StairMasta Killa

I came to Jungadh to climb Mt. Girnar. At a hilltop fort on the edge of town I looked about me and wondered "Which of these peaks is Mt. Girnar?" Then I saw it. There was no question that the next day I would be ascending the massive, ludicrously steep extinct volcano I saw before me. Mt. Girnar is holy to the Hindus, but especially to the Jains, who believe that Neminath, the 22nd tirthankar, ascended to heaven from the mountaintop after 700 years of meditation. The summit is reached by climbing 10,000 steps. Ten. Thousand. Steps. As I surged upwards for unknown hours, time became nothing, even altitude held no meaning. There were only steps, and the more steps I climbed the further behind I left the rational world. This is the chronicle of the steps, unedited and unaltered.

Step 800. It's about 10am and I've been climbing the mountain for some time. I've just noticed that every so often the steps are numbered and have decided to keep a journal of my ascent. I can't believe I've only climbed 800. It feels like thousands, and there will be thousands more. There are people coming down the mountain. Old female Jain monks wrapped in white robes and carrying sticks, scrolls, and even dishes of holy water are descending with the greatest of ease. I see old Hindu people slowly hobbling down as well. How did they get up? I'm strained as it is. What's their secret?

Step 900. It is ridiculously hot. The temperature has surged over 90 degrees Fahrenheit and I'm already drenched with sweat. I'm still in the mere foothills of the real mountain, and it definitely gets steeper ahead. It's gonna be a long day.

Step 1100: I'm overtaken by a porter with two huge boxes of food and water tied to his head. He's delivering merchandise to one of the many much-needed rest-stalls on the ascent. The sun is rising mercilessly high in the sky. Men with cargo are moving faster than me. This is not good.

Step 1250: I have climbed 1250 stairs. There are...damn. I am 12.5% of the way to the top. This is obscene.

Step 1700: It took 9 years to build this staircase. If I may suggest something...if it takes 9 YEARS to build the stairs, at the start of the 20th century no less, perhaps the builders would have saved themselves and everyone else a lot of trouble and built a damn cable car instead. Even religious pilgrims would not complain about being carried up this beast.

Step 1900: 1,900/10,000 ffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkk

Step 2300: Less writing, more climbing. I'm now high on the mountain. The stairs are cut into the side of a sheer cliff face and are becoming relentlessly steep. It's high enough that minor Hindu shrines have started appearing. Many of the Hindus are quitting here. There are two porters ahead, sharing a load suspended from beneath a large pole they carry on their shoulders. They grunt and sweat, and as go around a hairpin corner ahead I see their cargo: a fat, huffy Hindu woman sitting cross-legged in a hanging litter. GOD DAMN IT. THAT'S HOW THEY GET UP. They actually do just get carried up. There is no difficulty that Indian people can't overcome by hiring a poorer Indian to overcome it for them.

Step 2550: I hear screeching whistles. Two police officers with feathered hats, flawlessly ironed blue shirts, and wood-handled rifles are flying down the stairs, shooing everybody in their path. Behind them follows an entourage: four men bearing a litter with a very distinguished old Jain monk are skipping down the stairs at a terrifying pace.

Step 2750: I stop to read an inscription by a Hindu shrine. It marks the spot where a son is commemorating his father, a Maharaja's, ascent to heaven "joining with God." I wonder which Maharaja it was. It doesn't say. But there is more writing. The "Maharaja" died in... 2001. I hate maharajas.

Step 3150: A rest-stall ahead. I hear music. It can't be. I wanna make love right now na na. It is. AKON, YOU BASTARD. WHY MUST YOU HAUNT ME IN ALL MY TIMES OF STRUGGLE? INDIAN PEOPLE, YOU BASTARDS, WHY MUST YOU LISTEN TO AKON?

Step 3250: Music again. It's not Akon. It's....Aaliyah? I recall that Aaliyah died young after plummeting from a great height. I try not to read it is an omen.

Step 3450: I do not smell good.

