A Night at Rayl Mandu–A Hidden Gem In The Heart Of Pir Panjal
Bashir Ahmad Dar
It was July 2021.The world had come to a standstill by COVID 19 pandemic. Cities, towns and villages wore a forlorn look. Roads were bereft of any traffic and celebrated tourist destination like Achabal, Pahalgam and Gulmurg were weary of waiting tourists who never came. Summer was in its full bloom and every new day felt hotter than the previous one.
Partly paralyzed by the fear of pandemic and partly by oppressive heat, my village Ahlan Gadole had assumed an eerily deserted look to the extent that a stranger passing through its lanes in broad day light could easily imagine that he had wondered into the fabled country of blind, where Nunez arrived after falling from the cliff.
Amid all this, my siblings—Javid, Aqif and Irfan—and I decided to go on an outing to a hillside. A destination was chosen, a day was fixed, and an early evening time was selected. All the preparations were handled by Aqif. The chosen spot was Rayl Mando, a behk (high-altitude pasture) located roughly two-thirds of the way between Ahlan Bala and the famous alpine lake Mawarnag, which sits atop the Pir Panjal mountains in the south-eastern side of Ahlan Gadole.
On the appointed day and time, we set off on our journey. The first five kilometers—from Gadole to Ahlan Bala, the last village on our way—we covered in Javid’s crimson red Alto 800. The rest of the distance had to be covered on foot. The trekking began at around 5:35 PM in the afternoon.
The initial few kilometers were relatively easy, as the slope was not too steep and most of our energy was still unspent. In half an hour, we reached a place that overlooked the fast-flowing nallah on the west side. The spot was a meadow, and Aqif said we had reached Pole Maidan. Pole Maidan is a marvel of creation—a splendid beauty of nature. Beyond this point, our mobile phones lost network connection, so they turned into virtual clocks and torches for us.
After another half-hour walk along a barely eight-foot-wide footpath, we reached another bekh—Alyn Brari. The abundance of pastures and water made it a perfect seasonal home for the Gujar and Bakerwal communities from the nearby village of Ahlan. We could see a number of closely built kothas (shacks of mud and wood). On top of each shack, a solar lantern was connected to a silicon solar panel facing the sun, charging the battery.
The people there had built a very spacious wooden mosque, installed a loudspeaker, and set up a solar panel with bulbs for lighting. Divine vibes emanated from the mosque. Children were playing in the courtyard, and the people were extremely gentle and friendly. Their hospitality was next level. An elderly woman offered us milk, lassi, and bread. I and Aqif relished the milk and bread, while Javid and Irfan had lassi. We then galloped onward toward our destination.
The path beyond Alyn Brari passed through tall pines, firs, and wild bushes. The canopy formed by these majestic treetops over the path provided a perfect cover, acting as a refuge for pedestrians in both sunny and rainy weather. The surrounding forest was dense, dark, and endless.
After about an hour, we reached another breathtaking beauty spot named Posh e Baag (the Flower Garden). The sloping side of this place was made of razor-sharp rocks, but down in the plain, its beauty was unmatched. The ground was covered with wildflowers of diverse colours—we could see red, purple, blue, yellow, and white flowers.
I guessed they should be rich red polygonum, the tall lavender-like stachys, and delphinium with large, cowl-like flowers. There was a strange aroma in the place, almost sedative in nature. The air felt suffocating and it was difficult to breathe there. I somehow drove myself away from the noisome atmosphere and proceeded until I reached an elevated place upon which nature had begun to spread her comely dark garments. Now I could breathe. By now, the day was waning and light was fast fading, as the sun gathered up its garments from the mountains and plains. It was 8:15, but surprisingly, it was not that dark yet.
As we passed past Posh e Bagh, we reached another segment of the track within twenty minutes. It was completely dark. There was no trace of light anywhere, save for our mobile phones and a torch in Javaid’s hands. The birds had suddenly disappeared into their nests. The diurnal friends had made way for nocturnal beings. We could hear foxes yelping and bats screeching. But what terrified us most was a howling sound coming from a distance. For a moment, we were terrified to the core—our hearts leapt into our throats. We realized that we had made a terrible mistake by walking through in the dark. Wild animals could have devoured us.
