A DAWN IN WINTER

The Legend of Usha

(1996)

     The forest was full of snow. Covered by pine needles, it crunched crisply under our feet and made an unusual fragrant carpet. Hiking up slowly through a forest of pines, then deodars, and later birch and rhododendrons, was a unique experience. We (Rajesh and me) were the only outsiders in the valley. Two of us, climbing slowly, chatting briefly all the way and viewing distant ranges in a cloudless sky. It was intensely cold; even a mild breeze also made us shiver. We had to spend almost 18 hours inside tents once the sun went down. It was too cold (–20 degrees) to venture outside, especially for our two porters. Wherever the terrain was mixed with rocks and snow each step was an adventure, for one didn’t know when one might plunge into a hole. Mixed were the emotions that we felt whilst trekking in Kinnaur in the winter of 1996-97.

The sky was grey and cloudy when we reached Shimla.

‘You should have come a week earlier. It was clear for almost two months. Now I am afraid the winter has arrived. You may have trouble’, our friend in Shimla had warned.

Hesitantly he added, ‘Can I do anything for you?’. I could not ask him to interfere with the weather.

We were four of us. My other companion, Rajesh Gadgil, was a young mountaineer from Bombay and had decided to take along ropes and other equipment, just in case we could try our hand at Hansbeshan (5240 m). I had heard of this peak, the highest in the Nachar area, several years ago. It rose on the Gangdari Dhar, which divided the Satluj valley from the Pabbar valley in the south. No one seemed to have examined it at close quarters. The other two were our Kumaoni porters, one of them the evergreen Harsinh. This time Harsinh had brought along a young companion named Dansinh. This young boy had never ventured out of his village and was seeing trains and taxis for the first time. He had a peculiar habit of replying in duplicate. If one asked for tea, his reply was, ‘Han Han (yes, yes) I’ll bring it.’ We did not mind it as long as it was not a ‘Na Na’ (no, no).

After a night in Rampur-Bushahr on the Christmas day, 1996, we reached Nachar, 16 km above the main highway leading from Shimla to Rekong Peo, the headquarters of Kinnaur district. We were charmed. Nachar, originally known as Nalche is situated in the pargana Athara bis and is a tehsil headquarters. The old Hindustan-Tibet road passed through here and many travellers had visited this village. Capt. Alexander Gerard in his book1  mentions Nachar and the thick forest above it. He had also travelled to the south of Nachar, crossing Shatul ghati pass.2 He made trips to several other passes in the nearby Pabbar valley, leading to the Sangla valley. Amongst other visitors who wrote about Nachar was Andrew Wilson.3 They all had one thing in common to write about the forest above Nachar.

A beautiful forest rest house and a garden, which was constructed by Mr. G.G. Minniken, the popular Deputy Conservator of Bashahr division, stands here. The scenery all around is very beautiful. In the thick forests and rocky glens from this place downwards goral and tahr antelopes abound. Black and red bears are also met with, the latter inhabiting the higher and colder portions of the range. The red bear is abundant on the heights above Nachar. Here they are both said to attack and kill sheep and goats, and they are often such a nuisance that the local people vie with each other to kill them. The climate is noted for its delicacy. The musk deer is found in the forest.4

The first thing that draws a visitor in Nachar is the beautiful temple of Ukha (Usha) Devi. In fact it is a complex of temples. There is a detailed description of the temple and its buildings in the Gazetteer. A new temple built recently is also exquisitely carved from wood making it clear that the art of building a new temple is still alive. People were going about their business, not bothered by our presence. Some ceremonies were going on which we could not understand.

‘Get off to one side. The priest is coming’, someone cried out to us.

‘Where is he?’, I looked around.

A small boy with some ornaments passed us. He was the priest.

‘They select a young boy as a priest. For the tenure, he has to take regular baths in the winter cold water at the village spring, before performing a puja. Poor fellow.’

