On hobbled knee across the Nandakini

In the final episode of her Bedni Bugyal travelogue, Jennifer Nandi crosses a bridge and a river into another consciousness, one that holds the tranquility of the Himalaya and perturbation over its future in delicate balance

The snow-clad flanks of the hills reflected in Bedni Kund was a vision that sustained us on that trying and redeeming journey

The day breaks warm with birdsong. Always and every time, new and irresistible distractions wake us early. It is a good thing we are birders since the rooms are saturated with dust and stale odours. So, we escape the fusty accommodation to strain our ears at the muted lisps of birds fussing in the underbrush near the sun-baked mud hut of our host. With permission we approach, and watch her deft use of primitive tools to prepare our meal for the day.


The locals gather around and we learn their hazardous ways. They complain of diminishing reserves of fuel wood for cooking and heating homes, depleted soils, and overgrazed pastures. This surely suggests worsening conditions for life in the mountains. It brings notice to the linkage between alpine deforestation and lowland floods. The degraded forests hold less soil, catch less runoff and stabilize fewer slopes. Rapid weathering renders the soil fragile. Nature at odds with its environment can’t thrive; and when the depredation is ruthless, no seed can survive in such uncongenial ground.

Amid the balmy verdant forests are vast monocultures of blue pine

Water is a fragile commodity – the scarcity of drinking water in the villages is growing. In 2007 there was a high rate of run-off because of the variability of precipitation. The monsoon-like downpours we experienced in early May that year caused higher sediment loads in the rivers which must have surged in floods onto the Ganges plain – washing our future into the sea. The fragility of the biota is compounded by bedrock shifts. The Himalaya are dramatic testimony to the relentless power of drifting continents. In this context, is the Himalaya described as a high-energy environment. 


Yet, the basic life-support systems – soil, water, and biota, the limiting factors in the mountain ecosystems – have failed to restrict this village community of Kanol in their dreams. Half a dozen of its young men have joined the armed forces. However, scarcity and degradation forces them to live frugally. We wander out alongside the terraced hillsides. A little path leads toward the forest. Spring flowers that feed the spirit clutch at the hillsides – wild gerberas, forget-me-nots, geraniums, and daisies like the different colours of the sunlight. Nature surely blunts even the worst excesses of man. It seems our path is strewn with flowers. But our hearts are heavy with the burden of knowledge that we inevitably soil our most precious resource. These sanctuaries of forest and reason on which civilization depends are ultimately made inefficient through degradation.

Water, clear and clean, appears abundant in the Himalaya but we saw enough to learn that its future is uncertain

It is approaching late afternoon. Devidutt is nowhere to be seen. He has consumed a powerful soporific to keep him insensate for the next three hours. We eat without him. His casual camp procedures have overwhelmed us. We neither look in horror as he wipes the skillet with a dirty rag before cooking; nor at his complete disregard for clean plates and cutlery. 

Without our capricious guide Devidutt, seen here making tea in the hollow of an oak to keep the winds from snuffing the fire, our journey would have been wanting for character or anecdote

In failing light we gather for quiet reflection, meditation and thanksgiving. It is our last night together as a trekking team. We rejoiced in the simple thought that we'd had both a challenging and an enjoyable time. We were also safe.


The next day arrives too soon. There is much traffic on the way down. The history of human settlement in the Himalaya is marked by regular mobility for purposes of trade, resources, work, pilgrimage, or social exchanges. Travel has been an ongoing feature of these mountains. The intricate network of walking trails, resting places, and the cultural traditions of inn-keeping and porters, testify to that. 

Wild geraniums poke out of the understorey

Early in 1991 when I had climbed to Kuari Pass, the public bus dropped us by the roadside at Nandaprayag. We then walked to Ghat and upwards to Kuari. Now the newly built roads have opened what had been inaccessible terrain to vehicular traffic and to new economic markets all over the range. Such efforts both materially and symbolically convey to the remote villages the opportunities and risks of the wider world.


The stony, steep descent to the River Nandakini has all but crippled us. Sunita and I lag behind the men. At last, with the river in sight, I walk to sit on the bridge. Sunita finds her way closer to the river. Clearly, she is in no mood to talk. I give her space. 


