Deep within the lofty Himalayas

I’ll never forget the crisp late September morning when I stood with my back to the magnificent snow-capped Sumeru mountain. I was facing the entrance of the hotel, waiting for my 20-year-old cousin to emerge. The sight of the snow-clad Sumeru – hovering over the Lord Kedarnath shrine and emerging out of the early morning mist – inspires awe and many consider it divine. I was curious to know about its effect on the mind of a 20-year-old, a representative of Generation Next. Hence, the wait.

Soon enough, I spotted Shubham, my city-born cousin, walking towards the main gate, utterly oblivious to the pristine natural beauty that lay ahead. One, two, three…I counted and then it happened. Shubham suddenly stopped in his path, his eyes transfixed at the magical, ethereal beauty of the Sumeru, and his face slowly breaking into a smile. Was it a glimpse of reverence that I saw? I said a silent prayer, “All is still not lost…even the born-and-brought-up-in-a-city youngster is not immune to the charms of nature.” I also felt that there was still hope for the environment whose survival now depended on how it charmed the denizens of the digital age.

The Kedarnath shrine – witness to the devastating Himalayan Tsunami in June 2013 – is one of the holiest temples in India. It is located in the Indian state of Uttarakhand deep within the Himalayas and is about 3,583 metres above the sea level. The 1,300-year-old temple is an imposing sight standing in the middle of a wide green meadow surrounded by snow covered peaks of the Sumeru mountain.

The Mandakini river at Kedarnath was at her playful best, making quite a din as its white waters collided with giant rocks in great force to create little whirlpools and also throwing up misty-sprays.

Tourist groups and devotees added their bit with animated conversations in Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam and local Garhwali. The babel turned the area around the shrine into a great cultural cauldron of different voices, language, dialects and expressions – an unmistakable prototype of our very-own India.

The temple is built of extremely large heavy and evenly cut grey stone slabs. We simply wondered how these stone slabs were handled by our forefathers in ancient times without modern engineering to support them. I also felt one needn’t make an effort to be reverential at Kedarnath; the fortitude of the ancient workers and their efforts under such extreme conditions were enough to make a person bow to the spirit of human endeavour.