Himalaya Bound Read online

  Had we needed to, we could have covered the final twenty-one miles of our journey in just a few days. But now that we were immersed in the forest, my companions were in no rush to reach the end of the trail. The dangers and discomforts of camping on the roadside were gone, and more importantly, we were surrounded by fodder for the animals. While there was some motivation to move quickly to avoid being hassled by the rangers who wanted us out of their district, that concern was far outweighed by an even more compelling reason to travel slowly: due to the altitude at Kanasar, we had to give the grass up there a little more time to grow. It would have been a big mistake to arrive too early, only to find nothing for the buffaloes to eat.

  With our newly-relaxed pace, we slept until sunrise, hiked for a few hours, then made camp again. Though distances were relatively short, they were physically gruelling. Often, the trail was sloppy with mud or broken up by rocks. Sometimes we had to descend a couple hundred feet, only to climb right back up again, regaining every inch we’d lost. Occasionally, we traversed tricky sections along exposed cliffs, where the earth had fallen away in landslides and the trail was hardly wide enough for the pack animals to keep their footing. Sometimes we had to ford fast-flowing streams, taking care that the children and the buffalo calves all crossed safely to the other side.

  Despite these challenges, there was a magical aura to this place. With the sun filtering through the forest canopy, we moved in an ethereal world of emerald flecked with gold. The spongy moss covering ancient boulders, the grasses in a tangle like windswept hair, the vines and creepers curling over bony deadfall, the leaves shimmering, quaking on bushes and trees, the long, elegant needles crowning old, majestic pines—it was all infused with such a rich and dreamy glow, I half expected to encounter nymphs or fairies while I was out gathering firewood or fetching water from a creek.

  Surrounded by woods, often shielded by trees from the open sky, it was usually impossible to get a true sense of our surroundings. Only when we’d pass through a clearing that opened up an expansive view of the valley could we appreciate the scale of the terrain we were travelling through; only then did it hit home that, compared to the landscape, we were like fleas walking across the side of an elephant.

  For the first time on the migration, evenings were a time for enjoyment, rather than just for sleep. Some nights, Van Gujjars from other families that were moving through the hills came to sit and talk and share tea around our bonfire. Other nights, we entertained ourselves: I would teach my friends an American game, then they would teach me an Indian game; they would sing a Van Gujjar song, then I would sing an American song. They especially loved listening to folk tales from around the world, perhaps because they have very few such fables of their own. “We’re too busy for that kind of thing,” Jamila told me, which surprised me, as I’d imagined that a culture without television would have a trove of stories told to amuse and educate. My friends quickly realized what they’d been missing, and began asking me and Namith to tell a story every night.

  After five days of slowly moving upriver on the south side of the valley, we crossed the Assi Ganga and camped on a flat bench of land about ten feet above the water, on the river’s northern side. When I asked Dhumman how long it would take us to get from there to Dodi Tal, he said, “Two days.” It sounded like we’d be picking up the pace.

  But that day, the weather took a turn for the worse. Rain fell, steady and cold. A gray mist permeated the valley. Nothing was glowing anymore. My companions wrapped themselves in woolen shawls and blankets, or wore them like capes. Either way, they got wet. Dhumman became acutely concerned that it would snow. The buffaloes, he said, couldn’t tolerate freezing temperatures for long. Meanwhile, one of Yusuf’s sons had gone on and scouted out the trail ahead, and returned to report that it was blocked by fallen trees and landslides. The animals would never make it up.

  Dhumman, Yusuf, and Alfa dispatched a couple of men from each of their families to work on clearing the trail. While Appa, Goku, Mariam, and Sharafat collected fodder for the buffaloes, Dhumman assigned me to gather firewood. He didn’t want cookfire sticks, which were just a few fingers thick—he wanted fat pieces that could burn for hours. If I’d had an axe or a saw, my job would have been substantially easier, but they didn’t carry a saw, and the only axe they had was off with the trail crew. I lifted and dragged what I could, and sometimes dropped big rocks on logs that were too long for me to move, smashing the beams in two, then carrying the pieces.

