In wilderness of Baltal emerges a city of tents and faith

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Baltal, June 29

Hundreds of Kashmiri Muslims and Hindus from various parts of the country have converged on Baltal on the extreme end of Kashmir valley to build a makeshift city of tents and faith in the midst of majestic mountains, located nearly 105 km from Srinagar. 

One of the two traditional base camps for annual Hindu pilgrimage to the cave shrine of Shri Amarnath, where thousands of Hindus worship a revered ice-lingam, Baltal’s wilderness has changed into a bustling tent-city as hundreds of pony-owners, stall owners, community kitchens called langars and state government departments reach the end of preparations to host thousands of pilgrims.

The preparations for hosting the pilgrims at Baltal, a narrow valley on the Srinagar-Ladakh highway and located 15 kilometers from the meadow resort of Sonamarg, began more than a month ago and are continuing at a rapid pace as makeshift infrastructure is being put in place where devotees will rest, eat and sleep on their way to the cave shrine, which is located at a height of 3888 meters.

The pilgrimage to the cave shrine along the treacherous mountainous path is scheduled to begin on July 2 and continue for more than a month.  The cave shrine is located 14 km from Baltal base camp and involves a rigorous trek through rocky pathways snaking around mountains where oxygen levels dip and weather changes unexpectedly from sunny to rainy to snowy.

At Baltal, in the remote corner of central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, Ramesh Kumar and 20 other members of Baba Barfani Sewa Samiti from Hoshiarpur district of Punjab, are busy setting up a langar for the past five days. 

Kumar said he has been setting up langar at Baltal and at Pahalgam, the second base camp in south Kashmir, for the last 30 years. “It is the faith which gives us strength to coming again,” he said. “Things have changed a lot in the past years, the facilities are better now and supply of water and electricity has improved,” Kumar said.

There will be 50 langars – community kitchens – set up by volunteers from Baltal base camp to cave shrine, out of which 34 will be located between Baltal and Domail which houses the last police post in Kashmir valley on this axis. The langars and other infrastructure will be ready before the commencement of the pilgrimage later this week.

Raju Himmata from Ludhiana has set up a small stall for polishing shoes. Himmata, who lost a leg in a train accident “many years ago”, said he has been coming here for the last six years. For him, like hundreds of Kashmiri Muslims, the pilgrimage is a source of income.

Mohi-ud-din of a nearby Rayil village is busy building a temporary mud and rock oven, which he uses to warm water and sells it to pilgrims.  Baltal has a capacity to host an average of 9,000 pilgrims in 1,200 tents. 

Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) is responsible for management of the pilgrimage. “All (state government) departments have been mobilised and an ICU facility has been installed for the first time,” an official of SASB said.

The 20-bed Baltal base camp hospital will have three specialist doctors and five medical officers “working round the clock” and there will also be X-ray and ECG facilities, the officials said. For the convenience of pilgrims, 400 toilets and 1,000 bathrooms have also been set up and two telecom companies provide mobile phone services in this remote and rugged part of the region.