Notes from Jajabara Trips I

We travel for the sake of travel ! - Earnesto Che Guevara in Motorcycle Diaries

Man - is someone else. Could be anyone really.
Traveler 1, 2, 3 are fellow travelers.

Man: Where are you?

Traveler 1: Mmm…actually I don’t know. I can’t explain but, it is not very far off. Two other travelers are with me. We have been here for two hours now.

(…It is always somewhere off that road we all know and follow. We took a detour and followed one of the many roads we liked. None of us knew where we are headed, no one bothered to ask the other, there was no worry of being lost or being late, no irritation not knowing where we are headed or missing on something, no plans were made, so none could be changed.

We reached a small pond at the end of a village, where are dimly lit temple, half-crescent of moon, and millions of lamps called stars waited for us. One look at each other and the decision was made. We slowly let go of the gas and shifted gears to maneuver the sand and stopped at the edge of the pond near a peepal tree. We knew that our evening belonged to this place.

We waited on our bikes for half an hour, for the last of the surprised villagers to finish their evening bath and return. The evening lamps of the temple were further dimmed after the sound of the conch shells and cymbals died down after the presiding deity village was put to rest.

The beauty of the evening was now in full bloom.

The stars smiled at each other and exchanged a few glances

“who are these men?” chuckled one as it asked this question


“shhh…they are looking at us” said the other.


“they could even be listening to us!”


“one of them is looking at the pond, searching for something”


“no…he is also looking at us! He understands that the reflection in the pond and us are the same. There is no difference, the image and the object are the same. He can appreciate our beauty even by looking at the reflection in the pond.”


“that can’t be true! The image in the pond is not steady. It shifts and moves with the waves. The image needs the object, but the object doesn’t need the image. Are you out of your mind?”


“ What is absolutely steady in this universe? Are not all things in this universe moving – all our sister stars of milky way, our enemy the SUN, the small planets, the smaller bodies and even the men and the other living things. Someone called Hiesenberg on this planet earth called this the uncertainity principle – position can not be determined without changing it. I don’t think this is how he stated it, but this is what he meant.


“Is there anything such as ABSOLUTE?”


“even I don’t know, no other star knows, we with millions of years of age, we who have seen many many ages and many many things being created and destroyed, do not know if there is something such as THE ABSOLUTE.”


“ why?”


“because we are NOT ABSOLUTE and only the absolute CAN know THE ABSOLUTE!”


Traveler 2: I see something moving. It’s moving at quite some speed. It is not a jet, not a shooting star either. It is still moving.

Traveler 3: Must be a jet.
Traveler 2: No, it has to be a star.
Traveller 3: Not possible, stars don’t move.
Traveller 2: What!
Traveller 3: They do. But, not at this speed…I mean, not this fast.
Traveller 1: I see it too.
Traveller 3: What! No!
Traveller 2&1: Yes.
Traveller 3: Where?
Traveller 2&1: We can’t show now, you will have to wait for your turn.


“I think, they saw us”

“Yes. You should not have made a dash towards me like that. You know, some things are not to be revealed to all men.”

“I became conscious, shy. Sorry!”

“Its okay. They are no ordinary men either. They are travelers - students of nature. Sooner or later they would have known that things have no fixed speed or movement. It all depends on what and how that wants to move. It is the will that matters. They know it in fact. Haven’t they progressed from walking on four feet to these ugly, noisy and mannerless Jets which are sometimes mistaken for us stars”

“Yeah. They should know, of all things and creatures that we have seen till now. I think they are the best”

“ They can be the best. I will tell you something I have suspect”

“what?”

“I think these men know what is the ABSOLUTE. I mean some of them do.”

“really? Why did you think so? Most of them just claim that they know some higher being, some supernatural power, some GOD. But, we all know most of them lie.”

“No. There have been men, salts of this earth, who have in their lifetimes experienced and realized what they can not explain through a thousand words or portray in a thousand pixels. They can not explain what they felt during those moments – not to eager ears of other men, blank pages or nature or us.”

“That explains few of things, that even we do not understand.”

“That is why I suspect that during those moments, Man realises the ABSOLUTE.”

“But, did you not just say that only the absolute can know the ABSOLUTE”

“yes, and that is my greatest apprehension and anxiety.”

T 3: You know my parents have done the Kailash mansarovar yatra thrice.
T 2: I know.
T1: Reallly?
T 3: And why I told you this now if that my mother and now even my father have seen a steady beam of light come down from Kailash mountain, decend over the Mansarovar lake and then go up again.
T 2: Seen?
T 1 (imitating T3): “Not possible, stars don’t move”
T 3: Guys! I would be the last man. But, I have seen the photo taken by one of tourists who accompanied my parents in one of the trips during Kailash Mansarovar yatra.
T 2 : Seen?
T 1(imitating T3): “Not possible, stars don’t move”
T 3: You guys can come home and see that picture. It actually looks like a human fugure with six hands and six heads.
T 2: Looks like?
T1 :Errr…Shouldn’t there be 12 hands?
T 2: Have you heard of term called ‘morphing’ and a product called Adobe Photoshop?
T 3 (resigned look on his face): Not once, or twice. Parents have SEEN it thrice. You need to get out of your base camp at 2am in the night and be on your guard till 3 am. It is vey cold out there and most people are exhausted by the height and climb at 13,000 ft. So, most of them miss it. They sleep. My parents and a few others who don’t have seen it for consecutive days on all three trips.
T 1: How old are your parents again?
T 3: Bou (mother) is 60 and Baba (father) is 70.
T 1: Kailash Mansarovar Yatra – thrice!

They all looked at different directions after that. T3 was thinking about the myth of the light and what lens and camera to use to capture the same, T 2 was trying to figure out something on his smartphone, T1 was thinking of the amazing trek at 13,000 ft and the amazing gifts of nature that would be on display at Kailash-Mansarovar.

No words were exchanged, no schedules were checked. No plans would be made. Travellers know by now, that you don’t plan to travel. You travel.

T 2: Lets head back. It getting really dark, mosquitoes have had a good meal and frogs have had company for long. Man is waiting for us to pick him up at the bus-stop.

We all got on our bikes and some noises were heard before the sound of the 2 stroke engine of T3 took over.

T 1: why do they call is bus-stop? Why not bus-go? I mean some buses go from that place as well. Actually the same number of buses go as they come. Why use a negative term such as stop?

T3: Maybe because buses are on the GO everywhere but stops are where they stop!

T2: cut it off guys!

T1&3: Okay.

T1, T2 & T3 - in no particular order - parth, narsingh and jitu