Some
trips are born out of planning, some trips are born out of a desire to see a new place, and some trips are born out of a wish to fulfill promises which had been made. This particular road trip of me and my family was born out of a
promise my father made at a humble shrine of a Sufi saint, located at the
foothills of the Himalayas, right next to a riverbed on the Himachal Pradesh –
Haryana Border. The name of the town was Sadhaura (Haryana) and this humble shrine was
located on the outskirts of it.
Zooming across the tree lined NH 44
We
set out in our car post filling our tanks, getting a
brand new set of tyres (the trip was a long one, almost 250 kms one way, so it
made sense to change our tyres especially seeing the fact that it was close to
due date of periodic change of our car tyres), stocking ourselves up with cameras,
GPS device and (vis a vis my father) memories of the place he had visited 29
years ago.
Thanks
to the servicing our car had got we zoomed across the NH44 and via towns of Panipat,
Karnal and Shahbad Markanda we crossed the town of Sadhaura. Now this bit we
covered with the help of Google maps. The last bit of the journey was a tricky
one because the landscape (as it existed in 1986) had changed drastically, to
top it all the mountains which were close by had been shrouded in a cloak of
mist by nature so it was really tough to fix the location of the shrine. What
made it even tougher was that when we asked the locals for directions they kept
on guiding us to local shrines which didn’t fit the description. Eventually father
and son (the one for whom he had prayed for in the shrine, which is me), after
roaming barefoot on the riverbed (the car after negotiating the sandy riverbed
with some difficulty, the tyres of the car came to our aid over here, had been
parked at a shrine which looked old) my father had a feeling that we were at
the right place.
The Blessed Dargah, which we finally found..
The
remaining doubts which he had in his mind (he recalled that there were
mountains visible right behind the shrine, something which we could not
ascertain because of the mist in the air) were cleared by the young caretakers
in the shrine who informed us that One, the shrine had undertaken some structural
modifications since the last time my dad came
(which is why it looked a bit different), Two, this shrine was at least
300 years old and thus the only shrine which stood next to the river bed (at
that location) and Three, the mountains ‘were visible’ behind the shrine and
that they were shrouded in mist which is why we could not see it then (you
could remember that one of the memories which my dad had of the shrine was that
it was locate at the foothills of Himalayas).
After
these doubts were cleared we proceeded to the shrine with an open heart and
offered the beautiful chaddar which my father had obtained from a shop next to
the Nizammuddin Dargah in Delhi.
The beautifully decorated inner wall, of the dome under which the Sufi Saint rests..
Once
the customary pictures were taken we decided to head off to Nahan, to celebrate
the fulfillment of my dad’s promise. Now, our car was a 2 x 4 drive but we were confident to take our
city car to Nahan (a town in Himachal Pradesh, at an elevation of 3058 ft above sea level) which was
at a distance of 30kms from Sadhaura.
Climbing the winding road upto Nahan
Bare hills beside the road to Nahan, it is hill sides like these which are prone to landslides during the rainy season
The
road to Nahan took us through the town of Kala Amb. Post crossing the Himachal
Pradesh border we started to negotiate the winding roads leading up to the
former capital of the princely state of Sirmour. We drove cautiously whenever
we saw a truck approaching and never accelerated beyond 30 kms per hour (and
that too on an empty and straight stretch of road, which were few to find to be
quite honest).
Lytton Memorial
Gurudwara Shri Dashmesh Asthan (Nahan Sahib)
Upon
reaching Nahan we had lunch and after exploring the British Era Lytton
Memorial, which is quite at the entrance of Nahan, we went to the Gurudwara
Shri Dashmesh Asthan (Nahan Sahib) a historical site which was visited by Guru
Gobind Singh!
A Panoramic view of the countryside, as seen from Nahan
After
spending some time here we headed back. After negotiating the downhill mountain
roads with the help of our brakes and tyres we hit the NH 44 and zoomed back to
Delhi. The trip to Delhi took us around 5 and a half hour.
As mentioned earlier we were in a Tata Nano but that never made us nervous while driving on the Highways as we simply stuck to the Road Safety rules. While driving on the highways we ensured that we drove on our designated lanes, did not attempt to overtake from the wrong side and always yielded whenever a big truck came up. We used the dipper effectively and that helped. My brother and father took turns at driving as a fatigued driver at the wheel is an invitation to accidents.
I
was never able to document this trip for my blog (due to certain events
mentioned ahead). This trip was special not only because my dad was able
to fulfill his promise which he made to the Sufi Saint in the 80’s but also
because 10 days post the trip my dad met a terrible accident which led to a
surgery and post operative complications. Today while my dad is hale and hearty
but (upon medical advice) he can no longer undertake a 500 kms road trip like
this ever again.
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