HIMALAYAS: ONCE THE ABODE OF THE GODS (Satis Shroff)

Himalayas: Once the Abode of the Gods (Satis Shroff)

Through the power of the mind the human being creates his or her own environment, which we call culture. Even though Homo sapiens has physical handicaps we are able to create a civilisation wih our special culture-technic which enables us to live in the foothills of the Himalayas (Nepali Sherpas), the Arctic (Inuit) and in hot sandy deserts (Tuaregs).

European thought has taken over the thought of living in symbiosis with Nature. The Himalayas were always holy, a sacred Abode of the Gods and Goddesses. The victory of European line of thinking of become victorious over other countries, and the urge to rule them, exploit them for more profit and power became the aim of colonial powers which captured and even sold slaves from Africa for the cotton fields of the USA and elsewhere.

The colonial idea of conquest of the highest mountain in the world was one such longing of the British rulers in India. The Everest was climbed for the first time by Hillary and Tenzing. The sanctity of the holy mountains was broken and other expeditions followed. Mountaineering became big biz for the travel agencies all over the world, and also in Kathmandu. Alone last year, and this year, 350 groups were registered with top services for those who had money, and still wanted to be Everest conquerors. How you did it wasn't important. To get to the top became the aim of moneyed hobby climbers. The days when a guy like Reinhold Messner climbed Everest without the use of oxygen was long passe. Whether it was by fair means or not, whether the climbers used amphetamine or retalin (doping) was secondary.

The Sherpas and the other Nepalese ethnic porters put up ladders, nylon ropes, brought important survival logistics up to the different camps along the summits. The base camp became a tent city with every luxury the tourist-cum-climber desired, even prostitutes.

Before the colonial conquest of Everest, every tree, every hill and animal was thought to have a soul. The ancient Hindus worshipped Prakriti (Nature) and asked the Gods and Goddesses in the Himalayas for guidance, a safe journey and forgiveness for treading upon the sacred Himalayas, and thanked the Gods for their good fortune, and appeased them through ritual offerings in the form of tormas, rice, khadas, burning incense sticks, beckoning the Gods and Goddesses with ritual bells, horns, cymbals and Shiva's conch while reciting mantras.

Hard currency in the form of dollars, euros and yen have become the new deities. Money makes the world go round, even in the Himalayas. Every year plastic garbage left by the tourists have to be brought down in special cleaning actions, and the worse thing is that the trail to the summit smells of stool because the toilet waste in left by humans in the Abode of the Himalayas. Everest: the open latrine of the world.