Himalaya Bound Read online

  Like many Muslim communities around the world, Van Gujjars seamlessly blend elements of religious orthodoxy with folk traditions and local superstitions, which I glimpsed for the first time at our Asan camp. Halima, the three-month-old daughter of Chamar and Fatima, was crying constantly and, according to her parents, “didn’t seem right.” Fatima herself was having trouble producing enough milk for her baby. The couple assumed that an evil spirit was probably involved, so they went to a nearby town, where they paid a visit to a highly regarded holy man. He diagnosed the problem, said the appropriate prayers, and sent mother and daughter away wearing protective amulets, inside of which were bits of paper scrawled with Koranic scripture. Chamar was confident that Halima would feel better soon.

  Uniquely among Muslim communities, Van Gujjars see themselves as the spiritual heirs of Esau, eldest son of Isaac and twin brother of Jacob in both the Hebrew Bible and the Koran. Depending on your interpretation, Esau either sold his birthright or had it stolen from him, and was forced to leave the land of his forefathers. The Van Gujjars have long revered Esau as a saint, and relate to him as one who is outcast—especially, perhaps, as they faced the loss of their own birthright and explusion from the lands of their forefathers.

  Hoping to avoid such a fate, Dhumman added some freestyle improvisations to the prescribed rituals as he prayed that first night along the Asan. As long as he had Allah’s ear, he figured, he might as well ask Him to intervene with the forest department.

  In the morning, all of the milk collected from the buffaloes was poured into two containers—one looked like a metal backpack with fabric shoulder straps, the other was a large blue plastic jug with handles at the top. Yusuf’s son, Hamju, wore the backpack, and he and Sharafat each grabbed one of the handles on the plastic jug. I followed as they waded across the river and shuffled up a dirt lane that wended its way between fields and orchards, then through a small village. We emerged on the road that linked Dehradun to Paonta Sahib and waited for a local bus. Luckily, when we boarded, we managed to find enough room to sit at the very back. As the vehicle accelerated and braked and bounced over potholes, I wondered if the containers might be filled with butter by the time we reached Vikasnagar, where Sharafat and Hamju planned on selling the milk. Hamju fiddled with his mobile phone, while Sharafat closed his eyes and rested his head on the window glass.

  When we got off the bus, we hustled across Vikasnagar’s busy main road, which throbbed with cars, motorcycles, scooters and pedestrians, and was lined with a streetside market and shops of all kinds. My friends knew exactly where they were going, working their way down a side alley. When we got to the milk shop, Hamju and Sharafat immediately asked if they could charge their fathers’ mobile phones, and, given a nod of permission, plugged them into the electrical outlets. When in the forest, many Van Gujjars, including Dhumman and Yusuf, lived beyond the reach of mobile connectivity, but on the migration the phones were essential tools, allowing families at different stages of their journeys to share important news with each other and keep in touch with Manto and the SOPHIA staff in Dehradun, who would be the first to know about any developments with the park authorities. Since they couldn’t read, they didn’t have any names in their “Contacts’ lists, but used easily recognizable symbols to represent the people they called most often. Keeping the phones powered up, however, could be a major hassle, requiring trips into villages and hours of waiting for them to recharge.

  The dairy shopowner ladled out a small sample of Sharafat and Hamju’s milk and fed it into a butyrometer—a bulbed glass tube that looks like something you might have used in high school chemistry class. It was mixed with sulphuric acid and amyl alcohol, then spun in a centrifuge to determine the fat content. After a few minutes, the owner examined the results and offered Sharafat and Hamju twenty-two rupees per liter. It was a fair price back in 2009, and was more than the doodhwala who rode his bicycle into the Shivaliks paid them.

  The day was already getting hot, and when we returned to the bustling main road with the empty milk containers, Sharafat and Hamju each bought an ice cream pop. Sharafat explained that he would tell his parents that they’d sold the milk for twenty rupees per liter—a believable number—and that he’d pocket the extra two rupees as baksheesh for his delivery services. I looked at him with an expression of surprise and said, “Really?!” Sharafat, without a trace of guilt, explained that it was all the same, really—if he ever needed something, his parents would end up paying for it one way or another, but this way he wouldn’t have to ask them for the money. I laughed at his creative rationalization.

