Kasol, October 2015: A Hippie Town in the Himachali Hills

"Pani da rang vekh ke
 Akhiyaan jo hanju rul de"

Translated to English, the verse of this beautiful song means "Seeing the colour of water, tears roll down from my eyes." And that is what the turquoise waters of the Parbati river can do to you. In Kasol, you ought to be a worthless ignoramus to miss the Parbati. She is beautiful, she is cheerful and she gushes merrily through the valley town, singing all along through the pine forests. That, in fact, is another thing that one cannot miss in Kasol: the enchantment of pine woods surrounding this hippie hamlet. 

The Parbati river; photo taken from the suspension bridge.

Everything else in Kasol caters to the needs of the hippie hordes, both the Western (of which the majority is Israeli) and 'homegrown' variety. The latter try hard to fit the bill. In fact, there was a brown-skinned chap, complete with a huge pile of dreadlocks, grizzly beard and moustache, psychedelic harem pants, and medallions and trinkets, and then I overheard him saying, "Eda, ivide ee kade le ellam onde!" Until then, I'd seen Malayali Hindus (of course!), Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Communists; finally, I got to see Rastafarian Mallus too! 

I'd boarded a Manali-bound bus from ISBT Kashmiri Gate with no agenda, but changed plans on-board after I met Davneet Singh. He sat next to me, we got talking, and soon realized that both of us had really no plans other than our different destinations. He asked me whether I had hotel bookings in Manali; I didn't. So he proferred Kasol as an option and that to get there, we would have to get off the bus at Bhunter, near Kullu. A slightly bad road branched from there to Kasol, he said. 

"It's the town where you'll get the best Malana Cream."  

All the while, he sipped from his plastic bottle of Coke in which he had mixed Old Monk. From time to time, he offered me a swig and was puzzled when I declined. "Don't you drink?" he asked. I did - Old Monk and Coke is every Indian tippler's favourite! - but didn't want to drink while I was travelling on the overnight bus. Sure enough, the drink knocked him out by around 11 pm. When we woke in the morning at Kullu, Davneet complained of a headache. "Jyada ho gaya, menu lagda haan" he muttered, then translated for my benefit - Think I had too much - but that was not needed. I find Punjabi and Punjabis quite endearing and I do follow the language a little, definitely more than what Bollywood's sohni kudiyan and vella munde dole out. 

"Are you going to try smoking up?" I asked Davneet, as we drove with three others we met at the bus stop - two guys and a girl - in a cab that we jointly hired. Davneet, by virtue of being a sardar, wasn't a smoker but, "dunno bro," he said. "Once a few pegs go down, I might not realise that I'm smoking." That was fair. The three friends who joined us were from Mumbai, and one of the guys and I exchanged our customary 'Arre boss, Mumbai mein kidhar se? Aila, Kandivali? Apun Malad!" and handshakes and back-thumping. They got off a few kilometres before Kasol town and headed into the woods where, they assured us, there was a dorm, which is a "well-kept secret". 

In Kasol, after a few inspections, we finally settled for two separate rooms in Hotel Rainbow, right in the town square at the mouth of the trail that leads to the suspension bridge, at Rs. 350 each. Not bad, I thought. We left our rucksacks, took our cameras - Davneet had a bag full of lenses and filters and things - and went to a cafe for breakfast. I ordered a Spanish breakfast and got roasted potatoes, toasted bread, and an omlette. Davneet played safe and ordered a parantha platter.

First meal in Kasol: Spanish breakfast

"At night, bhaiyya, we'll eat some good tandoori and stuff, hai na?" he said. "We'll also have some good daaru and crisps, what say?" I happily agreed. 

We crossed a suspension bridge and trekked to a village called Chahal up in the woods. The Parvati river gurgled merrily downhill as we kept climbing up towards Chahal. The village is famous for its trance parties, we were told, but late morning, it was quite and peaceful. 

Davneet at the mouth of the bridge

Fantastic graffiti on the walls of the bridge

The bridge on the river Parbati

There was a little tea stall where a garrulous local spoke confidently with a stoned Russian, who cast an amused look at me when I took off my hat. I was definitely an oddity in Kasol with my clean-shaven head, in a town where even the naturally bald men sported dreadlocked, or at least long-haired, crescents. Back in Kasol town, we retired to our rooms and I fell asleep, watching 'Spiderman' dubbed in Hindi. 