Soon, we are joined by three German trekkers with their guide. The guide comes up to importune me with questions. After I had explained that we were birders, he asks what ‘equipment’ would one need to engage in bird-watching. 


“Just your eyes,” I say lightly. 
“No, no, one must have binoculars too.” 
“Ok,” I say, “And a field guide.” 
“What else,” he asks. 
“A basic creative principle,” I say facetiously. 
“Where can I buy that?” 
Such simple-mindedness. 
“One has to learn to observe – that’s the key. Birders must notice everything in its full, detailed richness.” 
“Where can I find such people?” he asks. 
“On a hillside, just watching,” I reply. 


He dismisses me with a disbelieving look on his face. What a fortunate breed we are with an endless succession of surprises in life, by just engaging in the challenge of identifying.
It is now my turn to probe with questions. I walk up to this alpine leprechaun to ask why his legs were green. In the torrential rain of yesterday, the colour of his pants ran! 


I turn toward Sunita to share the joke. She has finished smoking and is now inspecting her nails. She needs more time. The joke will have to wait. Now I wait for some signal of her readiness. She upturns her water bottle to her parched lips. That’s my cue, some physical sign of preparedness.

The Nandakini, one of the Ganga's little-known tributaries, is one of the most beautiful of Himalayan rivers though our passage across it, over a quivery single-log bridge, was fraught with apprehension

Devidutt has been haranguing me to hurry up. He beams when we follow him. He is very encouraging. Our trek is nearly at its end. Sitel is in sight. Though it has begun to rain once more, we shelter in a shed while the men negotiate for a taxi. The women pile in with the driver and a couple of his friends. We have no clue what’s going on in the back. Fifteen men with all our luggage and theirs, sacks of village wealth, all pack into the back of the ‘tempo’. We didn’t hear a word of complaint from our fellow-trekkers, not even from the eternal comedian, Bijoy. We shall all miss this superb mimic. And I will always remember Sahastra, whose appreciation of visual delights was not just an indulgence, but rather an ennobling of ordinary need.

Leaving the Himalaya brings on the pangs. What traveler can forget the dark, silent shape of a Plumbeous Water Redstart as it flirts its fiery tail against the stone-grey foam of a rushing river?

While we wait to board the train at Hardwar, pilgrims laden with Ganga-jal jostle for a place to sit. I recollect reading somewhere that we must be “steady in what we do, not blown like feathers at the wind’s discretion, nor think that every water cleanses you.” I shall remember opening my pores to bathe in Nature. I shall remember the flirting tail of a Plumbeous Water Redstart, the Ultramarine Flycatchers confabulating on the quantity of gossamer needed for the nest, the shrill green of the parakeets – their colour as loud as their calls. Design in nature is a concatenation of accidents – chance genetic changes but so culled by natural selection that the result is not just effective but beautiful as well as to seem a miracle of purpose. 


Thoreau once wrote, “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” A century later, Wendell Berry proposed this necessary corollary: “In human culture is the preservation of wildness.”

By Jennifer Nandi


Photographs: Sahastrarashmi and Bijoy


Odyssey to Bedni Bugyal, a travelogue in ten parts, is now concluded. Follow these links to read previous episodes:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher: An Afternoon Haiku

What could be common to a tiny forest bird and a temple statuette that embodies grace, beauty and wild power? 

Having looked at a small group of 4-5 highly energetic and extremely acrobatic birds with small grey heads, small straight sharp beaks, large black eyes and yellow bodies, I looked expectantly at Sunita. Beguiled by the beauty and thrilled at finding a new bird, I wanted a name – to end the delightful morning walk on a satiated note.

“OK, so this bird that you see is ... take a good look. Notice the greenish-yellow upper body, the whitish-grey throat. The yellow on the belly all the way to the vent – it glows in the light.”

A shaft of white light penetrated the top-canopy and lit up a space surrounded by a cluster of branches in the mid-canopy of a copse of tropical deciduous trees. Drawn to the light a buzz of winged insects circled in random flight paths and were being hawked by the birds in our viewfinder.

