Where the Indus is Young

by Dervla Murphy

  Rachel had a riotous time with the livestock – especially her friend the incontinent kid, and his mamma. Goats make worthwhile friends; compared to sheep they seem full of intelligence and personality. On the whole the Baltis are kind to their animals in a rough and ready way. When the usual dirty apricots were produced they had to be guarded against the kid, his mother, two other goats, a calf the size of an Irish sheep, his mother, four quarrelsome hens and a cock who was by far the most aggressive raider. All these ravening creatures were given an apricot apiece and then rebuffed good-naturedly, not cruelly.

  As I photographed the three children Mrs Sadiq turned her back to the camera; though Sadiq had urged her to face it she was very determined to do no such shameless thing.

  Skardu – 3 February

  After all my waffling about spring in the air – tra-la-la! – this has been our first downright disagreeable day in Baltistan. It was heavily overcast and penetratingly cold, with a savage rawness in the air. We gave Hallam a four-mile walk and then retreated into our cell. When I went for water at sunset I noticed that all day there had been not the slightest thaw.

  This afternoon Rachel unconsciously embarked on literary criticism. From Farida she had borrowed a palaeolithic copy of the Reader’s Digest and having read a true, very badly written story about two young men who were drowned in Canada she looked up, puzzled, and asked, ‘Why don’t I feel sad about these two young men the way I do about poor Prince Andrei? I know they were real and he was only a pretend person, but I don’t really feel anything about them.’ It is interesting that even Rachel can see the difference between one of the greatest of writers and other kinds of printed matter.

  Skardu – 4 February

  Another overcast day, but quite mild and hence slushy. Hallam is now in great form and we are all set to leave tomorrow. I baked twenty rounds of roti this morning, to eat on the way, and today’s discovery in the bazaar was a little box of apples. I bought the lot (fifteen) for Rs.5 and Rachel says they are the best she has ever eaten: this valley is famous for its apples. Shopping takes a long time because the stalls are so tiny and dark and higgledy-piggledy. Some are scarcely bigger than hen-coops – wooden cubes on four short legs – and it was in one such that we discerned today’s treasure-trove.

  This morning I had a rare (for me) complaint – severe heartburn, undoubtedly caused by too much pungent goats’ butter on my thrice-daily dog-biscuits. However, some of Hallam’s tonic soon set me right. It is a marvellous mixture of aniseed, ground black pepper, bicarbonate of soda, cardamom, ground ginger and sundry other unidentifiable seeds, powders and spices. It cost Rs.70 for half a seer but Hallam spurned it: so my economical soul is eased by the discovery that it also makes excellent human medicine.

  8

  Skardu to Khapalu

  We set off … in real winter weather, going up the Indus … Our first stage was uncommonly long; the march between Skardu and Gol is famous for its length … The porters had been sent ahead and made the march in two stages … Where the road cut across the steep slopes we had to look out for stones rolling down from above; this danger would be greater later on; at present the stones were mostly frozen fast to the rocky walls. But one of the caravans which followed us did have a horse killed by falling stones and one of the porters had an arm

  FILLIPO DE FILLIPI (1914)

  Gol – 5 February

  The few people about when we left Skardu all stopped to stare at the dotty ferenghis; and one young policeman, who speaks some English, informed us that we are unlikely to reach Khapalu alive because of icy or disintegrating paths, rockfalls, blizzards, avalanches and landslides. Had I not known that the hazards of this route are considerably less than those of the M1 I might have been rattled. Like many simple peoples, the Baltis delight in exaggerating local dangers. For a people so little affected by tragedies when these do occur, they are extravagantly gloomy about potential disasters.

  It was such a mild morning that I needed no gloves and left my parka unzipped. The first seven miles were tiring on an icy track: then, where the land rises, it became sandy underfoot and remained so until we left the Skardu Valley. Just past the turn-off for Shigar Rachel suggested an early lunch, and while Hallam ate his barley ration we sat on black rocks amidst the snow, sniffing the scent of wild thyme and eating one dog-biscuit each. I at least could have devoured half-a-dozen, but in Baltistan one soon gets into the way of eating to keep alive rather than to achieve repletion.