  Just when I thought I might have brought in enough wood, I spied a huge timber along the river’s edge. I knew it was exactly what Dhumman wanted. It was so perfect—and so large—I imagined hauling it into camp would be something of a triumph. I approached it, only to realize that I could barely move it—which only increased my resolve to figure out how I could bring it in. I knew there had to be a way to maneuver it up the embankment to the campsite, if I could just apply the right kind of leverage—but also knew that if I slipped and the log rolled backward, it might end up in the river or, worse, on top of me. Eventually, after a few false starts and much cursing and sweating, I wrangled it over the lip of the hill, then moved it forward by lifting the rear end, swinging it to the front, and laying it down, then going back to the rear, swinging it to the front, and laying it down, time after time, until I finally set it down alongside the woodpile, when Jamila waved me under our thin plastic roof for some warm milk. While I’d been trying to outsmart a piece of wood, she and Salma had spread a thick layer of green pine needles beneath the tarpaulin, creating a floor that was softer, cleaner, and warmer than bare dirt, infusing our Spartan shelter with homey comfort, making a primitive situation more civilized.

  Later that night, as one end of the giant log was burning in the fire that had been built at the edge of the tent, flaring and smoking in the rain, Dhumman rested his hand on my shoulder. “I like people who work hard,” he said. “Everything you do is a big help to us. Thank you.” His plain-spoken words struck my heart. The praise felt more fatherly than friend-like, and came from a father who didn’t give praise easily. It seemed like a threshold had been crossed—not unlike the day, early in the migration, when the dog first accepted me as part of the family—but this carried much more meaning. When the dog stopped wanting to kill me, it simply meant I was no longer a stranger. With Dhumman, it had taken weeks, but I’d finally won his respect.

  Down at the bottom of the valley, in a dark world saturated by freezing rain, a feeling of closeness settled over us all beneath the leaky tarp. Perhaps it was the weather, perhaps it was our weariness, perhaps it was the amount of time we had spent together—sharing food, sharing chores, sharing shelter; for the moment, anyway, as we clustered beside each other sharing the warmth of the bonfire, I felt like I belonged with this family, and they seemed to feel that I belonged with them, too. We were all in this together. Gazing at my companions, who were partly illuminated by the flames, partly invisible in the shadows of the night, I wondered what it would be like to truly be a part of this family—and I wondered, if I was single and unattached, without my own little family back home, if I might try to find out. What would it be like, I mused, to marry a Van Gujjar?

  Since even in a hypothetical universe I had no interest in child marriage, my thoughts turned to Appa as the only available possibility. She and I had an easy, natural connection and our friendship continued to grow day by day. She was smart and kind, funny and incredibly competent. I’d seen her in situations that were stressful and intense, as well as those that were domestic and mundane, and regardless of the circumstance, I was always happy to be around her—and the feeling seemed mutual. What’s more, over the course of the migration, she seemed to become even more beautiful than she was at the start.

  I wondered: if I proposed to her, would she accept? Of course, marrying me would solve all of her biggest problems—we would settle her divorce, she would have a new husband, and she could remain with her own family (though, as I envisioned it, we would
live in a separate hut). For my part, if I didn’t think too deeply about it, it was easy to be seduced by the romantic idea of retreating from the modern world and beginning a new life in the forest, with an attractive woman whom I liked and respected. Or perhaps we would spend half the year with her family in India, and half the year in America . . .

  If it sounds like I might have been getting a little carried away, well, I didn’t really get that far. The idea was so outlandish that even my imagination couldn’t run with it much beyond a Bollywood-like fantasy of Appa and me living together in the jungle in blissful simplicity: I would teach her English as we gathered fodder, she would teach me Gujari while she cooked, then, while milking buffaloes, we would break into an elaborate musical number; singing and dancing together around the animals, we would inexplicably find ourselves wearing colorful changes of clothing, as hundreds of nomads emerged from the trees, dancing and clapping in the background.