We could sympathise with the villager. One has to be careful at these Kinnauri temples. They have strict rules and even inadvertent violators have to pay a hefty fine. It has legal sanction.

Strangely, this temple was dedicated to a goddess who was a charmer or seducer. She is Usha Devi or the goddess ‘dawn’.

Usha means dawn (early morning) and for that reason her idols have been moulded with benevolent and benign expression—adorned in glittering gold signifying the resplendent glory of the early morning. There are, however a number of legends associated with Usha who in a number of Puranic legends is the generic name of the heavenly damsel (Apsara) in the court of king Indra. This heavenly damsel is supposed to be endowed with super charms and grace. Her celestial beauty has been considered to be so over-powering that sages and ascetics have fallen victim to her charms through ages.5

We started on our journey to try and locate the charms of Usha above the forest of Nachar on 26 December. We climbed steadily and through a very thick forest of pines. The track at first led us to Nacharchot Dogri or Chhotkanda as the locals called it. It was a summer village and there were several houses, all locked. Our old guide opened one of his houses and we settled inside it. The sun disappeared by 4 p.m. and like all nights on this trip we had to be indoors or inside the tents till the sun appeared again by 8 a.m. the next morning. Both of us sat chatting, eating and sleeping.

The weather cleared suddenly, definitely. Not a single cloud was seen and for the remainder of our trek we had long, clear and distant views. The soft winter light made a lovely backdrop. To the north we saw various valleys branching in different directions with steep rocks guarding them. This was supposed to be a geological peculiarity, named ‘Wangtu gneiss.’6

On the next day, the 27th, we climbed through the forest above the Dogri and reached the ridge line. A panorama opened before us. We could see most of the peaks of the middle Himalaya from jagged rock needles to huge snow plateaus. There was Kokshane, Gushu Pishu and Zangshu all on the Kand Mahadev ridge. Of course none of these peaks rose above 5700 m. A lot of pleasant, technically difficult and serious climbing can be done here if the height is not the only consideration.7  We crossed the ridge on the 28th day and descended briefly into the Dagar valley. As we proceeded through the valley, traversing the higher slope, at the head of the valley rose Hansbeshan (5240 m), the highest peak in this area. We immediately drew a parallel between this one and the Matterhorn because of its shape and degree of difficulty. Rising steeply from a col it had several rocky faces. We sat admiring it in the bright sunlight until the cold drove us inside.

All along we had been discussing the legend of the goddess of dawn, Usha with our guide. Once there was a sage named Ahan during the times when even the sun did not shine in the skies. Ahan worshipped the gods for many years and acquired mystical powers. He could create anything out of dust. Indra was apprehensive of his powers so he commissioned the beautiful court apsara, Usha (dawn) to descend onto earth and disturb Ahan from his meditation. The moment she came down there was light and beauty all around, after a million years of night. But Ahan was not to be taken in by all that temptation. With his powers he created the sun. As soon as the powerful light of the sun reached the earth, Usha had to disappear. Hence Usha, (early dawn) descends to earth after the dark night, and vanishes with the rising sun. The celestial play continues even today.

Our camp was on a ledge with a grand view. But the weather grew windy. Even the slightest current of air brought the temperature down substantially.

‘Imagine going up the southwest face of Everest in this sort of weather’, said Rajesh once as he returned shivering after a brief visit outside the tent. He had a habit of shaking his head vigorously at everything. Sometimes I feared he might lose it if he shook it too much, particularly in the cold. And it was confusing to interpret for he shook it in the same direction for both yes and no.

We were never beguiled by the charms of Usha (the dawn)—not one morning did we rise to catch a glimpse of her. We knew that Ahan rishi would be sending the sun and warmth, and that seemed much more desirable under the circum-stances. Anyway we needed no excuse, legend or otherwise to stay put in our warm sleeping bags.

‘What should we do now? The snow is too soft to go much further.’

‘Yes, many an expedition in the Garhwal has been called-off or postponed in the hope of better snow conditions.’