Step 3900: I walk through a stone gateway and I am in the Jain temple city. How? There should be thousands more stairs. I ask a pilgrim how many stairs there are. He says 10,000. But we're only about 4000 up? Oh, you see, there is a miscount! They didn't number the first 3,000 stairs.

That explains a lot.

The temples were as usual fascinating. They cascaded down the edge of the small plateau they were set on, creating a multi-layered mosaic of spires and domes seen from above. Within the temple precinct hundreds of shrines to marble tirthankaras are serenely attended to by white-masked Jain monks. Paste is rubbed on the statues' feet, and grains of rice are laid out in swastikas in front of carved marble mandalas. From the center of the main temple and eery chant is heard. I creep to the antechamber and look within. A hundred pilgrims are crammed into the dark sanctuary where Jain priests and monks are attending to a pitch-black marble statue of Neminath with a golden crown. They wash and polish pieces of gilded armor which they place on the idol's shoulders and the pilgrims prostrate themselves in adulation. There are dozens of temples more. A walk into a tiny temple to find it completely occupied by a 16-foot marble statue of Shantinath. In another I lose myself in a labyrinth of narrow hallways before emerging near the central shrine where an image of Mahavira sits above a mound of flower petals.

I resume climbing.

Step 40007000. In front of me a pigeon is laboriously climbing the mountain one step at a time. How stupid can a bird be? YOU HAVE WINGS, ASSHOLE.

Step 40507050. There's another Jain temple a little above the temple city. I peek around and take some pictures of the temples below as I was forbidden to photograph their interiors. A pilgrim invites me inside the sanctuary. I am made to pray before the image of Adinath and my forehead is marked with tikka paste. It's a Digambara Jain shrine. This is the hardcore branch of Jainism. Their monks don't wear white robes and masks, in fact they don't wear anything. You can instantly tell you're in a Digambara temple by the numerous photographs of completely naked gurus lying around. This is probably why Svetambara Jains refuse to share temples with them.

Step 7150: 7150...the shit I make myself do...

Step 7350: I have reached a summit. There is a Hindu temple up here, and I see a narrow ridge with more peaks beyond. I walk behind the temple. There is a large concrete platform. I go to the edge, assuming it is there to offer a special vista. It is spectacular but the platform seems unnecessarily large. I notice a ring of faded yellow paint, and in the center....an H. It's a helipad. FUCK.

Step 7500: I have descended some steps and walked across level ground on a stone causeway and then walked up some more steps. There is a small Shiva shrine on this second peak. An orange-robed saddhu speaks to me, smiles, and insists I sit next to him. We make some conversation in poor English and he motions me to get up. He applies more tikka paste to my head and yammers a Hindi recitation of some sort, then points me to a tiny hole in the rocks coated in orange paint and tells me to crawl through, as it is sacred to Shiva. I get on hands on knees. The tunnel can't be more than 18 inches tall. I worm my way through the dust until I emerge from the tunnel and find myself...on the other side of the rock. I stand, look around for a bit, and casually walk around to the front of the rock, where the saddhu is encouraging others to do the same thing. I laugh it off and tell the saddhu I will see him later when I come back down the mountain.

Step 7850?: I don't know how many steps there are. Even the monks haven't bothered to label them this far. All I know is that there are a lot.

Step 7900?: The next peak is an impossibly steep upthrust of rock with a single shack-like temple upon its pinnacle. It's almost vertical with no stairs to be seen. I don't know how they built it. There are no steps up and carrying building materials must have been incredibly difficult. Oh well, at least there's no stairs so I can't be expected to climb it.

Step 8250?: WRONG. There are stairs on the far side of the volcanic tower. The ascent is so steep that the builders couldn't build stairs on the mountain itself, but were forced to build artificial bulwarks zig-zaging into the heavens alongside the cliff face to reach the top. Ugh. Why do I have to hate quitting so much? Up I go.

