The receptionist advised me to visit this temple.

Our hotel receptionist advised us to travel up to visit a temple at the top of a hill – Gopu Dharma Kot. I don’t remember why he asked us to visit the temple, and I have never figured out why it’s so famous.

We drove up because we didn’t have much time. As a rule, I dislike ‘touch-and-go’ visits. I much prefer to amble along bylanes or country roads, or to sit by a riverside and let the place’s atmosphere sweep through me. In a recent podcast, Brooks Jensen of Lenswork spoke about letting photographs and experiences discover you rather than chasing the perfect photograph. While there is much truth in what he says, I prefer a middle approach: you ‘hunt’ at a leisurely pace, but also let the experiences sweep you up so the photos find you.

Drivers from the plains are churlish.

So we drove up, chatting with the driver about the churlish behavior of drivers from the plains, all of whom hurtle along the narrow hill roads, honking, braking, and accelerating furiously. They seem to be in a perpetual race to the death and do not pause to stop, smell the mountain air, listen to the mountain breeze, or watch the light dance on the trees and within them.

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A quote I coined.

I coined a phrase a few months ago, and confess I am pleased with myself:

“Photography begins in the silent spaces between the noise.”

It is critical to find silent spaces between the external and internal noise and chatter. Not only will you enjoy the experience and be able to immerse yourself in it, but you will also do better work.

So, I insisted we stop to gape at the trees and the dancing light, and I ignored my friend’s irritated huffs.

India is a soft state. Damn those Israelis.

When we arrived and wandered around the area, I noticed a settlement in the valley, which the driver told me was Israeli. What irritated me was not that they had a settlement, but that they had made it an exclusive zone and that local citizens were okay with the Israelis and their behavior. Looking down at the settlement, my mind traveled south to Goa, where the Russians and Nigerians have set up settlements to deal in drugs.

At that time, the only aspect of the settlement that made me angry was our soft attitude towards the encroachment. Mr. Modi had not unleashed the full venom of his exclusionary, nationalistic agenda at that point but, even then, I marveled at our stupidity. We curse the Mughals but fawned before Westerners. We continue to behave in this rather ridiculous manner. I’ve often wondered if white-skinned Westerners make Indians feel inferior, making us chase them like fools. Does our soft attitude towards Westerners make us ripe targets for colonialism?

Even today, I see this behavior in our attitude toward the West and the Chinese: we are too deferential, refuse to build strength, and allow ourselves to wallow in the golden haze of self-deception.

Those days, I admired the Israelis for their technology, and was dimly aware, if at all, of the convoluted and tragic history of Palestine and the Palestinians. These days, my attitude towards Zionist Israelis has hardened, and I consider them to be murderous, genocidal scum. Their technology is fantastic, but as people, they are despicable.

Moreover, Israelis are mostly Ashkenazi Jews, and not Semites, unlike the Palestinians, who are true Semites.

Enough ranting.

But enough ranting.

The air was beautiful, pure, clean. Snow was on the ground, but not enough snow. Last year, snow had disappeared from the Dauladhar mountains, so, in hindsight, I ought to be grateful for the snow I walked in and photographed.

The temple was small, simple, and locked. We walked around the temple but could not enter. My latest Google research tells me that cafes have sprung up in the area. I am unsure if this is a good thing.

We don’t like pristine nature. Nature abhors a vacuum, or so Einstein said. Most humans abhor nature’s pristine beauty.

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Tramping the Dusty Roads

At Gopu-Dharma Kot