Of Sunsets, Cookery Schools and Fireside Tales

The sunset from Sunset Guesthouse was utterly glorious. I stood taking photo after photo, as sky went from crimson, to vermillion, to orange, to yellow and finally to black.

'Come inside', Deepak called. 'We are cooking dinner'.

So I sat round the fire, as it burnt under a small hearth, as Ram the guest house owner, and his wife Indra cooked dinner. There was not much light, only the fire, a dim bulb in the far corner and a head torch that Ram wore.

Watching them prepare the dishes for Dhalbaat; rice, lentil soup, chana masala, fiery tomato chutney and spinach, was fascinating. Pots would come off the ring, others would go on, spices added ingredients chopped and thrown in. In a way it reminded me of the lesson that my father and I had at the Jamie Oliver cooker school.

'This is cumin and mustard seed', Ram kept a commentary going. 'Add to the oil. And the green chilli, red chilli and the masala chilli. Green chilli the spicy one. Now turmeric, just a little bit, and salt. You want some roxy?'. He heated
some in a kettle so it was warm.

I ate Nepali style, with my fingers, mixing and rolling the food round till it became a ball, soaking up the sauce, before scooping it into my mouth. This seemed to please not only Deepak, but the other dozen or so people somewhere in the haze at the back.

Once dinner had been cleared away, and another glass of warm roxy was poured, I asked Ram about stories from this region. He looked a bit unsure, but agreed to try.

His English was a bit broken but this is how I understood the story. When he couldn't remember a detail, his wife, Indra, chimed in with a the answer.

'There are five hills in Panchasi, like a hand'. He held up his own. 'Five hills.

'This is because of Shiva, and his wife, Shaktideva. He loved Shaktideva so much that when she died he mourned and mourned and would not bury her. Instead he carried her all over India on a litter, not letting her body touch the Earth, because he didn't want to loose her.

'But when he got to Panchesi, her arm slipped out of the litter and her hand touched the Earth. Each place her fingers touched is now a hill of Panchesi.

'Many years later, a son called Sarumankumar was living here with his blind parents. He went to the lake to get some water to bathe them. He leant over with a large bucket, like a milk churn to get water.

'But his uncle, the King Dasarat was hunting nearby. He heard the sound of the water going into the churn and thought it was a dear lapping at the lake, so he loosed an arrow. This pierced the boy and killed him.

'But the Gods looking down took pity on the boy, and turned his dead body into a stone. It is shaped like a man tipping a churn into the lake. It is still there, you can see it'.

'What happened to the blind parents?' I asked.

'Ah their tale is not so happy. With no son to look after them, they wandered down the valley cursing the Gods until they died of starvation. The place where they died is called Saradhee, which means 'Cursing the Gods'.

Sitting on low stools in that smoky room high on the Panchesi hill, the fire hissing before us, a crowd of local people listen to Ram tell his story was very special. It felt like the moment that all treks were hoping to get too.

Despite it seeming much later, I was in bed by nine, warm on my outside from the fire, and happy on the inside from the warmth of the companionship I had shared.

The festival at the lakeside was starting the next day, In some ways I was disappointed to miss it after having heard so much about the myths behind the event, but in another way I was glad that I would miss the crowds, This way I could experience the magic in my own way.