Bombay Jayashree - A Rendition with a Difference

When I found the program listed on Indianstage, “...Bombay Jayashree...”, I knew it to be a Carnatic classical concert.
While I have grown up listening to Carnatic Classical music and also have a few performers within my own family, I wouldn’t buy tickets to a classical concert in Bangalore, the reason being that I tend to appreciate and enjoy only those ragas and compositions that are familiar to me.
Also, I come from Mysore, the cultural capital of the state where Kutcheris (concerts) are an almost every day event, the artists being the best in the domain – usually artists from Madras who have decades of training and the organizers don’t charge you anything.

But when I read the by line ‘The Journey of a Raaga’, I thought this one was different.

The concert was so delightful that I bought tickets for the next day’s performance as well knowing it would be a repetition of that day’s performance.

I had instantly become a fan!

There were several things to this concert that struck me as new and unique as different from typical classical concerts.

SOFT EFFECT
The feature that stood out (in my eyes) was serenity on stage.
Usually most of the classical vocal renditions are packed with individual prowess. Power packed.
Singers both male and female, sing as if they are trying to explode the mike.
Contorting the face, animating their bodies, throwing out their arms and moving their heads – these are things we are all familiar with, because they are visible.
What may have escaped the attention of many is the aggression with which they sing, as if they are battling the swaras (notes), or using the swaras as weapons in a battle.
Singing in abandon is one thing, and we must sing in abandon, without holding back. But aggression is quite another thing.

In contrast with the above, what made Jayashree’s concert different was the softness of her rendition.
There was a pronounced serenity on stage. There was restraint and grace.
Although there were 7 singers in all, groups of 2, 3 and 5 singing at a time, there was serenity at the mike all the time in those 2 plus hours.

VERSATILITY - VARIETY
She is trained in Carnatic as well as Hindustani music. While I thought that itself was a lot, she revealed she was trained in Ghazals as well.
She sang a composition of a Tamil poet (Bharatiyar) and then a composition of the Kannada poet Kuvempu.
She sang a film song – ‘Aapki Nazron Ne Samjha’, of raga Natabhairavi or one of its family, namely, Darbari Kanada or Atthana.
What she had to say about film songs – that there is film song for every situation in life and in our happiness and our sorrows, it is a film song that we think of – while being very true, was a pleasant surprise, coming from a classical musician.

Most classical musicians tend to be puritanical in their views and sing only classical music, never lending their voice to film music, nor ghazals, nor any other and quite often have disdain for films and film songs.
While puritanical views and their proponents are required, in order that original and pure forms of music may be preserved, perpetuated, in order that there may not be complete fusion, it is good to have some musicians like Jayashree who dabble in everything.

CONNECTING WITH THE AUDIENCE

Jayashree, in between songs, spoke to the audience; about music, about ragas, about the songs she was going to sing etc. These few words helped her connect with the audience. Also, her words helped us remember the songs after the concert, which is usually difficult.
The pieces of information given out about the songs served as a handle or key using which to identify them.

“...A Raga having five notes is called pentatonic. It’s amazing how you can create magic with just five notes...”
So saying she sang Samaja Varagamana from Hindola is a pentatonic.
If I remember correctly, so is Brindavana saranga, in which MD Pallavi sang ‘Bhakta Jana Vatsale’ very beautifully.

“Of all the means through which one can reach God, music is the easiest, the best, and this is especially true of Raga Saramati”
She sang ‘Mokshamu Galada’ in Saramati.

The inclusion of Piano in the concert not only produced some wonderful effect, like the notes of a cuckoo in silent hours, but also added to the beauty of the stage! How grand the thing is.

Flute, by now I know, is my favourite instrument. The way its turns breath into melody is sheer magic. When I heard Jayashree saying it was raag ‘Mohana’ that was just played on it, I was surprised I had enjoyed it so much, for Mohana isn’t really one of my favourite ragas. But that’s what the flute does! Magic.

MD Pallavi was incredibly good. ‘Deepavu Ninnade, Galiyu Ninnade’ is a beautiful song, but she took it to a different level altogether. It was truly hair raising performance.
It was a gracious gesture on Jayashree’s part to invite Pallavi to perform by her side.

The second day’s performance saw the inclusion of a few more songs, particularly the ‘Thillana’ in the end, but that, due to time constraints, led to fewer words from Jayashree which I missed very much.