  Once, Sharafat continued, he’d been sent to buy a new phone charger for Dhumman, who had broken his. He’d paid about a hundred rupees for it, but told Dhumman it had cost more than twice that—and of course kept the surplus for himself. “But I only did that to save him money in the long run,” Sharafat claimed. “I knew if he thought the charger was more expensive, he would take better care of it, so it wouldn’t break and need to be replaced as often.” I had to admit there was some logic to his reasoning.

  Sometimes, like now, he’d spend his money on small treats. But he usually gave it to his sister, Appa, for safekeeping. It’s the women, I learned, who generally manage the money in Van Gujjar families, which is one reason why, some say, there is virtually no drinking or gambling in their culture.

  Money matters and milk fat percentages seemed to be the only sets of numbers that Van Gujjars spoke of with any degree of precision. For most other things, they would estimate. When I’d first asked Dhumman how many buffaloes he had, he said, “Forty, forty-three . . .” When I asked Sharafat how old he was, he said, “About fifteen, sixteen.” He honestly didn’t know exactly how long he’d been on the planet, or when his birthday was. Even Chamar and Fatima’s tiny baby, who had been born just within the past twelve weeks or so, was “two or three months . . . or maybe three or four months . . . no, two or three months.”

  Walking past vegetable sellers, I asked Sharafat what he thought his mother would want, and purchased enough eggplant, potatoes, onions and tomatoes to last the family for at least a few days. Since I wasn’t paying them any money, I felt it was imperative to contribute amply to our shared food supply.

  By the time we got back to the Asan, the buffaloes were wallowing in the water. The people were sprawled out under the tarps, hiding from the sun, napping or chatting with each other. After a few hours, when the heat clicked down a notch from “deadly” to “survivable,” the herd was roused from the river and led to a nearby field. I grabbed a lathi and went along, eager to get some new tips from Bashi and eventually master the challenge of managing the buffaloes. We stayed until sunset, when we brought the animals back to camp for a full meal of grass that had again been hauled in.

  A few vendors walked up and down the banks of the Asan, arms laden with merchandise, drawn by the concentration of potential customers now camped along the river. They were like the hawkers on the beaches of Goa, but instead of sarongs and souvenirs, they carried cookware and rope and livestock bells. None of them had any luck selling to my companions—until one man flipped the switch on a small LED lantern.

  Bright light poured from the little plastic gadget, which he held by its metal handle. Jamila asked to take a closer look, and after some good-natured haggling, bought it. Instantly, the night-time ambience of the camp changed. While the family did have a few flashlights, they used them rarely, for very specific tasks, not to provide light to live by. For that, it was a kerosene lamp and the cook fire—both of which gave off a warm, cozy kind of light, a light that seems alive as it dances or sputters or flares, a light that creates a mood both rustic and romantic. For those of us fortunate enough to live with electricity, the glow cast by flames triggers a trans-generational sense-memory, as though somewhere in the back of our brains we can almost remember—and feel a nostalgia for—the firelight that lit our ancestors’ worlds for tens of thousands of years. It feels soulful, natural, of the earth.<
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  By contrast, the new lantern emitted a harsh, bluish-white light that was unmistakably artificial. It was like a beam straight out of the modern world, which shattered the magical aura of the fire at night. But it was incredibly practical, and the family embraced it as something that could make their lives easier, expressing no regrets over the change. I may have been the only one to sense the loss that came with the gain.

  That evening, Namith told me he didn’t see any point in staying on the banks of the Asan, enduring the blistering heat, for days on end. If we walked up to the road and caught a bus, he said, we could be in Dehradun in less than two hours, where there were showers and toilets and electric fans. Dhumman could call and let us know when the family was getting ready to move again, and we could come back and join them then.

