Mountainscapes

“1days, 3400 km, 10 mountain passes (from highest to scariest), 12 rivers, a dozen road crossing streams and best to worst motorable roads — this is the route to Ladakh...” — Parthasarthi Burman

This succinctly sums up the journey from Delhi to and from the mystical, world-out-of-this-world part of the old silk route that evokes curiosity and fear of the unknown in perhaps equal measure.

Past the hawk-eyed army patrols of Srinagar and the scenic beauty of Sonamarg, Zoji La is the first of the mountain passes that slowly eases us into an increasingly harsh land as we drive higher and higher till the tree line has disappeared and a stark, bleak, barren land streaked in browns, greys and beige is all that surrounds us as far as the eye can reach. ‘Inhospitable’, ‘unfriendly’, ‘unrelenting’ are some of the adjectives that come to mind.

How and why have people traversed these distances and faced the challenges of the hostile landscape to settle in sporadic bursts all along the route over the centuries? 

The rivers provide an answer. Throughout our journey, we are never far from flowing water. A small brook trickling quietly along murmuring to itself; a waterfall tumbling untidily over rocks to swell the stream; glacial melt coming from far up in the mountains and broadening the river till it becomes a roaring torrent above the rush of which we have to shout to be heard. Where the darker waters of the River Drass mingle with the light jade of the Indus, slowly the lively lightness of the Indus takes on a more sombre hue — much like a young girl slowly growing to womanhood and shedding some of her girlishness for adult responsibilities. As the waters carve and gouge their way through the hard rocks, small patches of green far below in the distance slowly take shape and resolve themselves as villages where houses and monasteries grow organically out of the crags, perched like colourful birds on the sides of cliffs affording a much-needed relief from the scenes of enormous, bare crags ponderously going past our window like so many pre-historic mammoths.

Driving through Zoji La where the rocky, loose-pebbled track makes the vehicle slither and lurch sickeningly, one feels like a tiny lizard slowly crawling across the face of the massif. Our aptly named charioteer points out the tents pitched in preparation for the Amarnath Yatra far down on the right and is sharply and anxiously asked by one of the party to keep his eyes on the road — such as it is!

Ah the roads! With a few exceptions, the roads are outstanding — smooth and as broad as they could possibly be, given the terrain. Even the road past Namika La (12198 ft.) and Fotu La (13479 ft.) on the route from Kargil to Leh is truly world class. Some of the ones that aren’t — Zoji La (11575 ft.), Khardung La (at 18380 ft. the highest motorable pass in the world), Chang La (17590 ft.) or Rohtang (13050 ft.), the last as one approaches it from Sarchu — convert the motor vehicles into rearing, bucking horses or swaying camels and the juddering, bone relocating ride causes us to wonder at moments why exactly we are subjecting ourselves to this — till the destination veers into sight (but more of that another time). The Border Roads Organisation deserves more than a few salutes and hurrays not just for the excellent roads but also for the pithy, witty, often rhyming slogans that encourage safe driving dotted all along the route. I dreamily imagine an old English professor (someone like Browning’s Grammarian) sitting in some mountain hut buffeted by harsh winds and, in the fading light of a guttering candle, writing out in unsteady letters, the couplets of the song of the road.

The tea stalls and restaurants that dot the route are clean, traditionally furnished — with folk music and beautifully decorated bowls and cups — offering hot meals (including the ubiquitous Maggi noodles!) and lemon-ginger tea. The Army has its own cafes too! And wonder of wonders — there are washrooms with flushes. Even if it is just a shed perched on a hilltop with a plywood door that swings alarmingly in the strong mountain breeze, they are uniformly clean. I am reminded of a recent visit to Orchha where an early morning trip to the riverside was a sickeningly disgusting experience with the sight and smell of the local citizenry out in full force for their morning business. Nowhere did we experience this here — not in the villages, not along the rivers and streams or in the mountains. Even with the amazing number of tourists in this part of the country — we are told in Leh that it has been increasing every year — there is still a level of cleanliness that could be productively replicated in other parts of India. But the roads they are a widening and what was remote and isolated — and pristine — is becoming more accessible. Already there is evidence of callous forays of the plains-people and one hopes that the gentle locals will repulse the sullying of vistas of blue skies, clear waters and snow-clad peaks.

Apart from the all-terrain automobiles, there are intrepid bikers and off-roaders — who seem to ill-advisedly take the road less travelled by — all of whom, in an unspoken brotherhood of the path, wait to overtake or nose their vehicles into the unlikeliest of spots to make way for an approaching one — acknowledged with a raised palm and a ‘julley’ which is hullo, thanks and many other sentiments all rolled into two syllables.

The eighth century rock-cut statue of Maitreya that suddenly comes into view around a corner is an unexpected bonus and demands a stop to fully savour the quaint temple fragrant with incense and crane our heads to look at the statue in all its majestic height. The lamas in their orange robes, sturdy walking shoes and stylish shades are as much a part of the landscape as rosy-chapped-cheeked adorable children and women in traditional attire. And in the luminous semi-darkness outside a mosque in the main market place of Leh with its slim pillar topped with a turret like a Buddhist hand-held prayer wheel, tall, aquiline-nosed men in black robes assemble for evening prayers during Ramzan. 

The author is a professor of English at IGNOU, New Delhi. She is a creative writer and translator