“This is it?” I asked the driver when he finally stopped his rickshaw in, more or less, the middle of nowhere.
“Yes Sahib. This Manu Temple,” he pointed to a track on the right.
Dubiously I got out and trudged up the winding, rocky, pathway.
It was a tiny bungalow facing the Himalayan peaks to the northwest.
The small windows threw a strange light on the floor.
In a corner sat an old, long bearded man, dressed in an orange sari on a cotton carpet.
A beam of sun caught his face and he didn’t look too pleased by my presence.
I nodded, noted the spectacular vista and left disappointed.
I decided to walk down the hillside but firstly entered the one small shop in the area.
I bought a hat for 50 rupees and a Kullu shawl for 400 rupees.
The owner of this emporium was young and served Chi tea.
He spoke, avidly, of Jammur his home in Kashmir and Leh, on the border with Tibet.
‘Walk on’, an old blues song resonated in my head, as I trudged down the hillside.
A woman passed carrying a huge basket full of some crop.
It was balanced precariously on her head and was far larger than her whole frame.
Her posture was bent by years being burdened with this same task.
It showed in every pore of her being.
I focused my camera:
“No photo,” she stated firmly and waved a knarred finger at me.
She nimbly turned her head away, despite the weight of her burdens.
It confirmed what I suspected that the local women do not like the camera to steal their soul.
Later, after several miles I crossed a bridge over the Bea River where it ran, as much against itself, as for itself.
It was a torrent of white rapids, battering its way downstream despite the pull of its source.
Behind these mountainous summits the sunset turned red and orange and this arrival of twilight came with a bitterly cold wind.
I passed several men squatting by a fire in the dusk.
They were huddled over an old dustbin that contained a burning tyre.
I refused an offer to visit their shop and climbed up to see the hotel in the distance.
Relieved, I stop to catch my breath in the thin air.
It was then I noticed a man squatting on the ground about 20 yards from me.
He was dressed in a light brown, collarless coat that covered a brightly embroidered, shirt.
His trousers were black and frayed.
He wore a red turban and his face was creased and furrowed.
He had a grey moustache and light blue, piercingly, hypnotic eyes that smiled mischievously.
He sat perfectly still cross-legged almost off the earth, totally concentrated.
His left hand was placed purposely and immovably on his right knee.
In his right hand he held an intricately carved round, wooden pole that was placed on the ground.
He twirled it almost invisibly.
The movement of this thin, black, pole spun a larger copper made, circular top, which had attached to it seven, small metal balls.
The speed of the hand made them swing centrifugally, in a perfect orbit to the instrument and made a unique, resonating sound.
It was a spell binding sight.
The following morning, this image embedded in my mind, I awoke after an uncomfortable sleep.
It was cold and damp and the summer season decidedly over.
The hotel I had noted was almost empty and the staff wandered round trying to look busy with maintenance and such like.
The smart suits they wore as uniforms were threadbare to say the least.
Their eyes had the desperate look of those I met in Bali, who also working in this ‘service industry’.
My waiter looked hungry.
‘He probably works’, I thought, “ for as little as a £1.00 per day.
This will buy a little Dahl, rice, fruit juice and smoke.
It will see him smile.
There is a simplicity and dignity in people here,’
I mused on.
‘They have nothing and yet everything, for they do not ‘covet’ or ‘envy’ others, nor do they wish to escape their position or situation.
Social mobility doesn’t come into it.
They ‘know’ or ‘believe’ that material wealth, the ability to have more ‘goods’ will not bring them greater happiness.
It will bring a different set of problems or ‘karma’.
This might be more insufferable than the one they already are living through.
They are here, each paying dues they believe, for who knows what happened in another lifetime.
It gives them an understanding that far surpasses our western values of being feted by the media, or winning the lottery.
To the people of the ‘Kullu Valley’ our cultural goals and ambition mean nothing.
Here, servant and master are as one, for they both sense how inconsequential they are, yet have an equal ability, be they prince or pauper, to explore their inner universe.’
I smile at the waiter and he smiles back before he turns and looks into the distance.
I follow his gaze to the sun rising in the East. It illuminates the snow capped Himalayan peaks in a cascade of orange hues.
We catch each other’s eye, recognising the beauty.
It was a shared silence in which we both entered our bodies.
Suddenly, the Manu Temple I visited yesterday high on the hill in Old Manali and the powerful concentration of the Buddhist with his prayer stick came into perspective.
That inner attention appeared to dwarf the petty desires and temptations, of our modern day thirst for more than enough.
Richness lay in a wish for internal understanding not in false hope for material success in the ‘outer’ world.
For a minute or two the silence was audible.
The waiter spoke first:
“No need for nothing more,” he stated his double negative as a matter of fact and spread his palms toward the glorious horizon.
“Kullu” he concluded, “very different, Sahib.”
