Cycling sensibilities- 3

Not about sensibilities but more about silliness and it's related consequences.
Yesterday morning while cycling along Kathauta lake I came across a Durga Puja pandal near the pump station, which was being taken down. Like a hero (or an idiot) I cycled through it and almost at the end of the pandal the right brake of my cycle got stuck in a white curtain.
The bike turned right with a jerk and I found myself flying in the air. It all felt as if it was happening in slow motion.
Somehow, instinctively, I had the sense to roll over on my back, duck my head and break the roll with my palms to break the momentum of the fall. I got up as soon as my roll got to a stop.
I was a bit shaken and mildly bruised. Gave myself a once over, picked the bike and got back on the road. I realised that my right palm was bleeding a bit once I got moving on the cycle. Was contemplating whether to proceed with the cycling or go back home and dress my wounds when my thought went towards the cell I use to calibrate my cycling route, distance covered, calories burnt and time. The Samsung cell was not in the pocket of my shorts!
I realised that it must have slipped off when I fell down and as it had been more then 10 minutes since then my chances of finding it seemed remote.
Trudged back to the spot with a heavy heart, ruing this day and morning. I reached the spot and was pleasantly surprised to see my cell on the road!
The screen had cracked but the cell was functioning! So there was a silver lining in the dark cloud after all.
I was all fine the whole day, except for the minor twitches when the cloth brushed against the multiple bruised areas in the legs and palms. It was only when I lay down in bed at night that I realized that my left bum aches. I must have landed on it pretty hard.
Thought of going for a spin in the morning today but then I felt my body deserves a break for a day atleast.

Analysis of Misogynistic asshole

The other day I was called to the Principal office to enquire about a written complaint submitted by an intern about her batchmate.
The guy when he turned up for questioning was pretty chilled out about the whole thing. Was smiling in-between and had a cavalier attitude about the proceeding.  He had threatened the complainant that he will strip her and will pull her tongue out. He felt it was a minor thing and an unnecessary fuss is being created about it. It was only when I shouted at him in the end that he was able to grasp the seriousness of the situation.
We submitted the report after enquiring from the rest of the batch and the facts tallied with the one written in the complain.
Now today when he was given the formal letter from the Principal office that he came to me.
He was all repentant and crying today. What amazed me was the way his thought process worked. For one he imagined himself to be the victim. He quoted about another Professor who had been chucked out for sexual misdemeanor expecting me to be sympathetic. When I said he should have been kicked out a long time back he was taken aback.
Then he took the track of how the complainant doesn't do any work and goes around with guys outside. I asked him if the other 9 people in his batch had no issue with it, why is he so bothered? He had nothing to say.

3 wishes

In most of the fairy tales 3 wishes are granted for a good deed. It's a pretty standard ploy. Not 2 or 4 or 10. Just 3.
I had a similar experience a couple of days back though unfortunately no one told me that my wishes were about to come true.
First one was about shoes. I had been passively obsessing over getting a new pair for Alex's morning walk after the older one seemed to be on their last leg (no pun intended). 3 pairs had bitten the dust in as less as 9 months. I had fond memories of the my white school PT sneakers. They were from "Power" and with their thick canvas cover and a tough rubber soul were practically indestructible. I was thinking where would I be able to get them and if they were still available.
Well anyway, moving on, we went to Spencers later in the day and there, right in front were similar sneakers, that too in blue colour and
on a 70% discount!!!

In the second wish, I had been after John Wick - Chapter 3 since it was released a month back. I missed its release by a day in Lucknow, the timing was not right in Delhi and didn't realize it was playing in a multiplex next to my hotel. Looked it up as soon as we got back from Kashmir. There was just one show running and that too in Phoenix, which is a good 20kms from my place. Got on the app to book it and turned out to be House Full!!! Plus there was no show for the day after. Disheartened I put my mobile aside.
After my luck with sneakers I opened up the app once again and saw that there was a show today also in the same theater and booked my ticket in a jiffy. I got a discount of almost 30% on this too.

