AFVOA Newsletter May 2020

Section 3 - Memoirs Newsletter No. 1 / 2020 P a g e 53 | 101 9 Kailash Yatra – Our Journey Within Maj Gen Murali Gopalakrishnan Genre: Travelogue t Kailash also called Gang Renbo Qi Feng in Chinese and Kangri Rinpoche in Tibetan, attracts believers of all walks of life and age groups and creates an intense desire for accomplishing something. It is awe-inspiring and the irony of the Yatra is that one perceives and seeks a form of the ‘Formless’. My wife and I were part of Batch 17 of the Govt organized trip, which involved a trek of approx 200Kms, including the Parikrama of 44Kms and climbing to altitudes of 18500 feet. The sheer enormity of the task was in fact quickly forgotten at the start and all the aches of city living also disappeared. Such is the mystery of the “abode”. There were Yatris who were coming for the 9 th time-someone who is perhaps yet to find what he is looking for. We did not either. What you thought you will see, you do not and what you get at the end of the journey is a realization of irrelevancy of things that we consider matters in life. We chose the Govt trekking route for a simple reason that it ensures proper acclimatization and conditioning of the body from wantonness. Both, the Indian as well as the Chinese Governments are responsible for the safe conduct of the Yatris and the program is executed with clockwork precision. It all starts from New Delhi with a strict medical examination by the Delhi Heart and Lung Institute and certification by doctors of the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). We are then transported to Darchula (Uttarakhand) in luxury coaches from where the Yatra commences. The Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam does a superlative job with logistic arrangements both in India as well as in the Chinese side. The ITBP is entrusted with the safe conduct of the yatris upto Lipulekh pass (16800 feet) from where the Chinese take over. Our batch was a motley crowd of 40 yatris drawn from many states and with an age profile varying from 23 to 70. There were 10 ladies too, with the eldest being 65, from Mylapore, Chennai. M The North Face of Mt Kailash