We continued walking uphill and at around 9:30 PM reached Rayl Mandu. By now, our feet had swollen and our thigh muscles were extremely cramped. There was pain, but also contentment. Aqib had arranged for our night stay in a local kotha there. We knocked on the door, and an elderly man welcomed us inside. As soon as I stepped into the kotha, a strange feeling of humbleness and simplicity touched my heart. It was a freshly made, humble yet exceedingly neat and clean shack. It was a two-roomed kotha, and both rooms were separated by a passage nearly five feet wide. In the room on the eastern side, the family would cook, live, and sleep, and in the other room, the cows, buffaloes, and horse were kept. The walls were made of two-foot by six-foot wooden planks glued together with dried mud. The roof was made of thick logs, almost like tree stems trimmed here and there and placed across the top. I could count forty such logs.
Here and there, two or three tiny one-foot-square windows had been cut into the wooden walls to allow fresh air to circulate. In the southeast corner stood a humble traditional mud chulla, seemingly waiting to serve us. Javid cooked, and we all ate together. We were tired but grateful.
Exhaustion had fully taken over us by now, so we laid out the sheets and woolen blankets offered by our good hosts, wrapped ourselves in them, and went to sleep.
Sometime in the night, my sleep was disturbed by the barking of dogs. I dragged myself to the window and peered out into the dark. There I saw, guarding the kotha, two gigantically large black dogs whose dark camouflage rendered them nearly invisible in the night. They were strong, alert, and powerfully built—they looked capable of beating a bear in combat. Their silent vigilance gave the humble shack the aura of a fortress. With that kind of Z-plus security, I felt safe and comfortable. I then crawled back to my blanket and slept.
Early in the morning, we woke up to the calls of birds, performed our ablutions, and prayed Fajr. As soon as I stepped outside our night shelter, my eyes beheld the magically magnetic beauty of nature. Rayl Mandu was an enchanting meadow—a perfect health resort, equal in beauty to the meadows of Gulmarg and Sonamarg. The meadow was pure and clean, encircled by sky-kissing lofty trees, all bathed overnight in dew drops.
On the northern side, the meadow was served by a few snow-fed brooks whose water was bitingly cold. However, the summer migrants preferred using spring water, locally called Nag aab, because they considered the brook water pure but strangely heavy on the stomach—believing it could cause indigestion. On the southern side, the meadow was bordered by a hill that, in July, still had nearly two to three feet of snow near its base. There was no trace of plastic anywhere; everything looked pure and wonderfully organic.
We tried to bathe in the brook, but the water was so cold that we couldn’t muster the courage. So we had to content ourselves with just washing our hair.
In a hurry, we drank tea with freshly made fulkas (rolled and baked by the daughter of the head of host family) and homemade desi butter. I don’t remember how many cups I drank, but surely they were more than three.
After tea, we set out straightaway to explore the meadow. We slid down the snow a couple of times and observed how the melting snow formed tiny rivulets that flowed some distance before joining the brook.
Our host told us that this meadow was the last place where people settled temporarily during the summer. Beyond that point, he said, reside ghosts and jinns. He also added that if we kept walking uphill to the top and then down the other side, we would end up in district Kishtwar in about three to four hours.
Mawarnag was now an hour away, but the mountain was too steep and the rocks were sharp. The slope lacked trees and loomed like a vast giant. I was asking my siblings about visiting that alpine lake when, suddenly, the weather took an erratic turn—dark clouds began hovering over us. It was now dangerous to go to Mawarnag; in fact, it was life-threatening. Strong winds blew in, bringing a thick blanket of fog so dense that it was almost impossible to track our route back to our night shelter. With great difficulty, we found a place to take cover. By then, it was raining heavily—big drops mixed with hail pounded down for about twenty minutes.
Thereafter, the clouds dispersed and the rain stopped. We packed up quickly and turned back. Around seven in the evening, we reached the spot where we had disembarked the day before. We got into our car and drove home.
Since then, Rayl Mandu has permanently made a place in my heart, and its memories are etched into me every time I think of it. We spent a night there without access to cellular networks or phones, and we learned that man can still survive without them. We saw no plastic bags there and realized that plastic is not essential to our lives.
Yesterday, however, a friend of mine who had returned from the meadow told me that it has changed a lot. It has attracted visitors from far and near—and he saw it littered with plastic bags everywhere. Knowing that the man had begun despoiling this magnificent behk filled me with deep sorrow.So,I urge everyone to explore this wonderful Bekh but at the same time maintain its health and hygiene.
(The author is a teacher)
