India Guides

Garhwal - Selective Writing - A Village in Garhwal

 by Ruskin Bond

Through the open window, I focus on a pattern of small, glossy lime leaves; then through them I see the mountains, the furthest Himalayas, striding away into an immensity of sky.

'In a thousand ages of the gods I could not tell tree of the glories of Himachal'. So confessed a Sanskrit poet at the dawn of Indian history. The sea has had Stevenson and Conrad, Melville and Hemingway, but the mountains have continued to defy the written word. We have climbed their highest peaks and crossed their most difficult passes, but still they keep their secrecy and reserve, remaining remote, mysterious and spirit-haunted.

No wonder then, that the people who live on the mountain slopes in the mistfilled valleys of the Garhwal Himalayas, have long since learned humility and patience. Deep in the crouching mist lie their villages, while climbing the mountain slopes are forests of rhododendron, pine and deodar, soughing in the wind from the icebound passes. Pale women plough, while their men go down to the plains in search of work, for little grows on the beautiful mountains.

When I think of Manjari village in Garhwal I see a small river, a tributary of the Ganga, rushing along the bottom of a steep, rocky valley. On the banks of the river, and on the terraced hill above, are small fields of corn, barley, mustard, potatoes and onions. A few fruit trees mostly apricot and peach grow near the village. Some hillsides are rugged and bare, masses of quartz or granite. On hills exposed to the wind, only grass and small shrubs are able to obtain a foothold.

This landscape is typical of Garhwal, one of India's most northerly regions, with its massive snow ranges bordering on Tibet. Although thinly populated, Garhwal does not provide much of a living for its people.

"You have such beautiful scenery," I said, after crossing the first range of hills.

"True," said my friend, "but we cannot eat the scenery."

And yet these are cheerful sturdy people, with great powers of endurance. Somehow they manage to wrest a precarious living from the unhelpful, calcinated soil.

I am their guest for a few days. My friend Gajadhar has brought me home to his village above the Nayar river. My own home is in the hill-station of Mussoorie, two day's journey to the west. We took a train across the Ganga and into the foot-hills and then a bus, on several buses and finally, made dizzy by fast driving around hairpin bends, alighted at the small hill-town of Lansdowne, chief recruiting centre for the Garhwal Rifles. Garhwal soldiers distinguished themselves fighting alongside British troops in both World Wars, and they still form a high percentage of recruits to the Indian Army. The money orders they send home are the mainstay of the village economy.

Lansdowne is just over 6,000 feet in altitude. From there we walked, some twenty-five miles between sunrise and sunset, until we came to Manjari village clinging to the terraced slopes of the Dhudatoli range.

And this is my fourth morning in the village. Other mornings, I woke to the throaty chuckles of the red-billed blue magpies, as they glided between oak tree and medlar, but today the cicada has drowned all bird song. It is a little out of season for the cicadas, but perhaps the sudden warm spell in late September has deceived them into thinking it is again the mating season.

As usual, I am the last to get up. Gajadhar is exercising in the courtyard, going through an odd combination of Yoga and Swedish exercises. With his sturdy physique and quick intelligence, I am sure he will realise his ambition of joining the Indian Army as an officer-cadet. He is proud of his family's army tradition, as indeed are most Garhwalis, who remember that the first Indian to win the Victoria Cross (in World War I) was a Garhwali Rifleman Gabbar Singh Negi, who lost his life in the muddy fields of Flanders.

Gajadhar's younger brother Chakradhar, who is slim and fair with high cheekbones, is milking the family's buffalo. Normally, he would be on his long walk to school which is five miles away but this being a holiday, he is able to stay home and help with the household chores.

His mother is lighting a fire. She is a handsome woman even though her ears, weighed down by heavy silver ear-rings, have lost their natural shape. Garhwali women usually invest their savings in silver and gold ornaments - bangles, bracelet nose-rings, ear-rings, bangles and bracelets and sometimes necklaces of old silver rupees. At the time of marriage it is usually the boy's parents who make a gift of land to the parents of an attractive girl, a sort of dowry system in reverse.

This boy's father is a corporal in the army and is away for most of the year. When Gajadhar marries, his wife will most likely stay in the village with his mother to help look after the fields, house, goats and buffalo. Gajadhar will see her only when he comes home on leave.

The village is far above the river and most of the fields depend on rainfall. But water must be fetched for cooking, washing and drinking. So after a breakfast of hot milk and thick chapatties stuffed with minced radish, the brother and I set off down the rough track to the river.

The sun has climbed the mountains, but it has yet to reach the narrow valley. We bathe in the river, the brothers diving in off a massive rock; but I wade in circumspectly, unfamiliar with the river's depths and currents. The water, a milky blue, has come from the melting snows and is very cold. I bathe quickly and then make a dash for a strip of sand where a little sunshine has split down the hillside in warm, golden pools of light. At the same time the song of the whistling-thrush emerges like a dark secret from the wooded shadows.

The Manjari school is only up to class five and has about forty pupils. And if these children (mostly boys) would like to continue their schooling then, like Chakradhar, they must walk the five miles to the high school in the next big village.