The trek to Chahal with the river on the left, down below

The woods enroute to Chahal

My budget room with Spiderman in Hindi

Davneet was still asleep when I woke up that evening, so I set off to explore Kasol on my own. The streets were full of tourists, again both the desi and firang varieties. The flea market was open and the alleyways were a riot of colours. Shops sold everything from sweatshirts, harem pants, and t-shirts with glowing psychedelic graffiti, to chillums, filter papers, mixing pouches, and bongs, everything one needed to prepare their portions of Malana Cream. Most of the conversations were about trekking routes to Malana or Kheerganga, where they all 'knew someone' who could give them the purest Cream. I was quite tempted, I must admit, but sadly, I don't know to smoke, let alone smoke up! Is there a difference? Tsk tsk.

Graffiti at Freedom cafe

At the entrance to Kasol

I stuck to the basics. Kasol is full of restaurants that serve Tibetan and Israeli food. It was pretty early for dinner, but I was hungry (realising then that we had skipped lunch). I looked for Free Kasol cafe, which was in the news then for having removed Indians from the cafe. I didn't find it, so I stepped into another cafe called Freedom. Had a nice Ginger Honey Lemon Tea and some roast chicken, and continued walking about. 

Ginger honey lemon tea

In the meantime, Davneet had woken up and gone to Manikaran hot-water springs. Back in the hotel, the recreation area was open. A Russian chap called Nikolai was having a go at the pool table with some Delhi de munde, while a Tibetan chap played his guitar and sang some popular Pink Floyd, GnR, and Nirvana. 

Nikolai was pretty good at pool

As dusk unfurled, the air got colder. Davneet had returned, and we went to the rooftop where we lit candles and spread out our dinner and snacks, and rums and vodkas and sodas for the evening. At night, the gurgle of the Parbati became louder and the sky filled up with stars. The warm liquor in our bellies brought out the philosophers in us. Davneet took some fantastic photographs of the night sky, then began talking about his love interest and how he planned to go about propositioning her. 

I was 'in transit', I told him. Well, not from one love interest to another - there wasn't any alternatives in that phase of my life - but from one workplace to another. Was even about to move from my hometown to Bangalore. I was going to leave my beautiful girls behind in Mumbai, I told him, and even as we spoke, I could feel a gnawing in my gut. The song, "Pani da rang" from Vicky Donor was the flavour of the season for some reason, (Perhaps it was the Delhi link?) and every line of the song, coupled with the heady philosophy and poetry that oozed out of the cracks and crevices of my heart, alluded to the impending pain of separation. Later, as we began to slur, we bade goodnight and headed to our respective rooms. Who needed cannabis when the heart was full of longing.

As dusk grew over Kasol

I've another blog about the next day's trip to Tosh, while Davneet headed to Kheerganga and stayed there overnight. I returned to Kasol in the evening after a brief stop in Manikaran, where a landslide had torn through the buildings at the hot water springs only weeks ago. Back in Kasol, I had a meal at the popular Evergreen cafe and retired to my room to finish a small bottle of Smirnoff that I bought in the flea market. The next day, after breakfast and coffee at the Best Kasol cafe, which was attached  to our hotel, I trekked into the woods once again and then, settled down on a rock in a quiet spot in a glade and wrote about Tosh in my diary, which became the blog post later. Oh, I had steaming hot momos at Shambu Momo stall too.

The woods where I wrote my blog post in my black diary. See the horse's rump?
Somewhere behind it, by the stream, I sat on a rock and wrote.

Davneet returned at noon with wonderful stories about his Kheerganga trip. I regretted not having joined him till he got to the part about the overnight stay in a dormitory where, at night, there were rats running over their legs! 

We rode back to Kullu in a dusty local bus that evening and boarded the Volvo back to Delhi. We didn't talk much; each one lost in his private dream world. In the morning, Davneet got off near Rohini and I went to Kashmiri Gate, little knowing that a few weeks later, I'd be back in Delhi, celebrating Diwali with my girls, my bro-in-law and sweet sister-in-law, in her house in Rohini! 

Parbati river

The river song

A year has passed since then, but the gurgle of the Parvati river, which is especially clear and honeyed at night, still rings in my ears.