The Forsaken Wilderness, page 5
A route was visible in the distance from the ledge we now stood on. It was evident from the harsh angularity of the path before us that we had chanced upon a section of the mountain too steep to be ascended by regular climbers. No one without an efficient rock-climbing acumen and the concerned implements at hand would dare risk in their right mind the hurdle we had just manoeuvered. It seemed clear beyond all doubt that the creator of this fiendish mountain had not intended for any human foot to traverse it passage, not even the harmless paw of a passing animal. The twisted and deformed tree seemed its sole inhabitant.
The sadhu had long vanished into the desolate scenery. Prof. Chaturvedi wondered how he must have climbed up the rock face and tried vigorously to determine which route he could have possibly taken up, searching frantically all about our surroundings, trying to make sense of them. The peaks and summits of the mountains lay unconquerably afar and seemed to stretch on into infinity, never to be scaled. From down below the peaks that fed the glaciers looked like foreboding towers upon a castle, its tapering spires mingling invisibly with the mist of desolate eternities pervading all around, brooding in its vast and unreachable solitude. Surely no man in his right mind would try to look upon the mountains beyond and think of setting foot there. There was a reason they could not be reached, and all those that had endeavoured to breach or violate its sanctity had perished. Perhaps we would indeed be the first human beings to ever set foot on Ranibaug’s upper reaches.
chapter five
As the night approached, we scampered about under the shelter of a large rock which merged into a crest of the adjoining ridge. It provided little respite from the devious wind. My teeth chattered violently, trying in vain to apply a technique the sadhus had taught Shera to withstand the cold: simple inhalations through the nose with a four second interval to unleash a slow six second exhale from the mouth, proceeded by a repetition of the same cycle till the blood temperature stabilises. He had adopted those measures in Siachen during combat, but this was a far more worrisome predicament. He had not the faintest idea whether we would make it through this night. As the absolute darkness of the night blackened all, Shera pulled out his torch to ensure at least something was perceivable. This was more than either of us had ever had to endure—being stranded on a mountaintop in the dead of night without food, water, supplies or firewood. The biscuits had been devoured on our ascension up the rock face to compensate for the inordinate exertion, and we had failed to come by a stream anywhere in sight once we had successfully overcome the obstacle. Thankfully, Prof. Chaturvedi had had the good sense to bring along the rifle. He had it strapped across his shoulders. Shera had a box of ammunition and the Swiss army knife in his military jacket. That was practically all we had on us, not a morsel of nourishment nor a drop of water between us.
At dawn, we deserted the spot where we had perished for the night and staggered on upwards. The routes arose into myriad formations up the jagged protuberances of the slope, now approaching a near fifty degrees in slant, some deceiving us to a dead-end, others unpredictably branching up to an elevated area of what appeared to be terra firma but failed to remain so when stepped upon. Progressing up the long winding path and gaining altitude, I sensed the Professor gradually lapsing into frivolous and altogether irregular behaviour. The wearisome struggle we had endured over the past couple of days had taken its toll on his apparent composure, so strenuously sustained through the better part of the expedition. His faculties by the moment began to diminish, eroding whatever little survival instinct he had left and had displayed the night before. He complained of a severe vascular headache, insisting that we halt for a while till he felt sufficiently recuperated. His entire forehead was greatly swollen, and he pressed down on his temples violently in hope of suppressing the neural agitation. At first, Shera contemplated the possibility that he might have been bitten by an insect of some sort, but the Professor seemed convinced it had something to do with the atmospheric composition of the region. He said there was something unearthly about it all, and that the very air itself was tainted.
Shera pulled his saahab back up to his feet and nearly handed him a slap in assurance that there was nothing at all wrong with the air. We both, after steadying our nerves, reminded him that it was imperative that we proceed as we were already losing time. We were all suffering from malnutrition, altitude sickness and oxygen deprivation. A stream of flowing water which we had chanced upon earlier had been our only source of nourishment for the day. At times during the climb, Prof. Chaturvedi held on to Shera’s arm for support, taking his steps more cautiously and with a more deliberate precision, thereby slowing down our progress even further.
