Kinnaurs New Lake

Kinnaur district, through which runs the upper reaches of the Sutlej, witnessed its worst floods this monsoon. At Wangtu, about 170 km from Shimla, landslides blocked the narrow opening of a gorge and created a new lake. The waters, swallowed several kilometres of the Tibet Road. The Sutlej continues its elegant meander down lower Kinnaur and Shimla district after it spills over the new natural dam. But the deep blue lake ringed by mountains carries the grave of the lifeline that has further isolated the already remote district. The other outlet, through the Kum Zum and Rohtang passes, are snowbound for most of the year.

At Wangtu I saw a unique struggle of man and commerce against nature, in a region whose great ass-et is its natural beauty. Tourists jou-rney to the upper reaches of Kinnaur and Lahul and Spiti to witness a great transformation, from the temperate richness of apple growing country to the starkness of the cold desert, that is the Tibetan plateau. The view is breathtaking but after August it has become very difficult to get to see it.

The national highway ends near Wangtu. At the barrier, trucks litter the space with their disarranged packages. Travellers disembark and start a three-km long trek across a small bridge, after which the road disappears among the boulders of the dry riverbed.

Passengers are outnumbered by the incredibly hardy local porters, each carrying several crates of apple on their backs, strapped to their foreheads, to the trucks waiting at the bridge. Most crates are brightly printed, with legends like Handpicked Himachal apples and description of the size, weight and content obviously meant for overseas markets. But before being carted these crates are transported either on barges from the head of the lake where they were offloaded from trucks. Or via two improvised ropeways across the gorge.

From the bridge one can see a procession of ant-like travellers and porters trudging across the boulders, and up a rise that is as steep as a little narrow pass to reach the barges to cross the lake.

Men of the Border Roads Organisation are working round the clock to build a new road, high above the lake to relink Kinnaur. Pneumatic drills and battering hammers add to the bustle. A prominent sign displays the daily dynamite blasting schedule when, the row of travellers to the barges must stop. According to an official in brown fatigue, the new road is due to be complete by November 15.

There are so many contrasts: the modern BRO men with their military bearing and heavy equipment; the mediaeval porters with their headloads; the traditional Himachal apple in its modern marketing attire. On the trek, panting cityfolks like me, fail to keep pace with the prancing children straining at their mothers hands. A seriously ill woman on a stretcher is swiftly taken forward by her anxious relatives. But bolt upright sits the picturesque silver deity in rich regalia on its throne carried by dutiful shoulders, headed for the famous Dusshera fair at Kulu, where congregate the best local gods in a competition of divine resplendence.