Raju's Wanderings

August 25 was a long weekend with a 3-day holiday, and I vanished from civilization to meet my old faithful mountains and valleys again.  My destination, Deoria Tal (Gods' and Goddesses' Lake), involved almost a day of  continuous travel one-way, in which time I used an auto rickshaw, two shared taxis, a flight, a train, two buses, with the final stretch being a long walk.  I flew from Hyderabad to Delhi in the night, caught the Nanda Devi train to Haridwar at midnight, took a bus from Haridwar to get to Rudraprayag at 11 a.m, another bus to reach Ukhimath at 2 p.m., and a shared taxi that took me to Sari village at 3:00 p.m. Finally, I walked up to reach Deoria Tal by 5:30 p.m. Looking down on Sari village Myth has it that this is the lake where the Yaksha asked his famous questions of Yudhistra - the eldest of the Pandavas of the Hindu Epic, Mahabharata, written by Dwaipayana Vyasa. One of Yudhistra's answers still resonates in my mind -...

 August 15, 2017 was a holiday, and by taking August 14 off, I could get four days of continuous travel squeezed in. This time, I felt Mt.Kalsubai, the highest mountain in Maharashtra at 1646 m, deserved a look. While nowhere near Stok Kangri (6,183 m) that I had done, it has its own place. Except in altitude over sea level, mountains have their individual challenges, beauty and charm. And most of all, each journey has been completely different, in weather, climate, and most of all, people. Marathi Manus in a train from Kalyan Junction to Kasara, replete with Gandhi topi, a pair of spectacles, and clutching the obligatory case. I started on August 11 night, reached Kalyan on August 12 morning, planned to reach Kasara by afternoon, and my base camp at Bara by evening. On the local Kalyan-Kasara train, I finally found a passenger reading a real paper book, squatting cross-legged by the window. And an entire row of passengers not immersed in their mobile phones - notice t...