All of this was fine but I wanted a name.

I looked again. The birds seemed to set their sights on a winged insect and with remarkable dexterity follow its flight path, and change direction quickly to snap up the prey. Flying trapeze artists on steroids. The change of direction was random; the birds picked up their targets in mid-air and within the blink of an eye perches were exchanged. 

“Notice the typical flycatcher behavior – exposed mid-canopy perch, the swift and short targeted sortie. And the large eyes.”

Still no name.

It was a satisfying end to a nice morning walk that had yielded Chestnut-bellied Nuthatches, Black-hooded Orioles, Hoopoes of the European race, Asian Barred Owlets, Black Redstarts, Grey Hornbills, and White-bellied Drongos among others. The small grey-yellow birds were right in the garden attached to our home and, like a true landowner, I felt a flush of pride at this newly discovered treasure. But for it to be truly mine, in my village, my garden and my backyard, I needed to know what it was called.

“OK... so this is a -- Sahastra, have you had a good look?”

Absolutely. I had, down to the soft tit-tit that emerged from the trees in a low-frequency murmur of avian satisfaction. My neck hurt, my eyes were blinded and the suspense was unbearable. All of this had just one cure – a name.

“The grey-headed Canary flycatcher. I did not know it was found here."

I didn’t care. The bird was mine for all time to come.

November noon

                             ticks vanish

                                                           canary flycatchers

In subsequent Novembers investigations established that the Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher (Culicicapa ceylonensis) had made the small patch adjacent to my home a regular haunt.

The next meeting with the bird was in the Himalayas, in May, as we descended the Loharjung-Wan road towards Didana. We heard the chee-weeeee-wee call with a soft whistle before the long weeeee and they were almost always in mixed hunting flocks. Jennifer informed us that they often make up the extremities of these flocks, a bit like the advance guard.

My first encounter with the birds in southern India was at Muthodi and again they were quite vocal. The habitat was different here -- not the montane oak forests of the Himalaya, or the dry-deciduous groves of Rae Bareli in the Gangetic flood-plains -- but the birds behaved just the same. The call, the perch, dexterity and the delight.

The next day while driving back to Bangalore, we stopped at the Belur temple. Its scale is not what one expects – small and star-shaped as opposed to the huge imposing masses that a lot of temples are. In his book “Diving the Deccan”, Bill Aitken found it an uninspiring anti-climax. On our way back, birding talk was interspersed with notes of the archaeological, and I managed a summary: 

“The Belur Temple is like a (canary) flycatcher, small but exquisitely crafted.”

Beej remarked, “You must be the only birder ever to imagine such an example. Or for that matter, any archaeologist.”

The Huntress at Belur, lit by a shaft of evening light

Bill Aitken can try some birding, I guess, and start with the flycatchers. It will ensure that he is better appointed when he is in the presence of the Belur Huntress the next time round.

Text and photo of the Belur Huntress by Sahastrarashmi

Photographs by Sandeep Somasekharan

Odyssey to Bedni Bugyal - A night in Wan

In Wan, Jennifer Nandi marvels at the great Himalayan night that has no trouble falling, and laments how so many city-dwellers look skyward and never see the stars

The guest house at Wan adjoins a grove of some of the tallest deodars in all of Uttarakhand

The village of Wan is spread widely along the sides of the valley; its fields of spring wheat, potatoes, spinach, and radish envelop the mud-and-stone houses in a seamless web. The village track cuts through a hillside bordered by scrub from which Brownish-flanked Bush warblers sing loud and clear. Groves of newly leafed walnut trees shade every water point. We rest under the splendour of these trees. The men march onwards to Wan but Sunita and I have no inclination to arrive at the Rest House early. We linger around thickets and watch the female of a Slaty-blue Flycatcher. The odious Devidutt goads us on but we ignore him. He can’t wait to reach our destination where he can jettison us and head for the nearest bar. I have just finished thinking the worst of him when we are besieged by children who importune us and it is Devidutt, the scrounge, who sits on his haunches, gathers the little waifs around, and soothes them with pieces of biscuits that he had saved. And I am so ashamed of myself. 


