THE LIFELINE OF A LIFELINE

“Step, slide. Step, slide. Step, slide.”

The new mantra reverberates through my frostbitten brain. I can’t possibly say it aloud. My mouth is trying to suck in gulps of air through the wool covering my face. My heart thumps loudly in my eardrums. Above the din of my thoughts, I hear a familiar scraping sound catching up with me.

A bundled, brown blur whizzes past even before I can say ‘Julley!’ He’s gliding on ice, dangerously close to the precipice. His wooden sled draws patterns on the surface. He slips, recovers, restarts and picks up momentum only to have his sled crash into a twisted ice formation. A quick, calculated manoeuvre, and he’s free again. He turns around to catch me looking. It’s Dorjey. The 55-year old flashes a grin typical of Ladakhis, and races ahead to join the crowd .

Different versions of this scenario play out over 9 days and 75 kilometers as we walk on the frozen Zanskar river, also known as Chadar (sheet in Hindi). The river changes course, but the porters never alter their demeanor – confident, cheerful and careful in the right measure. This motley crew is the heart that keeps the blood pumping to the rest of the body. There is no Chadar without the porters. They are the lifelines of the journey.

Nawang knows where to step on the cracked ice, how to navigate rivulets and when to clamber up the rocks. He is 31, unmarried and already a Chadar veteran – he’s been plying the route between Tilad Sumo and Neyrak since he was 10. As we wait for the others to catch up, Nawang regales us with his version of popular Bollywood songs, original riddles and childhood stories about racing down Chadar on the way to school. He tells us about the time when thick ice slabs were used as rafts to travel down stream, propelled by the current. Soon, even stepping on Chadar might become impossible.

The Indian government is blasting the mountains to build a road connecting the village of Zanskar to the capital city of Leh, This will make it possible for locals to commute during winters. This will open up avenues for Ladakhis residing in far-flung villages. But it also implies the end of age-old traditions and possibly the Chadar Trek.

“Why would trekkers want to tackle a route that has a road running right next to it?” asks Nawang. So what does this mean for the hundreds whose only source of income during winter is ferrying goods and people from Leh to Neyrak and back? “We don’t know,” Nawang shrugs. “Maybe now the tourists will drive straight to the village and we will have to entertain them there.” Hopefully not with his Bollywood songs, we joke.

Once the road is complete, travellers will reach their destination in hours, but they won’t witness the spectacle of the frozen waterfalls. They won’t hear their hearts thumping while crossing the wooden bridge at Neyrak. They won’t feel a mug of tea thawing their fingers after five hours of walking in -20 degrees. They won’t see the porters in their full glory like we did.

The chai chants would wake us up even before the sunrays could. Rinchen’s sunburnt hands would zip open the tents just enough to push in steaming tea in steel mugs. Breakfast would be ready by the time we decided to ditch brushing our teeth. The porters would stack up our sleeping bags, take down all the tents and wait patiently for us to finish our jam parathas. The crew would leave camp after the trekkers, yet have hot tea waiting for us midway through the day’s walk. Lundup would top up our empty mugs. Stanzin would serve us biscuits, scooping up the crumbs into his calloused palms and into his mouth once everyone had finished. For dinner, porters would transform staple ingredients into three-course meals fit for Ladakhi kings. Tenzing and Gyalpo would climb near-vertical rocks like mountain goats to get firewood while the rest of us shivered inside the community tent. The porters would watch in amusement as we cheated at card games and fought during quizzes. But the real party was in the caves, where the porters made their own raging fires, the light casting mysterious shadows on the mountains, the air ringing with the sound of laughter.

On the night before we return to base camp, a bunch of us climb up to the caves. Our porters welcome us, shuffling to make space around the fire. They teach us Ladakhi words (star is skarma, mountain is rih), I tell them the recipe for batata vada. We ask them to sing a song, and after much discussion they decide on a sweet, lilting tune about a lover waiting for her beloved to return from the mountains. In the silence that follows, I ask 16-year old Dorjey (Junior) if he has a lover waiting for him at home. In the glowing light of the flames, I can see him blush. He looks sideways at me from under hooded eyes and murmurs, “I love the river. She never leaves my side.”

P.S. Eternal respect and gratitude for the porters who ply on Chadar, and all other treacherous mountain routes. They put their lives at risk and endure much hardship to ensure our safety, comfort and wellbeing. Special thanks to Nawang, Dorjey (Senior and Junior), Jigme, Stanzin, Tsering, Tenzing, Gyalpo, Rinchen, Norbu (Senior and Junior) and Lundup.