Feels like ishq in kedarnath

Diwali 2020
Post pandemic people were frustrated from being locked in their homes and now they wanted to move out.
Me (Taashi)and my friend (Ash) were one of them.
So we planned to fullfill our wonderlust,  from Morena to Kedarnath which is about 700 km on our Royal Enfield bike.

Route map to Kedarnath was ready , I picked up Ash from Delhi, then by evening we touched banks of ganga in Haridwar and Rishikesh with music and Masti , Finally reached to sonpryag.
Gaurikund (nearby to sonprayag) was the starting point of our Kedarnath trek.

We had  3 option for trek
1) Via burro ( khacchar) 
2) via helicopter
And last but the best
3) By walk

As u all know due to lockdown most of us gained weight and we were one of them.
So we decided Ash will go to temple on burro and I will go by the best way walking.

When I started the trek after couple of hours i was literally regretting  my decision. I found myself struggling to walk or to even crawl, i knw I know  I was not going to crawls roads were not fit for crawling I had to walk , one step on other.

Trek was damn beautiful ❤️
White Mountains it was like someone painted it white with perfection , waterfalls , trees,  lovely crowd  and  in between  locals serving nimbu paani and in my situation that was the best, the best  nimbupani i have ever had.
I can see the enthusiasm in people for Mahadev. Everyone was chanting "Har har mahadev".
You can see every age of people coming to seek blessings of Mahadev.

In the crowd  I saw her trekking solo.
Fit ,carrying her small backpack, bottle and stick in a hand. No no it was not like love at first site.
There were lots of people
But i only noticed her May be that was the  "vibe"  people talk about. A positive and motivating vibe which helped me to gather myself and moving forward to my trek.

While passing through she asked for water as hers bottle was empty And this started our conversation as strangers to somewhat friends.

She worked in an IT firm and she is from Gujrat. It was her first solo trip. High on enthusiasm, speakers with songs of shiv strotam and kedarnath movie were playing continuously as shushant singh rajput was her favourite actor.

Before meeting her trek was looking impossible to me but when we start talking and trek together i didn't realised when 2kms became 4 kms and  4 kms became 6 kms and I was feeling great infact I realised I was not that much tired as I was feeling walking alone and we decided to take a break at BHEEMBALI @ 10 Kms covering half of our trek.

After resting for a while we continued our journey,
When I told her about my hometown, she suddenly became very excited. I am from Morena (M.P).
We are quite famous for brave hearted people , gazak ( sweet ) and ofcourse Chambal ke daku (decoits). Movie paan sing tomer will give you a little intro about us.

I shared some daku stories of Chambal with her and she gave me Nick name 'DAAKU' ,  cracking PJs on
" are o sambha, kitne aadmi the" etc. 😅

We got to see the post effects of disaster occured in 2013, a whole new road was built after that from RAMBADA to the temple of Kedarnath.
Old road was completely destroyed by flood.
While crossing the rambada bridge ,We got see how distorted roads broken shops and many all the slided rocks covering and clossing the old path, locals were telling old road was 4 km shorter than new one.

Moving forward from RAMBADA.
we can clearly see the white himalyan mountains as beautiful as heavens gate . It was so persuasive we just wanted to be there as early as possible.

There were shortcuts cutting down the road but turing to shortcuts was like becoming Bear Grylls , climbing rocks , walking on ups and downs of road.
But she wanted  some adventure  so we decided, actually she decided and I agreed and we took all the shortcuts .

There was only few people who taken that shortcut.
There is a beautiful thing about solo trip  you met people, you share your story and they don't judge you.
A very beautiful thing about Kedarnath was that there is no mobile network on the whole trek, so people are compelled to talk to each other and that's the wonderful thing.

I shared all my best stories which happened in my life. Why I was doing that?
Bcz i wanted to impress her ????? Dnt knw.

While talking, her foot slipped off the stone and she was about to fall but I caught her.
She was in my arms.
She got up and thanked me and we started walking again.
Don't know why but I didn't want this trek to end.
i really felt that line from famous song
"Safar khubsurat hai manzil se bhi"

After we complete the shortcut  we saw a old couple seeking for help. Uncle's  leg injured, by that time we had already covered most of our trek  Kedarnath temple was  just 4 kilometers away from there.
I had spray and some medicine, which  gave it to the old couple without any hesitation.
This gesture of mine really impressed her alot and and after all pakau jokes she complemented on my helpful nature.

BASE CAMP OF KEDARNATH -  we were  1 Km away from baba Kedarnath temple.

Just imagine in evening with setting sun whole white mountains coloured in a pale tint of orange  I think that view cannot be described in words, temple was looking amazing with all the decorations and lighting can't explain how I was feeling.
It took us 10 hrs to complete the trek, temperature was -7 °c and along with that my legs were killing me, with all mixed feelings of pain and joy we reached at the temple and called Ash. He got there early as he has his own ride of burro, ash has already arranged us a place to crash at night.

Temple was overly crowded and as soon as I finished my call with ash she was already gone. I don't know where but she was gone , it felt a bit strange , I looked around but couldn't find her , I was disappointed,  after completing whole journey I was expecting atleast a simple goodbye or maybe more.

Ash came to base camp and we went straight for the aarti.
People were so devoted for mahadev , even after walking on mountain for 20 kms , they were singing, dancing , chanting HAR HAR MAHADEV  it was like concert , we also indulge ourself in the flow.

After the aarti, we went to our  room to drop bags and went straight for dinner.
Me and ash had our dinner on the banks of mandakni river in that chilling winter having hot served food both of us can't forget ,the sound of water flowing and we can feel the freezing breez though there was temperature in minus but we found it relaxing at that time and had dinner there.

After completing our food we again went back to temple  around 9:00 pm and decided to sit for a while.
Atmosphere was different there people were brusting crackers , jamming in groups , taking pictures , making vediocalls to their friends and families , dancing on the rhythm of har har mahadev, we were also doing the same everything was so happy I was trying to be happy and enjoy every bit of  that moment
but i had a feeling of lacking something, maybe the girl from the trek. I was kind of hoping may be we will meet again.

As I was sitting infornt of temple and stroming my mind with this weird thoghts suddenly I heared a  voice  from behind "Aur daaku thand nhi lag rahi tereko"
And she came and sat beside me and it was the best feeling I felt that time.
As soon as she sat down, I couldn't help and asked her about her magical disappearing performance.

She told me that her boyfriend was already staying in Kedarnath a day before.
And she didn't want him to see her with me a stranger talking comfortably and smiling and sharing the thoghts she can't share with him.
She told that they will stay here two more days.

I felt little bit heartbroken, maybe I felt it because I was hoping for a different story.
We sat there and talked for a little longer , talked about thing or two or three or four , finally she said her good bye.

Irony  was we were  trekking together for the last 10 hours but didn't even cared for each other's name.
She extended her hand and said "Hi ! I am MAYRA PATEL , Nice to meet you daaku"
Shaking hands I replied "Hi! Its  TAASHI , nice to meet you too"

Next day After kedar baba darshan me and ash headed back to our home with memories.

Now also whenever pages of kedarnath trip opens ups chapter of MAYRA PATEL is  my favourite one .

What I felt was with Myra.

"I felt like ishq"