Ahead, a weather-beaten sign tells us we have reached the Forest Rest House of Wan. Old cypress trees clothe the hillside, obscuring our view of tonight’s campsite. Amidst the grove is an ancient tree lying on its side, still smouldering. An act of vandalism? Who knows? More importantly, who cares? While we should be raging against this tragedy, we silently mourn its loss. How quickly one becomes inured to an outrageous wrong.


To enter the compound, one must hoist one’s weary self up and over a four-foot stone-wall! There is no electricity, little water, but we get to sleep in a proper bed tonight even if we must share the room with everybody else. There is neither chowkidar nor cook but our fellow-trekkers are chatting with some very nice-looking young men of foreign origin. In all my twenty-five years of trekking in the Himalaya, I have encountered few Indian trekking enthusiasts; fewer who trek with some knowledge of natural history. 

Glowing fields of spring wheat, patrolled by Grey Bushchats and Brownish-flanked Bush Warblers, invite us to stay in Wan

It’s a sad comment on how little aspects of natural history and the wilderness figure in our lives. For most, an understanding of natural history generally restricts itself to enumerating, describing, categorizing, interpreting and otherwise explaining the elements and workings of the natural world. But it’s more than that. It’s a re-examination of the natural world and humanities’ place within it. It is about the fundamental issues of life. It’s a celebration of wild nature. The study of natural history provides an antidote to solipsism. It requires courage to inquire of a parallel culture, to ponder another order. It requires a thinking mind to intuit how our fellow beings might illuminate some part of our own culture. It requires energy to gain a wholeness of outlook. Laziness of any hue has no place here.


Trekking then assumes a whole new dimension – as a nature enthusiast, one blends extensive field observation and an authentic and penetrating love for the natural world with a sense of independence, humanity, emotion, truth, wit. Only through personal participation in, and thoughtful observation of, wild nature, can one internalise the external. Inculcating a sensitivity to Nature must begin by exploiting one’s senses. It must be followed by developing the ability to see the continuity of nature in all its manifestations. Only then can we inculcate the joy that comes from contributing to her conservation.

A Himalayan Griffon sails over the dark forest

That symbol of how fast a very common species can be made, through ignorance and neglect, to border on extinction, flies in to settle its magnificent vulture body on a nearby stump. Sahastra excitedly runs for his binoculars and urges his new friends to view the Himalayan Griffon – a magnificent bird with a precarious future. It is condemned along with its cousins to live a threatened existence.


Sunita soon sounds the tea bell. She barely functions without her dose of caffeine. We light up the gas and Devidutt supplies us with endless cups of tea. Sahastra, Satish and Bijoy who seem to have recovered mighty fast from the day’s exertions, express a keen desire to talk to their loved ones. They set off for the village, a half hour’s walk downhill, but not before Sahastra leans over to us (as we sit on the stone steps of our lodging, amidst an open bag of rations) and in his affable way tells us to please “ALSO COOK FOR THEM.” The ‘them’ of course, refers to the three young men from Canada. ‘Yeah sure,’ we smile. With our plans of cooking, changing and sleeping stymied, we make the most of our lot for the evening.


We cook two pressure-cooker-full quantities of khichdi, what else? And we make friends with the young men and have ourselves the time of our lives. To their credit, they are so full of the spirit of comity; they are gracious and courteous and interesting, and good-looking to boot, what more could one ask for! 

The evening sun, shying behind the first of the deodars, welcomes us to Wan

The sky still glows in the west. The stars begin to shine. For the first time on this trek the firmament is ablaze with brilliant fire. I am truly excited as I begin to read the crowded constellations. Star gazing possesses an unparalleled power to excite the human imagination. They seem so close, so intimate, yet so infinite; so near yet so unreachably far; the inky-black sky of night is yet so full of light. Once you master the major constellations, you are witness to an incredible display of patterns of order. 


