When I arrived at Ishan's house, he already had a booking for 2 days from someone called "CP" starting from the next day. When I asked him to get me a heater, he gave me a hot air fan, which is not that great in temperatures dipping below negative. I saw him using a much bigger heater in his room, and I was confused as to why he did not provide me with that. Later that night, after dinner, we were sitting on the porch looking down at the Harsil valley and Mukhwa village, on which lights were shimmering in perfect sync. "Somebody is putting up a tent there, look!" said Ishan, pointing towards a gap between two mountains.
I looked at the place he pointed and could only see a single light there, like a bulb. "How do you know that?" I asked him.
"There's nothing there. Somebody has put up the tent, that's why a light is there. I wonder how they will spend the night. It would be so exciting." I saw his eyes shining while he spoke and continued, "It's so fun to just set up a tent at a place like this and cook your own food and do everything on your own."
He took out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and pointed it towards the tent. "What will happen like this?" I asked him, thinking that there's no point in doing something like this.
"What if they see us?" he said, and his eyes grew bigger.
"So what?" I asked.
"It's so cool that you are putting up a tent thinking nobody can see you, but you see a light towards you, and you will think that somebody is watching you and you are not alone."
I did not understand the point. Even if they saw the light, they would not know whether we are doing it to let them know that we can see them. They will just see a light coming from a house. He was too excited by it. The next day we went to a local trek as described in the part 1 of this blog. There, he showed me two spots where he had put up tents a few days back and the bonfire mark alongside it. It made little sense connecting that to here.
"I have a booking, and I am anxious about it," he said while opening the phone and the application. He showed me a booking for 2 nights by the name CP. "He must be Chandra Prakash", I said. "How do you know?" he asked immediately. "Well, all Chandra Prakash consider themselves CP," I told him. He did not believe me. He was scared that his picture looked like that of an old man, and he would have a lot of tantrums. We both went through the reviews from the hosts where CP had stayed. All of them were 5 stars with excellent descriptions. "A great guy to talk to. We had a bonfire and enjoyed talking through the night. CP with the bonfire is amazing".
Ishan took two things out of the scrutiny of his profile. First, CP had not given a five-star review to any host with whom he had stayed. Second, CP loves bonfires! But bonfires had been our deal since I came to the house. I had asked him 2 days before whether he could arrange a bonfire, and he agreed to do that. However, looking at the reviews, he said to me, "Your bonfire will now be done only with CP". The only concern he had was that CP had never given a five-star review, and so his average rating would go down. "Let's see!" he said, and we talked for some time and then went to our respective rooms for the night.
The next day we were on the local trek, at 3.30 he said we should go as CP is coming at 4. He did not want to be late to welcome him as he was afraid he might cut points for that. After 2 hours, the three of them arrived at the house. It was a little dark, and I could not see CP's face. I was standing on the first floor where my room was and looking down at CP, his wife, and Ishan. He welcomed him and gave him tea. CP started capturing photos of himself, his surroundings, and his wife. I guessed that he is doing that because it is already dark, and then the next opportunity will come 12 hours later to take any photos. But again, I can be wrong because the views from Ishan's house can mesmerize anyone and prompt them to open their mobiles and start the camera.
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| View From Ishan's Home |
CP and his wife came to the first floor as their room was beside mine. "How many rotis will you eat?" asked Ishaan.
"Just one," CP said.
"And you?" asked Ishan to CP's wife.
"No, No. We will both eat only one roti," said CP, and continued, "Is the meal system per plate?"
"Yes"
"Then we will have only one plate, and we both will manage in it," said CP and went inside his room.
"What a cheap!", Ishan said to me.
"Maybe they travelled and don't want to eat", I said to him.
"Yeah, possible."
I used to eat my food with Ishan and his mother. I told him that they can give them first, and then we can both eat later. I did not go to my room while they prepared food for CP and sat on the balcony for some time. Half an hour later, Ishan and his mother came up with one plate of food.
"You bring food to his room and call me to eat downstairs with you. That's bias!" I said to Ishan.
"I want 5 stars," he said and knocked on the door.
"Thank you, thank you!" CP and his wife started greeting them.
"Can you arrange a table?" asked CP.
Ishan ran downstairs and brought a plastic table in under two minutes.
"Can we get hot water?" asked CP, pointing to the place where he wanted the table.
Ishan ran downstairs and brought the hot water.
"Can we get a heater?" asked CP while taking the hot bottle from him.
Ishan went to his room and brought the big heater to CP.
"CP gets a big heater, and I get a hot air fan?", I said to Ishan jokingly.
"I want 5 stars," he said and went inside CP's room with the heater.
Half an hour later, Ishan came to collect the plates. He was trying very hard to give CP the experience of his life on mountains. As he came out with the finished plates, he called me downstairs for the food.