  From this point the Indus was invisible, hidden in its gravelly bed, but when we continued towards the narrower eastern end of the valley it reappeared directly below us. In the bright noon sun it was a most glorious shade of green – a clear sparkling emerald between glistening snowy shores. Here we looked back to say au revoir to the Skardu Valley before the track swung around the base of a chunky grey mountain to take us into another sort of world.

  Over the next ten miles we were separated from the Indus by a snow-covered expanse of rocky scrubland. There was no trace of humanity on our side, but on the right bank two tiny hamlets marked narrow clefts between high dark mountains. All the surrounding mountains were too sheer for snow to lie on their grey-brown flanks and when the sky suddenly became overcast, at about one o’clock, the landscape acquired an aura of menacing desolation. A razor-keen wind rose, blowing against us, and I tightened my scarf, zipped my parka and put on my gloves. We were the only travellers on a track covered with the sort of frozen slush which jeeps hate. Nor did Hallam like it much. He soon began to flag – and when he flags he flags. We had covered the first twelve miles in three and a half hours but the last nine took five hours; yet Rachel walked about six miles, both to spare her mount and to restore her circulation. Apart from our kit, Hallam is now carrying over forty pounds of food: flour, sugar, milk, rice and dahl. However, we are spending two nights here so he can have a day off tomorrow and devote himself to eating the abundant (though inferior) hay supplied by the chowkidar at Rs.10 for a man’s load.

  Gol is almost at river level and one first sees it from a height, before the track drops abruptly. Where the mountains recede from the left bank of the Indus, to leave an oval of hilly but cultivable land, groups of houses and orchards of fruit-trees are scattered over an area some three miles by two. It was 5.30 when we arrived but not yet very cold. The wind had dropped at sunset – luckily, because we had a forty-five minute wait, standing outside the Rest House, before the chowkidar could be unearthed. ‘I suppose he’s hibernating,’ said Rachel resignedly as dusk faded to dark and our fascinated entourage expanded rapidly. She has become completely adjusted to the oriental way of life and no longer expects anything to happen promptly. The crowd around us was a friendly one, but so unaccustomed to foreigners that our every move provoked excited comment and much laughter. I was just beginning to doubt the chowkidar’s existence when a tall, broad-shouldered, elderly man loomed out of the darkness behind a lantern and asked for my chit. When it had been laboriously read to him by a younger man he again vanished, in quest of the key, and did not reappear for twenty minutes – by which time it was freezing hard and we were shivering miserably, though our devoted admirers evidently felt no discomfort. Apart from mislaying the key, this pleasant chowkidar seems quite efficient. But then we are no great test, being independent where food, fuel, bedding and illumination are concerned. All we need is a roof over our heads and a bucket of water.

  This Rest House was built by the British about a century ago as one of a series on the old pony-trail from Leh to Skardu. It has its own set of stables at the back, enclosing a courtyard, but unfortunately these are now roofless, so Hallam is again in a kitchen – where once throngs of servants built enormous fires to heat the bath water and cook four-course dinners for their Sahibs. From the track the whole place looks such a ruin that at first I had refused to believe it was our destination. But in fact this room is very comfortable: small and windowless (a great advantage in mid-winter), with a real fireplace, unused for thirty
years, instead of a tin stove. And the thunderbox in the bathroom is vastly preferable to the waterless modern lavatories of Thowar and Satpara.

  When we were at last admitted to our room seven men followed us, oozing friendly curiosity and taking up so much space that I had no room to unpack. As Rachel was almost asleep on her feet I had to ask them to leave after ten minutes, though they were obviously longing to examine our belongings and see how and what we ate for supper. On this last score they were not missing anything. Rachel had already had her supper of dried apricots while we were waiting outside, and mine consisted of two dog-biscuits and a kettle of tea.