At noon, Shera decided to halt at a height of about almost five thousand metres. Our destination was still another quarter-day’s trek away from us. He had by now taken control of the rifle and all twelve rounds of ammunition were in his possession. He was now manning the expedition almost singlehandedly. Neither the Professor nor I were capable of accomplishing even the most menial of tasks. Shera warned him not to venture off too far from our temporary campsite, and shoved the last sip of water down his throat with much resistance. He tucked him to sleep on a bed of grass like a mother nursing a sick child, sacrificing his own jacket for the sake of his saahab’s comfort. Shera felt resentful of this, of these newly acquired responsibilities that were proving all the more burdensome. He wished he had never made this wretched trip up in the first place, and that he was back in the shelter and warmth of the city, away and secure from the menace of the wild. Thoroughly dismayed, he threw the Swiss army knife and torch onto the ground in a rage, and proceeded to go around and look for more water and other supplies. He insisted I accompany him, so that the Professor felt incentive enough to enliven some consciousness—‘It might arouse his survival instincts,’ he mused. ‘Being stranded.’
chapter six
Shera carried along the rifle on our brief excursion into the adjoining wilderness in hope of coming across anything that might qualify as food, even though there wasn’t another living creature in sight for miles. We scanned the entire territory but found nothing, not even a drop of water or a speck of snow on the damp earth which at first was disconcerting, but on glancing upwards at our destination, I was soon reassured by the snow-clad path which lay ahead. It was the last stretch of daunting earth that succeeded us, and I wondered plaintively whether we would have the strength to complete the journey in the Professor’s current state. With him though I felt certain that the prospect of abandoning his expedition after having come all this way was far more troubling than the notion of overcoming the frailties of human temperament and capability. He had still to keep his wits about him though, not to mention his strength and his sanity. If not his, then at least ours.
Scouring the waste in the forest to gather firewood for the night, we once again chanced upon some skeletal remains that lay scattered along a damp patch of loose earth. While rummaging through a heap of leaves and broken twigs, my attention was immediately seized by what appeared to be a skull.
After lifting it out of the mess of disintegrating wood, I placed it upon a rock so that Shera could examine it. The contours of the skull were immensely elongated and swelled into a knot around the occipital area. The nasal cavity was large and trapezoid. The inconceivably hideous smile which graced the mouth bore not the slightest resemblence to the human skull. The eye sockets were placed far apart in such a way that suggested a side vision like that of certain reptiles not capable of the usual 180-degree line of sight. Their incongruous placement defied any biological purpose and even the jaw and forehead were disconcertingly shaped.
We left all the firewood we had tirelessly collected and ran back at once towards the campsite, carefully holding the skull cradled in my crumpled windcheater.
We showed it to the Professor who was immediately propelled out of his stupor upon witnessing it. He leapt up to his feet, awoken by what he considered to be a visitation! He studied it carefully and placed it on the ground. He glanced at it from all possible angles. The proportions were startling and he even wondered if exposure to extreme temperatures and conditions at this altitude might have deformed the skull.
The mandible descended to a wild and incomprehensible deterioration of the lower jaw—its dental features in morbid disarray, appearing almost to writhe outward as if two pairs of teeth were contained within one mouth. The irregularly protuberant maxilla merged into this deformed mandible, holding together the hinges by means of a cartilaginous adhesion. There were unaccountable fossae toward the cheekbones and earlobes. The dimensions of the skull were too exaggerated in their spatial allocation. Most simian life forms, even the most eccentric of baboons, did not possess so elongated a cranial chamber that almost alienated the lower hemisphere.
Even though I was not particularly adept in matters concerning the identification of regular and irregular forms in mammalian and reptilian anatomies, I knew it was unlike anything I, or even the Professor had seen in the biology laboratories of our lifetime.
