We woke up early the next morning, washing away the dust and sand of Magnetic Hill in chilly, shivering showers. We had decided to give the bikes a much need rest-day, and had booked a taxi to take us to Pangong-Tso and back. Pangong-Tso, meaning Pangong ‘lake’, is a 134 kilometer long body of blue, blue water. India shares almost half of it with Tibet, but I doubt if the lake knows. Tucked away beyond Chang La, a mountain pass seventeen-and-a-half thousand feet above the sea, the lake is surrounded by a series of blue-hued mountains, and I don’t know if the lake steals its color from the mountains or the sky, but throughout the day, it changes into different shades of blue, from cobalt to chalk to turquoise to azure.
The way to Pangong-Tso is mountainous and desert-like, with thin, soft, white sand flying in the wind. On the climb to Chang-La I could see a river running far beneath, dragging with it bursts of lush greenery right across the glowering sand. Whenever we leveled with the earth, we saw endless plains of dull-green grass running into the horizon, or into more mountains. On just such a plain we saw hordes of wild horses running wild and spirited, the wind catching in their manes. To the eye, there is here a hint of the steppes – the endless expanse, the horses, the Yaks and the sea of whispering grass.
As we approached the summit of Chang pass, we saw a taxi parked to the side of the narrow road, and the driver underneath it was trying to fix a flat tire. A tall girl dressed in colorful local attire was standing and watching the sun, and turned to look as our taxi passed by. Involuntarily, I waved at her, and involuntarily she burst into a smile. The guys filled the van with catcalls which thankfully, she could not hear. But there is something about her genuine smile that sticks with me, and so I mention it. Perhaps it is the fact that all we could share was a smile, and yet it is somehow enough.
At the top of the pass, there is a small shop that serves tea, and a number of boards that proclaim that we stand on the second highest motorable road in the world. We stopped at the summit of the pass to take a few pictures, and ran into our friends from Maharashtra. They were returning to Leh, having spent a night on the banks of Pangong. When they began to describe the beauty of the lake, we couldn’t wait any longer for our cups of tea to arrive, and we dropped the order to rush back to the waiting cab.
The road to Pangong is an undulating song, lilting with some ease and some indefinable melody, taking us up and up to visit the sky and then bringing us back safely down to earth. There is a restlessness about the road that we are attracted to - it reminds us of our own. Inside the taxi, there is a thick silence while we watch the mountains fly past. Even our thoughts lie mute.
Where the road meets the earth again, it comes in contact with a gushing, powerful river. It’s pure, crystal waters allow us a glimpse of the riverbed and in the dappled play of sun and water we see hundreds of fishes swimming with and against the tide. The scent of wild flowers fills the valley, and we delay our journey to be there in the warmth of sun, the gurgling of river and the buzzing of bees. It is a bright day, and the sun shatters a million times over the dance of the river, and shards of light dazzle the eye continuously.
Walking around, we run into a family of Marmots emerging from holes in the ground, watching us with curiosity. We approach them gingerly, filled with equal, and perhaps, the same curiosity. They hop up onto the ground, in full view now, and sit on their haunches, their hands cupped in front of them, eight or nine in total. The driver of the taxi, also a local guide, warns us not to get too close to them – Marmots have been known to take a swipe at humans within reach. Two of the marmots start kissing each other furiously and begin to make out wildly. One of the marmots, however, loses interest in us, and walks away. Pausing a little distance from us, he sits down to stare at the late-morning Sun. For many minutes he does not move a muscle, and looks almost serene in his marmot-meditation.
Clearly, it is time for us to leave.
Our first glimpse of Pangong-Tso is through the gap of two distant mountains, a slash of blue on sand. We cheer in the van, and the driver picks up speed, as excited as we are. He tells us he is forty years old, but we don’t believe him - he looks extremely young for forty. He also tells us that people often find garnet and turquoise stones near the lake, which we are more inclined to believe, or want to believe. Finally, after four long hours the taxi descends and rolls to a stop on the sandy bank of the lake. A few tourists and locals and tents are scattered here and there, adding a distraction of color and movement to the unmoving scene.
Pangong-Tso that day was as serene as that marmot in meditation. The lake shivered at the slightest touch of the wind, and gasps of mist escaped her at the merest whisper. Lovers would know how that happens. Its surface reflected the slow moving clouds and the unmoving mountains, and seemed to drink their essence to change its color. A group of birds went flying by, low over the uncut surface of the lake, skimming the water with the ends of their legs scissoring the cold surface with their beaks.
There are a few tents a little distance from the lake, and a souvenir shop. A large hill behind the tents looms suddenly, and on the surface of the hill, almost near the top, the words ‘GARNET HILL’ are picked out in large, white stones. The tents are restaurants, and we marched up to them for a quick lunch before we could submit to a deeper exploration of the lake.
As we ate, we watched the lake, and the sandbar that extends out into it. Nameless, joyous mountain birds would swoop down on the lake and would scissor the surface with their beaks, and then would retreat into mountains. To me, it is always a surprise, an ever-present awe, an impossible possibility that there are beings that fly. I stare endlessly at the sky and the birds that fly, and the way they manipulate the wind with their wings to gain altitude. To me, the ability to fly is synonymous to a freedom that is missing from the earth. It is an instantaneous escape; an immediate overview. This has been an old thought in me, and I fish out my cellphone to read a passage I had written down long ago which evoke similar emotions –
I am sitting under the hot sun, waiting for my cab to pick me up, and I notice the chaos on the street. Buses, cars, motorcycles are all plying on the road, chugging out choking grey monoxide, kicking up the dust again and again before it has time to settle. Men, women and children walk, talk, run and shout, seemingly going somewhere in a hurry. Vendors scream down the ears of prospective customers. Dogs chase each other around, not acknowledging the vehicles as potential death traps. To the keen mind, there is a bubble of calm hidden in this chaos somewhere... for the mind that can bring itself out of this sweltering heat of sun and sound. The escape is in the ability to look at the scene as if from above. But we are all trapped, including me, in routine, and in the first film of life that cleverly keeps a grip on our frontal lobes like the tentacles of an octopus, and we have to wonder - how far are we from serenity?
But then I look up. Far above, in the white hot sky with thin strips of blue, two tiny birds soar.
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