  This idea had no appeal to me whatsoever. My entire purpose was to participate in the migration from start to finish, whatever that looked like. Barring a medical emergency, I wasn’t going to leave. Besides, it’s not like it would be any cooler in Dehradun—it would just be dirtier, noisier, and more crowded. But Namith had made up his mind. He was going to leave the next day, he said, regardless of what I wanted to do.

  This posed a dilemma for me, since in so many ways I relied on him to be my ears and my voice when talking with the Van Gujjars. I had to question how much I could learn and understand, how well-spent my time would be, without him. After a few minutes of contemplation, I decided to stay, even if I would be communicationally challenged. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I made during the entire journey.

  On one hand, the family saw that I was wholeheartedly committed to the migration, and to them. Also, as Namith and I talked about the plan with Dhumman and Jamila, they understood that I was honestly happier to be camped alongside a river with a herd of buffaloes than I would have been back in a busy city; in other words, in at least one important way, I was like them. We had something fundamental in common, and this recognition helped establish a deeper connection between us. Additionally, when Namith left the next day, it gave me an opportunity to interact directly with my companions, rather than through an intermediary. Despite the language barrier, the most essential elements of our personalities shone through in our facial expressions, our postures, and our laughter, and we became closer.

  Over the next several days, we settled into a comfortable camaraderie. The unusual reality of an American living alongside the Asan River with a family of nomadic water buffalo herders began to feel perfectly normal, to them and to me.

  One morning while I was out grazing the herd with half of the family, I was invited to drink milk directly from a buffalo’s udder, as Van Gujjars of all ages often do. It seemed like part initiation ritual and part joke, as the group of young people who were urging me to drink with them awaited my response with suppressed giggles. They were well aware that this wasn’t a typical Angrez custom. I shrugged and knelt in front of the animal’s right rear leg, opened my mouth, gripped a teat in my hand, and squeezed. Nothing came out. My friends burst out laughing. Apparently, the only thing funnier than an American drinking from a buffalo teat was an American who couldn’t even get milk to come out of one. Mir Hamza then knelt beside me, grabbed a teat in his hand, angled it toward my face, and stream of warm milk shot into my mouth. After a few good squirts, I stood up and wiped my lips. “Bohut acha!” I exclaimed, practicing my fledgling Hindi, and everyone laughed again.

  Later, when we took refuge under the tarp and I was showing the teenagers and twenty-something-year-olds the photos I’d taken that morning, Sharafat asked me to videotape him for the first time. As soon as my camera was out, he draped a cloth over his head like a scarf, and launched into a melodramatic monologue in which he pretended to be a heartsick woman, distressed and crying over the loss of her lover. It was so surprising, and so funny, that his brother and sisters and cousins rocked with laughter—and even Jamila, who was trying to maintain her composure, couldn’t help but join in.

  Of the family elders, she was the most tolerant of and intrigued by the camera. Dhumman, Yusuf and Roshni were wary of the device, concerned that it would have some negative effect on the younger generation. They didn’t mind me taking pictures or shooting video; they only seemed to get a bit uncomfortable when their children would gather around to see the images on the back of the camera—as though this kind of entertainment would somehow be a corrupting influence. It was hard to tell whether they had reservations about introducing this kind of technology to their world, or if they just saw it as a distraction from other, more important, tasks.

  The kids, however, had no hesitation about the camera. They loved it. One night, Mir Hamza, Chamar, and Hamju, illuminated by a flashlight, crouched on the ground and sang a series of traditional Van Gujjar songs that they wanted me to record on video. Songs are the Van Gujjars’ main art form; the women do some needlepoint work, but theirs is not a culture rich in theatre or painting or handicrafts. “We’re too busy for those kinds of things,” Jamila told me. But they can sing while they herd, while they milk, while they lop leaves or gather firewood. Some of their songs are about love, some are about migrating, some are about buffaloes. Many describe the hardships of their lives with touching poignancy, like poetic pastoralist blues, expressing philosophical thoughts about luck and destiny, life and death, and what it feels like to wonder if you’ve been forgotten by God.