Shera wondered where the sadhu must have reached. He was up in the outermost reaches of the Himalayas where it was certain that no antecedent party had ever been recovered. Perhaps he would never return. Perhaps he had lived amongst the wilderness all his days and had never encountered civilization of any kind. Perhaps he was one with nature and all its creations, more so than any human being had any right to be.
For the first time in my life, I was undergoing the extremities of starvation. Never had I known this level of deprivation, this degree of utter inanition. I licked the very snow we tread on as the magnifying rays of the overhead sun melted the ice beneath us into trickles and droplets of water as if showing some mercy for the three forsaken souls. From the portion of flat land where we had temporarily set up camp, there undulated ahead of us some fifty odd metres of downhill windings which were proceeded by another steep snowy ascent up the nose of a rock formation that swelled up into the chin of the larger structure of the range, casting the entire procession of peaks with distinct facial characteristics, a gloating mosaic of twisted expressions and openings, projections and declivities, gnarled necks, and sunken craters of mouths like laughing mountains. After having climbed the fissures and rocky trespasses, up the ever-widening terrain that never ceased to punish and craze, I gazed up at the stormy vista above us which appeared nearer than it probably was. Ranibaug was still close to a quarter day’s trek away, and as we approached closer I felt a strengthening air of unease. The mountain was vast and unconquerable. The three of us had by now abandoned all desire for conversation. We were as silent as the desolate air we breathed and the spirit of companionship had long worn out its welcome.
After about another two-and-a-half hours’ worth of trekking and trampling through ankle-deep snow—which resulted in a moderate two odd miles of ascent—we stopped by the side of a stone boulder to rest for a moment. Shera sighed in what assumed the air of relief, breathing rapidly in spurts to catch his quavering breath. A long-awaited smile erupted on his harrowed face. But Prof. Chaturvedi, haggard beyond the point of recognition, breathed heavily, gazed up at our destination and ordered Shera at once to hand over the rifle and the ammunition in case we encountered anything.
Shera, of course, refused—but the Professor was adamant about his rightful ownership of the purchased firearm, he had paid for it in full with his money! He grabbed hold of the rifle strap that was wrapped around Shera’s right shoulder and snatched it off him in an instant. Shera took one step away from the Professor, his palms cast outward, an index finger gently lifting in warning—one eye turned in my direction, the other planted firmly on the Professor—but before either of us could move a limb, he swung out the Swiss army knife from his belt and held it up for his saahab to get a good look at. He would cut the Professor’s throat to make it out of there alive. Prof. Chaturvedi now pointed the gun tentatively in his direction, wrapping his index finger timidly around the trigger. Shera slowly circled him, calmly instructing him to drop the weapon lest anyone get hurt. I reminded him that he was not in his right mind and liable to make a disastrous mistake. The Professor would not relinquish control. He insisted on keeping possession of the rifle for the remainder of the journey. At my eventual urging Shera agreed, provided the Professor would cease pointing it at him.
Prof. Chaturvedi calmly lowered the rifle, and just then—a split second after—in swift mockery of his proposal, Shera reached forcefully for the strap causing his saahab to fire a shot into the air. They paused their struggle to register the echo of the gunshot that flew across the scenery. Shera looked at the Professor in utter bewilderment. He threw the gun on the ground and collapsed. Shera tried recovering him, shook him fiercely, but it was of no use. We had to carry him on our shoulders for the remainder of the journey.
The snow-covered path we left behind was succeeded by a most harsh, and unforgiving gravelled terrain. The stony earth pierced like burning embers to the soles of my feet. The depths of our torment were now reaching Biblical proportions. It was almost like a collective retribution exacted on all of us by the almighty for all Professor Charan Prakash Chaturvedi’s wrongdoings. This was to have been his penance, his price, his salvation—our misdeeds meagre by comparison—and although we could carry him no longer on our backs, we would have further to endure his suffering. Shera tried again to revive him once we lay him down beside a patch of clear ground. The Professor’s eyes slowly opened to grasp the majesty of the summit. One felt some sensation in him had been alighted and strengthened by the prospect of having neared his destination.
