Silent Lucidity

At the airport in Mumbai, a child kisses her mother on her Burkha.
Behind the veil is her mother’s mouth.
Elsewhere, in Belgium, wearing a Burkha in public has become illegal.
And the French might follow suit; there are 2000 citizens in the entire country who wear a Burkha.

The security guard in Delhi searches my bag. He digs deep inside, removes things from it, removes my USB key and places it outside. I ask him why he removed it, he ignores my question, puts it back inside in the wrong pocket. I grab it and put it in the right pocket. He doesn't look at me, doesn't say anything, he continues searching. When he finishes, he looks at me sternly, waves his hands in the direction of the stairs and says one word “Go!”
It’s not pleasant to live in such a society.

On the bus to Dharamsala, I’m sitting next to Tansing (the name is probably wrong, I’ve got woeful hearing abilities). He tells me that when he was 8 years old, in 1993, he endured 26 days in the mountains escaping from Tibet to Nepal. He was separated from his mother and placed in a group of 15 escapees. He is now 25 years old, he is pursuing his Masters in Maths, His Holiness has sponsored his education. He is now reunited with his mother in India and wants to become a teacher; one of his brothers is in the Indian Army and his other brother is a monk. He smiles and says "I have chosen the middle path"

I sit at the Tree of Life.
He walks towards me, looks at me, smiles, nods his head and says “Ben, oui”
I look at him, I smile, I shrug my shoulders and say “Ben, oui.”
We don’t know where we’re going. Our objective is to be in the mountains and get to the snow.

We walked for 4 hours. I love the after walking part. I just sit like a cow and look at the mountains to admire them. They’re beautiful. Below, he’s enchanting the mountains with his flute; he provides us with blankets, food, chai and water. Tonight, our home is a cave. Tomorrow, hopefully, we will have the view of the snow peaks.

The dog slept in the cave with us. The blanket kept me warm. We reach the first peak. He calls it “The Club Med of the Himalayas”. There are too many people. We continue walking towards the second peak. On the way, we fancy another cave. We decide to stay there. No flute man around today to provide us with blankets. Right now the sun shines on me. I feel warm. The clouds part, the White Mountains reveal themselves.



Two fascinating hours of my life - in the cave, he tries to make a fire. As soon as he succeeds, it subsides. He blows at the bottom of the fire and the flames rise. And then, they collapse. Again, he blows, and they come back to life before dying down. I try blowing, my eyes burn and my breath is filled with smoke. How has he been doing this for the past hour? The attempt to start a fire keeps us warm. Alas, it’s the only thing that keeps us warm, the night is freezing. Sleep befalls on me shivering.

We jump over boulders. A small shrine adorns the summit. From there, we get a beautiful view, but we can still see civilization. We give our backs to it, and walk the other way. We walk towards Indraprastha. We reach the last stall in the snow line trek. We gaze at the majestic White Mountains. We spend the night in the stall with 6 others, all sleeping next to each other to produce warmth. A drunken stall keeper lullabies us with his life problems and his love for money.

In Indraprastha, we take the route of the boulders away from the screaming Indian children. We jump from boulder to boulder. Then, we sit atop a boulder, meditate and eat a chocolate. Momentarily bliss. After the bliss, it's time for crazy. We sleigh down the mountain. We race, I get stuck on the snow. He wins. We slowly make our way back to the stall, where tonight seven of us fall asleep after a game of “Bullshit” and the vision of a flying bird.

We slowly make our way back to civilization. I feel hot water flowing on my body after five days. Delight.

I smiled the smile of mountains.