The call of the mountains - a true story!

My brother Ahad and I have always loved the idea of home. As Tolkien fans growing up, and as little wannabe hobbits, we used to cherish home as an idyllic place of abundant happiness, richness, simplicity, and hope. A place to return to when we felt lost and disappointed. A haven of love, and a sanctuary of beauty and simple truths.

A place to resort to after a turmoil and heal with the touch of a loved one. The smell of our favorite meal. A spot to hang our jackets. A bed to feel warm and snug in, and hear the night rain. A source of light when it gets dark.

And yet we know that we are also like ships meant to leave the safety of the harbor for the tumult of the seas. As Walt Whitman would say - these fleets of immortal ships must also sail out soon over the measureless seas, and on the “soul’s voyage”. A voyage filled with challenges and rewards, ambiguity and thrill, fear and hope, loneliness and discovery.

A long time had passed, and my brother and I had found each other, year after year, absorbed in the never-ending tedium of life. In the words of the bard, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow had crept in its petty pace, from one day to another, in our monotonous lives. But we dreaded becoming “lighted fools” strutting and fretting our hours on the stage, only to become a forgotten tale signifying NOTHING!

We knew that we had harbored the thirst for a great new journey long enough. We knew as well that as Bilbo Baggins warned Frodo, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to”. And yet. that very ambiguity filled us with a compelling thrill to leave the comfort of home. Growing up close to mountains, we knew that it is the mountains we need to head to, to feed our starving explorer instincts, to heal our ailing senses of wonder, and to wash ourselves clean of the malice we had collected from not affording ourselves an adventure.

With great haste we booked our tickets as if we would have lost the opportunity if we waited a minute longer. We were going to fly past the ninth-highest mountain on Earth Nanga Parbat (the naked mountain and called the king of mountains) and land into the amazingly beautiful Gilgit airport’s runway which is located at the edge of a slope nestled between fierce mountains.

A couple of hours of a bumpy ride later, we checked into the iconic Shangrila and a hearty BBQ in the lavish garden, and a reflective Marlboro later by the lake later, went to bed, for our journey in the morning was arduous and terrifying.

With great promise and excitement, we ended up next morning in the Deosai or “the land of the giants or giant mountains”. Deosai is situated at 14,000 feet above sea level and is considered the second highest plateau in the world with four thousand square kilometers of absolute wilderness and the highest alpine plains in the world. The place is not inhabited by humans (thank god) but home to the Siberian ibex, Snow Leopards, Kashmir Musk Deer, and Himalayan wolves and marmots.

Despite being advised not to head out into the plains on foot as temperatures fall rapidly by evening and because of risk of wildlife encounters, my brother and I started running into the fields in a frenzy, chanting Howard Shore’s music from TLOTR and pretending we were the fellowship walking Middle Earth bravely with the ominous and dark shadows of Sauron looming on our heads. We felt that every approaching hill must be the highest point in the plains but as we would struggle our ways to the top we’d find another hill ahead of us, and then another, and another. Before long the sun had started to descend, and we had lost our tracks back home.

We decided to rush back before darkness and cold descended on us. We went down to the river to drink from the breasts of nature and got surrounded by a mob of marmots. Just as we made a narrow escape, we got stuck in a marsh with mosquitoes. It was dark now and our smartphone torch light was but a little firefly in a vast desolation. I took off a layer and shared it with Ahad who was shivering in his youthful t-shirt. We saw distant camp lights in a direction and started running hysterically and in great panic towards that remote semblance of life.

Many long years later, I am feeling a similar angst. Will I put my life to risk again and give away the comfort of my urban self to, as A.E. Housman calls it, "heartless, witless, nature, which neither cares, nor knows!"

I believe I will!