Himalayan Trails: 2006

Sunday, December 31, 2006

A step in Time....

Let every year, every month, every day, every hour and every moment be new...

Photo Credits : makunia

Saturday, December 23, 2006

The Beauty of the Mountain...

Oil on canvas:- Paul Linke(1844-1917)

"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges — Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"
—Rudyard Kipling from "The Explorer"

Until I stayed in the interiors of Himachal at Joginder Nagar for some years I didn’t have a real hand on feel of the mountains though my fascination with them was there since childhood and I even joined the Trekking and Mountaineering Club of my college, but we never ventured out.

One November evening, passing through Kangra valley on my way to Joginder Nagar, I glimpsed the snow clad mountains of Dhauladhars at a distance emerging as if suddenly from nowhere in the shape of a long arc taking the frontal horizon in their embrace… and I clearly felt the distance melting away. It was as if I could just stretch my hand and touch these!

The white sheet of snow in its ethereal hues with evening Sun peeping on it through clouds, a golden shine here, a dark patch of shadow there, an unfathomable silence, a sense of enormity and loads and loads of mystery of what lies beyond….It was a perfect setting for a love at first sight!

Something happened deep inside and one felt a kind of rejuvenation…It was like awakening from years long sleep. The body was coming to its own rhythm and one could understand its language. The colors looked so vibrant, the sounds so clear. The mountains were the Life and it was beautiful and one felt blessed to be alive. Words looked totally unnecessary then!

Since then, one has never been able to leave the mountains so to say or rather these won’t leave one as these keep on imploring one to return here every year…

Even after staying there many years and seeing the elements in all their extremes, the cold, the rains, the dangers of wrong stepping, landslides and relative aloofness one still wants to cross just one more range to be there in the next unknown valley by treading a difficult and often dangerous trekking trail….It is as if you want to go there for the ‘hell’ of it as put by Edmund Hillary.

Why the mountains have a trance like effect on one? Why so much allure and mystery behind them?

Is it because one is away from the routine ‘civilized’ cacophony and humdrum that one finds entangled in hopelessly and grabs the chance to be in relative aloofness and it then becomes a kind of escape?

If this is merely an escape, I am afraid it won’t have much meaning beyond the ordinary!

Or perhaps, as the mountain presents itself in its extraordinary majesty, for some moments as happens in deep inquiry or wonder, one with one’s burdens, tensions and conditioning is not there! Only watchfulness …no watcher!

And that cleanses one to one’s deepest recesses.

Sure that happens for some moments and coming soon to their ‘own’, the burdens and the past experiences with their inevitable likes and dislikes, comparisons and calculations take over and soon convert the moments into just lifeless words to be savored and pursued again sometimes in future!

Anyway, as a mountaineer observed, writing about mountains may become boring, I would rather go there…!

Thursday, December 07, 2006

The Ganga is dying at both ends....

Photo credits for Gaumukh Photo(see enlarged;people standing out there) :ins

Source of Earthobservatory Satelite image: NASA
Watch CNN-IBN video here...

“Yudhishthira asked:

Which countries, which provinces, which retreats, which mountains, and which rivers, O grandsire, are the foremost in point of sanctity?

The Rishi crowned with success said: Those countries, those provinces, those retreats, and those mountains, should be regarded as the foremost in point of sanctity through which or by the side of which that foremost of all rivers, viz., Bhagirathi (Ganga or Ganges) flows.”

From The Mahabharata
Anusasna parva, Section XXVI
Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli

The famous Gangotri Glacier in Uttaranchal Himalayas at its terminus, the snout, called ‘Gaumukh’ because of its peculiar cow’s mouth like opening and where the river Bhagirathi, the main tributary of the river ‘Ganga’ (Ganges) oozes out after its many kilometers long journey beneath the mighty Gangotri Glacier presents an unmistakable dramatic and mystic visage for any one with some sense of wonder, adventure or discovery …!

We trekked about 20 KM up to Gaumukh in the summer of year 2004.

In the backdrop of mythical Mount Shivling which towers over it magnificently the vulnerability of the moment, the aura of the place and the energy of the pilgrims commingle to create a scene , a feeling, a sense of enormity that bewitches you with that sacred something which is very life itself….!

Here is a place which seems imbued with ‘absoluteness’ of its own, and a time which seems still.

Not any longer!

The Global Warming is fast becoming a Global Warning in Himalayas! Over the years, much water has flown through the Ganga, and more will flow through for a while….before the water starts receding and then eventually dying...(?)

The Gaumukh of today, the glacial snout is in retreat with Gangotri, at 29 KM long and 2 to 6 Km wide, the largest glacier in the Central Himalayas having melted about 2 KM in the last century or so! This retreat has become alarming for some years now with a rate of about 30 meters per year.

The linear extrapolating models for future may not mean much in the scenario, for a glacier exists in a yearly snowfall received and melt equilibrium and some unidirectional constant changes may trip the balance and then everything gets unstable as cascading effects set in.
In the case of Gangotri glacier, rapid growth of lakes has been observed and as the water can store more heat compared to ice it will kick off a feedback that would create further melting.

Its natural sidewalls seem to be loosening due to heavy erosion and thus the support to the glacier from sides may be weakening leading to its possible disintegration!

Satellite pictures apart, there are telltale signs of the retreat of the glacier with markings and engravings showing the position of the snout of the glacier as it existed in 1870, 1935, 1971 and so on. The pilgrims to Gaumukh and Tapovan pass through these markings on their onward journey often unknowing!

But know they should! For the effects are not confined to this place only and these are flowing with the receding waters down the river to all of the Indo- Gangetic plain and beyond arguably the most dense human conglomeration in the world...!

