These are perilous times for homo sapiens, regardless of whether you believe in the predictions of Nostradamus or the epiphanies of Baba Venga. Thanks to a trio of psychopathic megalomaniacs, we are being pushed to the edge of extinction, one lie and tweet at a time. Drones and rockets are raining down in Russia and Ukraine like confetti on a Victory Day parade. West Asia is being showered with hypersonic missiles and ICBMs like the guests at an Ambani wedding with Rolex watches. Nearer home, there is no telling when the "sindoor" in our Vishwaguru's veins gets replaced with enriched uranium and we nuke Pakistan, to be nuked by China in turn as a return gift: the Chinese are nothing if not polite to a fault.
It's time for us to start looking for a safe hideaway to weather the nuclear winter that appears to be on its way, notwithstanding that current temperatures in North India do not presage a winter anytime soon. Donald Trump may have his underground shelters in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, and Mr. Modi may have his cave in Kedarnath to tide over the Day After (with or without cameras), but here in Puranikoti there are neither bunkers nor caves, just houses designed by Delhi-based architects which would not withstand a Kangana Ranaut tantrum, let alone a nuclear blast. So I've been applying my rapidly atrophying brain to think of a safe place where I could repair with the family and the pooch, and I think I've found it!
Dhela Thatch. (A thatch is a meadow or glade surrounded by thick forests, a traditional camping site for shepherds, Gujjars and trekkers). Dhela thatch is located deep in the Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP) of Kullu district, 35 kms from the nearest roadhead at Neuli in the valley of the Sainj river, at an altitude of 12000 feet. It takes two days of strenuous trekking to get there, and once there you don't want to leave, believe me. I didn't: I've camped there on three occasions on my treks in the GHNP: it's the nearest I've come to Eden, and if Worsworth had been there he would have immediately dashed off a few poems before you could say "My heart leaps up..."
[ Dhela thatch in the GHNP. Photo by author.]
Dhela is a gently sloping meadow, about two acres in size, perched just below the ridge line that divides the Sainj and Tirthan valleys in the Great Himalayan National Park in Kullu. Surrounded by thick stands of oak and deodar, with dense thickets of dwarf rhododendron and hill bamboo on one side, it is an ideal camping site: there is even a little brook which provides water. The camping site is surrounded by a vast thicket of juniper and dwarf rhododendron where the monal and rarely sighted western tragopan come to feed at sun-set. The Forest department has built a stout log hut at its upper edge for use in the winters (at 12000 feet Dhela can get a lot of snow)- for the rest of the year one can happily pitch tents anywhere on the dale. The height, mix of vegetation and undergrowth and the open spaces make it an ideal habitat for Himachal's two most prized pheasant species- the monal and the highly endangered Western Tragopan (Jujju Rana- the King of Birds, literally) and sightings of both are quite common. The crags below it are home to the "ghoral" (mountain goat) which can be easily spotted sunning themselves in the morning sun. The view of the GHNP landscape from here is stupendous, framed by the majestic 16000 high Khandedhar range to the north, the even higher Pin Parbat massif to the north-west, the Tirthan ridge to the south-east, and beyond that the bleak ranges on which is located the holy peak of Srikhand Mahadev. There is a small "jogni" or religious cairn at the top of the ridge, bedecked with colourful prayer flags which is ideal for meditation, bird watching or simply sunning oneself with a favourite book.
[Trekking party approaching Dhela Thatch. Photo by Sanjeeva Pandey]
Dhela is not a place where you have to DO anything; it is God's, and nature's, ultimate creation which invites you to simply immerse yourself in the simplicity, beauty and unhurried rhythms of a life unsullied by technology, materialism and human ambitions. Listen to the birds singing joyfully at dawn and dusk-not for you, but for the sheer joy of greeting another day, observe with wonder the rising sun every morning and feel its spreading warmth bringing to life God's myriad creatures, dip your hands in the little spring and drink of its snow-melt waters, marvel at the sight of the ghoral grazing on 75 degree slopes, gaze above at the lammergeier hovering in ever enlarging circles in the emerald blue skies, keeping watch on the world on behalf of its creator, sit cosily by a blazing campfire at night wondering why the moths hurl themselves into the fire-do they love its glow or do they fear it? Dhela has the questions, it also has the answers.
[The incomparable Western Tragopan pheasant]
This is indeed Omar Khayyam territory for me:
" Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse- and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness-
And Wilderness is Paradise enow!"
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