July 20, 2016, 0935 hrs.

And so we are now following the #Chandrabhaga across #Lahaul. And if possible for the imagination, the terrain is even starker, harsh even. What a life it would be to live here – hard and yet fulfilling, simple and yet complex.

I have spent most of my life in Maharashtra, and being from Maharashtra with an interest in Sanskrit, classical music and bhajans, means I have grown up with the name Chandrabhaga, immortalised by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi’s renditions of Sant Eknath’s  Mazhe Maher Pandhari.

Of course, the Chandrabhaga that Sant Eknath sings of is the Bheem River near Pandharpur.

And the Chandrabhaga that I am looking at now – wide, playful, and remote – is the Chandrabhaga of the Vedas, here in Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh. The Chandrabhaga is also famous as The #Chenab. Apparently, it flows from Himachal to Jammu and Kashmir and then into Punjab.

It’s odd how the mind travels…