“In the Ganga, the loss of glacier melt water would reduce July- September flow by two-thirds causing water shortage for 500 million people and 37 percent of India’s irrigated land." (Jain 2001)

Its not that only Gangotri glacier is shrinking….

The glaciers are receding in many parts of the world but a report by the
Working Group on Himalayan Glaciology (WGHG) of the International Commission for snow and Ice (ICST) states, “Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 is very high…”

WWF Report, an overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat and subsequent impacts in Nepal, India and China (2005) concluded that “…67 percent of Himalayan glaciers are retreating rapidly.”

And the consequences are enormous to say the least!

Apart from its resulting in disturbed global earth balance with its myriad loops, chains and feedbacks affecting Earth’s

hydrosphere and biosphere life as such would be shaken very adversely. The regional food security, biodiversity and local livelihood will all be affected with untold further affects.

The glaciers are not just huge concentrations of ice and snow in remote mountainous regions that present a pretty scene for the adventurers; they are a veritable life-line within a network of a vast and complex bio-geological eco system. These are a perfect and sometimes the only sources of fresh water supply in the plains providing the highest run-off during warm days and also buffer other eco systems against climate variability….

This deglaciation coupled with alarming levels of pollutants that the Ganga is fed in its downstream journey is causing the Ganga of today to die at both ends simultaneously……

Pilgrimages were supposed to be undertaken after fulfilling one's responsibilities....and these were as much a journey inside as it were outside to unbare one's deepest recesses , fears and hopes .

I wonder whether we undertake any such pilgrimage today!

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Ladakh at cross-roads....

Not very long ago it took weary caravans about three weeks to move from Srinagar to Leh, which was at the cross-roads of many feeder routes of the ancient ' Silk Route'.

Caravans and traders from Tibet, Kullu, Amritsar and Yarkand would meet here and trade in carpets, textiles, tea and poppy among other things…

In Nubra valley, near Hunder one comes across Bactrian double humped camels who along with ponies were supposed to be the mainstay of caravans in these rugged terrains...a 'skeleton trail' route that would take one over many high altitude passes on the way from Amritsar in Punjab to Yarkand in Central Asia, also crossing the mighty Karakorams in between…

Today one reaches Leh in two days by road from Srinagar with just over night stay in Kargil. The road now designated a national highway was constructed in the Sixties…

The other road to Leh via Manali constructed even later, in Eighties also crosses three mighty ranges of Pir-Panjal, Great Himalayas and Zanskar on the way to Leh and is open barely for four months in summer…It also takes two days from Manali with over night stay in between…

These two main roads to Leh from the south of Himalayas were constructed on roughly the same ancient routes that criss-crossed from here…..
These have “strategic military importance”, they say. No wonder when one goes to Ladakh via road one is bound to run into large convoys of Army moving both ways carrying fuel, rations and logistics…

Thanks to this ‘easy’ road connectivity coupled with less- than- one- hour- flights, the Ladakh of today is teeming with tourists in season and non residents easily seem to outnumber the residents any summer day.

“Once a tightly held secret among the bearded pioneers of the Himalayas Hippie trail…” as Alexander Zaitchik wrote, it may have now become just a fashionable tag!

No doubt Ladakh works its mystic Shangri La charm over many, and they come in droves to this ‘spiritual-landscape trail’ but along with tourists have come a number of challenges for the simple Ladakhis.

With tourists and trade, they have been familiar for centuries but it seems its new avatar may be like no other of the earlier….!

Ms Helena Norberg-Hodge, Director of the Ladakh Project is a witness to the rapid changes in the culture and society of the native Ladakhis as they prepare to meet this new ‘development’…

“Ladakh had been isolated for centuries and then was suddenly thrown open to development including tourism. This development has brought many changes to the previously peaceful, prosperous and largely self-reliant culture of Ladakh. Junk food, plastic consumer goods, pollution, and toxics including DDT and asbestos have come to the region as part of this process. Just as dramatic as these environmental impacts have been the psychological effects of Western-style education, television and advertising, all of which glamorize an urban consumer life-style, giving the impression that life in the West is one of limitless wealth and leisure. The influx of tourists has added to the impression that life in the West is infinitely better than in Ladakh. Tourists will often spend the same amount in a day that a whole family in a Ladakhi village might spend in a year. As a consequence, Ladakhi, particularly the young people, feel that their lifestyle seems poor and backward. Tourists, in turn, often unwittingly reinforce these feelings and insecurities. Having no way of knowing the degree to which Ladakhis have traditionally been self-reliant, they are often horrified to hear of daily wages as low as five dollars, or of an absence of electricity. Generally, neither tourists nor Ladakhis reflect on the fact that money plays a completely different role in the West, where it’s needed for basic survival.”

Another related article:- The March of the Monoculture

Photo Credit For Double- humped camel:- mr_o

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Alexander the Great and Ladakh...

A Drokpa girl...?
Photo credit : jaipalsingh

Down the Indus before Shyok-Indus confluence,in Ladakh live a people, called Dropkas or Brokpas (…high landers) who have many interesting tales about their origin...

Some consider them to be descendents of Dards of Dardistan who migrated here from Gilgit

centuries ago.(There language is said to be akin to that spoken in Gilgit)
A couple of thousands in number, they are thought to be survivors of pure Aryan race, whatever that may mean...Ethnically they have no relation with Mongoloid-tibetan strains.
The local folklore also hints of their being descendents of soldiers who came along with Alexander the Great on their famous march...

Also tossed about are stories of they being a 'lost' Israeli tribe...!
Both men and women always wear flowers on their head.

They don't marry outside of there clan...Probably thats why a concept of their relative racial purity....

They live in five villages , two of these, Dah and Biama...we passed through this August...