“Seyb” (Apple), which is pronounced almost similar to save in English, is the fruit which saved lives of four people, including me, stuck in the perilous hills of Himachal, in the fall of 2004.
‘Jindal & Company’ was the name of the firm for which I worked for four long and crucial years of my life. Collection of arrears was part of my job and I used to cover Shimla District of Himachal. For me it was the most learning face of my life. I experienced almost everything there which is usually written by writers to enchant their readers. This incident, I am going to share, is part of these experiences.
At ‘Jindal & Company’ we used to trade apple packing material to orchardists in Himachal. We used to book the orders over phone and deliver the required goods to them by trucks. After the apple season we had to go to them and collect the amount overdue. During the fall of 2004 we went to Chirgaon, a small village near Rohru in Shimla, by Maruti Zen. I had been there twice before.
This time it had been raining heavily for three days when we reached the village. We had to cross the village and scale towards the peak of a hill nearby, as the orchardist we were going to meet, shifted his dwelling from the village to his farm. This was almost thirty kilometers but three and half hour away from the village by car.
The road leading to this farm, at that time, was a stigma on even the worst roads of the world. I would name this road if someone asks me the way to hell. But I think I had committed some ghastly sin which earned me the opportunity to scale this road. Walking on this road was impossible. By car it was an act of foolishness which we performed due to the ignorance about the hazards and the immature age. None among four of us was more than twenty three. None of us belong to the hills and neither had any experience of such roads. I have a long list of excuses but I know it won’t interest anyone as we all are somehow stung by the “NOT MY FAULT” virus and expert in blaming circumstances.
The road was made by farmers who had their farms in that area. It was made of slate, as this is commonly found and used as building material there.When you drive on this kind of road the chances are fifty-fifty for anything. Our car was not fully able to follow the instructions given by the driver. At times when he steered it right it turned left. He couldn't apply brakes even because that could've been proved fatal in that situation. It could lead us off the road. The clay and water took shape similar to a top class lubricant and got spread all over the road. It was trying its best to push the car towards the edge of the road which looked like the doorstep of hell at that time. The car was floating instead of moving. We three were sitting at the backseat and were trying our best to avoid the glance of the edge of the road which sometimes appeared dangerously close.
The struggle between the road and us continued, meanwhile, we reached a spot where the road was rather broad and there was a space to park. The sunlight was getting dim, the rain slowed down and we were waiting for a suitable spot to get ourselves relieved of the waste water in our body, we parked the car beside the hill. There was an apple farm upside the hill. We saw the trees loaded with export quality apples. It was still drizzling and the farm looked very beautiful. The apples were hanging in bunches to the thin branches of small plants. These small plants looked very tired, but full of proud as if they boast of their beauty and richness.
We stopped there for a while and when we were about to move, an orchardist came with his laborer and asked us where we were going. He told us that we are almost thirteen kilometers away from the farm, but the road ahead has been damaged and it’ll take at least one day for the repair. There was no place to stay till next day thus they had put up a tent there. We decided to stay in the car only as the tent was chilled and muddy. We had nothing to eat. So for dinner we got the best quality apple from the nearby farm. That variety of apple is very rare and thus very expensive.
Somehow the night was over. The morning was devastating. Three kilometers back where nothing was visible last night due to the dense forest, now there was nothing except enormous stones. We were stunned. We heard no sounds nothing during the night, as we were packed in the car covered with blankets. The Gorkhas in the tent told us that last night there was a cloud burst at five kilometers behind our spot. We thanked the god for the new life and started thinking to return. The road ahead was damaged and the road behind got washed away. The scene was crystal clear and we thought God didn't plan a death by flood for us, rather it’s by starvation.
For the breakfast we again had apples. The same export quality apples we had last night. Due to constant raining all the possible alternate ways were blocked. Next two days we had that expensive export quality apple for all the three meals. These export quality apples saved our lives there otherwise it was impossible to survive in those conditions without any edible. On third day the road ahead got repaired and we made a move from there to our destination.
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