My third wish was something like a late release response. While going up the escalator to the theater in the mall I saw the Hanes shop whose tracks and boxers I usually buy. I thought if only there was a sale I would have definitely bought something. But it wasn't there.
On my way back after the movie I just gave a cursory glance towards the showroom and there they had put up a 20% discount sign board! Well needless to say I did from my shopping from there.

I realised the chain of events only while reminiscing about the day at night just before going to sleep. If only I would have known that 3 of my wishes would be coming true, things could have been so different today!

6 pieces of silver

This is a story from long, long ago.
Ok its not that long ago. Maybe over a month or max a couple of months old. But it played almost like a fairy tale, hence the opening line of this blog.
There I was on a pleasant morning walking along with Alex on our regular perambulation, when I came across something shiny in the huge sand heap alongside a house under construction. I poked with the stick I carry along to check the source of shininess and along slid out a round silvery thing as the one in the pic. Initially I thought it was a 1 rupee coin but on closer inspection it turned out to be a plain, round, silvery disk. Out of curiosity I poked the stick in the sand and a couple of disks fell out. Now I was mildly intrigued. I kept on poking the sand and more and more disks slid out. By the end I had around 8-9 at hand.
Once the discs stopped appearing I was lost as what to do with them. So as a prank I thought of spreading them at a distance from each other on the roadside and to check the next morning as how many people have been fooled into thinking that it was a Re.1 coin.
In the evening I was musing at how they must have come around at that one particular spot, there purpose and the odds of my finding them.
The next morning I was curious to check the result of my prank/psychological experiment. I walked towards the sand mount and just out of curiousity I poked my stick again into it, and out rolled out another disc! This was almost like magic cause this one wasn't even visible and it was just by chance I had poked there. Once more 5 more discs magically appeared out of the sand.
And this time I kept the 6 pieces of silver.

P.S.: the other pieces of silver spread out the day before had been taken by some hapless souls who I am sure would have cursed their luck, or me.

Return to PG days

I had the most amazing dream last night 😀
I had joined MDS again and that to in Oral Pathology 😁
We were 4 Pgs in the new batch and there were 2 girls and a guy other than me. They of course were much much younger.
Our head was a South Indian and he had called us to his place that evening and had told us to get a bag (something similar to a large grocery bag) along. Maybe he had some notes or books to give, I don't know and he didn't specify why.
Now the interesting part is that before I could go there, the head of NHSRC, Rajni Ma'am met me on the way and told me to come along with her 😳 Rajni Ma'am is kind of a Dean or the director of the place where I have joined to do my Pg in so I am not that worried about being late to my HoD. Plus I don't have the bag either as I was stopped on my way to the market by Ma'am.
She took me to a classroom kind of place where there were 2 lady teachers already sitting. We sat across the table and she said
that Anil should have gotten a better rank in the exams and tells them to review the papers once again. They go through each paper one by one and Ma'am keeps on pointing places where I should've gotten more marks. 😄
In-between somewhere she turns and pats me on the head also and says "Anil is a good boy" 😅 Something similar to the way you would say to a dog 😋

Sequelae of a dream

I dreamt almost the same dream on two different nights. This has never happened before and made me wonder. There was nothing much about the dream except for the fact that it was very realistic.
In the first one we had bought a house somewhere else in Lucknow. It was a busy street and somewhere in old city. I am not sure about the city, but it was somewhere in the north. There was an ECG or ultrasound clinic next to the house which I realised on the way out. The clinic opens up on the road.
This was two nights back. Today in the morning I dreamt about it again and this time I had a daughter and a son. I had gone to the house and we had yet to shift in. It was a single storeyed house with a driveway. I was talking to my daughter about the house and was asking her how many bathrooms there were, she said I think one and I thought we need to make another one before we shift.
The dreams were ordinary and pretty mundane but the continuity and the realistic part made me wonder.
Past life regression was one thing that came to my mind but this was pretty recent. Maybe somewhere in the late 90s or maybe present day. So that was out of the picture.
Parallel universe was the only possibility that comes to my mind.

