch my breath a slaty-blue-orange bird, perched indolently on a lopped tree, took off before I could catch a glimpse. A bird of prey flew past, leaving me pondering about its streaked head and broad wings. A clamour of yellow-streaked birds flew down upon the tall hedge, always staying out of sight but surrounding us in their inquisitive whistles. A treecreeper running up a tree led us up a grove, disappearing into the canopy. For Dunglagepu, this place would appear like a green stole amidst a scarred zig-zag road that tears right across the mountain skin – not a pleasant sight, something that must have led to Dunglagepu’s reputation of making those who seek him disappear.

Entrance to the gompa.

This scarred tear brought me in front of him, and as the sun’s slanting rays bathed him and his minions in a haze, I entered a sanctuary of utter quietude, always in his gaze. The sun, the wind, and time stopped still. I stood in front of a gompa – the monastery – of a gold-painted roof resting on thick white walls, and a row of the prayer-wheel houses lined down to a village. An old face surrounded by a changing landscape, it greeted us, it’s monastery its lips curved in a gentle smile, its wrinkles its trees and the many trails that led in and out.

Dunglagepu from the gompa.

It greeted us in silence and we retuned it with silence, and then the wind picked up, and the prayer flags waved and spoke to us, and I looked up at Dunglagepu from the waving flags, catching a glimpse of his unassuming stature bathed in golden light. The place had a long beard of old growth fir and dense bamboo thickets. Here the birds took shelter and whistled and hurried past us. I heard a laughter as the bamboo – now turning with the coming cold – moved in the wind.

White-throated Laughingthrush of the gompa.

A movement here and a rushed flutter there left me puzzled, but a silent embrace extended towards me. Anyone who has travelled to the Himalaya know of the gentle faces that smile at you and even extend a warm welcome if you meet someone after a long time. This felt like it. We walked down the trail that led to one prayer-wheel house after another. I rolled each one of them as I circumambulated left to right, amazed by them but not really praying for something.

Streak-breasted Scimitar-babbler of the gompa.

As I slow down my wanderings, my travels become shorter and quicker. I am left now with marvelling at things as they go by faster than I would like them to. I have been observant of it for a few years now, but this realisation fully dawned upon me when this place greeted me. I had so little time, it had so much to tell. One evening, we entered an abode of the Lama, on his kind approval, to sit with him and talk to the place. The lama’s home was earthly, comfortable like a hobbit hole, a wizard’s even, with birds and squirrels coming and going.

Chestnut-crowned Laughingthrush of the gompa.

That early long evening, hidden from the gaze of Dunglagepu, he called to the birds in the bamboo grove below his warm abode, and asked us to sit still. A wave of loud crackling and fluttering rushed towards him. The quiet sleepy gompa forest burst forth. The place was now talking, and we were sitting still and listening and watching it animate. We drank hot water and spoke little. It told us of the content life, little if any demands, the hardships of life, the heavy snow on its eaves. It asked little of us.

Handmade cookware belonging to the lama.

And slowly the voice faced. One by one the birds flew in a line across the last of the blue sky. The prayer flags flapped in a gentle wind. The cold was coming. The birds would huddle together on a bough in the warmest corner of the grove, and I, with a warmed heart, sought the bukhari to warm my cold hands.

Black-faced Laughingthrush of the gompa.

The lama was delighted to have us again in the morning. The gompa was being painted a whiter white to rival the oncoming snow. The gold on its head shone brighter. Ever under the gaze of Dunglagepu, I bowed and took the long stairs to the lama’s abode, my mind tuned to the Buddhist monks chanting their deep-throated hymns. In the cosy corner of his abode, we were greeted to sweet milk tea and slowly this time, the place spoke to us.

Blue Whistling-thrush of the gompa.

The birds did most of the talking, few words were spoken by bamboo, and fewer squirrels. We sat silent again, feeling welcomed again. In that quietude I found the rare peace one finds in a person you’ve just met. It did more than just make me realise that even as my time is slowing and the world is fast moving, there are those who will slow down with you.

Dunglagepu the Phu.

Dunglagepu and my friend are of the same kin, both with such personalities as to humble any man, both with contrasting but histories that are tied – one a Phu to be feared but really is the protector, like the dragon, and the other a Senge – a lion – to be respected but is dear, like the Buddha. As long-lived entities instead of geographies, they feel instead of merely experiencing, and they speak through trees, animals, and people. This happenstance meeting, instead of seeking solace or an escapade which I normally did, has given my slowed-down explorations – in a fast-paced world – a new meaning.