  In reality, even if Appa would consider marrying someone who was neither from her tribe nor of her religion—which is a very big “if”—I knew I had none of the skills, strength, or experience, to be a good Van Gujjar. I couldn’t climb trees; I’d never delivered a newborn calf; I was totally unfamiliar with the uses and dangers of the various plants in the forest. I’d be worthless as a husband and worth even less as a father, unable to teach our children anything they’d need to know to survive as buffalo herders. I was so obviously unfit to head a nomadic household, even my daydream of it deflated before it could get off the ground.

  It was just as difficult to imagine bringing Appa back to America. So far from her family, without the constant companionship that was a fundamental element of her life, she would be miserable. Sure, her life would be much easier in many ways, but it would also be a whole lot emptier.

  Any way I looked at it, it would have been completely impossible. Which, really, was just as well, since I wasn’t single and unattached.

  On this night of such miserable weather, we played no games and told no stories, but went to bed early. Everyone in the family slept side-by-side, huddled together under blankets that they shared for warmth. Despite how close to them I had become, I slept nearby but distinctly apart; rather than sharing their blankets with them, I buried my head inside my sleeping bag, trying to keep myself warm. Some boundaries, I felt, were better left intact.

  The weather the next morning was marginally better, with clouds overhead and fog hanging in the valley, but no rain. The trail crew went back out to finish clearing the route, for until the trail was passable, we weren’t going anywhere. I hung around the camp, and spent some time chatting with Bashi, the eleven-year-old. Usually busy with the buffalo calves or doing chore after chore after chore, for some reason she had more free time on this day than usual. She was a sweet and gentle kid, and when I asked her which of the buffaloes was her favorite, she paused, then said she loved them all the same—seemingly concerned that if she named one, she’d hurt the feelings of the others. Still imagining what it would be like to live as a Van Gujjar, though with a very different scenario in mind than the night before, I asked her what my two-and-a-half-year-old son, Lucas, would need to know if he was going to learn to be a buffalo herder.

  “First, he would need to know what to feed them, depending on how old they are,” Bashi said. She described the nutritional timeline of their buffaloes: how the calves feed solely on their mother’s milk for the first two weeks of life, after which they are also given leaves. When they get a little older, grass is mixed in with the leaves, and milk is mostly cut out, though they’re still allowed to have a little as a treat—and to help the mama buffaloes continue to lactate.

  “Would it be better for him to start out herding calves or full-grown buffaloes?” I asked, sure she would say the babies. But she surprised me with her answer, both for its content and its thoughtfulness. “Whichever he seems to understand better. Some kids think the adults are easier to work with, but others like the calves more. Once he gets used to working with the ones he understands best, then he can learn to work with the others.” I said that Bashi herself seemed to be drawn to the calves, and she smiled. “They’re sort of like little sisters,” she said.

  By early afternoon, the trail was usable, if barely. Concerned that the pack animals, which were in varying states of injury and exhaustion, might not survive the strenuous climb to the next camp if they were fully loaded, it was decided that we would make the move in stages. A group of us would shuttle up whatever items we could carry in our hands, on our backs, or on our heads. The buffaloes would follow. Then, most of us would retreat back down the trail and wait until the next morning to move the main camp.

  I filled my backpack with some of the family’s food supplies and set off with the others who’d been pressed into service as porters. It wasn’t long before we reached the first of several trees that had fallen across the path, and I understood why we’d had to wait before we could go forward. The downed trees were so big that they couldn’t be lifted or moved, so the trail crew had had to chop sections out of them, creating gaps in the trunks that were large enough for the buffaloes and the pack animals to walk through. Seeing that several trees had diameters larger than truck tires, I was stunned that my friends had been able to cut clear through them with hand axes.

  The trail was a slick and narrow ramp that wended over earthen ramparts, across boulder fields, and through fire-scarred groves that were black and gray with charred wood and ash. At times, the path vanished completely, and we had to scramble up the side of the canyon until we found it again. By the time we reached our destination—a wide, natural terrace called Manji, where there was plenty of room for the tents and the animals, not far from the main trekking trail to Dodi Tal—I was drenched with perspiration.