The girl had no name

She had bright, big, shiny eyes.
Maybe 2-3 months old.
We used to meet almost every morning when Alex and I went for our walk.
She was a bit weary of Alex in the beginning but got over her fear with time.
With me she was always in a mood for a chat and I talked her up, teased her whenever we met.
Her coat was a mix of black and brown with a white patch here and there. She was small, with cute drooping ears. Must have had a daschund somewhere in her ancestors.
I had contemplated adopting her a couple of weeks back but with the upcoming summer break I postponed it.
Met her today morning around 6:30 and she was in good spirits and walked behind us for a bit. I came back on the reverse loop of the walk after hardly 10-15 mins and I saw what seemed like a bundle of cloth in the middle of the road where we had met.
She was no more.
It broke my heart. Such is life and such is fate.
She might not have a name, but she will never be forgotten.

Path of the Grimreaper

 "The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living."

Last night while dropping Indira mausi to her home, she was reminiscing about her youngest sister who died of breast cancer in her early 20s. This was around 5 decades ago. Vijay mausa was posted in Jammu then. She said that she never dreams, but the night Tunnu mausi passed away she got up with a start when she saw a sheet covered body lying on the floor in her dream. The next morning mausi got a call from Lucknow about the death of her sister the previous night. Till the time she hadn't seen Tunnu mausi in her dream she wasn't even aware that in Hindus they keep the dead on the floor, she said. My aunt had been sent back from Bombay to Lucknow after the doctors realised that the cancer had spread. Every 15 days she used to get medicines for her cancer from Tata Memorial Hospital. The time when she passed away the postal department had gone on strike and the medicines weren't delivered. There used to be no courier service in those days and Tunnu mausi passed away in KGMC as her medicine couldn't reach on time.
This news of yesteryears affected me  and made me think about all the other dramatic deaths and life events I had heard about from the maternal side of my family.
My maternal grandfather had a son from his first wife. She died during childbirth while delivering her second kid. A daughter. Her husband, my grandfather went into such a shock from her untimely death that he went straight to the cremation ground from the hospital, did her final rituals there and left the place. He never went back for the baby. All this he had told to my brother and I came to know this way after his death. He had always been a very upright officer and a gentleman, a self made man, an exemplary engineer,  a disciplinarian father (he had 3 sons and 4 daughters). The fact that I have an aunt, maybe first cousins, nieces and nephews around me who I have no clue of, haunts me to this day.
In my grandfathers defense all I could say is that death affects one in different ways. He had a rough, traumatic childhood and a close encounter with death. Once when he was very young he got high fever. It got worse over days and eventually he lost conscious. He had no clue for how long he had passed out. When he finally regained consciousness he realised that except for his father his whole family had been wiped away by the small pox epidemic. His mother, siblings, everyone. Everyone. One moment you have your whole family around you, you pass out, the next moment when you regain your senses,  they have gone forever. No final goodbyes, no closures.
The things we read about in textbooks of medicine and pathology, the images we see in movies of epidemics and disasters, the pathos which are described, he had been through them, and survived.
I had a bad night and woke up with a slight headache today. I even woke up at night, sat upright on my bed and was calling someone before going back to sleep. The dreams were emotive and impressionable, and there were two people in it, though I cant remember them in detail. If I am able to recollect I will describe them here.

B/721

Last night I was in the house of my birth. My maternal grandparents home in Lucknow.

It has been sold and demolished now and a new house had come in its place which also has been demolished. Something new might be coming up there.

In my dream the original house had been reconstructed in just as it was all those years back. My grandparents were not there but the house more or less stood as it had then. The walls now were cream instead of white. The few changes that I noticed were that there was a wall between the drawing  and dining room now with a door leading to it, the window facing the school in the last bedroom was not there and there was a passage from the gallery to my Nani's prayer room next to the front bedroom. There was a lush green grass on the front and the side of the house.

