Mountains Are Pleasure
If You Drive With Leisure
Lestari Hairul
On the winding, steep roads of Ladakh, India, you will
encounter a series of amusing and at times poetic
signs erected by the Border Road Organisation (BRO).
They’re ubiquitous, easy to spot and, thanks to the
acronym, manage to speak to you both directly and in
a friendly manner. “Bro”, it seemed to tell me time and
time again, “Don’t Be A Gama In The Land Of
The Lama”*.
There are other, funnier signs of course. One of the
sayings that particularly tickled my friends and I was
“Don’t Gossip, Let Him Drive”. Or here’s another one,
“Drive Slow Or Your Grave Is Down Below”. The signs
are a humorous way of reminding road-users that, as
beautiful as the landscape is, one careless move may
well spell doom. But it is the injunction to not be an
overconfident strong guy in the land of a chill dude
that sticks with me.
I should’ve paid attention to my symptoms right from
the beginning. Call it bravado, or the bullishness of
a tourist short on time and determined to catch all
the sights. Friends who know better have advised
that it’s best to take it easy the first two days upon
touching down in Ladakh. One should acclimatise
well before attempting a trek since it will take you
higher and higher through rugged terrain. I was not
acclimatising well. Climbing up the multitude of steps
to explore the old crumbling structures of Leh town
left me breathless. Having lunch by Lake Pangong
was making my heart beat twice its usual rate. And
here’s the kicker: I have never done a multi-day
trek before. I was unfit, untrained and ridiculously
foolhardy. To my mind, I was in good company
because I was doing the trek with two smokers, great
friends I met through work. But the joke was on me,
one of them was assumed to be Ladakhi even by the
guides because he was breezing—running, skipping,
even—past everyone at top speed with a full pack
on whilst puffing away on his stash of cigarettes.
The other, an utterly stylish lady with a head of silver
hair so luminous people were asking her for selfies
together back in Delhi, was trooping onwards at a
steady relentless pace that would’ve made her fashion
industry peers reel in disbelief. And that they did.
Whilst my friends were forging on far ahead of me, I
was slipping into delirium. I was angry with my body
for failing me, angry with myself for jumping on this
trip. When everyone else has left you in the dust,
you end up with a lot of time on your hands to think
through life and all the bullshit you’ve spewed or
done. I’d gone in with the same stupid confidence
I have for most new things in my life. A year earlier
I’d fallen off a modest waterfall in Fiji, only to crash
my golf buggy into a tree and hit my head just a day
later as I attempted to make a quick manoeuvre on
a steep path. Months before, a Segway shredded
my right thigh as I was trying to show off a spinning
trick I’d just taught myself five minutes before yelling
at everyone to watch me. Two years before that, I’d
dropped out of Monash after accepting a job offer at
the magazine I was interning at. I’ve done several silly
things and made life decisions on the fly just running
on the strength of the words “Why the hell not?”
And all that culminated with me tearfully talking to a
white horse of my regrets. The heat, the dust, the dry
chapatis and the heavy load on my chest finally drove
me to that corner on the path where, hidden by tall,
dry grass, a pair of white horses kept me company.
I knew I was hallucinating but it was comforting
somehow. I spoke to the horse like he was my priest,
rambling about how sorry I was and that I will never
attempt to climb Everest to have my corpse left behind
covered by ice. I cried and warbled about not telling
125
This isn’t a
redemption
story; this
protagonist
does not
emerge from
the trial of fire
to become
a glamorous
butterfly.
In Sperga, Turin (2018). ▶