The narrow, winding roads at this altitude tightly hug the cliff. Curves reveal deep valleys that have no visible bottom; there are sometimes no guardrails. One can understand why there are numerous fatalities every year. It’s treacherous and brilliant.
We pass Indians everywhere rebuilding the road because this is no place to build a road. These workers use no equipment. No, they chip away at massive rock boulders by hand, piece by piece. It might take a yuga to dissolve. But what’s the rush. Time has a different meaning up here.
Boys run along the mountain road eager to accept pocket change from the car window. A straggler runs with the taxi and catches one rupee. He smiles wide as the sun, mirroring a thumbs up. Girls are coy and avert contact.
We stop at Chopti, a tiny village on the long way back to Rishikesh.. From here it’s a four mile hike to the highest shrine in
“We take for granted that instinct for survival, fear of death, must separate us from the happiness of pure and uninterrupted experience, in which body, mind, and nature are the same. And this debasement of our vision, the retreat from wonder, the backing away like lobsters from free-swimming life into safe crannies, the desperate instinct that our life passes unlived, is reflected in proliferation without joy, corrosive money rot, the gross befouling of the earth and air and water from which we came.” – The Snow Leapard
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