We both used to eat together in the kitchen, where a bed was placed. We would sit on the bed, and his mother would serve food to both of us like her sons. She would keep filling my bowls with whatever she thought was getting empty and never differentiated among us. Today, she had made two vegetables and one pulse with a lot of salad and butter. She also gave me buttermilk to drink with it. I used to eat a lot at Ishan's house. I could not understand whether it is because of his mother, the altitude, or because I am working out too much here. But Ishan used to run at places more than I and still would eat only three or four rotis. Sometimes, I would just stop because Ishan had stopped eating 10 minutes ago already. He would just wait for me to finish, so I would declare that I was full (even though I wasn't), and then we would go out together. As I took the second last morsel in my mouth, I felt a hair on my tongue. I checked and confirmed. It was a hair. I pulled it out of my mouth. It was definitely his mother's. Ishan saw everything from the start and started laughing. "Why are you laughing?" asked his mother.
"He got hair in his mouth," he said to her.
"Sometimes it happens. I take care, but it still happens sometimes," she said with an apologetic face towards me.
"Kahin aisa na ho CP 5 star de de aur tum 3 star dekar meri rating kam kar do", he said and started laughing. I laughed with him, too.
We went outside and sat under the open sky. Today, there was no light on the mountainside. We sat and looked at the stars. He had an application to map the sky. He started showing me the peaks, their altitudes, the stars, their names, and everything we could see but probably would never touch.
"You know", he said, breaking the silence of 5 minutes after he had put his phone in his pocket, "I am not so adamant to get a high rating. Airbnb gives $100 when you complete 20 bookings with 5 stars. The money can only be spent on Airbnb. I don't have money. This house was built by my father. The account is handled by my brother. My mother takes the meal money once guests check out. I do so much work, but I don't get anything out of it. I just want those $100 and travel to places like the guests who come here. Like you. Before you, a guy from Meghalaya came here on his expensive bike. He and I went to Neylong Valley and to other nearby places. I also want to live that life. I also want to travel to different places on a bike. I also want to travel. I love it."
"Don't you want to do a job?" I asked him.
"What job? I am a B.A. student from a "not so good" college of Delhi University. I am of no use to the corporate world. All I can do is tell you the best Momo place in Delhi."
We laughed.
"I am now learning AI," he said, thinking that I might be thinking little of him, which was not true.
"Really? I am a CS grad. Even I don't understand AI development", I said.
"No, not the development. You do development. That's the boring stuff. I want to build videos, movies, graphics, everything visual using AI tools," he said.
It was true. He loved filmmaking. The same morning, when I was sitting outside his home reading a book, he started making my video without telling me. It was a beautiful video which looked professional even though it was just for 7 seconds.
"Nice. I think you are good at it." I said.
"Let's see what happens."
Suddenly, CP arrived. It was a unique trait of CP. He always arrived suddenly and silently with a hoodie cap on. Sometimes, the light source would be behind him, and we would see him standing, a tall black figure, looking like a superhero.
"Hey, Ishan. We want to do the Llama Top trek tomorrow. How is it? What do we need? How to go?" he asked.
"It's an easy trek. Just 2 km, maybe. You can go in late morning and come back till 3 easily. You don't need anything. It's simple," he said, and then CP went away to spawn again after some time at some place we don't know.
"Can you believe he is 65 years old?" Ishan said to me.
"I can't believe he is thinking to trek to Llama top at 65!"
"Yeah. I just hope he gives me 5 stars, man. I am too stressed. He is too old for me; he will just hunt for some weakness."
We went to our rooms after a small conversation. He slept without a heater in -7 degrees, and I slept with a hot air fan that used to switch off automatically after 20 minutes due to overheating. All of this is because CP should be given priority, and so he can sleep peacefully with the best heater we have had in that house.
I understood Ishan's concern, but that had made him incline towards one guest over another just because I was young, his elder brother's age, and he assumed I was forgiving. If I were in his place, I would not entertain CP too an extent he did. He had surrendered to him just for a rating. That night, I recalled the famous episode "Nosedive" from the series "Black Mirror" where rating becomes an integral part of your life, personality, and everything you do outside your house. However, there are many things that were out of Ishan's control. All he could do was provide information, help, or guidance. He can't control the events that happen to a man. Hence, CP and his wife had a hard time on the trek, and when they came back, they blamed Ishan for not telling them that the trek was steep, and they could have died as they slipped a couple of times. I watched him speak to him when his mother was beside him. He said in a normal tone, but still, I found it weird that he blamed him for a trek being steep and indirectly labelling him careless, and that he was not concerned about their well-being. So, I was a little happy that CP slipped on the trek.
Soon after, Ishan came to me and cursed CP to the point that he could not find any other curse words. He got quiet. He still hoped for a five-star rating. Sitting there, he opened WhatsApp and turned his phone towards me. It was CP's status. He was smiling, both hands up with the trekking poles in his hand horizontally, standing below the board that read "Llama Top". It looked like he had the best time of his life, which was far from the truth. Ishan took his phone, locked the screen off, put it inside his pocket, crossed his legs, looked towards the mountains in front, and said, "Fuck you, CP!"
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