On the morning of August 15, 2022, I climbed the five thousand feet from Ghangaria in the Chamoli Himalayas to Guradavārā Srī Hemkunt Sāhib. Ghangaria, a small trekking village only accessible by foot in Uttarakhand, was overbooked and buzzing as I awoke on the momentous seventy-fifth anniversary of India’s independence. As I trudged up the rain-soaked mountain, I belatedly realized that it was also the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Not always the savviest of planners, I had somehow scheduled a Sikh pilgrimage on one of my own religion’s most important feast days. It was never my intention to trade one religious experience for another, but I chose to treat this as a victory for ecumenism rather than a failure of devotion on my part.
I knew nothing of Hemkunt Sāhib when I booked the trek a month prior. After spending the summer in Kolkata as the Resident Director for the Bangla Critical Language Scholarship, I was ready for cooler climes. I chose the trek because I had wanted to visit the Valley of Flowers in Nanda Devi National Park for a number of years. The advert boasted a trip to a guradavārā, but I did not pay it much heed at the time. After several days of traveling by car from Delhi, I reached Govindghat where the trek officially began. Our first task was to hike to Ghangaria, where we would stay for three days. Excited, I blitzed through one gorgeous valley after another while following the course of the Lakshman Ganga river.
As I neared Ghangaria, I met three Punjabi Sikhs from Ludhiana: Simar, Arpinder, and Sunny. As we walked, they taught me some words in Punjabi, told me about their city, and promised to host me in the future. Upon arriving in Ghangaria, they took me to a guradavārā and we had laṅgar. Sunny introduced me to his family, and I attempted speaking to his mother with my rusty Hindi. When I mentioned that I didn’t know where my trekking group was, she insisted that I stay with them. Not wanting to impose, I gracefully declined and was eventually able to locate my group. I ran into Simar, Arpinder, and Sunny repeatedly throughout the rest of my time in Uttarakhand, and we promised to stay in touch. My next trip to India will have to feature an excursion to Ludhiana.
Simar, Arpinder, and Sunny alerted me to the fact that many in Ghangaria were there for the sole purpose of visiting Hemkunt Sāhib. Gurū Gobind Singh mentions the site in Srī Dasam Graṅth, and Sikhs have been traveling there for centuries. The present guradavārā, however, was only constructed in the 1960s. Ghangaria, nestled in a narrow valley at an elevation of ten thousand feet, is the last outpost of civilization before reaching Hemkunt. A switchback stone path leads from the village to the guradavārā, with the precipitous grade of the ascent quickly propelling the pilgrim to dizzying heights. Weather poses a significant obstacle to reaching the summit, as the path is completely exposed to the elements. Hemkunt and Ghangaria are only accessible during the summer, as the valley is closed from October to April due to heavy snows.
The other great obstacle to reaching Hemkunt is acute mountain sickness, a condition that affects one third of those who attempt the trek to Hemkunt. Symptoms include dizziness, headaches, and fatigue. As my time in Ghangaria wore on, I became increasingly concerned about my ability to successfully reach Hemkunt. While I am no stranger to arduous, lengthy hikes, I have rarely made them at such a high altitude. Reaching Ghangaria was easy, but I had all sorts of trouble in the Valley of Flowers, which sits at around twelve thousand feet. My limbs were up to the task, but I found breathing to be quite difficult; I experienced headaches, lightheadedness, and general weariness. This discomfort caused me to cut my time in the valley short, and I crashed down the mountain to the relative safety of Ghangaria.
Hemkunt sits at fifteen thousand feet, so I began to worry it would be completely unattainable for me. It rained throughout the night of the fourteenth and into the morning of the fifteenth, so much so that my trek leader said the route to Hemkunt was closed. I was initially relieved, as I could not be blamed for failing to reach a closed guradavārā, but by 9a.m. the rain had cleared and I began my ascent. I kept to a painstakingly slow pace and drank liter after liter of water in the hope of staving off altitude sickness. I inhaled maggi (a ubiquitous Indian version of cup noodles) at every opportunity, but I became more and more lightheaded and delirious the higher I climbed.
Around 1p.m., after a final push up a steep flight of stairs, I attained the summit, soaked and shivering. The guradavārā serves a laṅgar of khicaṛī and chai, which I gratefully accepted, but I was not able to shake my feelings of lightheadedness. I shuffled over to the sarōvara lake facing the guradavārā as people posed with Indian flags draped round their shoulders. Following the crowd, I removed my shoes and entered the guradavārā, my bare feet making me colder than I had been all day. Upon entering, I paused at the peaceful sight before me. As it was near closing time, the singing was done for the day and the guradavārā was rather empty. People sat around the edges praying, and some young boys were taking photos. I made my way towards the Gurū Graṅth Sāhib, smiling in disbelief that I was in a guradavārā at fifteen thousand feet. Because of my altitude sickness, it was hard to comprehend what I was looking at and what I had accomplished as I rounded the palakī.
I am no stranger to physically arduous religious pilgrimages. I once spent a month (and over 800 kilometers) toiling on El Camino de Santiago to reach the tomb of St James. I am accustomed to difficult hikes and adverse weather conditions. Yet my trip to Hemkunt Sāhib felt different. Perhaps it was the altitude, perhaps it was the serendipity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, but I felt the hand of Providence as I crested the mountain and the guradavārā clove into sight out of the mist. It felt as if my mind was attempting to rush out of my skull up into the clouds. The precarity of the situation, the sacredness of the spot, my heady feelings—all contributed to converting my spiritual experience into a material reality. While the metaphor of a spiritual journey is familiar to all of us on pilgrimage here on this earth, there are many physical destinations where humanity can reach closer to the divine. I do not hesitate to say that I encountered God at Guradavārā Srī Hemkunt Sāhib.
_____
Devin Creed