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Published: October 7th 2023
Hotel Lake View
Jai the owner is seen in the top right window where he often sits all day. Ashley Montagu
Know that you are the perfect age. Each year is special and precious, for
you shall only live it once. Be comfortable with growing older. Louise Hay
Buddha was asked: What have you gained from meditation? He replied 'Nothing.
However, let me tell you what I have lost: Anger, Anxiety, Depression, Insecurity, Fear of old age and death'. And then one day you find ten years has got behind you No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older Shorter of breath and one day closer to death Pink Floyd
Four old blokes, each a world within worlds:
Streams of dependently arising processes interacting
Four inner minds and four perceptions of an outer world, over time and in
Across the lake with Sam and Lake View Hotel at the right
Picturesque Rewalsar. The temple with the huge statue of Padmasambhava on top, was opened by the Dalai Lama in 2013. the moment. Four concocted versions of a 'self' ultimately based on ego-ignorance bouncing off other concoctions of 'self'. Bound by fragments of memory, and hopes and fears of what is to come. Inspired by the notion of acceptance and embracing, yet each mindful of the ageing that is evident.
Great distances reduced by the mystery of flight across lands... from Canada, Switzerland and Australia. The very wonder of coming to one place. But not so easily. Hotel Lake View: a gracious old building commanding the best views of Rewalsar, albeit the big fella (Padmasambhava or as Canadian Mark calls him, simply 'Sam' for short and easy recall) may have an even grander view. It is perhaps my 20
th time here and how weird the feel for me to come back again and again. Only of late (and certainly now) it's all feeling like a slow motion home-coming marked by non-eventful familiarity.
The funny thing about my stays at Hotel Lake View is that, apart from the many times I have had my friends or family here with me, I am invariably the only guest. The hotel has ten rooms. One is where Jai (the
owner) lives, another where his faithful help Anu lives, and one is a kind of personal guest room/sitting room for Jai. Room 103 is referred to by me as 'my room' … and when I come my request to Jai is then 'please reserve my room'. It's the best room with wrap around windows and so the best view of the lake and town below, and on a clear morning distant glimpses of
Himali snow-peaks.
Mark and I met in 2010 when both of us were on volunteer placements in India (he in Rajasthan and I in Odissa). During that year we met in Delhi on our Royal Enfields and set off to spend a month riding to Leh (Ladakh) and back through Spiti Valley. In 2010 that was still quite an intrepid journey to take on a motorbike, and there were not too many foreign or Indian tourists doing it. Much has changed since, with the exponential explosion of moneyed Indian self-driving (cars and bikes) adventure and the inevitable 'development' of tourist
infrastructure along with the upgrading of roads and access to remote places.
Since then Mark and I seem to have met
just about every year in India (other than the 'covid' years). I first 'found' (or was it the reverse?) Rewalsar in 2011, and Mark has been here maybe three or four times since then.
I know Paul (the other Paul) as a sea-swimming and occasional bike-riding buddy from my home in Australia. Ross is his good friend who has moved around a lot and now resides in Switzerland.
All four of us are experienced bikers. However.......This is Paul and Ross' first time in India. It's early days but the transition to Indian road etiquette (perhaps an all-too-quaint description of what is not very orderly at all) and conditions is not going well. They are feeling extremely vulnerable and challenged, with riding progress interrupted by existential tension and the inevitable sickness that seems to plague the 'newcomer' to India (both had picked up stomach bugs within days of landing). To boot, Ross suffered heat stroke on the first day's ride out of Delhi and the upshot was that he and Paul were waylaid an extra three days in the Ambala Gurudwarra we stayed in en route to the mountains.
Example of main road damage just 6 weeks before
When we leave Rewalsar, this is on the route we take to Kullu Valley. It will have been 'repaired' by now as it is a major route for Indian Army truck convoys servicing the huge bases near the border with China (Tibet) in Ladakh. Add to this, the recent, most-extreme monsoonal rain season in Himachal Pradesh in living memory.... which means the at other times idyllic mountain roads have, in many places, been reduced just a few months ago, to mud slides and pot-holed washouts.
Mark too is a little more cautious in riding since his 'mishap' just a year ago on this same route. He was clipped by a passing motorcycle resulting in hospitalisation and skin graft surgery in India followed by a quick exit back to Canada.
What I am most mindful of, is the almost sudden reality that I (and we) are not those young resilient men we once were. But then, is anything so sudden really, or does the realisation just occur suddenly of something that has been progressing slowly and surely for years? We can kid ourselves for a while I guess, as the years move on. Friends start getting seriously ill and they die. Our parents deteriorate and die. Or one of the more common, shared conversations is 'how is your mother doing?' or similar.
For my part, it's an amusing (not so alarming really) place to have reached.
All four of us are hovering either side of 70. How did that happen, by the way? This is getting serious, right? I know this by the fact that a young man on the Delhi Metro the other day gave up his seat to me (it was a designated 'Please offer this seat to an Elderly Person' seat). Double take: 'excuse me?... Oh yeah, that's me, right?'
So here we are now: four old blokes in an old hotel run by another old bloke (Jai is our age and about to retire and give the hotel over to his capable daughter... I suspect there will be many changes.... and that 'my room' may not be so available in future).
Meanwhile, I still 'play' at being the 'cool' and an in-the-know experienced, active 'India traveller'. In a double take, this is hilarious (and ultimately not sustainable but somehow fun) and also ludicrous. Mark has already indicated that this might be his last throw at coming to India. Paul and Ross are looking more like one-time tourists to India right now. Which leaves me... What am I really doing with this India obsession? I also suspect
that soon it is all going to slow down significantly. Even my trusty motorcycle (Gladys by name... a legend) which I purchased new in 2010, and who has carried my over 110,000 km across India, is coming to the end of her 15 year registration. New rules in India mean that she may not be easily re-registered, and certainly not in my name. For me, it was only that I was working as a volunteer that allowed me to purchase her in my name in the first place. That cannot be repeated by a 'tourist'. So it's almost like Gladys is a red flag telling me something here about the looming 2025. I'll probably have to just give her away to an Indian friend then. A significant passing of an era, linked to ageing and less aptitude and capability for intrepid bike riding perhaps (well the use of 'perhaps' is being optimistic, no?).
It's all nuts. Ageing, sickness and death. Inevitable and to be embraced and understood. I have no illusions that we 'go on' other than my decaying flesh and bones will nourish other life. That's totally OK with me, although it would be 'nice' to
grow old gracefully in the best health possible... But I don't want the keep-me-alive-at-any-cost deal. Modern medicine is one thing, but to me there are insane options that I am not interested in. Anything over 70 has to be a bonus if one prefers to be alive. But it is not a right. Nor need it be a burden (for me or those around me). Bring it on (death), and let me be sure that right now, right here, in this moment, if that cannot be real and all there is, then what is the point? … regret and anxiety don't cut the mustard when it comes to making any sense of it all, or enjoying the ride.
And so.. here are these four old blokes holed up in this old graceful hotel with the best views of this lovely place. Each in his separate room, each with his own thoughts about 'what is going on now in my life... how did I get this far and how did I get here?' Each connected but alone.
What is this?
Mu
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi sva Sam's temple
I was first here in 2011 and at that time there were three talented painters from Bhutan who spent 6 months doing the fine inside wall and roof paintings.
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Lynne Renew
non-member comment
Thank you, Paul
Contextualised amidst your Beat Exotic Rewlasar Hotels adventures, as an Oldie myself, I am moved by your perspectives on aging, Paul.