Looking down on creation in the Himalayas

Text and photos by Mehru Jaffer

THE HIMALAYAS, India (JP): What a feeling to be in the Himalayas. Known as the roof of the world, to be in the midst of the highest and broadest mountain range on earth is to be literally on a high.

Opening out like the two generous arms of the Creator, it comes as little surprise that the Himalaya mountains are known as the abode of the gods. And in between the Himalayas in Kashmir in the northwest, and Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast lies the ample bosom of the youngest mountain range in the world.

This is amazing territory, a virtual maze of stiff peaks perpetually clad in snow, dangerous walkways, crystal clear streams and vegetation so varied in the valleys that it both boggles the mind as well as provides much-needed solace for the soul.

For thousands of years holy men have made their homes in these hills, enjoying both mystical moments and hardships. It is the sheer grandeur of the mountains, perhaps, that inspires people to remain near the great walls.

"The expanse of the Himalayas teaches me humility every moment of my life. That is the only and most important lesson that I have learned in these decades of wandering," said one man who in all of his 50 years has owned nothing more than a staff and a loincloth.

While lesser beings may use the foothills to beat the heat of the plains, the sage and sadhu seek the heights to keep sane and to make simple sense of life.

Legends

Apart from the stunning landscape, the mountains are attractive also because they conjure up romantic images as a meeting place of many different peoples, cultures and religions.

The mountains are the home of fascinating legends, animals and myths, some nestled in dark caves behind the thick curtain of a waterfall and others lurking in deep gorges.

Isolated villages standing since times gone past have been home to racially mixed people, including the first descendants of the expanding Indus Valley civilization of the Dravidian people, who moved to the foothills of the mountains thousands of years before the birth of Christ, followed by a mixture of Mongol and Aryan races.

Rajput adventurers appeared much later. The first westerners to the region were said to be Jesuit missionaries in search of Prester John's legendary land.

If cuisine says anything about the different mix of people having influenced a place, then there is a great story to be told in the food found in Dharamkot, a tiny village in the 2,000- kilometer long Shivaliks range of the western Himalayas.

Here one can find pizzas baked in clay ovens, Israeli salad, Tibetan momos and the best tandoori chicken in the world. The cappuccino is not bad either.

Engulfed in its mystical surroundings, Dharamkot provides a spectacularly mesmerizing view of the snow-white range of the Dhauladhar mountains, often crowned with a brightly colored rainbow that arches across all geographical borders and rains down an equal amount of joy upon Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Sherpas, Tamangs, Gurkhas, Baltis, snow leopards, red pandas, yetis and yaks.

Standing suspended between little else but the satin blue sky above and a hairline thin ridge below, the sudden realization that no part of this earth is the personal property of any one individual person, race or religious group is a truly humbling experience.

Violence

The next thought is of Kashmir, a land torn apart by violence. This is despite the fact that once upon a time Kashmir was not even land. Geologists have concluded that the valley of Kashmir was once a huge lake called Karewa. As the lake drained away, human beings settled here and called the place Kashyapamaar after the sage Kashyap.

The Buddhist emperor Ashoka built the city of Srinagar around the year 250 B.C., spreading Buddhism in the area and beyond to Ladakh, Tibet and Central Asia. Muslims came in the 14th century and soon the entire valley embraced Islam, except for a small minority of Hindus.

The Moghul rulers may have had their capital in the plains of Agra, Delhi or Lahore, but they loved Kashmir as it reminded them of their Central Asian past. Akbar built the Hariparbat fort and Jehangir designed the Shalimar gardens, insisting in a spontaneous moment of poetic inspiration that if there was a heaven then it was in Kashmir.

The Sikh conqueror Ranjit Singh replaced Muslim rulers in 1820. The religion of most Kashmiris today may be Islam, but the influence of all the cultures that have over thousands of years made their home in the area is evident in the way of life, handicrafts and language of the people here.

The narrow Shivaliks range, which includes Jammu, runs in a continuous belt through the Kangra valley up to the Kumaon hills. The landscape is as lilting as a rhapsody as it rolls up and down, despite the weight of the thick acacia and pine forests that cover jagged rocks and rivulets that are heard but not seen, flowing over sediment that was scattered haphazardly when the Himalayas first ripped through the ocean belt some 80 million years ago, splitting the land mass in two during the Jurassic era.

This act of collision of the soft sedimentary crust with hard volcanic rock pushed the latter upward to create the highest mountain range on earth, with a landscape and diversity of flora and fauna that is as awe-inspiring as it is enchanting. The debris that settled in a ring around the rising mountains is known as the Shivaliks range, or land of Shiva, the lord of destruction.

In the face of such dramatic designs nature has for humans, does it make sense for humans to battle one another over land, money or religion?