Step X: Counting stairs is futile. It's probably been about 9000. I'm at the very top of the third peak. A saddhu is controlling proceedings in the small temple, and being a bit of an imperious ass to the pilgrims, instructing them impatiently in the rituals they must perform. He takes one look at me, sees I am clearly not here for that blessing, smiles and covers my entire forehead with tikka then gives me a tiny piece of coconut. I walk around the three-headed idol, take one last look at the wilderness below us, and steel myself for the descent to the ridge and arduous ascent back to the second peak.

Step X: Some pilgrims take me under their wing and lead me to a remote temple compound down a spur of the stairs on the mountainside. There is a pilgrim shelter and I receive a blessed meal of lentils and rice. They ask no money for the food, but I discreetly slip some small banknotes into the offering tray by the shrine.

Step X: I'm back at the second peak. The crazy saddhu is still there. I say hello.

"Aaaahhhh hello, you name Brazil!"
"Uh no, my name is [GFB's 'Indian name']"
"Braziiiiil!"

He motions for me to sit and talk. I sit. He assumes the lotus position and begins humming. Every so often he asks me a question or dispenses some garbled explanation of his meditations. Often when he would ask me a question I would begin to answer and he would cut me off by saying "Silence! Oooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" and resuming his humming. He asks me another question. I begin to answer, and he squawks "Silence!" then walks away giggling behind a rock. A hear him quietly saying "Silence! Attention! hee hee" and then giggling to himself some more. I decide it will be well worth it to ride this out and see what happens.

He invites me into his house for tea. Opposite the shrine he has a single-room plaster dwelling with a bed and a gas stove. He begins boiling water. I ask him if it is OK for me to take photographs in his house. He replies "Not my babu problem, yours." I tried to unravel his answer. Was he saying that he had no problem with it but that I would? Was I the one likely to suffer some mysterious consequence. I look behind me and above the bed is a poster of Kali, the black-skinned Mistress of Chaos with a necklace of human skulls. I choose not to photograph that side of the house.

He hands me a metal cup of tea but it is too hot to handle and I fumble with it clumsily. He takes my cup and pours the tea into a saucer. "Indian satellite" he says. What? He points to the roof. "TV TV, satellite. Tea dish Indian satellite." Finally I understand he is calling the tea dish an Indian satellite and begin to joke with him when he raises his hand to cut me off..."Ooom Ommmmmm Oooommmmm Namaaaste Ooom Namaste *BBBBUUUUURRRPPPP* God, God, God."

It is becoming problematically late in the afternoon. If I don't leave soon the sun will set while I try and make it down some 7,000 unlit stairs, but I just can't tear myself away.

There is a loud metal rattling. A mouse is climbing around the crockery rack. It runs down a ladel, hangs upside down, and begins swinging from spoon to spoon.

"This good?" The saddhu asks giddily.
"Is it good?" I reply cautiously.
He points to the acrobatic mouse, "This good. This commando!"
He smiles broadly. I smile. Silence.
"hee hee hee"

"OOoooooommmmmMMmmmmmmmm"

"India man very lucky!"
"Lucky?" I ask. If there was one thing India did not seem to possess it was good luck. He then proceeded the explain the joys of asceticism, and how the Indian man could have no worries in the world by renouncing possessions and living simply. I had been waiting for this cue, as I do every time I meet an ascetic.

"In my country we have a saying about money, that it's not good." I told him.
"Yes?" he asked, grinning.
"Mo' money, mo' problems." I said as though I were reciting an ancient scroll.
"More money more problems, yes!" he replied.

"hee hee"

"Oooooooommmmmmmmmmm"

"hee hee hee"

"More money more problems. hee OOOMmmmmmmmm"

"Silence!"

I had been in his hut for almost two hours and the sun now seemed to be mere inches from falling behind the opposite hillside. I excused myself and set one foot out the door.

"Ba ba ba ba ba"

I turned and looked.

"Ok bye bye Brazil."
"My name's....never mind."
"Brraaaaaaaaaazzzziillllllllll."

Step X: I'm at the bottom and I don't know what the fuck happened to me today.