  But there was no time to rest. Within minutes of our arrival, a cold rain began to fall. We quickly pitched a makeshift tarp to cover the family’s belongings and started a fire by drenching some sticks in kerosene, then lighting them. I stayed at the tarp with all of the stuff we’d hauled, while everyone else went back down to help bring up the buffaloes.

  In the persistent drizzle, I scouted around under trees and bushes for dead wood that wasn’t too damp. I stacked it under the lip of the tarp and, once I had a substantial pile, hunkered down inside the shelter myself. I changed into a dry, long-sleeved shirt and put on my rain jacket. I fed the fire, munched on biscuits and chocolate, breathed deeply, and savored this moment of solitude. When living with a close-knit group of people 24/7 for weeks on end, no matter how much you like them, time alone becomes a precious commodity.

  The temperature continued dropping. It felt like it was going to snow. When the first group of buffaloes arrived, my friends ran over to the fire, loaded it with the wood I’d gathered, and thrust their frigid hands towards the flames with fingers spread. People were cold and wet but, circled close around the fire, spirits were high, and boisterous conversation was punctuated with laugher. Since none of the patriarchs had reached the bivouac yet, I pulled out a packet of bidis I carried—mainly for the purpose of giving away as a gesture of friendship to other Van Gujjars. Now, everyone indulged, including Mariam and Goku. “You smoke?!” I asked the teenage girls. “Just sometimes,” they said. “It will help keep us warm.” I laughed. Over the next few days, I saw a number of the women and girls smoking, and all said it helped them tolerate the cold—they may have believed it, but it was also clearly an excuse to partake in an illicit pleasure. None of the children in the family, male or female, of any age, ever smoked in front of their fathers. Even Chamar, who was in his late twenties, was the father of four kids, and loved puffing on bidis, never dared light up if Yusuf was around.

  Soon enough, Yusuf was around. He arrived with Dhumman and Alfa, bringing up the buffalo calves. As they moved in for some warmth, their sons gathered more wood and built another fire, a huge one with flames that shot up higher than their heads. Despite the weather, which hovered somewhere between miserabl
e and dangerous, the mood became downright festive. Some of the bigger little kids—like Salma, Rustem, and Karim—had come up to Manji, too, so there would be fewer children to manage on the trail in the morning, and they were running around in the mist, impervious to the wet, freezing air. I began to doubt that the Gujari language had a word for “hypothermia.”

  Those of us who were heading back down to the other camp had to beat the darkness. Thanks to the rain, the trail was now soupy with mud. Traction was impossible, and to the guys I descended with, it was also irrelevant. They raced at thrilling speeds, colluding with gravity to hurtle downhill while somehow keeping their spinning feet under control. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, I am no novice in the backcountry, but I had no chance of keeping up; compared to them, I probably looked like I’d never stepped off a sidewalk in my life.

  When I reached the bottom, they were waiting for me. We walked into camp together, just before dusk. From my knees down, it looked like I was made of chocolate. I got as clean as I could while Appa brewed tea, then we drank together by the fire.

  The rain continued through the night, rapping like a snare drum on our thin plastic shelter. Up at Manji, where Dhumman, Salma, and some of the others had stayed, it was snowing.

  The skies cleared as morning broke. By the time we started climbing, the sun shone above, beaming brightly through the tree cover. The light was crisp and clean and everything in the forest snapped into ultra-sharp focus. The trail, however, was still a mess. The wisdom of shuttling part of the camp up the previous day soon became apparent: one of the pack horses slipped and fell and, for all its heaving, couldn’t lift itself up while weighed down by its saddlebags. As quickly as they could, Hamju and Chamar freed the horse from its burden. It rose awkwardly to its feet and gingerly followed the caravan up the path, while Hamju hoisted the saddlebags onto his own back and continued climbing up the side of the canyon. With every step, the muscles in his thighs and calves bulged with the strain of supporting a load meant for a horse.