Chandranath Dhaam Where clouds meet the cliff
Mahmudul Hasan Hemal
On the way up, Kausar happened to hear a giggling sound. A bit ahead, we found another group of travellers, consisting of a girl and two boys our age. They were talking among themselves in a foreign language as they walked, and were having fun. We could not make head or tail of what we were hearing. Musa bhai, it is not Bangla, nor English, Hindi, Urdu or French. Is it German? Didnt you do a German course from the Institute of Modern Languages? I enquired.
Musa sighed and nodded. Kausar was busy shooting photos, and managed to say: Isnt the girl pretty, bro? Well, when both our groups reached a rest spot around midday, there was pin-drop silence. At the point, there was a hut with just a roof where all of us sat for a while. Beside the hut, was a sweet water stream. There, we talked. They knew English and we came to know that they were from Sri Lanka. They were studying at the University of Science Technology, Chittagong, and were there to visit the temple, just like us.
From that place, two different tracks headed up to the temple _ the left one, without concrete steps and comparatively less steep, takes you to the temple via the Shiva Mandir, while the right one is more vertical and will take you directly to the temple. From there, you can visit the Shiva Mandir through a pathway zigzagging through the hills.
The other group took the left track, and we took the right, the steeper path that directly takes you to the temple. After climbing 15 minutes at a stress, I blurted out: Musa bhai, how much farther? He replied that the journey had just started! I called the Almighty, looking skyward. More terrifying, sometimes the path led to a dead end, sometimes the concrete steps were damaged and we had to take alternative sidetracks. Another 15 minutes passed. By that time, I had already taken rest several times, out of exhaustion, sitting on the steps.
A monk passed our way, accompanied by some locals who did not seem tired at all. I sat down thinking that: If I lose consciousness and fall down, I am dead! I feared that the motor neurons around my femur and tibia-fibula were malfunctioning as I had no sense in my legs. When my fellow travellers started moving again, I sat down abruptly, crying out: Carry on, you guys! I am just taking another rest!
It started raining cats and dogs when we reached another hut. It was a tin-roofed structure with a machang (a kind of platform made of bamboo) inside, where we sat down _ and sang songs. The locals had taken shelter there, too, and they enjoyed our impromptu concert as it rained heavily outside.
When the rain stopped, we resumed our trek. On the way up, we encountered a group of Tablig Jamaat devotees coming down. Most of them were old men, which is why it was more of a surprise thinking how they could have reached so high a place! I asked: Oh! uncles, have you come for sightseeing? They replied that they were from Comilla on a tablig tour at a nearby mosque and were just visiting the place out of curiosity.
We finally reached the top of the hill. At the top, we were surprised to see the Sri Lankans already in the temple, taking photos enthusiastically. Musa and Kausar felt disappointed at our failure to reach there first. I, myself, was a bit shocked that a girl beat us to it! (Sorry, indeed, for underestimating girls).
To be continued.
The writer is a Masters student of English at Chittagong University.
