GEORGE EVEREST HOUSE

In the Museum in Thimphu, Bhutan, I had seen the model of a typical mountain house with the ground floor dedicated to the animals and the first floor to the family. The inhabitants spend most of their time around the fire in the kitchen to keep themselves warm. There were granaries for grains and also meat cut in the form of ribbons and dried in the sun stored for the harsh winter months.

It took almost an hour and a half for us to trek from the foot of the mountain in Musoorie to the top to George Everest House. It stood at an altitude of 6500 feet. The town of Musoorie lay at 500 feet below. I saw an old woman gazing at us from one side of the mountain. She was dressed in a Tibetan Chuba, their traditional dress. I waved at her and she waved back. I wanted to go and meet her but my enthusiastic guide who was keen to get me to the top promised me to take me back to her on our way back. Unfortunately, she disappeared when we came back.

I was surprised to find the board of a tea stall on reaching the top. It is in front of a small hut. A middle aged couple live there. They make a living by keeping cows, goats and some hens. Unlike the house I saw in Thimphu, here the animals live alongside their owners. The limited region of the fence surrounding their house is their area for cultivation. They sell Paranthas, Tea ,Cold drinks and of course Maggi to the lone trekkers who came up to the George Everest House. They have no water or electricity there. Water has to be fetched from a well almost one kilometre down.

Internet says that George Everest was Welsh and the Surveyor-General of India from 1830 to 1843. He owned the house in Musoorie for some time. For a building of that age, the house is still in good condition. The cliff is steep on one side. There are wooden frames on the ceiling and well built fireplaces. 

The bath rooms at the rear end have tiles which give evidence of some recent renovation attempted in the house. Interiors of the house is badly littered with animal dung, used plates etc.

 The walls are 'bedecked' with names and vain declarations of love.  We could meet a couple of love birds out there who must have sneaked away from the buzz of the town. A cow greeted us from inside one of the rooms.

The mountain top offers the view of the Doon valley on one side and the Aglar valley on the other. Life looks pleasantly enticing from there. I am reminded of a short story by Guy Maupassant which I read sometime back. It is about a couple who elopes to an uninhabited island of Corsica and lives there happily together ripe into their old age. It would be wonderful to spend life only with the people whom you love around you without the hassle of worldly temptations in such isolated places.

 





For the masked urban eyes, though it may seem a living away from reality, it is indeed a living in reality.