A new beginning

Am I living a dream!? I asked myself. One week never been  felt so long. Not because it's boring or uninteresting, rather it's involving, it's interesting and suddenly life seems to be slow and full. The other day I woke up to see the mighty himalayas rather to be precise the Dauladhar ranges with snow caps right out of our bedroom window. All that we hear through out the day are the songs of a variety of birds, the ushering stream of water from the aqueducts.Barring the occasional vehicles that ply on these windy hill roads we live in a world so contrastingly different from what we have lived from years.

It's on 17th May that we set off from Bangalore to spend couple of months living out of a small town named Rakkar at the foothills of Dauladhar ranges, close to Dharmashala and Mcloeganj, the adobe of his holiness Dalai lama. The village lies at an altitude of 1300 mts above sea level and one needs to reach Sidhbari, some 5 kms from Dharmashala enroute Palampur and drive up 2 kms to reach this village.The village is home to gaddi community who are herders and tillers. The village has a small school, few shops and offers amazing close views of the snow-caped peaks from close quarters.We took a flight till Delhi, then an overnight train to Pathankot and a taxi to Rakkar.

First 4 days were spent warming up while living at a homestay and then we managed to find a place that we could call home for next 2 months. The people at Ghoomakad are instrumental in me making this move. Not only them, in fact, everyone we met here till now has been very warm, helpful and hospitable.

I return to typing this after a 5 minute break as I went finding the bird whose call I am unable to decipher till now. It stopped calling as I approached close and I return to the post :) That's how life here has been, do whatever you like and whenever you want. No deadlines, no pressures, no questions asked. Wish life is this simple.

Back to describing the village - The village sits next to a river that flows down the hills and supplies enough water for many villages en route besides many further down. One can see some traditional houses built in contemporary style with a blend of tradition (mud) all thanks to Didi ji who is instrumental (more on her in separate post). However concrete-isation is slowly catching up replacing traditional houses.Majority of people own cattle and grow wheat and vegetables traditionally organically making them self-sustainable to a greater extent in terms of food. Only cattle dung is used as fertilizer and fresh water from the glaciers and rain water from the mountains at higher elevation are used for drinking and cultivation supplied to every house hold using aquaducts, the lifelines for these villages.

One can see water from aqueducts and streams all over the village. Fresh and clean water and the pleasant sound of water gushing downstream is a constant company while walking around the village. Cheerful faces, chirping birds, amazing vistas are a norm here. The village has a school and two NGOs operate here. Nishtha and Jagori have been doing amazing work in the villages around too making the place even more interesting

One more break in typing this post as the mules arrived and we happily offered them our vegetable waste(peels etc) that they consumed off. Nishtha has been pioneering a waste management project where all the plastic from the nearby villages is segregated and handed over to the PWD who uses them to build roads. A model has been developed and tested in few villages and being rolled out to many villages. Plastic littering has been a problem in villages around here and from what I heard, it's a problem majorly created by people who lived in cities or shifted from cities who does more littering than the villagers. Having said that, I am impressed by the way the shop keepers maintain no plastic when you buy. I had been to Dharmashala last week as well as some shops around the village. No one uses plastic bags here and it's really delightful to notice that. Cloth bags are used widely. However more work need to be done on plastic awareness. 

Finally we have our home ready and we are set and looking forward to this journey I vow myself to keep posting regularly. Before I forget, I started my birding jaunts and it has been good 33 species till now and counting. As I complete this post, dark clouds have covered the mountain tops and the distant thunder announces the arriving rain.