Some doctor was planning to buy it for 21 or 22 crores and turn it into a nursing home in my dream and I was wondering if I could occupy it and prevent the sale. Kirti was there and she was discussing what the size of the plot would be and how much it must cost. So in a way the dream was pretty much entrenched to my present life though with a bit of a twist.

This dream obviously wasn’t something related to my past life as I was still me as I am today but maybe it could have been something from a parallel universe where things were a bit different but still the same in the broader sense.

Khushila

I met a young girl, standing at the McDs takeaway selling bubble maker.
Started chatting with her after buying a bubble maker while waiting for our order.
She must have been around 6-7 years old but was not sure and said that she was 4. Very sharp and lively with bright eyes and beautiful teeth. I asked her about studies (she didn't), timings (9 to 1), family (her mom and sister also did the same thing and father was a bus driver, or so she said), residence (near Amity university) and how much she earns in a day (she had 5 bubble makers and had sold 2, in which she reminded that one was bought by me!).
What charmed me was not the conversation, which the way I have put it, sounds pretty mundane, but her spunk and joie-de-vivre were a sight to behold! I even went to the extent of asking Jai, my son, if we could adopt her :)
I regretted not ordering anything for her from the counter so gave her our pack of French fries when they were delivered at the take out.
She looked at them with suspicion and asked what is it? I said potato sabzi. She took a bite and totally approved of it. As we moved away I could see her running with the packet to the pavement outside the mall where her sister and mom were sitting. Mom was breast feeding a baby.
I was so touched by her gesture. She could have had the fries on her own without anyone knowing, she had been standing in the sun since morning and must have been hungry, but the minute she got something to share she ran towards her family.
Someone had very wisely named her Khushila - "the one who brings joy!"

Perfect journey

The perfect journey jumped out of story books and became a real thing on 25th of February of the year Two thousand and nineteen, in other words this Monday.
The cab was available at 4:45 a.m.
The driver was just adjacent and knew exactly where to come.
He got there at the boarding point before I could get there.
He didn't speak a word.
We got to the terminal well in time.
I got the shortest line entering the T1 airport terminal at Delhi.
The luggage drop queue was short and fast
I had my boarding card and the luggage checked in within blink of an eye.
Got the shortest queue of a couple of people, while the other queue appeared a mile long at the security check.
Just breezed in for frisking
For once my baggage wasn't opened up and enquired about at the x-ray.
Got a surprise 25% discount for the take away at Starbucks!
Boarding had started by the time I reached down.
Was the last passenger on the bus to.the aircraft and it moved just as I got in.
Was the first to board the craft from the rear gate.
Had a nice nap on the flight.
Was the last to get on the bus to the terminal at Lucknow and it moved as I got in.
My luggage slid in on the conveyor belt as I entered the terminal.
Jazzed up to my parked car.
Negotiated and got a discount on my parking fee
Sped home unhindered.
Took Alex for a short walk
Got to college well in time.

It can't get more perfect than this!

P.S.: came across a brand new white SUV with Neem Karoli Baba sticker on the windscreen while on my walk with Alex. That guy is famous for such small miracles kind of stuff. So I wondered.....

Bad egg day

The title may sound similar to good hair day but the similarity ends there.
Eggs constitute a major part of my breakfast and they invariably a part in some form. 
I follow the same routine to make them but the results can vary according to conditions still unknown to me. Some days they turn out picture perfect and then there are days like today.
I made 3 today. All the 3 different and all the 3 screwed up.
First one was for Alex which was both over and under cooked at the same time. Then it was for Jai which stuck to the pan despite my taking all precautions. The omelette was supposed to be fluffy but it ended up being a crossover between an omelette and a scrambled.
I was last on the list and I fell back upon my "could-not-go-wrong" recipe of single half fry. It bombed.
The egg stuck to the pan, the yolk was running all over the plate - different egg, different style, different pan. 
Same result. 
It was just not my day.