STAGE SET UP - COSTUME DESIGN

The stage was done by MS Satyu, the famous theatre personality. It was simple, subtle and beautiful. The two oil lamps, hanging down to the stage from above were a good choice.

All the musicians were dressed in traditional outfits.
The women were in silk sarees of various hues, chosen to blend well with one another.
Only the women at the centre stage, Jayashree, wore a bright orange that rightly stood out.

Only when I saw, on the next day, all of them wearing the same costumes as they had on the first, I became sure that it was by design and not by coincidence.

While most classical concerts present ‘music’, the attention paid to these details made this concert a ‘celebration of music’.

Beauty in the Beast

Capitalism, in its zeal to grow rich and richer has made rag-pickers of us all, picking bits of beauty in beastly heaps of all pervading trash.

RV Road.

I always avoid taking this road to get home. I usually take the parallel service road or another parallel road. For it hurts to see the metro flyover right in the middle of a once beautiful RV road that stretched beyond sight, flanked by trees on both sides whose boughs bent to touch one another at the centre before the axe fell on them to make room for huge beastly stilts.

When the auto driver is about to swerve towards the straightforward route through RV Road that goes to my place, I almost scream in panic at him, asking him to go straight instead of left, without being conscious of the fact that I am doing so to avoid pain. It’s a reflex.

One of these days, as I was returning from an event late in the night, when there was no vehicle on the road other than our bike, and the endless stilts were lit on one half by the yellow glow of street lights and the other half, by yellow receding to grey and the road itself was striped with the uniform shadows of the stilts, the picture with its symmetry, though of a beast, looked, for once, beautiful.

Autobiography Of A Yogi - Paramahamsa Yogananda

I had this book for a very long time but put off reading it thinking it would be a formidable read, difficult, requiring serious concentration and effort to assimilate, belong as it did to the genre of philosophy/spirituality.
But when I picked up the book after much resolve and started reading it, it turned out to be unputdownable as if it were a mystery novel.
Each page was filled with a miracle.
Intriguing, interesting, curious, thrilling and incredible.

This book has been and will remain an important milestone in the history of my book reading journey. For it removed the last iota of scepticism, the last shadow of doubt that nags almost every believer and remains wedged between him and complete faith & surrender like a mango hair between molars.

The language of the book makes the reading a pure pleasure; rich, of a high standard and solemn.
The writing is also sprinkled with humour here and there.

The main purpose of Yogananda’s life was to take spirituality to the West, which he did.
The book accordingly, taking an approach of speaking to a person in the language he understands, makes frequent references to the Bible, to Christ and attempts to draw parallels between Hinduism and Christianity and even calls many Hindu saints ‘Christlike’, refers to the Bhagavadgeeta as the Hindu Bible and so on, perhaps, in order to help western audiences and readers to be able to relate to the book and accept it.

When Yogananda first went to the west and stood before the audience, not speaking anything, for he could not speak English, the audiences laughed at him. After some time had passed, he began speaking fluently in English through the workings of his Guru.

Every page is filled with a scientific impossibility. Reading the book caused me to - not really disbelieve or dismiss modern science, but to understand that modern science is really nascent and it will be a long time before it will reconcile with the infinite possibilities in the domain of religion and spirituality and with the many seemingly incomprehensible ‘miracles’ through which religion and God often manifest.

As we know, Einstein’s celebrated equation of E=mc2 has unbelievable implications for space, time, and all kinds of other quarters you would least expect.
And as you read about the many miracles that fill the experiences of sages, you see that one such quarter is mysticism and you begin to see how interconvertibility between matter and energy implied by Einstein’s equation E=mc2 easily and seamlessly reconciles modern science to mysticism and miracles. For a miracle primarily involves converting matter into energy or energy into matter.

I have always believed in Karma: all the good and bad that we suffer here in this life are a result of past karma – of this life and previous lives, and what we do in this life is carried forward to future lives as karma. But this book entrenched that belief in me.
I believed in reincarnation and thought karma to be the cause of it: we come into this world again and again until we have expended or burnt all our karma.
But this book taught me something new about reincarnation, that wish fulfilment is also a purpose of it!
The saying, ‘the universe conspires to fulfil your wishes’ became credible.

