Amarkantak Diaries - Post #1

October last year was 25 years since the most transformative trip of my life, a solo trek of nearly 200 km from Amarkantak to Mandla in East-Central India.

I made this journey of discovery partly because I love nature and missed being immersed in it.  Decades of city living had made me feel a disconnect with my childhood roots, with their deeply embedded memories of villages, rivers and forests.  Because, as a scientist, I was curious about the rich natural resources of the region and their possibilities.  I also travelled because I had read not only about the abject poverty in some parts of that region, but also about the unique existence that the tribals there led. Because narratives of miracles, paranormal phenomena and surrealistic experiences associated with the upper Narmada valley fascinated me. 

But perhaps most because a dear friend and I had talked of this trip twice – once when we read about Amarkantak in our school Hindi text book, and then the last time that we met in 1987 when we were both young and yearning for adventure.  Captain Arun Shankar Kurur, barely 26, died in an LTTE ambush on February 11, 1988 while serving in the Indian peacekeeping force in Sri Lanka. He was awarded the Sena Medal posthumously for his gallantry and devotion to duty.  I wanted to preserve his memory through the journey that we had planned together.

Several other events came together in the 1990s to set course for my trip.  Arun’s sister, Vinita, married and moved to Indore – the very town that Arun and I had planned to start from.  Another friend, Ashmaki, and her husband Fernando, both avid travellers, talked of their own plans to drive the route of the Narmada Parikrama, a traditional pilgrimage along the entire course of the river from source to sea and back supposedly dating back to the 5th century B.C.  Two books were published on the river and its milieu, A River Sutra by Gita Mehta and Sacred Virgin by Royina Grewal.  The stars were aligned, the time was ripe.  But this was an era of limited information, an internet in its infancy, no mobile connectivity or GPS.  

It took me two years to gather resources and draw up a plan.  I met and phoned dozens of people. Practiced using a compass and navigating by the stars; the skies in New Bombay back then had not yet lost sight of the brighter constellations due to light pollution.  Learned to read terrain maps.  Realized that the best time to travel would be probably around October when it was cool enough for the snakes to be mostly in hibernation and yet enough guavas and custard apples on the trees in the area.  I also learned a lot about survival techniques, since this was not just prime tiger territory, but home also to panthers, bears, bison, wolves, foxes, jackals, wild boar and the ubiquitous monkeys.

I also realized that if one had to follow the principles of the original Parikrama, I had to leave material resources behind and not really go as a camper.  Finally, I chose to equip myself with one plastic sheet to spread on the ground, a cotton sheet to cover myself at night, an air pillow, a traditional woven cotton “gamcha” that could be used both as a towel and a loincloth, a compass, a portable water filter, a Swiss Army knife and soap.  One change of clothes would have to suffice; I would wear them alternate days while the previous day’s wear would be washed, wrung out, and tied to my backpack to dry out as I walked.  

Arunima - my long-suffering spouse - thought I was crazy and that this was a mad fool scheme (her pet phrase).  Neither she nor the rest of my extended family and close friends thought I would actually carry out these plans.

Our daughter was four years old.  I had a satisfying corporate job.  Why would I consider taking the risk?

But I did.  Watch this space for a series of posts on my adventure.

#amarkantakdiaries #SoloAdventure #livinginnature #NarmadaParikrama #friendship

 © 2024 Anjan Ray