The road to heaven goes through hell - Chardham Yatra

The one other major “trip” that we took after the Japan trip was to do the Chardham yatra via Helicopter.

My father had requested that I go visit over and over again, in the days that he could still talk. So right after the one year annual ceremony, my mom suggested I go do this Yatra with San. Her reasoning was “I don’t know when you will come visit next. So go when you are here!”. We had spent the first week of the trip doing the ceremonies for 5 days, then immediately visited Gunaseelam (family deity) temple for a day. Then we were free to visit other temples. So right away we spent the next six days in the CharDham Yatra.

We had requested my FIL to do the booking as he is local and could directly talk to the. tour operators. He was already wary as there was a lot of fraudulent bookings for this yatra. He had transferred a little over 2k USD per person for this five day trip not to mention the travel from Chennai to Dehradun and Dehradhun to Mumbai.

We were committed. The decision was to have our in-laws join as well. We begged them to join. They had read the reviews and knew it was not going to be easy to do this at their age, but they agreed and we were glad they did. They might have regretted the decision. At least they didn’t show it. Something tells me that this will be the last trip we go with them which involves high altitude, extended walking, poor accommodations without proper restrooms. Now that I have gone through my first UTI and kidney infection, totally understand what I put my FIL through for those five days. Hopefully he forgives me in this lifetime.

A few things to note before I dive into writing details about this Yatra.

1. I was already in a bad mood. My fathers passing only hit me while we were busy cleaning up the apartment. Till then it was lurking in the background. Dropping off mom’s thirumangalyam at Gunaseelam temple was the last nail. So I was grumpy and mentally exhausted.

2. My wife and in-laws were fully aware of the situation. They were extremely supportive throughout this trip. Every now and then, they just let me be to stare at the snow covered mountains.

3. When people tell you that given we go by Helicopter from place to place and get to see the actual deities, as though it is a walk in the park, it is NOT! This is not for older people or people with health issues. If you get altitude sickness, think twice or thrice before you go.. Better, avoid it.

4. The Heli tours seat 6. If possible get a full group so your helicopter is in your control at least as far as the passenger manifest is concerned. This way there are no issues with late or missing passengers costing you a day on a hectic trip. Local travellers who can afford to take such risks don’t care about their co-passengers.

5. Do not Plan this for 5 days even though that is the travel plan. Have at least 3 extra days to save yourself a lot of mental agony. Helipads close due to bad visibility, bad weather, local fires etc. totally unpredictable weather in these parts of the himalayas. Once you are up there, a road trip return is also not possible as roads close due to landslides. There are also unpredictable delays due to politicians and other folks who block roads.

6. go on a dieting spree before this trip. The helicopters can only take so much weight. They assume 75kg per passenger and a 5kg bag per person. You will be weighed before every trip.

Having said all that, we did take all morning and afternoon to fly from Chennai to Dehradun via Lucknow. Once we reached Dehradun airport, we had a car waiting for us to take us to our hotel. It was a 90 minute drive through the mountains. On the way there were many roadside stalls for good and chai. We stopped to have noodles and Chai.

Every 500m there is a “pahaho-wali maggi” store. Never diss Maggi noodles. It is the food of sherpas! San let me have all the Maggi I wanted on this trip. That is one thing that put a smile on my face!

We were met by the tour coordinator who gave us a bag and said anything we need for the next 4 days goes in that bag and cannot exceed 5kgs. Also he asked for our weight including what we were going to wear (jackets etc). He asked us to leave our luggage in the hotel cloak room and leave only with the 5kg bag the next morning. So we packed emergency medicines, chargers, minimal clothes and before you knew it was done! I kept 1 kg as reserve in my bag in case we bought some souveniers. It was a good move.

We had a nice dinner and breakfast at the hotel in Dehradun and were picked up by the tour company. It was a short drive to the Sahasradhara helipad in Dehradun. We got boarding passes after being weighed in. After a short wait, we flew to Yamunothri. It was a 40 minute ride and was pleasant. This is my first helicopter ride if memory serves me right. So it was better than my expectations.

Once at Yamunothri, they see your badges and folks come take you to the hotel. It was a simple room. We were asked to rest. There were enough rooms for the group and a separate shed for having food. The village was very peaceful with a few hotels and a small temple. The views were amazing! There were 15 people in our group. 60 guys were going to come and carry us 4 /person in a Doli (it is a bucket seat that is held up by two wooden sticks on either side) up 7+ kilometers with an elevation gain of 3000 feet.

We waited patiently for 3 hours! Apparently the election commisisoner had decided to do the Chardham coinciding with our schedule. That was not good news. They had blocked the path for an hour. So the morning group was stuck. Doli men could not reach. Finally they showed up and were ready to go on their second trip! These are all kids and young men 17-30 who came from Nepal during the visiting season to make money. Strawberry pickers from Mexico came to mind.

