| That perhaps was the first account of travel into the Himalayan region, giving a glimpse of life in Garhwal (then reeling under Gorkha rule) and Tibet. Moorcroft's adventures (Hearsey and he travelled in disguise as Hindu mendicants) went into several reprints and fuelled his appetite for adventures in the high mountains. Moorcroft's Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and Punjab, in Ladakh and Kashmir, in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz and Bokhara, from 1819 to 1825, published in 1841 by the Asiatic Society, went on to become an even bigger hit. |
| Since then, there have been several accounts of travels in the Indian Himalayas, Nepal and Tibet. Pandit Nain Singh, Francis Younghusband, Sven Hedin, Heinrich Harrer and others have brought the wonders of the region within reach of armchair travellers. |
| Keki Daruwalla's Riding The Himalayas is a fast-paced and racy account of his journey from Kashmir and Ladakh to Garhwal, Kumaon, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and beyond to the north-eastern states of India. Ashok Dilwali's pictures, as usual, are nothing short of breathtaking. Beyond the visual gratification that they offer, they capture accurately the flavour, sound and smell of each region, a mark of good travel photography. |
| The car trek""comprising photographers, wildlife enthusiasts and mountain lovers""starts from Delhi and drives up to Pragpur (now a World Heritage site) in the Kangra valley. From there, the party moves to Srinagar, Kashmir's capital, via Macleodgunj, a little hilltop town named after David Macleod, a former Lt Governor of Punjab, and now the residence of the Dalai Lama. |
| From the lush green valley of Kashmir, Daruwalla and others take the Kargil route to enter the arid Ladakh valley. Thence to Lahaul-Spiti, and then to the familiar route of Garhwal, Kumaon and Nepal. |
| But the best, Daruwalla and Dilwali have kept for the last: Bhutan (Paro, Thimpu, Punakha and Tshigang) and the eastern Himalayas (Kohima, Kaziranga, Arunachal, Kibitho, Dirang and Tawang). In comparison with the western Himalayas, this is unexplored territory for travel writers. Till not so long back, people weren't even sure if the Snagpo and the Brahmaputra were the same river. The British had sent Khintup, a Sikkimese, to Tibet to solve the problem. His brief was to throw marked logs into the Tibetan river, which were to be recovered further downstream in the Brahmaputra! |
| Dilwali's pictures of the North East are as enthralling as the rest. They speak a million words. Whether it is the meandering Brahmaputra, women selling fish in Arunachal or children playing in Bhutan, each is worthy of being framed in gold. |
| To the uninitiated, all the regions covered in the book are different from one another, though there are cultural similarities between some of these areas, especially Kumaon and Garhwal (which now form the state of Uttaranchal), and Nepal. |
| Yet, less than 200 years ago, for a brief while, there was a distinct possibility of much of the distance covered by Daruwalla and Dilwali being brought under one kingdom. After subduing the 46 principalities (Baisi and Chaubisi Rajas) of Nepal, the Gorkha army had expanded to the east and conquered Sikkim, while running down Kumaon, Garhwal and the other hill states right up to Kangra. The kingdom of the Gorkha king extended from the Teesta in the east to the Beas in the west. |
| Correspondence between Gorkha army commanders of the time suggests that the grand plan was to extend the boundaries of the kingdom all the way to Kashmir. Imagine that. But they were stopped at Kangra by Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab. Some years later, in 1815, they had to cede the prized possessions of Kumaon and Garhwal to the British after the Treaty of Sagauli, but not before turning the area into a graveyard of British soldiers. |
| RIDING THE HIMALAYAS Keki N Daruwalla Photographs by Ashok Dilwali Niyogi Books; Price: Rs 795 Pages: 248 |
Top Section
Explore Business Standard