As a child my father had taught me to read Orion and the Ursa Major and how to locate the North Star. In the old days, he would spend months at sea plumbing the ocean depths with lead and line to later represent it cartographically – the charts being used worldwide by merchant shipping. Nowadays, with modern technology, the art of star gazing is no longer a requirement for a mariner. If we think about it, so much of our ability to do rational science is closely bound up with our ancestral experience of the sky. For the rest of the year, unless I make another trip into the mountains, the stars will glow only in recollection.


To cement the inevitability of the night and as testimony to their gratitude for our cooking dinner, our newly-acquired young friends shower us with goodwill and chocolates and bring out a suspicious looking bottle with a fingerful of whisky which we share in teaspoonfuls adding the welcome dram to our coffee. With a housewifely eye I note that the larger pressure-cooker of khichdi has been cleaned out with unembarrassed thoroughness.

Unembarrassed by the previous night's dinner shenanigans, the group smiles for the camera

As the tattered day finally departs, a Yellow-throated Marten makes its appearance. Its eyes burn like red coals. These omnivorous animals have sharp eyes, an acute sense of smell and if this one lives among the rafters of this old house, it has ample opportunities for finding food. 


The evening chill turns to stone the once hot, gooey khichdi. Into the reaches of the night, our men arrive forlorn, with an implausible excuse – a long story of having got lost in the forest! Haven’t we women heard that one before? Sunita still insists they gorged on jalebis and pakoras, Bijoy’s hobbled knee notwithstanding! They seem stunned by the raucous noise of laughter. Without a word they swallow their gummy dinner and head silently for bed! So much for trekking to talk to loved ones. Whereas we, left-behind ladies, float on cloud nine! 


Night has no trouble falling in these mountains – no artificial city lights to push it back. When night is banished in bright lights even midnight is deprived of its share of darkness. How many city-dwellers, I wonder, look skywards and never see the stars?


By Jennifer Nandi
Photographs: Beej and Sandeep Somasekharan


Previously in 'Odyssey to Bedni Bugyal'
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Next: Shelter from the Storm

Odyssey to Bedni Bugyal: The trail to Wan

Distances in the Himalaya can be tricky, especially when pointed out desultorily by a guide deprived of his liquor. Thus captained, we descended the bleak slopes of Bedni toward the village of Wan. Jennifer Nandi's spellbinding Bedni Bugyal travelogue continues...

The descent from Bedni Bugyal

With our faces turned towards the new day’s maiden blush of pink, we silently bid farewell to our mountain hosts. Then we assemble for a group photograph with an imposing Trishul as a backdrop. Our faces, now bathed in daylight still driving out the dawning sky, are focused on Sahastra. We collect our rations of energy bars from him and listen politely as he tells us yet another fable – that the village of Wan is downhill until we reach a “bump” and then it’s all downhill and gradual again! What he perversely fails to reveal is that the distance to the ‘bump’ is 8 km of rocky, steep descent and that after surmounting the said ‘bump,’ the village track is not less than 4 km to the Forest Rest House at Wan. 

Sunita and I exchange knowing sidelong glances – it’s going to be a long haul.

We walk into the mist scudding over the ridge, across the frozen snarl of Himalayan roots and earth, snagging our footsteps on the charred remnants of once virile rhododendron shrubbery. Pipits and accentors lift off from our feet. We leave the bugyals behind and enter the world of laughingthrushes – a paradise for Rufous-chinned, White-throated and the Variegated. Warblers alert us with their trills. The bell-clear call of one still tantalizes us – unable as we are to identify it.

The four ponies with their caretakers rush past us, three steps to our one. We hang back leaning against soft lichen on stone to peer into an effulgence of wildness. There are Ultramarine and Rufous-gorgeted flycatchers. The undergrowth in this open weathered woodland supports thick bushes, a favoured habitat for Orange-flanked Bush Robins. Warblers abound – Western Crowned, Ashy-throated, Greenish, Large-billed, each beguiling us with its own freshness of phrase.

A spot of sun brings out the diurnal drinkers but our guide is craving his moonshine

"So, were you born and bred in a forest?" asks Satish, partly in facetiousness. The two of us, now separate from the rest of the group, are walking together. Through a curtain of leaves I saw Bijoy in a photographer’s stance and pointed him out to Satish who failed altogether to detect him. And further down the path, I singled out a Plain-backed Thrush with no wing-bars that would differentiate it from the very similar Long-tailed Thrush. Satish shakes his head with awe. My deteriorated eyesight is that of an old woman; but I guess I see well because I feel well, feel in contact with the world, and feel a healthy intoxication with whatever addresses the senses. 