The guru of Yogananda’s guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, had been living like a common man until the ‘time was ripe’. One day he was led away by Babaji, his guru from a past life, to be shown his destiny and to be initiated to the spiritual path.
But before the initiation, Babaji materializes a golden palace studded with jewels amidst landscaped gardens right in the Himalayas, in which place there was no palace nothing before. He guides Lahiri to the palace. When the puzzled Lahiri expresses his bafflement, the guide explains, ‘In the dim past, you once expressed a desire to enjoy the beauties of a palace. Our master is now satisfying your wish, thus freeing you from the bonds of karma’!
The karmic law requires that every human wish find ultimate fulfillment.
Desire is thus the chain which binds man to the wheel of reincarnation.
How amazing! To think that every one of our wishes is fulfilled!
And therefore, what a responsibility on the individual the law places, of sustaining the right desires!

During the old days of my spiritual immaturity, I would ask why anyone wanted salvation, never to come back to this beautiful world full of delightful things to eat, lovely sights to see, companionship of friends, places to go etc.

I have come a long way though in a short time – the time it takes to read a few great works of spirituality – to the understanding that salvation is every one’s ultimate purpose. And the only right purpose to have in life.
And knowing that all of our desires are fulfilled, at least those that are alive and awake during our last days in the world (I assume), and that we will have to keep coming into this world in endless cycles until all our desires are fulfilled, we must watch our desires, choose our desires (since it is not humanly possible to completely conquer all desires), we must strive to keep alive only those higher desires that will be worthy of the struggle of life, while suppressing the rest of the lowly ones, issued forth by the senses.
In fact our entire life, all our thinking, reading, understanding, knowing, reflecting must therefore eventually lead us to finding and understanding what it is that we should desire.

Often people take a defeatist attitude towards karma. ‘Nothing can be done about it’, ‘it has to be endured’ etc.
This book gives much respite by presenting the possibility of burning/expending karma by means of kriya yoga, a technique of pranayama and meditation that seems to be the centrepiece of Yogananda’s school/order of spirituality.
According to the book, Kriya Yoga is the same ancient science that Krishna gave millenniums ago to Arjuna, later known to Patanjali and others.
Krishna in a former incarnation had communicated the Yoga to Vivasvat, who gave it to Manu, who in turn instructed Ikshwaku, the father of the Indian solar warrior dynasty, known as Ikshwaku Vamsha, also as Raghuvamsha or Surya Vamsha in which Rama was born.

The simple technique, embodies the art of quickening man's spiritual evolution. Hindu scriptures teach that the incarnating ego requires a million years to obtain liberation from MAYA. This natural period is greatly shortened through KRIYA YOGA.
KRIYA YOGA is a simple, psychophysiological method by which the human blood is decarbonized and recharged with oxygen. The atoms of this extra oxygen are transmuted into life current to rejuvenate the brain and spinal centers. By stopping the accumulation of venous blood, the yogi is able to lessen or prevent the decay of tissues; the advanced yogi transmutes his cells into pure energy.

Half-minute of KRIYA Yoga equals one year of natural spiritual unfoldment. The scriptures aver that man requires a million years of normal, diseaseless evolution to perfect his human brain sufficiently to express cosmic consciousness. One thousand KRIYA practiced in eight hours gives the yogi, in one day, the equivalent of one thousand years of natural evolution: 365,000 years of evolution in one year. In three years, a KRIYA YOGI can thus accomplish by intelligent self-effort the same result which nature brings to pass in a million years.
The KRIYA short cut, of course, can be taken only by deeply developed yogis.

The KRIYA beginner employs his yogic exercise only fourteen to twenty-eight times, twice daily. A number of yogis achieve emancipation in six or twelve or twenty-four or forty-eight years. A yogi who dies before achieving full realization carries with him the good karma of his past KRIYA effort; in his new life he is harmoniously propelled toward his Infinite Goal.

In contrast to the slow, uncertain "bullock cart" theological path to God, KRIYA may justly be called the "airplane" route.

