It was month of October and
my last day of goechala trek.I was coming back to yoksam. During the 8dy trek
we got lucky to get 7 clear days, though I got caught in rain right before I
was about to enter Yuksam. I took out my rain coat as the drizzles raged into
heavy shower to protect myself from getting wet. as u enter Yoksum from the kanchandzonga
trail, there’s a homely restaurant on its left. as I descended fast my guide
and trek partner fell behind. as soon as i got off the trail i took shelter
below the shade in front of the restaurant. just then I heard someone calling
by my name turned around to find no other than Indranil da., accompanying him
was Suman da(another hmi member).I met Indranil Chatterjee just the previous night.
He introduced himself as senior instructor in hmi and was comming back from a
peak climb. he has been in hmi for last 9yr.meeting a person in such an offbeat
profession made me curious about him. he is nice man too,he answered to all my
queries with interest. that night we had plenty of adda in our tent at tsocha.4
bengali, dark foggy night, tent lamp and sound of heavy shower on the tent due
to the rain just made the right ambience. He shared about his xp, his family, how
he landed up in the profession, his organisation. By the time I reached Yaksom
it was already 12:30pm,and my stomach was craving with hunger. I ordered for a
bowl of Maggie and a thumba to spice up the environment and pass some time
while waiting for my group members to arrive. again the gossip started as indra
da too was waiting for his luggages to arrive and couldn't go outside because
of the heavy rain. Meanwhile two person entered the restaurant. I noticed a remarkable
dentition pattern in one of the leaner person. right side of upper row and left
side of lower row was missing. indra da called him for his attention as he
seemed to know him. the lean and thin man smiled back with his peculiar
dentition pattern and started interacting with him in Nepali after placing an
order for a cup of tea. as he finished the intraction, i enquired about the
person out of curiosity. indra da told me tht he is a porter and had worked for
hmi with him. he told me not to judge him by his lean built, he has exceptional
load carrying capacity. Then he enthusiastically started telling an event. At
that time indra da was leading a team of army for special course and the man
was one of his porter. they camped at hmi base camp(16K ft) and used to hike
daily to the glacier for training. One of the trainees got HAPO(high altitude
pulmonary oedema and has to be brought down immediately to yaksom where intense
medical treatment can be started. here comes the lean man in action. the man
weighing 60kg packed with roxy bottles(local rum),put on his carrying basket,
and loaded the patient and started for yaksom(45km). on the way he got so drunk,
he had no sense of load, pain, orientation, the only thing he knew was the road.
By the time he reached yaksom, he was bleeding from forehead, brows, cheeks and
got his face all smeared with blood. He had hurt himself may be hitting stones,
trees and may be yaks on the way. on reaching yaksom he just put down the
patient under a shelter took another gulp of roxy and laid on the ground. in no
time army medical officer came to attend the sick. His first reaction after
watching both of them was 'arrre yaar casualty kaun hain!'.The porter slowly
raised his hand still lying on the ground, fingers pointing towards the patient
and uttered 'wahan!'and again laid down. by the time indra da finished telling
about him, all in the restaurant including the porter himself burst into laughter.
Meanwhile i have finished my plate of Maggie and thumba in the bamboo. After
some time my group arrived. The heavy shower had sobered to mild drizzles. Our guide
hired a service taxi for us. I wished everybody good trip and goodbye, loaded
the luggage in taxi, and departed for yuksom bazar while the porter was
strumming guitar and humming a nepali song on his own. The porter, Devi is a
well known figure in yaksom. And he has stopped drinking now.
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