3 things

3 things defined yesterday i.e. 19th of February 2019, a Tuesday. Raman's B'day.

All the three traveling from the past to the present.
First was the thing about the fish. I was gifted an aquarium around 7-8
years back by Bro Joshi. It was a rather small one but as I was new to
hobby it sufficed. I experimented with a lot of fish, starting from the
ubiquitous gold fish and finally ended with tinfoil which are a very
hardy.and dependable variety of carp. I have had carp now for over 6 years
now.
Yesterday the last of my first lot of tinfoil was all groggy and *grey*. It was
swimming upside down in the morning and scaring the hell out of other fish
plus looking super creepy. I tried to revive it by putting the
antimicrobial medicine in the tank in the morning and left things to fate.

Second was the thing about the car. I took the old nano after quite a while
to college. There was a slight drizzle just before college and as always I
was just running on time. I was a bit fast when I approached the cut for
the side lane which leads to college. Must have been at 80km/hour or so. I
made a slight cut to the left to enter the service lane while hitting the
brakes. Due to the wet road and loose gravel the car started skidding to
the right. Something like you would see in Tokyo Drift. The thought that
came to mind was that the front right tyre is about to hit the sidewalk. As
I am sliding and just inches away from hitting, I disengage the brake and
hit the accelerator. The car whizzes past the sidewalk by a whisker!
More then anything I was amazed with all the thoughts that went through my
head and how composed I was throughout. Very zen like. Though the whole
episode would have been over in a few seconds at the most. Reminded me of a
time 12 years back when I almost died while speeding on Mahesh's Maruti car
while on my way to a party in front of MB Club. Though that night I was
drunk and the car skid a full 180 degrees!

Third was the thing about the moon last night. I was riding my bike on the
way to CA and I was stuck by the enormity of the moon from the CMS flyover. I
was literally forced to stop the bike and click pics by my lunar obsession.
Later on I came to know that it was something called as the Super Snow moon
and would be the biggest full moon of 2019!
Ever since I was a kid I had a thing for the moon. I used to imagine that
it was following us during night travels by car. We used to lie down on the
cot on the roof and stare at the moon. Those days there used to be
minimal street light and traffic so the moon was all the more brighter.

On the whole it was a bit of a Murakami-ish day with slightly strange
events and an overcast moon. The perfect setting for a good short story of magical realism.

P.S.: In the end it was not to be. The tinfoil had grown to a respectable
size of around 6 inches and its time had come.

Winter Rains

The sky smoke grey
The leaves sad and stale
The air putrid with a tinge of smog
The thin veneer of dust everywhere

And then it happens...
The light drizzle
The night drizzle
The much awaited rain

And the world changes...
The morning so fresh
The roads so wet
The trees so bright
The Earth smiles yet again!

Cycling Sensibilities - 2

This was in August last year, so just a re-cap of something which fascinates me
I finally heard the cry.
The cry of a peacock early in the morning. Last year when I had started cycling there used to be this peacock who used to sit on the roof of one particular house and cry out in the mornings every day. It used to elate me a lot. This year I had been hunting for peacocks without any luck.
The other day I could hear a couple of them near Malhour railway station but couldn't see them as there was a thick overgrowth all around.
Today while cycling I could hear the cry and went back in search of it. It was sitting on the edge of the roof of one of the houses with its long tail hanging down like Rapunzel's tresses and in its full splendor.
I do have a thing for peacocks. 

