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Operation Jai Mata Di! ... trekking to Vaishnodevi Sandeep Kamat The Delhi winter was at its peak... The mercury was hovering at four degrees min. The fog was at its worst. The visibility was getting extremely poor at night... In this kind of winter, we were preparing for a march north towards Jammu. December 25, 1998 The mission was Operation Jai Mata Di. The destination: Vaishnodevi. To add to the climax, the train -- Swaraj express -- departure time was 4.15 am. Vaishnodevi is a cave located at a height of 1,700 metres. Legend has it that the Vaishnodevi stayed at this cave while on the run from demon Bhairon, who wanted to marry her. She killed him. The five of us – four friends and I -- got together at Noida and went to the New Delhi station in a cab. We reached the station a bit early. But the trains were running late thanks to the fog. Swaraj was two hours late! The wait at the station had us braving the Delhi cold, at the early hours of the day, with not much on, but for the sweaters, jackets, monkey caps, scarves, gloves... And then I spilled tea on my companion's trousers. He was prompt enough to wash it right on the spot. The result: he was shivering till midday. Sorry, friend. Swaraj was seven hours late in reaching Jammu. Our misty watches showed 11pm. We booked the first hotel -- Vaishnavi Dham -- near the station, which later on turned out to be the best in that area. It offers subsidised rates because the Vaishnodevi shrine board owns the hotel. December 26, 1998 Early morning we went to Kathra which was the town at the foothills of the Vaishno. Seventy-five kms from Jammu it took about two hours to reach. On the way, we had a vague glimpse of the sleepy Jammu city. It appeared quite mysterious in the fog. After umpteen security checks, on the way, we reached Kathra at around 10 am. Refreshed after a bath and a light breakfast, we all set out on the 14 km trek up towards the holy cave, which is known here as pavitr gu(n)fa or bhavan. When we first spotted the hill, the trek looked easy. And of course, tempting. We gathered all the ammunition to fight the cold and set off by the noon. To our surprise, soon the sun was shining bright and the tough trek had us sweating, forcing us to remove our sweaters, jackets, caps, gloves which we had bought over the previous week just for this trek! As a matter of fact, we even thought of leaving all this extra luggage' in the cloak room on the way. But better sense prevailed and we wondered whether about the temperature up there. The trek was a lot of fun... The chanting of jai mata di in Hindi… singing Punjabi songs like Prem se bolo jai mata di ! Maa na suniyan ! Jai mata di… actually made us forget the heat and the exertion ! People's enthusiasm, integrity and will-power was amazing. Hardly anyone needed the peetthus or porters who carry luggage and children on their backs) or the palkis (palanquins) or the tattus (horses). People were all charged up with the notion of a darshan of the Dukhiyari Mata. The sight of many old and handicapped people climbing the hill was heartening. Exactly half way through is the Aadhkunwari temple. I met this young guy riding a horse. He pointed to a handicapped girl climbing the hill down, "See man, that's what I call dedication!" I thanked this young chap for pointing it out. After reaching the top, we found that we had left the fog below us and it was clear up there. The sun was partially below the 'fogline'..Half bright. And half red. Naturally, I whipped my camera out. It was around 6 pm and it was getting cold too due to the high altitude. The 'extra luggage', which we were reluctantly carrying till now, was a necessity now. We had covered the distance in five hours. Though we had been warned about the hardships involved in actually doing the Mata's darshan, what they meant sank home when we saw a serpentine queue at the gate of the bhavan. A wait, full of pushes -- there was a stampede at one point of time despite the 'queue token system' -- in the queue for about 3 hours or so was in store for us after the five hour long trek. We took some rest (!) standing in the queue and the chilly atmosphere on the pahaad made sure that our feet were numb. We naturally had no footwear. In places, there was extremely cold water on the floor of the cave. Not much sensation was still left in our feet after the wait and the trek. We had to leave any luggage, leather items, footwear, combs, cameras etc in the cloak room. Again after some five or six security checks in the queue, even after we actually entered the bhavan, we had a darshan for a fraction of a second each. Only. Many didn't even realise they had the darshan till the gufa opened on the other side. There are no idols or photos there. The darshan was in the form of a natural pindi which is very small and one has to look for it amidst the glittering ornaments. December 27, 1998 On reaching the hotel, none had the energy to look for Iodex or Amrutanjan or whatever. Anyway we were not sure whether the sensation in our feet would be back by the next day. Remember the Prahaar scene? We just managed to take the last step forward and crashed on our beds. December 28, 1998 The following noon , we visited the Kathra market, which is a big dry fruits market. Everywhere you see akrod or walnut and badam or almond shops. By the time I had surveyed the market my stomach was full with the 'sample' akrod/badams I had eaten. Besides the nuts and other dry fruits, available too was honey, dried apple-chips, Kashmiri masalas and Kashmiri shawls there too. We returned to Jammu after lunch. This time Jammu was clear of fog. But it had started getting dark. I just managed to click a few snaps… Vaishno bhavan, the dry fruit market, Sher-e-Kashmir chowk etc. But I badly missed clicking the Jammu University (as I was in the bus). Jammu University had a very big campus and also had a group of guys hanging around the gate like any other university. But watch closely and you will see the guys 'hanging around' the gate are alert commandos with guns. The train back to Delhi brought us – as usual -- seven hours late. Must be something about the number seven. Net result: I missed office on a day when I wanted to be in for a demo of a project. I rushed to the office. And what do I learn. The demo was cancelled. Instead there was a year-end party in the evening at Hotel Ashok with singer, Sonu Nigam as the guest. Jai Mata di! Fast Facts Tell us what you think of this feature

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