करुॅ मैं कैसे बखान
खूबसूरती का तेरी।
कैसे दूॅ मैं बयान
तेरे हुस्न का तेरे रूप का।।
यूॅ कहूॅ कि तू
आई है परियों के लोक से।
पर ज़िक्र तो तेरा
किस्से कहानियों में भी नही है।

“Once every year go to a place that you never saw before.”
Let me take you to a place which you never even heard of before – Kalishila!

We were really happy with ourselves after doing the majestic Deoriyatal and Chandrashila. The feeling was like we just conquered the world.

We got talking with a local guy who suggested us a lot of interesting places around. All the options given to us were completely alien to us, so we asked him for a little background on all the places. And we knew that it is Kalishila that we wanted to go to.

Kalishila is the biggest favor you can do to yourself.
It is one of the unknown treks, with quite steep climbs but extremely unexpected surprises in the end.

WHERE IS IT? HOW TO REACH?

A very steep and strenuous 4 km trek from village Ranwleg takes you to the top of the place, to the Shakti Peeth temple, Kalishila.
The nearest town nearby is Ukhimath, 20 km from here.
There is no direct bus to Ukhimath. But a train/bus could be taken to Dehradoon or Rishikesh and from there a bus to Ukhimath.

The route gets especially beautiful after Kund, 60 km before Ukhimath and you get a feeling of the heaven already.

WHAT IS KALISHILA?

Well. Kalishila is a place in the Himalayan region of Uttarakhand, at 20 km from Ukhimath and a 7km trekking distance from Kalimath.
But why is it named so? Probably because of one of the following two reasons, or both.

In English, Kalishila would directly translate to Black-Rock.
This area of the Himalayas is extremely high in serenity and spiritual energy.
Kalimath is among the most powerful, having the energy of super shakti, as well as an ancient history of saints and their meditations here.
A very interesting thing about the Shakti Peeth temple here is that unlike all other temples in the world, this place has no idol.
In fact, there is a Sri Yantra crystal jutting out of a big piece of a black rock. And the rock hangs at 45 degrees outsides of the mountain.
One has to climb over to the other side of the rock that peeps deep into the valley and move into a slight hollow into the rock. This is where the Sri Yantra is located.
This crystal considered the center point of all energies, and it’s natural occurrence here in this unusual spot is worshiped.

The other reason – Mythology.

Legend says that once when all the devas (gods) were troubled by asuras (demons). It was improbable to beat the asuras because one of them – Raktbeej had the ability to reproduce to one more from every drop of his blood that touches the ground.
The devas sought goddess Parvati’s help. At this Parvati concentrated all her aggressive energy at one point, which gave birth to the angry goddess Kali.
From the black rock, Kali took 3 leaps and reached Kalimath to face the asuras.
On Parvati’s direction Kali opened her mouth extremely wide and swallowed all the reproduced “clones” of Raktbeej whole without spilling a drop of blood.

EXTENDED STORY

Kali Maa then sabotaged the entire army of demons, and then out of anger started a dance of destruction to celebrate her victory. The dance kept getting more and more fierce, and nobody could stop her.
Fearing that this dance of death would destroy the whole world, other gods went to Lord Shiva for help.
Too engrossed in her dance, when Kali didn’t notice Shiv, he lay on the floor along with the asuras, allowing himself to be trampled over by Kali, as this was the only way left to bring her back to her senses, and to protect the world from annihilation.
When Kali Maa saw that she was dancing over the body of her husband, she put her tongue out in sorrow and surprise.
She remained stunned in this posture and this is how Kali is shown in images and idols.

WHERE TO STAY?

Ranwleg is a quaint little away, far away from any commercialization. Every household is self-sustaining, so there are no hotels either.
The villagers are very warm and friendly, and if you request they will readily host you. And serve fresh food, without expecting anything in return. (But it’s polite to pay whatever little fits your kindness.)

Contact local
Sandeep Pandera: +91 8192911735

These villagers usually have to houses, one at the foot of the hill and one at the top of the mountain.
The entire family lives in only one house at a time. The one at the top in summer and the other one in winter.
So one house is usually empty, and they can accommodate you.
Or you can use their shelter to pitch your own camp.

On reaching the top at Kalishila. Once you start trekking down towards Kalimath, there is a local stay option at Jai Ma Kalishila Homestay.

WHAT ELSE MAKES IT SPECIAL?

The highly remote village situated at 4,000 meter where there is no commercialization or tourists, there’s Baba Barkhagiri from the Czech Republic and Ma Sarasvati from Germany who has been living here in isolation for more than 25 years.
Their cottage is located at the peak, and any household close to them is in the village at least 4 km from there.
Both babas live here and practice meditation and the noble Barkha baba is said to have reached a very high level of meditational and tantric abilities.

I got in a conversation with Ma Sarasvati, (who insisted to be called maai) and being from Garwal, Uttarakhand myself I was astonished to see that she spoke absolutely fluent Garwali, apart from Hindi of course, with the correct accent and tones.
Apart from Hindi, Garwali, Haryanvi, English, and German, I was told she speaks fluent Malayalam and Tamil, and chants mantras in Sanskrit.
She feels a deep love for the mountains and has been on top of all the 40-50 peaks in the vicinity. She loves her forests, and her childlike playful nature comes out when she see is next to her rhododendron trees.

They live in a cottage made out of the mud by themselves and grow their own vegetables.
Life is good and peaceful for them, except the times when the leopard attacks the dogs adopted by them.
The chills could be seen on her face when describing the scene when she got involved in a tug of war with the leopard, as he was trying to take the dog away.
She loves her 3 dogs way too much and has come down of the mountains only twice in the last 20 years to get her dogs treated in Delhi.

She traveled to a lot of places in South India, in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu for 5 years before settling in the mountains.
On asking why did she choose to live here out of all the places, she replied with a very settling smile,
“all we need to live is food and water” 🙂

So yes, if they feel kind they will also offer you lunch. And you can bring them some rice or wheat or some item of utility to be kind on your side 🙂

Then 4-5 km from here, there’s another piece of paradise Ruchh Mahadev.
Will share the story from there soon. Stay tuned 😉