They have been a part of some of my memorable moments of the past. The pet peacock of my cousin in the mountains, he was a forest officer so could wiggle around rules. The peacock would go out during day and come back home at night. The endless mating dance off between two peacocks at 

Dudhwa wildlife reserve. It just kept on going on and the peacocks kept on dancing with their plume in full display in circles. The muster of peacocks roaming the lawns of the royal resort at Jodhpur.
Surprisingly I have a thing for both snakes and peacocks. And they are mortal enemies!
In a fight between a peacock and snake I think I will side with the bird cause no matter how much I deny it, the Hindu in me would kick in and make me side with a peacock.
Later on in the ride I saw a falcon too, and it was the largest falcon I've ever seen. Could have easily fetched over a lakh in the middle East. It was a beauty, that one.
Nothing perks you up more, than a single dose of peacock cry before breakfast.
It's almost therapeutic!

Cycling Sensibilities - 1

This was an incident which happened in July last year, but it left an impact on me (plus was a learning experience of sorts) and hence is worth repeating here.
Today in the morning while on my cycle run, I came across a lovely sight. I had just gone ahead of Malhour station on a cemented village road running parallel to the train tracks, the sky was overcast with a fine misty rain falling. From a distance I could see two girls on their way to the school on a small bicycle, and along side was a big dog keeping pace with them. It was a white dog with light brown patches, almost as tall as Alex and just trotting along with the girls. My heart swelled with emotions and it reminded me of Hachi as well Aslan, the lion in Narnia. A dog protecting his "family" and escorting them all the way to school. So I passed them and proceeded ahead. After a short distance the road came to an abrupt end and there was a muddy, wet dirt path ahead. I turned back to go to Malhour station. The trio of girls and the dog were still on the way at a distance ahead of me. A pair of street dogs came to fight with our hero but he continued to trot with the girls and after he gave them a growl they changed their minds. But he did stop for a moment for the mandatory butt sniff inspection by the pair of dogs.
By this time I had caught up with the girls. They were in white shirt, maroon skirt and the signature two oiled pony tails tied with red ribbons. The elder one would have been 10-11 years old and the pillion a couple of years younger. So I smiled and asked the girls while riding alongside them "kya woh tumhara kutta hai?" and the elder one whispers "Nahi". And at this moment the younger one turns around to check on our dog and says in panic "Didi, jaldi chalao, woh aaraha hai!"
I realised that if I hadn't spoken to these girls I would have gone back with that image out of an Enid Blyton's novel of a pair of young girls riding on a bicycle with their faithful dog, and here they were so scared of him. He was a good dog though and meant them no harm.
After I pedaled away from them another thought that came to my mind was that such a scenario in any other place could also have resulted in my being lynched by a mob of unknown faces. Here was I in an alien garb of helmet, specs and shorts, riding a cycle in the middle of nowhere, accosting two young girls, first crossing them and then coming back and talking to them. We do live in dangerous times.
I had a realisation that we hear these news of people being killed or being grievously injured as suspected child lifters, but we never hear of the people who were thrashed and let go by the same mob on different occasions. It's only when someone finally dies that it becomes news. No one knows how many poor unsuspecting victims would have been physically and mentally brutalised, how many maimed or left with deep scars. That part never comes in the statistics.

