Songs of the Mountains

Paradoxes seem more palpable in the mountains.

There is a knock on the door of my third-floor hotel room. I open the door to see a waiter carrying tea. He is wearing a safari suit, a turban and rubber boots.

“May I come in?” he says, tugging at his collar. I’m taken aback by his English. The lingua franca of Uttaranchal, hidden in the Himalayas, is Pahadi. Visitors are spoken to in Hindi. He sets the tray down and says, “Welcome to Kausani.”

“Thank you,” I tell him. “Where can I find Pahadi food here?” He turns red and looks down. I repeat my question. He looks up, gives me an apologetic smile. Then it strikes me – he does not understand English. Those are the few English words he knows, parroted ad nauseum to tourists.

I’m mortified at having embarrassed him and jump into my most congenial Hindi. He beams, makes recommendations and leaves. Stirring my tea, I marvel at the things we do to earn a living. The waiter is poignant and puzzling, one of the many incongruities of Kausani.

It’s not the landscape. Rhododendrons burst into crimson bloom, butterflies flutter over ebullient flowers and the incandescent peaks of Nanda Devi tower above. Men huddle around a carom board, fingers poised.

I spend my stay chatting with the local chai-wallas, cooks and taxi drivers. They answer my questions, unravel the riddles. Uttaranchal is stricken by poverty and unemployment. Tourism is important to the state’s economy. So the residents don uniforms, mug up alien words. The incongruities start making sense.

On my last evening, sitting in my balcony, I can see six women singing Pahadi songs. Squatting around a bonfire, they are charting the rituals of loss and longing in a nasal lilt.

The mountains are silhouetted against a purple sky, the colour of old bruises. Villages spill down the slopes like fireflies, twinkling in tune to the songs. The cold settles on my skin, like talcum powder. I hug my knees and rub my icy toes. But it’s the song that thaws my insides.