"Don't you get tired walking ten miles every day?", I asked him.

"I am used to it," says Chakradhar. "And I like walking."

I know that he has only two meals a day-one at seven in the morning when he leaves home and the other at six or seven in the evening when he returns from school. I ask him if he gets hungry on the way.

"There is always some wild fruit," he says.

He is an expert on wild fruit: the purple berries of the thorny kingora (barberry), ripening in May and June; wild strawberries like drops of blood on the dark green monsoon grass; sour cherries, wild pears and raspberries. Chakradhar's strong teeth and probing tongue extract whatever tang or sweetness lies hidden in them. In the spring there are the rhododendron flowers. His mother makes them into jam, but Chakradhar likes them as they are. He places the petals on his tongue and chews till the sweet juice trickles down his throat. He has never been ill.

"But what happens when someone is ill?”, I ask, knowing that in the village there are no medicines, no hospital.

"He rests until he feels better." says Gajadhar. "We have a few remedies. But if someone is very sick, we carry him to the hospital at Lansdowne".

Fortunately the clear mountain air and simple diet keep the people of this area free from most illness. The greatest dangers come from unexpected disasters, such as an accident with an axe or scythe or an attack by a wild animal such as a bear.

I am woken one night by a rumbling and thumping on the roof. I wake Gajadhar and ask him what is happening.

"It's only a bear," he says.

"Is it trying to get in?"

"No. It's been in the cornfield and now it's after the pumpkins on the roof."

At the approach of winter, when snow covers the higher mountains, the brown and black Himalayan bears descend to lower altitudes in search of food. Being shortsighted and suspicious of anything that moves, they can be dangerous; but like most wild animals they will avoid humans when they can and are aggressive only when accompanied by their cubs.

Gajadhar advises me to run downhill if chased by a bear. Bears, he says, find it easier to run uphill than downhill!

The idea of being chased by a bear does not appeal to me, but the following night I stay up with him to try and prevent the bear from depleting his cornfield. We take up our position on a high promontory of rock which gives us a clear view of the moonlit field.

A little after midnight, the bear comes down to the edge of the field. Standing up as high as possible on his hind legs and peering about to see if the field is empty, he comes cautiously out of the forest and makes his way towards the corn.

Suddenly he stops, his attention caught by some Buddhist prayer-flags which have been strung up recently by a band of wandering Tibetans. Noticing the flags, he gives a little grunt of disapproval and begins to move back into the forest. But then, being one of the most inquisitive animals, he advances again and stands on his hind legs looking at the flags, first at one side and then at the other.

Finding that the flags do not attack him, the bear moves confidently up to them and tears them all down. After making a careful examination of the flags, he moves into the field.This is when Gajadhar starts shouting. The rest of the village wakes up and people come out of their houses beating  drums and empty kerosene-oil tins.

Deprived of his dinner, the bear takes off in a bad temper. He runs downhill and at a good speed too; and I am  glad that I am not in his way just then. Uphill or downhill, an angry bear is best given a very wide berth.

For Gajadhar, impatient to know the result of his army entrance exam, the following day is a test of his patience. The postman has yet to arrive. The mail is brought in relays from Lansdowne and the Manjari postman, who has to deliver letters at several small villages enroute, should arrive around noon, but now it is three in the afternoon.

First we hear that there has been a landslide and that the post man cannot reach us. Then we hear that although there had been a landslide, the postman passed the spot in safety. Another alarming rumour has it that the postman disappeared with the landslide. This is soon denied. The postman is safe. It is only the mailbag that has disappeared.

Anyway, he is soon forgiven (and given another heavy meal) because Gajadhar has passed his exam and will leave with me in the morning. His mother insists on celebrating her son's success by feasting her friends and neighbour. There is a partridge (a present from a neighbour who conjectures that Gajadhar will make a fine husband for his daughter) and three chickens: rich fare for folk whose normal diet consists mostly of lentils, rice, potatoes and onions.

After dinner there are songs and Gajadhar's mother sings of the home-sickness of those who are separated from their loved ones and their homes in the hills. It is an old Garhwali folk-song;

"Oh mountain swift, you are from my father's home. Speak, oh speak, in the courtyard of my parents,

My mother will hear you.

She will send my brother to fetch me. A grain of rice alone in the cooking-pot cries, "I wish I could get out!' Likewise I wonder-

Will I ever reach my father's house?”

The hookah is passed round and stories are told, gossip exchanged. It is almost midnight when the last guest leaves. Chakradhar approaches me as I am about to retire for the night.

“Will you come again?" he asks.

"I'm sure I will," I reply. "If not next year, then the year after".

The moon has not yet come up. Lanterns swing in the dark. Almost everyone, including the blind man, carries a lantern. And if you ask the blind man what he needs a lantern for, he will reply: "So that fools do not stumble against me in the dark."

The lanterns flit silently over the hillside and go out one by one. This Garhwali day, which is just like any other day in the hills, slips quietly into the silence of the mountains.