Shaheed Express

I am in some kind of dream bonanza nowadays.
Yesterday it was Everest, today it was a train journey up North.
I am traveling by Shaheed express to somewhere in Punjab. Quite a lot of college staff is there along and maybe it is some kind of conference. I see the Principal of the college on an upper berth and Oral Medicine head in the same booth. We all are traveling by normal 3 tier coach with open windows and grill. I wake up in the morning and the view outside the window is amazing with a red horizon, the sun about to rise, lush green fields and sparkling water bodies zipping past.
I get off at Amritsar and go for a stroll along the platform as it being a major station I expect the train to stay for awhile. I step out of the station and go up to a point from where I get a good view of the rural countryside. I slowly walk back to the train. The train has left!
I look around for it frantically and then I see the station board and realise its Amritsar Cantonment railway station and not the main one. I am not carrying any money and am still in my night suite and wearing slippers.
Looking at my  panic and puzzlement a few bystanders ask me what's wrong. They guide me to a guy on a 100cc bike who they say will help me catch the train at the next station. I get on the bike and we go train chasing. The guy is dusky, lean and tall, with long unruly hair, wearing dark shades and a brown jacket and jeans. He doesn't speak a word to me. While I am riding pillion with him I wonder who he is, why I got on the bike without even speaking to him or taking his introduction and what if he kidnaps me.
We reach near the station and he gets a call on his cell. He stops the bike to answer the call in chaste Punjabi and as he is talking on the cell I proceed towards the platform without thanking or even talking to him.
This is Calcutta now, and its a huge station with lots of people and tongas everywhere. The way to the platform is confusing as there are two paths. One going up a slope and one going straight into the station. I go straight for a while before I see trains standing on the upper level. There is no way to climb up due to the space being occupied by tongas parked on the side.
I somehow manage to go back and hurry up to the upper level. As I enter platform 1 I see the last carriage of my train move away.
So I missed two trains on a single night!
After this the dream becomes hazy and I get the impression that I stay back in Calcutta and start a new life. But I am not sure whether that is something I think about doing or actually end up doing. 
Few take home messages from this dream were my desire to go home, to travel and my innate belief in the goodness of common folk up north.

Everest!

Last night I climbed up to Everest!
It was literally at night when I finally managed to scale it. But I am getting ahead of myself.
The dream starts midway while the four of us (Radhika, 2 middle aged, white, blonde women and myself) are midway through the trek.
Though its supposed to be Nepal the scenery is pretty much like Kashmir. I guess my sub-concious being not very familiar with the topography around Everest went into default mode and switched it with the one it was familiar with.
We stay a night at Sonamarg and there is an instance when the sun rays of the setting sun can be seen all golden through the snow laden branches of coniferous trees. I am trying to click its photo through my cell but am not getting a good angle. So the golden meadows thing kind of comes true.
One of the American girls (the shorter and plumper one) gets all dizzy and sick so we plan to take a detour through Pahalgam and plan to get her checked there.
Due to the inadvertent delay at Pahalgam hospital, where she is admitted for hypoxia, we get delayed for our trek up to the Everest. We move on up through the night at a slow pace, trudging up the slope with our heavy backpacks, shoes with spikes and a skiing stick in hand.
Thanks to the commercialisation the trek almost to the top has been made into a kind of a pathway by Nepal govt so its not such a big deal. The pathway is paved and there is a rope to hold on to on the side throughout the way.
We finally reach close to the summit at around 2am! Its dark all around. The last few meters to the top of the peak are steep, rocky and can only take up one person at a time. I climb up on all fours, panting my way to the top.
I reach the top of the world!
There is darkness below but up above maybe due to the height there is a kind of a glow all around the horizon. I imagine that its because dawn would come here first. The other mountain peaks can be seen below. I just get a few moments to savor the sites. There is another guy who I know from somewhere trying to climb up. He is in a yellow jacket. I pull him up and as he stands upright on the top, I start my descent. In the rush to help him up I forget to click a pic.
Finally on the way back we pass through valleys where we can the places where avalanches would have come by the absence of trees. I wonder aloud that how come there were trees near Everest when they say that the treeline can't go above a certain height. The conifer trees near Everest were young, with stunted growth and hardly a few feet in height. They resembled more of a bush, than a tree.
We pass through a place where there is this huge snow bank on our right extending for miles. Its literally sparkling under a deep blue sky in the bright sunlight. The branches of coniferous trees in the forest that we pass through have been chopped off at lower heights which make me think that the Nepali villagers in the neighborhood would be still using fire wood for their cooking needs. Unlike in India where most of them have shifted to cooking gas even in the mountains
We realise that the American (the taller, slimmer, fitter one)  and I are both in bright orange overalls from head to toe and laugh about it. I also crack a joke about how Orange looks good on me!
We finally reach a place where cell signals are present and I call up home to tell them that I am safe and we are on our way back. The American we had left behind at Pahalgam has recovered fully and we pick her up on our way back.