Think of the accumulated wisdom in the millions of years of successful strategies honed for survival. We could learn a lot from a tree.

Satish is a trekker – companionable, and because of his frankness, elicits warmth. Sahastra roped him into the birding fraternity and the neophyte appears to have accepted his present circumstances with cheerful readiness. During each day’s trek he would spend time with us, alternating between Sunita and me, quizzing us on an eclectic range of subjects, in his inimical uncompetitive and reflective style. He has a fetching attitude to learning. Whatever his settled base of knowledge, his mind is not locked tight, impervious to new information. It is pure delight to introduce him to a kaleidoscopic world.

Strewn with leaf litter, the trail to Wan

The leaves of the conifers are greener at the tips of each branch – all ready at the very beginning of spring to photosynthesise just as soon as there is sufficient light. This energy-efficient tree does not spend precious energy each year to build all its leaves afresh. Conifers first appeared on earth some 300 million years ago and have changed little. Think of the accumulated wisdom in the millions of years of successful strategies honed for survival. We could learn a lot from a tree.

This pine, spruce and fir forest of ineffable beauty, accompanies us all the way along the stony path that drops down to meet the Bedni, when it becomes a river of more magnanimous proportions. At the bottom of the valley the river collects enough organic particles from the mountain plants growing between the boulders near its margins to acquire just enough dissolved nutrients to support animal life. Every mountain stream has its share of Plumbeous Water Redstarts and White-capped Water Redstarts making a living at a rushing river’s edge. Both species stake out a patch of water and guard it assiduously against interlopers. 

The trail meanders towards the enigmatic "bump"

A Himalayan Griffon waits for the air to warm

At the bottom of this narrow valley it has warmed sufficiently for us to jettison surplus jackets. Variations in temperature and rainfall are responsible for different ecosystems and we are welcomed by a willowy tunnel of cool shade granted gratis by riverside habitat that now includes Himalayan alder trees and Prunus cornuta. The latter is a medium-sized deciduous tree of the Rose family. Its drooping many-flowered clusters would soon become dark purple-black fruit, at first globular, but often becoming long and horn-like due to infection by insects, hence the plant’s name. But if you look closely, even the flower-clusters have assumed, in preparation perhaps, the shape of a horn.

Children immerse the idol of a deity in a stream

Sunita and I throw ourselves down on the inviting grass of the river bank scaring the Indian Tortoiseshell butterflies into sudden flight. We are tired. The stomach muscles have been working overtime to lift the weight off those stiff knees. But we are sufficiently soothed by flowering trees, birdsong, and the distinct velvet brown scent of river-bank vegetation to accept, with alacrity from Satish, the inevitable ration of ‘sattu’. However, there is an upsurge in our fortunes. He hands us each a slab of chocolate! We drink copious quantities of Electral to replenish our lost electrolytes. Devidutt throws a veil of cigarette smoke around his ration of goodies, strikes his characteristic pose and assumes an attitude of enervation. The men wash and bathe. We watch enviously as they linger in the sun-warmed water. When their clothes have baked dry, we cross the river with the right measure of reverence as one would with an animal frame of mind, mindful of black-lichened rock that could be treacherous. 

A male Plumbeous Water Redstart flirts his tail in a forest stream

At last we begin the climbing of Sahastra’s ’bump’! It begins as a hillside of ruthless depredation – open oak and rhododendron severely lopped. The hillside is hushed but for the jays that shriek their dissonance in the quiet spot. Higher up we encounter tits including the Yellow-browed, easily mistakable for a warbler but for its peaked crown. The rugged hill road flattens out across scrubland and the terraced sides of the mountains bear an emerald green. Paddy is being cultivated but 1400 years ago this was not the case as attested by the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Hiuen Tsang. The pilgrim had visited Garhwal in AD 634 and had described the soil as fertile and favourable to the growth of a poor kind of barley. The Garhwalis, whom he described as ‘a cheerful people, patient of fatigue,’ reared large numbers of sheep and ponies. However, since that time, the unfortunate Garhwalis have had to suffer tyrannical treatment at the hands of the invading Nepalese. From the 18th century onwards, small parties of Gorkhalis from Nepal had periodically plundered the border areas. Many thousand Garhwalis were sold as slaves during the Gorkhali occupation who ruled with a rod of iron. However, there is little sign of ruined agriculture and the lamentable decay that the Garhwali villages must have endured.

