Sattal lake and its surroundings in the Kumaon Himalayas, with acres of unspoilt verdure, thanks largely due to the absence of saleable land and the fact that the area is a cul-de-sac, with nowhere further to go, has continually refreshed my soul over the past twelve years or so. In these years I have perhaps visited the place perhaps a dozen times, not always staying in the same location.
When I have travelled with the extended family, the Tourist Rest House (TRC) with its striding location overlooking the lake has been the residence of choice. When with friends who are somewhat adventurous though not cut out for serious outdoor rigour, I have preferred the YMCA tents, with their comfortable beds and attached baths and electricity and all that, besides direct access to Sattal lake along the perimeter of the camp. My Walden Pond moments have however been experienced at the Getaway Jungle Camp (Henry David Thoreau’s book by that name explores his ‘transcendentalist’ thoughts and experiments with truth and nature; Gandhiji drew on Thoreau’s writings on Civil Disobedience to develop his own ideas on passive resistance).
Getaway Jungle Camp is a concept. To get to it you need first to take a boat across Sattal lake to the far side and disembark at a desolate spot, from where (attended of course) you need to trek 600 metres up a rocky trail to reach the campsite. As the camp sweeps into view, the majesty of the location takes your breath away. Surrounded on all sides by hills, you find yourself amidst a meadow larger than a full sized football ground. From the edge of the meadow, about halfway along the length of the camp, the terrain rises up gradually to end at the bottom of a steeply rising hill that marks the rear boundary of the site. Along the incline you have numerous tents and finally a bonfire site that stops where a side-open thatched dining area serves up the most amazing meals, done home style, but with an effort best understood when you realise every article of food (not to mention gas cylinders) has to be carted by human labour into the camp kitchen.
The camp has no electricity. It is owned by an environmental science graduate who adopted his ancestral lands and has defended it assiduously against big ticket developers, mineral water companies (the spring water here is magically healthy), and the usual trappings of modernity (like electricity). Bathrooms are adequate and come in both Indian and Western styles, but they require you to walk about 50 metres to gain access. The camp facilities have been kept deliberately spartan, to bridge the chasm that inevitable develops between city sensibilities and our innate relationship to the natural world.
The natural world is the essential physical backdrop to the Getaway Jungle Camp experience, but what is even more significant is the way of life it seeks to foster. In the autumn, the staff tuck in at night the moment the Pole Star appears over the crest of the hill behind the campsite. A resident naturalist is always at hand to unravel the mysteries of the natural world. The campsite has abundant clumps of the stinging nettle (bicchu kata). Questioned as to why they have been allowed to remain unmolested, the naturalist will tell you that the nettle has hollow spikes that are filled with folic acid that gets released once they are brushed. The folic acid causes the familiar itching and burning sensation. But the ‘ointment’ is curative, an excellent unction for swollen limbs. In the winters the leafy plant is boiled and then cooked as a source of iron (good for pregnant women).
Sattal is a birder’s paradise boasting some 300-plus unique species when observed year long. The naturalist helps you track these birds, and his accompanying adventure acolytes take visitors on nature walks, help them rappel down rock faces or straddle ropes across dried river beds. Many of these young and supremely talented young men are professionals (like software engineers), but they are happy to find their soul’s work amidst nature, like Thoreau did. For me, Sattal is soul food, a perpetual reminder of possibilities that always exist within the hurly burly of competitive and consumerist modern urban existence.