  It is now (10 p.m.) much colder than in Skardu because we were gradually climbing today. There is only one charpoy here and I had intended sleeping on the floor, but as our kerosene stove cannot be kept burning all night it might be wiser to doss down beside Rachel.

  Gol – 6 February

  It was a cold brilliant morning when we left the Rest House at 8.30. Within moments we had attracted a drove of ragged children who squealed with delighted excitement at our every word and deed. Whenever I looked around they clutched each other nervously and a few of the more craven spirits actually ran away, but as soon as I withdrew my gaze curiosity impelled them back.

  Our destination was the nullah above Gol. First we climbed a ‘stairway’ of narrow, snowy, neatly-terraced fields which led to a scattering of flat-roofed dwellings set amidst the inevitable fruit-trees – some ancient and gnarled, some saplings with tender trunks wrapped in rags. Here a new mosque, built on traditional Balti lines, was by far the biggest building. Two friendly adolescents, who had joined our following, opened the main door to allow me a glimpse of an interior decorated with wood-carvings of great beauty. (Before committing this indiscretion they glanced around furtively to make sure no bigoted mullah or orthodox elder was in sight.) The developers from Pakistan grumble incessantly about the impossibility of importing modern raw materials into Baltistan, not realising that this is one of the region’s greatest advantages. Of very few countries can it be said, in 1975, that their new buildings are as pleasing as their old.

  Our boy attendants were on their way to school and one of the senior students, who spoke scraps of English, invited us to visit their ‘college’. We were conducted to an old two-storeyed house the ground floor of which was a stable, ankle-deep in dried dung. A shaky, almost perpendicular ladder led to a landing from where, on our approach, three women fled in a flurry of shawls over faces. This floor was littered with fresh poultry-droppings and having negotiated these we went through a low door in a thick stone wall and found ourselves in the open air. Threadbare goat-hair rugs had been laid on stony ground swept clear of snow, and here Gol’s scholars sit in rows imbibing what passes locally for education. Each child brings his own wooden writing-board but no other equipment is used; no abacus, no books, not even a home-made blackboard. An undersized twenty-two-year-old with a lean, pallid face and shifty eyes came forward to greet us. ‘I am passed Matric. with Skardu College,’ he introduced himself. ‘Please you draw picture of me with your camera? What is your town in America? Please you take rest on this stone. What is your business here? I am Principal teacher in this school. I teaches this boys Urdu, English, pysix, matmatix and the good history of Pakistan.’

  By speaking very slowly and repeating each question at least three times I elicited from this teacher of English the information that Gol school was founded in 1947 and now has 140 pupils and two teachers. Possibly it makes its pupils barely literate in Urdu, but even this seems doubtful.

  A group of small girls had gathered beyond a low stone wall to stare shyly at us, their tattered shawls covering the lower halves of their faces. When I provocatively asked the Principal, ‘Do you have no girl pupils?’ he gazed at me for a moment in astonishment, then glanced contemptuously towards the group and said, ‘Women cannot learn! We will not have them here!’ In reaction to his glance the little girls giggled, completely covered their faces and scuttled away. ‘I have one wife, two sons,’ continued the Principal, ‘but I will not want her if she read.’

  Having gone as far up the nullah as snow and ice permitted, we returned to the track by another route and Rachel proposed trying to find a way down to river level. This was easier said than done, though from a distance Gol looks so close to the Indus, but eventually we made it to the untrodden snow by the edge of the swift green water.

  Here the Indus is about eighty yards wide and on the far side a mountain wall, mottled grey and light brown, rises sheer from the river-bed. Upstream, colossal boulders stand in the water, causing it to foam furiously as it dashes past them, and not far downstream a wider, shallower stretch is all noisy and white. But where we were the water flows deep, smooth, silent and strong. While Rachel built a snow-dog and a snow-cat I sat in warm sun on a flecked granite boulder and wished politics had not so successfully taken over the twentieth century. But for the politicians one could try to follow the Indus to its source in Tibet and what a journey that would be! Two wild ducks flew overhead, with black and white barred wings, and one giant kingfisher – blue, black and scarlet – flashed across the river to a hole in the opposite cliff. Apart from chikor, choughs and a few magpies, one sees very few birds in Baltistan.