After just a few yards on the Doli, I was not for it. We hike a lot. So I got off the Doli and told the guys it was okay. They were getting paid anyways. So one of them can guide me and the other three can carry the doli and walk along. If I could not walk, then I agreed to get back. I hiked the entire way up. San also saw what I did and decided to walk it. My in-laws found it difficult to breathe and after a point their doli’s were all stopped thanks to the politician and everyone was asked to walk. They could not and made the wise decision to turn back to the hotel. San was stuck a good mile behind me. Lucikly the Doli guys had cell signal at places and they sent word. I waited and finally she joined me. They had parked the doli’s 4.5 km from the bottom. We both ran up the rest of the way through doli’s horses, people who would not move..

When I was almost a Km to the top, a horse hit my ankle with full force, removed my shoes and skin came off my ankle. Told the guys it was too late to turn back. Just put my socks back on and kept going. We reached the Yamunothri shrine at 7 PM. It was already getting dark. A priest met us, took us to a line and shoved us in there. His instructions “keep your hands up and go with the crowd. You will be in front in a few minutes. See the deity. THey will push you out. I will wait for you where they push you out”. It was like a birthing experience. At 7:08 we were ejected out. We had seen the shrine for maybe 25 seconds tops.

As part of my promise to my dad, I did no a prayer at this place. That took another 10 minutes with the priest. Then it was time to go down. We went down almost 4 km by walk. By then the doli guys joined us. It was getting crazy with Doli’s, horses and people pushing. So they told us walking was not good for us or them. Doli’s have right of way! so we both got on that and they literally ran down the last 3 km. WIth full bladders we had to endure a bumpy ride to the base. Then we had to walk back up to the hotel. That was a climb in itself. We were so happy to see the restroom. They still had dinner left for us. So we ate what we could. We were also glad to see my in-laws in good spirits. They were happy they decided to return back. In spite of leaving earlier, they were also caught in the politician traffic and had made it back only 90 minutes before we did.

Here are some picturess..

and a video..

We crashed right away. The next morning we were going to leave for the helipad bright and early.

The end of an era

Have not written anything in ages. We visited India to do the Varushabdhegam ceremony for my dad. A year has flown by since his passing and I had promised him over and over again that I will be there to do his rites. Planned this trip in Jan as soon as the calendar was available and dates were known.

This trip has been very challenging on every front. Physically exhausting as the best tickets were on Emirates in Jan and we had an unnecessary war to make flying through middle east miserable.

Mentally and emotionally I was oscillating between being numb to being in tears. My father saved everything. Every photo, inland letter from my college day, Aerograms from my grad school days, old photos, prizes I got, gifts, the first suitcase I took to IT-BHU, there was enough material in the attic to start a Sundar museum. Not to mention he had similar stuff for my brother and sister. Cleaning up everything and going through stuff was emotional.

Then there was a promise to go do a Pitr tharpanam in the himalayas (He did it in the late nineties) and I had no idea what to expect. Went and did it anyways. Two weeks of extreme stress, a few smiles from nostalgia here and there, some sighs of relief of things going as planned and a sense of completion and accomplishment that somehow we have done everything we possibly can for the dude to go into the afterlife.

If after all this his soul doesn’t rest in peace, when my time comes I will take a lot of people to task.

May take a lot of time to write about this trip in more detail. Given my emotional state, this will be a raw post. So after this will switch to another recent trip that never saw a mention.

Have spent three hours non stop looking at old photos and videos this evening. Had no idea 3 hours flew by. A rush of memories.. so randomly saved a few of the videos to my desktop and made the compilation at the end of this post..

My dad had a crappy childhood but he lucked out with my mom. So his life got better and better till Parkinson’s got him. I have inherited a lot of good things from him (hopefully not Parkinson’s). Going through the photos made me realize a lot of things all at once.

Still coming to terms with the fact that our vaadhyaar gave me a bunch of darbai and pavithrams and said “you are now set for a year of tharpanams”. My mom is living with my brother and finally she has seen the inside of a temple after a year of staying home. The familiar place where I would go see my dad or sing and have him nod his head or raise his eyebrows in silent appreciation is also moving on. I did get to sing a song for him one last time at the end of the ceremony. A vallalar song. He used to keep telling this story of how when I was almost 2 (before my brother was born) I would wear a towel around my head and hide behind a door. He would have to find me when coming back home from office and I would announce myself as “I am Ramalinga Adigal”. . . he would imitate me saying that as a baby. He never got tired of that story. So it was apt to sing it there.

My mom is a rock. She is probably dealing with this a lot better than any of us are. The good news is so is my wife. In some twist of fate, I have found an emotionally stoic woman like my mom who takes everything in her stride. Even for that I have to credit my dad.

I can ramble on for another four hours. So will stop here.. My mom told me not to junk anything in that house. So I took photos of 3700 photos and then cut them all up and tossed them. A bitter realization in the exercise is that once we are gone, the physical stuff we collect has to be a small curated shoe box. A few defining things. That is about it. I have 2000 books at home. Magnet boards with magnets from every place we visited, a ton of cassettes, CD’s DVD’s etc.. Not sure if anyone is ever going to look at anything.. so going to start a clean up exercise and change some habits going forward. It will be tough as it is not in my DNA. Time will tell..

My dad holding Jr. after her Mottai in 2003

A photo with my mom before we started doing the tharpanam two weeks ago..