Another interesting fact about Karma that I learnt from this book and some other is that Karma is transferable.
When guru Yukteshwar falls sick, Yogananda asks him why enlightened yogis, who are in complete control, who can bring the impossible to pass, who have brought the dead to life, fall sick themselves? Why should they allow themselves to become ill when they can command their bodies to be in perfect health all the time?
The answer: when Gurus bestow grace upon some of the chosen ones who have faith in them, heal them and work miracles for their sake, they are in effect, taking away the bad karma from them. This karma cannot be simply made to disappear into thin air. It has to be accounted for. And this karma, the guru often works on his own body, allowing the body to become ill and hence taking on the bad karma of their disciples and devotees on themselves and burning it.
Just like energy, Karma can neither be created nor destroyed. But it can be transferred or transformed by an enlightened yogi.
One should be lucky to meet a genuine Guru, master in one’s lifetime and luckier still to be able to overcome scepticism and have complete faith in the Guru, whereupon, he may have the Guru by his side helping him to expend his Karma.

Yogananda’s stand on caste is noteworthy.

"To a certain extent, all races and nations observe in practice, if not in theory, the features of caste. Where there is great license or so-called liberty, particularly in intermarriage between extremes in the natural castes, the race dwindles away and becomes extinct. The PURANA SAMHITA compares the offspring of such unions to barren hybrids, like the mule which is incapable of propagation of its own species. Artificial species are eventually exterminated. History offers abundant proof of numerous great races which no longer have any living representatives. The caste system of India is credited by her most profound thinkers with being the check or preventive against license which has preserved the purity of the race and brought it safely through millenniums of vicissitudes, while other races have vanished in oblivion."

One must note that when Yogananda refers to caste, he refers not to caste by Janma (birth) but caste by inclinations, natural capacities, gunas or qualities of nature – the combination of sattva, rajas and tamas in varying proportions.

"Inclusion in one of these four castes originally depended not on a man's birth but on his natural capacities as demonstrated by the goal in life he elected to achieve. This goal could be (1) KAMA, desire, activity of the life of the senses (SUDRA stage), (2) ARTHA, gain, fulfilling but controlling the desires (VAISYA stage), (3) DHARMA, self-discipline, the life of responsibility and right action (KSHATRIYA stage), (4) MOKSHA, liberation, the life of spirituality and religious teaching (BRAHMIN stage). These four castes render service to humanity by (1) body, (2) mind, (3) will power, (4) Spirit.

"These four stages have their correspondence in the eternal GUNAS or qualities of nature, TAMAS, RAJAS, and SATTVA: obstruction, activity, and expansion; or, mass, energy, and intelligence. The four natural castes are marked by the GUNAS as (1) TAMAS (ignorance), (2) TAMAS-RAJAS (mixture of ignorance and activity), (3) RAJAS-SATTVA (mixture of right activity and enlightenment), (4) SATTVA
(enlightenment).
Thus has nature marked every man with his caste, by the predominance in himself of one, or the mixture of two, of the GUNAS. Of course every human being has all three GUNAS in varying proportions. The guru will be able rightly to determine a man's caste or evolutionary
status.
(just like the sorting hat in Harry Potter story which knows the house in which every new comer should be placed!)

If you would observe, what Yogananda says about the intermarriage is the same that the Hindu society means when it insists on marriage within caste - that one must marry a person who is compatible to oneself – having similar inclinations, natural capacities or qualities of nature.

I would further add that the hardening of the caste system – people assuming caste by janma, by their birth, as opposed to caste by karma or their nature (regardless of birth) – eventually, though not initially, must have vindicated itself.
When over a period of thousands of years, generations of the distinct castes followed distinct occupations, food habits, lived distinct lifestyles, cultivated distinct cultures, interests, they must have developed distinct faculties or powers that developed and specialised with reinforcement, with the passing of time, with the result that children born to a distinct caste possessed qualities of nature unique to that caste.
If you would notice, the process is in close conformity with Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Unfortunately all discussions about Caste today are extremely polarized and dismiss it as a social evil. What a monumental error this should prove in the understanding of India as caste is central to Indian social organization!

I can’t think of anything in the book that I disagree with; only one thing remains doubtful.
It is respecting the discussion on Yugas and the cycle of Yugas. According to Yogananda’s guru Yukteshwar, the present time is part of the Dwapara Yuga, whereas it is believed by the Hindus universally that we live in the Kali Yuga. Read on...