By Jennifer Nandi

Photos by Sahastrarashmi, Sandeep Somasekharan and Bijoy Venugopal

Next: A night in Wan

Previously in "Odyssey to Bedni Bugyal"

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Encounter: Chestnut-tailed Minla

Perhaps I had a karmic debt to pay the Chestnut-tailed Minla 

Battered by my first ascent of the Garhwal Himalaya, I was listening to the lament of my creaking knees en route to Kunol from Wan when Sahastra, whose knees had served him well, and Jennifer, who imbibed superpowers from yoga, decided to adventurously explore the forest in search of white-throated laughingthrushes. While I beat about the bush aimlessly, they returned triumphant. There is nothing more psychologically demolishing than being physically downbeat as your birding compadres tick away lifers. But then, I was too numbed to even bleed to Jennifer's unkind cut. 

“Did you see that?” she asked, pointing to a blur of colour in a bush that disappeared instantly. 

I shook my head. Did anyone here care about my knees? 

“It used to be called the Bar-throated Siva,” she explained as we continued walking. “Such an apt name it was. Now they've gone and renamed it.” 

Did I care? Oh, my knees! 

“What do they call it now?” asked Sahastra, whose recent sighting of the laughingthrushes had placed him in a higher league and sharpened his curiosity in the natural world. 

“Chestnut-tailed Minla,” said Jennifer, and ranted, “And no one even notices the colour of the tail.” 

Somewhere in my pain-fogged brain that name triggered a flicker of memory. But nothing came of it except a sore spot at having missed another lifer. Sahastra and Jennifer exchanged notes on the renaming and reclassification of birds, a discussion that culminated with them dousing Pam Rasmussen with buckets of vitriol. I returned to listening to the creaking of my knees. 

On my next trip to Garhwal in 2009, Sahastra and I rounded the bend beyond the hamlet of Chopta and were gazing upon the layered vista of valleys that unfolded before us from the serpentine road to Gopeshwar. Far above us, wreathed in mist, the spires of Tungnath peeped out into the sky. 

We had almost been soaked by a sudden thunderstorm the previous evening and wanted to return to our lodgings before another similar predicament befell us. Suddenly, we were stopped dead in our tracks by an enormous mixed hunting party of grey-hooded warblers, black-throated, spot-winged and green-backed tits, along with variegated laughingthrushes. Among them, one oddball bird stood out. It was nothing like any I'd ever seen. Its throat was barred, it was colourful overall and I noticed nothing of the tail except that it was long. Sahastra, too, had trouble thumbing through his mental log to identify it instantly. 

“This is that guy,” he said helpfully, “the one you missed.” 

That hit a raw nerve instantly. “I know,” I hissed, overcome by elation. A birder doesn't forget a missed encounter easily. He goes back and pores over the page listing his forgone quarry and memorises its image until it shimmers in his mind's eye with envy and desire. 

Perhaps it was the law of attraction, but the Chestnut-tailed Minla (Minla strigula) and I had finally met at the feet of Siva. What ironic coincidence!

Note: This picture was taken by Sandy on his trip with Sahastra. I couldn't join them then. Clearly, the Minla had no karmic accounts to settle with them and revealed itself happily.

Photograph: Sandeep Somasekharan

The Himalaya Story - from 2007

Footloose in Garhwal, my travelogue on our trek to Bedni Bugyal in April-May 2007, is finally available for viewing. It had been privately circulated until now. Here it is: On Yudu (Firefox users may have some Flash 10-related viewing trouble):

On Scribd: Footloose in Garhwal