Dear,.........,
Namaskar. I am here again after a break in writing a blog yesterday. In my last blog, I described the Amarnath Cave darshan. All types of people consisted the yatra. They came from all places in the country and abroad too. And there were sizeable number of muslims on administrative duties too. Roughly two months before the scheduled yatra day, the administration staff checks the complete route. There are lot of streams flowing on the way. And there would be wooden bridges to cross the streams. Some bridges are found missing and new ones are put into position. Some which have been damaged due to winter conditions are repaired. The road is levelled and any loose boulders cleared from the paths. Alternate bypassing routes where glaciers had covered the normal routes, were made. Then the tin sheds at each padaav were also repaired as routine.
Simultaneously all the owners of the ponies get mobilized. Those days, this trip would mean good earning for the locals. The pony escorts, persons who would carry loads on their backs for the yatris and dandi pall bearers would all get ready for the trip. After reaching a padaav, they all would stay together and eat together. Then in the evening sing their traditional songs. I found that some of them had a great tonal quality. I enquired from some about these songs and I was told that these songs are called "saif-ul-malooq" I recorded some of these songs too and carried the recordings with me. Those days, a radio programme for gujjars would be broadcast from our Radio station. I gave these recordings to the programme producers. The songs would get broadcast frequently. There would be lot of listener request for these songs.
For some of the owners of the horses, it would mean grief. The horses on reaching the padaav, would be left in the nearby meadow to eat grass. There would be some poisonous weeds which would cause the death of the horses. I do not know whether these deaths due to ingestion of weeds is happening these days too.
I remember noticing a foreigner probably from Poland aged around sixty years walking up as a yatri. He carried a stick to help in walking. He always wore a raincoat. He had engaged a coolie who was carrying his haversack during the yatra. During night time, he would sleep in his sleeping bag in the middle of open ground with the bag completely zipped up except for a tiny slit to allow air for his breathing. He would eat some biscuits and had a special stove with him to boil water for tea and also prepare some simple meal for himself. I met him and recorded his interview. He spoke in halting english.
The return journey from the cave was enjoyable because it was mostly down hill. We reached Panchtarni and after a brief stop, we decided to move on to the next stop Sheshnag. The weather was good and by dusk we were at Sheshnag. We camped there for the night. The recording equipment was all packed up. Next day morning, we started to move to Chandanwari. Pissu hill was no more to be feared. We walked down with ease. From Chandanwari we moved to Pahalgam. There were a number of Langars on the way and at each one we would be persuaded by the volunteers to come into their makeshift structures to rest our limbs and take food. There were so many of them that we could not oblige everyone. By 3 PM, we reached Pahalgam. We did not stay there. We took a bus and by late evening we were home.
Next day I returned all equipment to the OB section. The programme staff made a 45 minute documentary out of the recorded material. The finished programme was played back on the third or fourth day after our return. The programme had a 100 percent reception by the Hindu community.
With this my trip to Amarnath was over. I made another trip (private) in the 1970's. It was from a different route. I will describe that in a subsequent blog. Bye.
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