As a child I have played cricket with this tree, climbed on the parapet walls here.. done paper kappals when the road would flood in rainy season.. it was bitter sweet walking with a lot of stuff my dad had saved, in that first suitcase he bought me for my undergrad in Varanasi.

This window view was all he had for most of the last 6 years of his life. The crows were his entertainment as he would watch the sunrise and sunset. Took this photo of a sunrise from that window..

This was the last photo I took of him when he came back from Apollo ICU in September 2024. He knew I would never see him again. Just a small wave of goodbye. He was cremated before I went and did the last rites. Living aboard has as many disadvantages as there are advantages.

We are moving on.. hopefully he is in a much better place now.

the video..

Adding this video of the Vallalar song here. Sang this a day after writing this post. Family who could not make it can listen to it. I was so emotional that afternoon that my attempt must have been a lot more flawed.

We did go do the Char dham and I did a Pitr Tarpanam in Gangothri on Ganga dushera for my dad and all ancestors. I am no Bhageeratha, but I am what my dad got. So he has to make do with my attempt.

It will be some time before I write about that. Mostly painful memories. My sincere request to folks is that this pilgrimage is not to be attempted unless you have 8 -9 days of travel time. Trying to do it in 5-6 days will be extremely painful. Also if you have any health issues or are traveling with older people, this trip is not for you!

Happy to be back home and hug the kids. Folks at work who are culturally insensitive kept asking me how my “vacation went’ inspite of me telling them this is more of an extended bereavement. Good thing I didn’t go postal.

Also don’t know why Baudhayana had to make every thing more complex for his followers. Some day if I get to meet him in spirit, my first question would be “why this kolaveri?”. The Apastambha guys seem to have it easy.

Happy to be writing in this space again.. hopefully will cheer up from tomorrow. I have a good feeling about tomorrow.

A fond farewell

This blog has not seen a post since May 26th. It has been a 100 days. I simply could not get back to writing.

My dad passed on 29th of May. After going to India and participating in his last rites, something has left me. Do not know what it is. That 10+ days of going through rituals has left some unexplainable void.

There are a lot of things to write about. Lots of songs to sing. Somehow could not get back to doing things I do normally with the same ease. The only saving grace was yoga. Somehow knew that going to a hot and humid room and spending 90 minutes without making any external sound, will help silence my inner voice and bring me much needed calm, and it did. Kept doing yoga as much as possible.

One of my Smule group friends threw a party to introduce his son and new daugher-in-law after the marriage. Many from the group had planned to sing at this meet and greet. Did not sign up, but once there, my friends pulled me in to sing and I did enjoy that moment. Somehow after coming home after the event, went back into a funk.

Work kept me very busy. A young co-worker ended up sick right after I came back and that left another lump in my throat. Kept all my focus on just work and yoga. The writing and singing, taking pictures and hiking went sideways.

Then came the long weekend and we went on a trip as a family. This might have been the one chance to go as a family given the kids are adults now and their schedules are no longer under our control. It was a good week spent but still took me some time, to just log back into the blog site.

This is my online farewell to my dad. I have to write about the man and his influence or the buffer block won’t clear in my head.

Here is to

Shri Hariharan Narayanan of Pudukkottai, Chennai

1939-2025

My dad lost his mom at a very young age and that pretty much left a scar that carried through his life. He got married late and had kids late. He was extremely intelligent and smart. Had a phenomenal memory and ability to connect dots. He was also an emotional idiot with a penchant to romanticize tragedy and nostalgia.

His only bad trait was a short temper, a blown fuse that took its toll on me as a kid. Still when there was a time when no one stood by me, he was there for me. He was always the contrast to everything I looked up to in my grandpa. My grandpa was the biggest influence in my life. I always credit him for my value system, but my dad was there to shape it without intending to. Years later when my dad spent almost 6 months with us, I actually realized there were a lot of things that were common between my grandpa and my dad.

Then there is my reflection in the mirror, the things I do, my fear of going through Parkinson’s… which constantly remind me of him.

There were times I had a love hate relationship with who I was, who I am, but somethings I have not given up, like wearing my poonal, no matter what.. because he wanted me to wear it till I die, so sandyavandanam, change it once a year, so one day perform his last rites, give my daughters hand in marriage (in his eyes it was part of a rite of passage). He being who he was from a different time, was still talking to me about his sadness at me not having a son when I was already 50 and old enough to start thinking of becoming a grandpa myself. Over the years it used to annoy me, but as I matured, learned to laugh it off. There was no changing either one of us on certain things.

He mellowed out as he aged. It was easier to interact with him as the years passed. Not sure how much of that is a reflection of either one of us becoming more accepting. Maybe both of us!

As I write this, I can feel him right here next to me, reading this over my shoulder and suggesting edits, telling me I could do better than this. Wanted to write a fond farewell, only to realize there is no saying bye to someone who is a part of me.

He is definitely wishing me well from wherever he is.

Time is supposed to move things along and even if you sense a tinge of sadness in my writing and singing and overall mood, this too shall pass. We are seeing a steady improvement in my social interactivity coefficient already in 3 months. Maybe in another three months, will be back to being my usual self.

Here is to …