‘Sri Yukteswar discovered the mathematical application of a 24,000-year equinoctial cycle to our present age. The cycle is divided into an Ascending Arc and a Descending Arc, each of 12,000 years. Within each Arc fall four YUGAS or Ages, called KALI, DWAPARA, TRETA, and SATYA, corresponding to the Greek ideas of Iron, Bronze, Silver, and Golden Ages. My guru determined by various calculations that the last KALI YUGA or Iron Age, of the Ascending Arc, started about A.D. 500. The Iron Age, 1200 years in duration, is a span of materialism; it ended about A.D. 1700.’

‘That year ushered in DWAPARA YUGA, a 2400-year period of electrical and atomic-energy developments, the age of telegraph, radio, airplanes, and other space-annihilators. The 3600-year period of TRETA YUGA will start in A.D. 4100; its age will be marked by common knowledge of telepathic communications and other time-annihilators. During the 4800 years of SATYA YUGA, final age in an ascending arc, the intelligence of a man will be completely developed; he will work in harmony with the divine plan.’

‘A descending arc of 12,000 years, starting with a descending Golden Age of 4800 years, then begins for the world; man gradually sinks into ignorance. These cycles are the eternal rounds of MAYA, the contrasts and relativities of the phenomenal universe. Man, one by one, escapes from creation's prison of duality as he awakens to consciousness of his inseverable divine unity with the Creator.’

SAMADHI – the two kinds mentioned here were new to me.

In the initial states of God-contact (SAVIKALPA SAMADHI) the devotee's consciousness merges with the Cosmic Spirit; his life force is withdrawn from the body, which appears "dead," or motionless and rigid. The yogi is fully aware of his bodily condition of suspended animation.
As he progresses to higher spiritual states (NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI), however, he communes with God without bodily fixation, and in his ordinary waking consciousness, even in the midst of exacting worldly duties.

A must read for every one under this Sun.
All of us, especially those who wear the fashionable cloak of religious scepticism must ask this: If all this happened just 50-100 years ago, what might not have happened thousands of years ago?
What might not have happened during the period of our great epics, the Ramayana, Mahabharata, that people today call ‘Mythology’ instead of “history’ for want of proof?

A very well written autobiography. Riveting, unputdownable, every page is a revelation.

And lastly, with reinforced conviction, I feel lucky to be born in this land.

Darwin's Evolutionism. Second Thoughts.

The thread of creation or evolution may be seen as consisting of four stages – minerals, plants, animals and man – in the ascending order of evolution.

‘The inanimate’ is the level of minerals.
Life is possessed by plants, but not by minerals.
Consciousness is possessed by animals, but not by plants.
Self awareness is possessed by human beings, but not by animals.

Each higher level encompasses the level of the lower level plus possesses a new level.

In the story of creation, ‘life’, ‘consciousness’ and ‘self awareness’ are points of ontological discontinuity that no science can ever hope to grasp, understand or explain.

Because,

According to evolutionism,
“...When a sample atmosphere of hydrogen, water vapour, ammonia and methane was subjected to electric discharges and ultra violet light, large numbers of organic compounds ...were obtained by automatic synthesis...”

But no matter how many such organic compounds you bring together, they will not ‘acquire’ life automatically, in other words, life is not a ‘natural consequent’ or ‘extension’ of several organic compounds coming together, as is assumed in Evolutionism below.

“...It is not unreasonable to suppose that life originated in a watery soup of pre-biological organic compounds and that living organisms arose later by surrounding quantities of these compounds by membranes that made them into cells. This is usually considered the starting point of Darwinian evolution...”
A very bold supposition!

The infusion of life is something ‘new’, it is a ‘jump’ in the level of being, an ‘ontological discontinuity’ that no science can comprehend or demonstrate through experiment.

Similarly, the infusion of ‘consciousness’ in animals represents a jump in creation: something new, not a natural extension of life – no matter how big a ‘living’ plant or tree may grow, how many leaves, branches it may add to itself, it still does not possess ‘consciousness’. Consciousness, found in animals is therefore an ontological discontinuity in creation.

Similarly, the infusion of self awareness in man is a jump in creation. Self awareness here meaning consciousness recoiling upon itself, intellect recoiling upon itself – the ability to think about your thoughts, feel your feelings and analyse oneself.
Self awareness represents an ontological discontinuity.

Hence, in the story of creation, ‘life’, ‘consciousness’ and ‘self awareness’ are jumps, points of ontological discontinuity that no science can ever hope to grasp, understand or explain.

Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection is valid and holds true as long as it explains what happens ‘within’ these four stages. When it assumes to be able to comprehend and explain what lies ‘in between’ these stages, when it assumes it can explain the jumps, the gaps, the discontinuities, it becomes a dubious theory – it betrays and offends against all principles of scientific probity.

That is, when Darwin’s theory attempts of explain the origin of life itself, or origin of consciousness and origin of self awareness, instead of admitting with humility that these are beyond it’s grasp, it loses humility as well as credibility.

E F Schumacher, in his work, “A Guide for the Perplexed”, written during times of scientific arrogance when it was not proper even to mention ‘God’ in polite societies, says...

“One can just see it. Cant one? Organic compounds getting together and surrounding themselves by membranes – nothing could be simpler for these clever compounds – and lo! There is the cell, and once the cell has been born there is nothing to stop the emergence of Shakespeare, although it will obviously take a bit of time...”

He also quotes Karl Stern, ‘a psychiatrist with great insight’,

“...such a view of cosmogenesis is crazy, not merely in the sense of slangy invective, but rather in the technical meaning of psychotic. Indeed such a view has much in common with certain aspects of schizophrenic thinking... “

Objections to evolutionism came from theological and political standpoints. But the maximum opposition to Darwin’s theory came from the scientific community of biologists and other scientists, which Encyclopaedia Britannica omitted, admitting only theological and political objections!

When you think about it, it’s amazing that the theory is more popular than its criticism and continues to be advocated in schools, colleges and universities!
And it’s amazing how, after so many years after the theory has been put forward, it is simply accepted without debate and the it’s criticism that makes so much sense, lies quietly under the carpet.

Everest Calling - Gorak Shep to Everest Base Camp

27th April 2011, Wednesday.
The walk to EBC felt like a piece of cake. Although it was never ending.

The last lap reminded me of the trek from Bhojbasa to Gomukh: rocky, dry, arid, difficult.

The last 100 meters or so, to the base camp was a scramble on huge rocks some of which were loose. You could slip, fall, stumble, sprain your ankle or bruise yourself. All it took was a loose stone.

The Kumbhu glacier was the most attractive part of the base camp. Wonder how it is formed. Blue green, miniature mountain range by itself, made of needles and spikes.

The base Camp was a spot, which was a few boulders standing together with Buddhist prayer flags all over and above them, on a flattish landing bordering the Kumbhu glacier.

I was the first woman from our team to reach EBC. Yeaaaaaay!

We took pictures.
One fellow stood with arms outstretched as in Titanic but with his head tilted to one side. I told him he looked like Jesus Christ on the cross.

Some tried to jump in the air for photographs.

People took turns to hold a stone on which were etched the words “Everest Base Camp 5364”. I was to be the last one to hold it, although many people reached base camp after me. For, after the picture was taken, I put it down not too carefully, I actually dumped it down, and it cracked into two. Sorry to all who reached EBC after me.

It is somewhat ironical that you cannot see Mt Everest from Everest Base Camp. You can see Nuptse and Lhotse and know that Everest is behind them.
To see Everest you have climb a blackish hill called Kala Pathhar, some distance from Gorakshep.

Missed having Nandu at EBC. He had been driving us all. He had a bad back that day.

We all removed our jackets to reveal our CTS T shirts, as had been earlier decided in Kathmandu. We sang the national anthem. When the tripods were set up, it turned out they had been damaged by porters.
I wonder why people carry such cumbersome equipment.

Some distance away, there were yellow, blue and red tents. The German bakery at the base camp had been closed two years ago. So we didn’t go to the camps.

On our way back from EBC, we saw a pair of really attractive birds.

We also saw the contours of Everest through thick and thin nebulae of clouds. Or did we? Was it really Everest?

As we walked back, several times, we heard the thundering sound of avalanche somewhere on the icy mountains on our left, far away, once I stopped and looked, I saw chunks of ice crashing and sliding down.

We reached our camp at Gorakshep to cheers and welcome from the hosts and our tour guides. Mission Accomplished! In place of the usual tea and biscuits that was given us at every milestone, this time, we were given packets of salted cashews!
An atmosphere of triumph prevailed.

For most of the people, the goal had been achieved. As for mine, it would be accomplished only after I saw Everest, not through a nebula of a foggy, misty and cloudy sky, but clear and near, the next day from Kala Patthar.