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Published: December 2nd 2008
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Horsemen in the Himalayas
Every morning, Nepali horsemen lead their mules up the snowland to take the tourists for a ride. The snow on the distant mountains has melted. It was a picture post-card at noon when we checked into the hotel by the narrow Beas River in New Manali. Now the mountains look as if sprinkled with bleaching powder. Tomorrow we would discover that snow is neither like bleaching powder nor like cotton pieces hung around the crib on Christmas Eve.
Only two categories of tourists seem to ascend to Kullu-Manali: honeymooners in search of the snowy heights and hippieish foreigners high on hashish. At daybreak, at a roadside eatery a few kilometers short of Kullu valley, the driver of our bus had told me that we were supposed to reach Manali by 10. “But then, it’s the mountain road,” he added, scalding his throat with a cup of steaming coffee.
The pessimism is justified on the hills. Many times during the night we were caught in a long queue of trucks and buses. Once the driver had to join his counterparts to push aside a toppled mini truck. The road itself is a wonder, rising to breathtaking heights and tunneling through rocky mountains.
We were moving up along the shallow Beas, green and clear on a vast
Roadmakers' obituary
Manali-Leh National Highway 21 is one of the highest motorable roads in the world. bed of white pebbles. Orange and apple orchards were too conspicuous to miss, but I forgot to look out for the cannabis weeds. Snow was a greater lure. As soon as our bus bypassed Kullu town, snow-capped peaks arose on the skyline. After traversing 40 kilometres, at the buzzling Manali bazaar, the mountains were not any nearer.
We followed leads through a gully to a hotel, which a friend in Delhi had suggested. It’s deserted. No wonder they promised a 50-percent off. We circumvented the hotel and went past a compound of tents, each with a television set, a hearth and an impoverished family which had survived a freezing night under it. Tibetan refugees and Nepali migrants, mostly. Homeless beneath the Himalayas.
Then Delma led me to a hotel at Aleo by the Beas. Homework pays, in the time of Google. The stout manager was quick to offer us a “discount”. Fifty-percent off seems to be the norm here. The town, enveloped by pines and deodars, is also famous for numerous angora rabbit farms surrounding it. The fluffy rabbits are endemic to this place like the pashmina goats. The handicraft emporia boast of shawls made of yak, angora
Snow white
Ice melts into a slush as tourists revel in the newfound wonderland. and more famously, pashmina.
Next morning, we set out to the Rohtang Pass, from 8612 feet to 13,050 feet above sea level. ‘The last petrol pump in the valley of gods,’ warns a billboard in front of a pump just outside the town. An endless line of shops hiring snowgear and skis border the road. Snow boots and synthetic suits cost Rs 200 per head. Skis cost Rs 600 each, including an instructor. We had missed the board on the way notifying the official rates of rentals.
‘Rohtang Pass - 51 kilometres; Leh - 474 kilometres,’ a signboard. ‘Be soft on my curves,’ another one by the Border Roads Organisation, which maintains the dusty road that cuts through brown barren mountains. But our driver revved up the Omni past dusty hair-pins and blocked vehicles. Like all taxi drivers who know Hindi, he is also addicted to Raja Hindustani songs. A few film crews are at work against the backdrop of snow-capped peaks and apple orchards.
A runaway lorry rusts near the river below. On acrophobically high roads, I fix my gaze at the distant white mountainheads.
We join a halted convoy at the Beas Lake, where
the river is tamed by a small barrage. From the bend we see a jawan closing the bridge across the lake. “BRO guys,” Kabeer Ali, our skiing instructor, tells us. He adds that tomorrow the Pass would be closed for repairs. Just as I rue a ruined holiday, the jawan opens the road. Boys and girls, who made use of the short break taking pictures of themselves on the rocks strewn across the riverbed, rush to their vehicles.
Roadblocks continued all the way. BRO is widening the road. National Highway 21, cutting through Rohtang Pass, Baralachala Pass, Lachulunga and Tanglangla, leads to Ladakh, the cold desert. This point of time, however, Ladakh is out of bounds. It will remain so till May-end when the snow melts and the road reappears. Even Rohtang Pass would be closed a month later.
After three hours, we near the pass. The vanilla snow and the chocolate mountain rise against an azure sky. Numerous streams flow from the height. We are surrounded by white mountains. Snow is nothing like the clean carpet in the movies. Large flakes melt away to slush.
Shah Rukh Khan and Danny are ready. Kabeer advises us to
hire the mules: “Even we find it difficult to breathe after the hike.” Jay Mohan Thakur, the Nepali horseman, leads us through snow-covered boulders to a white valley hemmed in by white hills. Even before we get down from the mules, Bina accosts us. The Himachali woman (pahadi log or mountainfolk, as locals say) has a pair of native dress for hire. Rs 1500 for the horses, Rs 100 each for the costume - every experience comes for a price. We obliged everyone except the photographer.
All of them, including the mules, are from the lowlands. This snowland is just a workplace for them. The pass is not inhabitable. “In winter, even these electricity posts are submerged under snowfalls,” Kabeer tells us.
We skied till we sweated, falling at every-two-metre-intervals and wading uphill to tumble down again. The trick is as simple as cycling. Look forward, don’t look at the ski, balance your knees. But I found it as hard as turning a lorry. Kabeer gave up on me, but always turned to me to translate his Hindi to Delma. He didn’t know English. How does he manage with Westerners. “They don’t come to us. They are airlifted by choppers arranged by the hotels. They ski from the mountain tops and call back the chopper through walky-talky when they are done,” he tells me.
As for the budget backpackers, they don’t always reach the heights. They are more contended with the Manali cafes where saffron-clad peddlers make joints for them. Though drugs use is a punishable offence in India, the police are soft on the Western tourists, who keep the economy afloat. But peddlers are not that lucky. Many of the foreigners have made Manali and Manikaran a second home. They even learn Hindi. Before we started our journey from Delhi, a stoned Israeli was giving instructions in Hindi to the driver checking the wheels.
The snow is treacherous. The white carpet hides the gorges between boulders. In the end, we were too exhausted to try sledging or paragliding. The chill gets on to the feet and palms. Before mounting Shah Rukh Khan, I taste snow. Crushed ice.
We take a detour through the mountains to another part of the road. On the way is a small circular temple dedicated to a virgin spring, believed to be the origin of the Beas River. To get back to the plains we just have to follow the river.
The Beas gains strength under a full moon as we pass Manali and Kullu on our way to McLeod Ganj. Behind us the snow would be recapturing the mountain peaks.
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