Life in the Himalayas can shudder in the winter freeze but won't ever halt.
There has been many a setting for an impromptu game of cricket, but this one has to rank as the most surreal. The arena is a bowl formed by sheer snow-clad mountains rising up thousands of feet and in the middle, on the main highway, are a set of stumps that have been planted using fresh snow for support. All for a game of street cricket.
It does not deter the enthusiasts that a freezing wind is howling through the playing area. It helps, in fact, especially as the snow holding the stumps refuses to melt even in the midday sun. I am keen to try my luck too, and soon enough the bat is thrust into my numb hands. Even before I can get a firm grip the bowler is already sprinting ahead with the ball. It looks easy but the flimsy plastic ball is caught by the wind and without ever making contact with the bat heads straight back where it came from. The protest that I need a faster bowler is drowned in a chorus of laughter.
The cricket team is from the village of Gagan Gir, at the foot of the climb enroute to the hill station of Sonamarg. I say goodbyes to my new cricket buddies and drive towards the mountains only to discover that the road past the village is closed for the next two months. It is under several feet of snow, I’m told. And just when I’m cursing my luck, all set to head back to Srinagar, two men on ponies come up with an offer: Rs 1,000 for a room in their house and a pony that will take me as far up the mountains as possible. There’s just no need to haggle, the offer, after all, is dynamite.
Riyaz, my guide on the lead pony is good at what he does and his constant chatter helps. “Don’t worry sir, my horses do several trips a day in the mountains ferrying pilgrims during the Amarnath Yatra. They have lived all their life here,” he reassures.
True to his word my mount gingerly steps over the massive boulders strewn all over what was the road, and on the vast mounds of snow it seems to have an uncanny sense of balance with my weight on its back. Riyaz points to the snowfields high up in the mountains and says the region around Sonamarg begins there. Needless to say, the view lives up to the name even as the evening sun gives the snow that familiar yellow tinge. Up in those mountains originates the Sindh river whose icy, crystal-clear waters roar through the gorge.
A few kilometres into the snow-carpeted gorge and we reach the end. Even the ponies won’t proceed any further. An avalanche has dumped mounds of loose snow, in which we fear a pony might break a leg. To make matters worse, the sun is no longer filtering into the gorge and now the wind is stepping up a notch. My hands turn rubbery in the cold and soon enough all the batteries in my cameras and mobile phone go dead. We beat a hasty retreat.
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Later, sitting over the warmth of a kangri in Riyaz’s small wooden home, he implores me to come again in the summer. He promises to take me to the higher reaches where he says there are a string of high-altitude lakes and glaciers that make for perfect campsites. The lure is irresistible — treks that can stretch for as long as 13 days. But soon enough the grim reality of life here comes into the open. The only earnings here for the year happen during the two months of the yatra. The pilgrims, if averse to climbing, have to pay hefty sums to be ferried up to the shrine. Riyaz admits my one-day stay in the off-season has been an unexpected windfall. He asks if there are any more like me who would like to come and experience the winter here.
Dinner is served and my choice of vegetarianism again is met with laughter. I am proclaimed a very “low-cost guest indeed”. But the graciousness in the face of such harsh living conditions adds more warmth to the atmosphere in the home. “You know, however poor a Kashmiri family is, the house will always have enough mattresses and warm quilts,” says Ghulam, the family’s elderly patriarch, as I prepare to tuck myself into bed. My eyes are heavy, the wind outdoors has reached a ferocious pitch and the temperature has plummeted. I realise the warmth is guided by reason.