  The three guys sang in a flowing rhythm, hands cupped around their ears, ending each line with a lingering tremolo that gradually faded to silence before the next line began. When they finished, they and their brothers and sisters and cousins crowded around to watch their performances, again and again, until they sensed the disapproving vibe from their parents and decided it was time to go to bed.

  The days that follwed were much like the others, herding, resting, and herding again.

  After a week had passed, the forest department showed no sign of weakening its resolve to keep the Van Gujjars out of Govind National Park. Dhumman and Yusuf had still not been able to get their grazing permits. But they decided to move closer to the mountains anyway, hoping that by the time they reached their meadows a few weeks later, they would be allowed in.

  We left one night, crossing the river at 2:40 am I carried little Yasin over the water, and paused with the rest of caravan on an island between two channels, as the load on one of the bullocks had to be readjusted. While we waited, Goku came over and offered to take Yasin from me. He clambered out of my arms and perched himself on one of his sister’s shoulders, with one leg in front of her, one leg behind her, and his hands atop her head.

  Salma stood beside me, sleepily holding the dog’s leash. But she woke up quickly: without warning, the bull with the off-balance load went wild, kicking and bucking—then it charged straight at us. Salma screamed and tried to run, but she didn’t know where to go and got the leash wrapped around the dog, which started barking and spinning in circles. I reached down, grabbed Salma, and swept her up. She threw her arms around my neck and I held her tightly in one arm, while taking the dog’s leash from her with my free hand. But there was no time to get out of the bull’s way.

  An instant before it would have crushed us, somebody with a lathi leapt in front of it, and somebody else grabbed it by the rope that hung around its neck, turning it away from Salma and me. In a matter of moments, the animal was stilled, and acted as though nothing unusual had happened. The night had gone from calm to total pandemonium back to calm in less than a minute.

  Salma, deeply rattled, didn’t want to let go of me. I carried her the rest of the way across the river and up to the road. There, she got down. She’d wait with Jamila and Roshni and the other small children for a bus that would drop them near our next planned campsite. The rest of us marched on with the animals, through sleeping villages and past farmers’ fields, until we reached the Yamuna River. As the sun crested over the mountains to the east, the first rays of morning spilled down into the valley, where they mixed w
ith thick plumes of dust kicked up by the herd and engulfed us in a cloud of brassy light.

  4

  UNDER ARREST

  We stopped along the Yamuna River outside the town of Kalsi—a major nexus of Van Gujjar migratory routes, where families from across the Shivaliks had converged. It was hard to gauge exactly how many people were camped there, but it was easily over a thousand. Some, like mine, would head upriver into Uttarakhand’s Garhwal Himalayas, while others would cross the bridge and move towards the neighboring state of Himachal Pradesh. Cradled by the foothills yet open to the plains, this was the gateway to the high country.

  Unlike at the Asan River, where there was plenty of space between Van Gujjar camps, here families set their tents close together, leaving some open areas for their animals to share. It felt like a festival, the air abuzz with the noises of conversation and commerce, shouting and laughter. With few nearby fields in which to graze, enormous bales of grass were bought out of the backs of cargo trucks for morning and evening feedings. As the day grew violently hot, the buffaloes spent most of their time lounging in the water. I tried to keep as cool as possible myself, resting with Dhumman, Yusuf, and a few other Van Gujjars under a large shade tree by an irrigation ditch. By afternoon, Namith had arrived by bus from Dehradun.

  At some point during the day, Dhumman got a call from Manto. SOPHIA was organizing a meeting of Van Gujjars at forest department headquarters in Dehradun the following day, to plead their case with the park officials. Manto knew Dhumman would want to be there, both as someone personally affected by the threatened closure of Govind and as a lambardar. A couple of cars would be sent to Kalsi the next morning, Manto said, and Dhumman agreed to round up a handful of others to bring along. When I spoke to Manto later, he asked me to accompany Dhumman so I could take pictures of the meeting, which SOPHIA might be able to use some day. I was curious to see what would happen there, and was happy to have an excuse to go.