After laying him down and resting him indefinitely till he felt somewhat recuperated, the two of us shakily got up from our haunches, and trying to maintain balance with one shoulder of his draped around each of our necks, proceeded onwards. We kept on and on with the resolve of determined souls, misguided and misled to a remote redemption. Our spirits were expectedly enlivened as we touched the foot of the crest that arose up to the peak and although there was no chance of another conflict that could possibly break out between the two men, there was an instability in their carriage. Prof. Chaturvedi stooped low, his posture distorting progressively to the primordial state. Shera hung his shoulders down, swaying wildly left and right against the approaching wind, which was fierce at this height and seemed to originate from an altogether untraceable direction. It was the last hundred metres, in a manner of speaking, if one were to use an athletic expression. The conical upper-body that arose into the pinnacle of the mountain was in view and in about two hundred metres or so would be well within grasp. Zig-zagging strips and columns of levelled ground deceptively dragged on up the hypotenuse. We crawled up a near vertical portion of the southwestern face on all fours and forged ahead through a breeze of approximately fifteen knots to the east to arrive at an eroded shelf some twenty feet in breadth, where a sight that exceeded any of our wildest and most diabolical conceptions awaited us.
chapter seven
A shredded tent-spoke slanted twistedly above a mess of sleeping bags, gloves, monkey-caps, cardigans, and other tattered human belongings. A trail of caterpillar boots and gloves emerged from the dislodged zip entry, proceeding up the rocky stairway that lay fifteen odd metres ahead. At the culmination of the track laid out by the irregularly scattered footwear, stood a large cylindrical rucksack (such as one might witness on the backs of foreigners carrying months’ worth of luggage) supported upright by a voluminous weight lodged firmly in its base. A three-legged stove rusted by a blotch of black earth that at one time must have been the remnants of a campfire. The three of us slowly spread out around the windy shelf, our jackets flapping violently at our sides. Shera’s cap nearly flew off. The Professor bent down to rummage through the torn tent hold. Having unearthed a tin of sardines, he immediately rejoiced at our discovery, sifting through the ruins dusty with uncounted ages. Joining him in his quest for nourishment, I espied several photographs beneath a heap of antiquated maps, bindings and trail guides—the edges of the pictures poked out of a loosely enclosed geometry box. Smiling poses and processions presented their weary teeth: a party of four officials with a yellow government survey camera stand, the bugling lens from a vintage total station theodolite gazing blankly amidst the grins. The photographs were all in black and white and from the time worn stains of rot and fungus on all the hastily displaced objects, it was not entirely improbable that they might have been more than thirty-forty years of age. The sardines had disintegrated into an oozing mush, the top end of the decaying tin-can came off with a simple press unleashing a diseased odour. Our next best bet was a preserved jar of pickle, mostly turnip and cauliflower, with the odd stem of carrot and bamboo shoot faintly detectable. We swallowed it down in a splash, chunk by chunk, drinking some of the slimy containing fluid also in thirst for some replenishment. Next came a bottle of whiskey, Officer’s Choice, from the strapped bottle-holder of one of the rucksacks. Nothing they contained apart from the personal properties, such as dried up toiletries and wallets, including the clothes, could give any indication of what might have transpired for them to abandon the campsite so deliriously, with half their essentials strewn about the place in careless disarray. Signs of a violent flight were evident in every article of vital importance that had been ruthlessly discarded, considering their indispensability at so trying a terrain and altitude. Rubber bands, flashlights, binds of rope, a mallet, sickle, shovel and pick-axe, hammers and bolts, tent-pins and nails, a screwdriver, reams of notes and triangular drawings in varying states of decomposition, exceeding in abstraction the most labyrinthine designs, deteriorating in stability as the lines grew reckless and quavered. I have been able to retain from memory only one somewhat singular image that impressed itself upon my fancy, that of a three-dimensional cubic opening to, what appeared to be, a pyramidal tomb of some sort.