‘We have no time for postponement. Let’s try to scale the peak, as far as we can go.’

So on the 30th we started on the ridge opposite our camp. Stone after stone had to be stepped on very carefully. It took us almost three hours to climb up to the ridge. Rajesh stood up there shaking his head vigorously.

‘The peak is too far and if we push it we will perish in this cold.’

He may have shaken it thoroughly now and then, but Rajesh had his head in place all the while.

‘We must return safely of course. I have no intention of being sacrificed like Banasur before Usha.’

We clicked photographs generously, soaked in the loveliness and were on our way down to the other side. We managed to reach the tents just before the darkness and the cold enveloped us.

Banasur was another character introduced to us in the legend. Having failed to break the penance of Ahan, Indra decided to exploit his weaker sentiments, which all humans have. This animal instinct was given a demon–like form and the name Banasur. This demon, representing Ahan, married Usha and thus a part of the rishi was seduced. However, later Ahan realised his folly, Banasur cut his head off and allowed a temple to be built for Usha (at Nachar). That is how Usha attained the status of a goddess.8

The next day Dansinh woke us up with ‘tea tea’. He was increasing his vocabulary, but always with an echo. We walked down through the forest, singing and in a holiday mood. The last night of 1996 was spent around a fire at the Dogri, watching a glorious sunset. The first morning of 1997 was a glowing red. Why Usha (dawn) turned red was a question the legend did not have an answer to. Back in Bombay, it was Rajesh’s grandmother who gave us an answer.

‘Usha wears the blood of Banasur on her clothes after his sacrifice in her honour. After all he was her husband. That’s why dawn is red.’

That was when I realised the universality of such Himalayan legends. They were known, even far away in Bombay, in these modern days, by people of different cultures, diverse traditions, with no contact whatsoever with the place of their origin.

We were in Nachar soon and took a taxi to Shimla. The road climbed up steeply to Narkanda from the river Satluj. Early in the morning we could see the first rays of the sun falling on Hansbeshan, ‘the peak where the sun rises first’. The peak was isolated and rose sharply in the east justifying its name. It also completed the legend for us for, with the arrival of the sun, Usha disappeared from the top of Hansbeshan. May the first climbers of this peak catch her!

We walked on the Mall in Shimla, feted ourselves and travelled from Delhi to Bombay by my favourite train, the Rajdhani. As we sat in the Express hurtling us towards Bombay a total satisfaction creeped over us. ‘It was a wonderful trip, the best I have been on. . . . ,’ Rajesh told me with his typical, vigorous shaking of the head. I could almost hear myself agreeing like Dansinh, Han, Han (yes, yes).

Notes & References

1. Account of Koonawur in the Himalaya (Alexander Gerard).
2. Tours in the Himalaya (Alexander Gerard).
3. Abode of Snow (Andrew Wilson).
4. From Gazetteer of the Shimla Hill States 1910 and Kinnaur District Gazetteer by M.D. Mamgain.
5. Ibid.
6. ‘On the descent to the Sutlej between Nachar and Wangtu the rocks are crushed and intruded by pegmatite. Extensive outcrops of “Graitoid gneiss” are seen beyond Wangtu on the Hindustan-Tibet road. To this rock type the name “Wangtu gneiss” is given.’ (Gazetteer, Mamgain).
7. These areas should be free of any regulations even for international climbers. They very much resemble the European Alps in scale and degree of difficulty, and could be a very attractive proposition for adventure tourism.
8. In fact there are three temples to Banasur in the area. The Gazetteer mentions: ‘It is said that Banasur who was a demon and who ruled in Sarahan was slain by God. His three sons and a daughter were also slain. The first son became Maheshwara of Shungra (a temple on way to Nachar), the second was Maheshwara of Kathgaon and the third of Chugaon. Their sister Usha became goddess of Nachar. Each Maheshwara and Usha have beautifully built temples in their memories in Kinnaur.’