  On the long climb back to village level Rachel, who was ahead, suddenly yelled, ‘Look! Come quickly!’ She was bending over something at the sheltered base of a terrace wall and when I had joined her we crouched down together, looking with speechless reverence at a few inch-long spikes of fragile new grass. ‘It’s green and it’s growing!’ marvelled Rachel incredulously.

  It is not easy to convey what this sight meant to us. I stood up and gazed around at the vast barrenness of our world – all dark, lifeless rock, and austere miles of snow, and bare, gaunt orchards. And I wondered how many other minute, hidden stirrings of spring were already responding to the sun’s new warmth. At home spring is something romantic and gay; here it seems solemn and sacramental. I watched Rachel very gently touching these tiny heralds of renewal: it seemed that in her inarticulate way she too felt awed by this miracle of green.

  In Gol’s mini-bazaar I bought six eggs. These were half the price and twice the size of Skardu eggs so we both had omelette for lunch before setting off to cross the Indus by a handsome new suspension bridge not yet open to jeep traffic. The massive yet graceful towers are of well-cut local granite and the chowkidar tells me they were designed by a young army officer.

  We walked four miles upstream towards Kiris, around a low, reddish-brown mountain of shale, scattered with sharp, fist-sized stones. Beyond the river the Khapalu track was like a straggle of thread at the foot of high, dark-grey mountains, their slopes deeply scored by the passages of rockfalls and landslips. Below our track, beside the Indus, lay many silver-grey sand-dunes, curved and fluted by the wind. But Rachel’s yearning to build sandcastles had to be frustrated: the afternoon, as yesterday, was cloudy, windy and much colder than the morning.

  Gwali – 7 February

  A blissful day, apart from two brief but nasty ‘incidents’. Hallam was in fine form, the track was neither icy nor snowy (though sometimes rather slushy) and the weather was ideal for walking. We covered eighteen miles and the traffic consisted of two army jeeps and one peasant carrying a sack of grain. For fifteen miles there is no trace of humanity on this south side of the valley, though we saw several settlements beyond the Shyok.

  About five miles from Gol, at the junction of the Shyok and Kharmang Valleys, we had to leave the Indus. In pre-Partition days the main trade route followed the river between the Deosai Plains and the Ladak Range, but now this area is closed to foreigners for military reasons. Having accompanied the Indus up the Kharmang Valley for about a mile we came to a military road-block and had to cross the Hamayune suspension-bridge, built twenty-four years ago in two months by the Pakistani army, and double back to where the mighty Shyok River – which also rises in Tibet – meets the Indus.

  As
we were approaching the bridge, on a narrow stretch of track hewn out of the precipice, several stones the size of footballs came hurtling down just ahead of us. One of the largest barely missed Hallam’s nose, causing him to shy towards the edge of the track, which at this point directly overhangs the Indus. Seconds later another barely missed my own head, but Rachel’s escape had shaken me so badly that I scarcely noticed it. Fortunately she herself seemed unaware of the danger she had been in so I hastily camouflaged my state of shock. It was as well that I could not then foresee a much more unnerving incident also scheduled by Fate for today.

  Looking up the steep Kharmang Valley from the bridge, one sees the Indus rushing through a narrow gorge – and the sun caught it where it leaped into sight around a sharp bend, so that the water glowed like molten metal. Then suddenly it calms down and broadens, as though composing itself for its union with the Shyok, which at their confluence looks the more important river. A traveller without maps or local information would assume the Shyok to be the continuation of the Indus, and the Indus a major tributary.

  As we continued east, the Ladak Range was on our right and on our left flowed the Shyok, broad and deep. Then for a few miles it vanished, as the track climbed to avoid land that is under water during summer, and when it reappeared it was shallow and frisky, racing and sparkling over pebbles between spotless expanses of snow.