The Stairway To Heaven

Later that night, the electricity in Joshimath decided to attempt doing something for once, and I noticed that our creepy old friend was nowhere to be seen, so I sallied forth from the protective cocoon of our hotel in a vain attempt to use the internet. It was then that I met Santoosh.

Santoosh (not his real name) is a respected figure in the Garwhal tourism industry, presumably because people appreciate his services but don't spend too much time hanging out with him. In any case, I happened into his "adventure shop", and at that moment everything changed. Santoosh had all the answers, and critically, his own car. Consulting with Girlface Buddha, we made a plan that not only got us everywhere we planned, but on a number of side-adventures as well, all in time for a festival day on the other side of the mountains. Lifted from despair to exhilaration, Girlface and I made our previously-thwarted trip to the temple village of Badrinath the very next morning.

Badrinath is one of the four great "river source" temples of Garwhal, sitting near the source of the Alakananda. I would also like to point out that it is incredibly far from anything and should really be known for the dramatic shifts of its weather more than its hallowed ground. When we arrived, Nilkanth mountain, which stands well over 6000 meters and was right next to us, was entirely concealed in a big white soup which we soon learned to recognize as the ubiquitous Himalayan snowstorms. So, we went to the village of Mana, which is very famous for being small and quaint, and because of its fame is no longer very quaint. The village is full of fascinating Hindu trivia, such as the very cave where the legendary sage Vyasa supposedly wrote the Mahabharata under the tutelage of Lord Ganesh. There is also a natural bridge supposedly made by the hero Bhima, and a very obscure splotch of rock that the locals will excitedly tell you is a naturally-formed picture of a horse. Mana is also the location of the most remote branch of the State Bank of India, which proudly boasts of having 100% coverage of Indian territory. Given that there are actually hundreds of thousands of villages without banks in India, I would say that Mana is the lucky beneficiary of pilgrim-targeted propaganda.

Beyond Mana is a rather austere valley with a difficult crossing to Tibet guarded by the Indian military, who mostly just sit around and make sure you claim to be on your way to the Vasudhara waterfalls. Girlface and I were about half an hour into the hike when we noticed that there was a snowstorm on each of the mountainsides about a hundred and fifty yards on either side of us...and that the entire valley behind us (the only way back to civilization) was also completely encased in a howling cloud of snow. Ahead of us, the clouds were rolling forwards at a rather troubling pace. We were now in our own little bubble of snowlessness, and it was getting rather cold. Girlface buried herself in the comically outsized sweater she had bought upon entering the mountains and left nothing but her eyes and a tail of shimmering black hair poking out the top. She was evidently displeased.

Since going back would have been even worse we pushed on through our bubble to the waterfall, where the stream that becomes the Alakananda jumps through thin air from a high cliff on a mountain so pointy and inscrutable that the ancients determined that the waterfall is the very stairway to heaven. It was here that the five Pandava brothers, the heroes of the Mahabharata, made their stirring ascent to paradise in the final chapters of that gargantuan tome. Girlface and I stood there as the storms slowly started to drift away from us and clear a path back to the village. We heard voices.

"Hello! Hello! What is your good name? And where are you hailing from?" It was a typical conversation with curious Hindu fellow-tourists. The voices belonged to two young men from Delhi who were there to see the falls as well. They marveled at its incredible plummet just as we had done, and poked in exhilaration at the large pile of ice at its base. Snow and ice are very wondrous things to most Indian people, though this feeling is known to reverse itself very suddenly and usually in correlation with a drop in the ambient temperature. Girlface shuffled over to a spot vaguely around where the water should have been landing and, with the speed of a striking cobra, bared on of her shivering hands to hold a water bottle out to capture some sprinklings from the stairway to heaven. I don't know what she plans on doing with it, but I wouldn't be surprised if her parents gratefully let her spill it all over the house from one of their balconies. Personally, I would commission someone to build a little boat in it with little tanning benches on the deck for Indian mythological heroes.

Together the four of us stood gawking at the point where the waterfall seemed to dissolve into mist in midair and then reappear as the slow melting of the ice below. One of the boys broke the silence. "Do you have a Facebook address?"

At the ends of the fucking earth.

All four of us walked back together, the boys shaking quite violently because they were wearing nothing but jeans and striped Delhi-ite office shirts, and Girlface waddling like a penguin and occasionally making some kind of muffled remark through about four layers of accumulated woolen clothing. The storm above the village relented as we walked, and a proper conversation resumed, at first concerning the cuisine and ethnic makeup of America, and then concerning the mischievousness of Jews.

It was one of the boys who asked "What are these Jews? They are the Yahudis?"
"Please, tell us about the Yahudis" the other said.
"I was talking to one Muslim man from Mumbai. His name Mr Feroz Khan. He says the Yahudis are very bad."
"Yes, and they control everything."

"Nah, nah" I tried to explain "They aren't bad. It's just that Muslims don't like them because of Israel-Palestine."
"Mr Feroz Khan says that the Yahudis own so many of the American medias. Is this true?"
"Uh, well yes, actually Jewish businessmen founded many of the..."
"And also they control the whole world."
"Uh......no"
"And he say also that the Yahudis take Muslims from their homes and never let them return."
"Ummmm well actually...yeah that one's true."
"So the Yahudis really are a danger?"
"No...I mean...there's Israel-Palestine", I began, as I launched into what I believed to be a fabulous Hinglish exposition of Middle Eastern history. Finally I concluded "...basically, don't believe anything Muslims say about Yahudis."
"Hmmm, well I think much must be true..." the first boy managed before his friend cut him off " -Yes, but the Muslims are often the trouble in the close-to-earth matters anyways."

Girlface and I proceeded to the Badrinath temple in a wintry rain, our part in the quest for world peace most satisfactorily completed. I hadn't spoken to her in a while, having been quite engaged in my temporary mission for the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. Santoosh, who had rejoined us, displayed a rare moment of tact and left us alone on the bridge to discuss Girlface's apparent unhappiness. "What are you thinking about?" I asked. She pulled her outermost sweater down from her face and I knew everything was all right.

With more than a hint of sulking she said "Can the Yahudis please control the weather?"