Altitude: 15,000 feet. Place: Siachen Glacier. Here, the bitterest enemy is not the Pakistani soldier standing armed to his teeth across the border. For both Pakistani and Indian soldiers, the bitterest enemy at Siachen is Siachen itself. Altitude 15,000 is Camp 3, and above that is Connaught Place! Camp 4, 16,000 feet. At Camp 3, the night temperature is minus 25 degrees Celsius. Connaught Place is much colder, and I cannot imagine what hits the soldiers at the actual border posts at around 22,000 feet. Bana Post, Qazi Post or Chaman Post, from where a bewildered Major Gopal has just escaped minus 40 degrees!
Talk about wet nights: even at Camp 3, it was a nasty experience, when after two days of blizzard, our Austrian-made sleeping bags were completely wet, covered with a sheet of ice. Sleep fled downhill. We were the 32 persons in the second civilian trek to the highest battlefield in the world. One among us, a scribe, went bonkers rubbing his hands and feet the whole night. We were well clothed: Duck Down feather jackets, which can hardly be worn in the coldest nights of Delhi's winter without sweating, and below them layers and layers of highly sophisticated warm clothing supplied by our hosts, the Indian Army, but to no avail.
And even in such conditions our soldiers have the wit to name Camp 4 as Connaught Place, simply because this is where all the large outfits gather, where a whole lot of people from across the country meet, either on the way to save their country at the border posts or on their way down to save their wit itself Siachen is disorienting. Comparatively, the other camps have a handful of tents and fewer people. This wit and sense of weather-defying courage is what keeps our country safely out of the clutches of the enemies; for on one side there is Pakistan and on the other side stands China, both avariciously watching for a loose moment in our guard. So let's start our trek with a salutation to these bravehearts and just for understanding how desolate, mind-numbing and disorienting it can be, let's take the case of Major Gopal.
He had been posted at 22,000 feet for three months, the mandatory maximum duration of stay at such heights. The good major and his colleagues had been hit by the Siachen Factor. The whole army down below was agog with Pay Commission controversy, yet, when Major Gopal was asked about this, his face went blank. He was in a void, and all he and others like him could think of was escaping to their homes, for a television set, a newspaper, some warm soup that would stay warm till they finished it, and the warmth of a bed with the missus. At Siachen's Bana Post, the soup goes stone cold by the time Major Gopal finishes it, and all he can see is the blue of the sky and the white of the snow. The best of canned Alfanso and cherry inevitable items in the daily menu seem tasteless here. We first reached Base Camp, at 12,000 feet. Our instructor Lance Naik Mohammad Latief Khan told us not to get adventurous, and stay as cool as possible, but at this place, where one felt so close to the Almighty, I wanted to walk all over the mesmerising terrain. But within the first hour, we thanked Khan: we were getting breathless. We had to stay there for four days to get acclimatised. And it was then that we saw the porters and the link commanders. The first were people who carried our heavy luggage, scampering about like mountain goats; the others were soldiers who knew the way between camps blindfolded; they have to work practically blindfolded when heavy snow obliterates all landmarks. Hence, if Almighty was just within reach in the sky so close above, he had already sent his seconds-in-command to us as porters and link commanders. And all their hopes lay in OP Baba.
He was a soldier Om Prakash who died fighting the enemy alone sometime in the mid-1980s. After a while, he started coming in the dreams of soldiers, often forecasting trouble and guiding them out of it. From then on, no team goes up or leaves Siachen without propitiating the spirit of OP Baba at the picturesque temple, an all-religion affair created by the army. We did the same.
As one walked, the toughness of the terrain unravelled itself. Feet felt lead-cast. Besides, some unfathomable feelings gripped our hearts when we walked on the ladders over crevices; we could hear the sound of gurgling water somewhere deep down below but couldn't see it: they told us that anyone hitting that bottomless pit would reach temperature levels of minus 200 degrees. Two months before we reached, the bodies of two soldiers who died falling in those crevices 14 years ago, had been recovered, still un-decomposed.
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| Author Crossing the crevice on the Glacier. |
On the trek, our truest friends were the porters, and no one was so grateful to porter Tsengey than TSI lensman Mukunda De. Here, the safety rope is the margin between life and death, so one has to cling on to his rope all the time. But with a 12 kg camera bag, his own 16 kg luggage, and a steady rush of chilling wind, Mukunda had the onerous job of taking pictures. So when Tsengey took away his luggage, he realised the core value of the word 'relieved'. To take another perspective of Siachen: we met Wing Commander Shobit Prakash, who flies sorties for reaching food and other supplies to soldiers at the glacier. But he regretted trekking across it. It sure looks like heaven from above, but man, I hate to trek this path. Flying is a cake walk! he said while tying a crape bandage over his knees which were in severe pain. The freezing cold only aggravated his agony. I wondered how he answered nature's calls with his legs in so much pain. For shit, however politically incorrect, is a word here which means just that. Sitting on a wooden plank between two kerosene drums, defecating can be as dicey as a trapeze act. In fact, Moses Kunzang, development commissioner of Leh, touched a metal pole trying to balance himself in the 'act'. He nearly got a metal bite, when the frozen metal stuck to his skin.
Thankfully, Moses knew that if he tried to pull his hand away, the entire skin would peel off, so he used hot water to gently warm off the palm and then take it away. Forget bathing, said our Camp Commander Dilbag Singh, adding with a wink: He who bathes not, returns walking; he who bathes, returns by a chopper. Read, evacuated on medical emergency. The blizzard gave us time to interact. We played antaakshari (musical tourney) all the while and the phone line to Bana Post was on the soldiers up there were hearing us sing. Please come up here for a day so that we too can enjoy! they said. Their emotions were best summed up by Corporal Pramod: We heard 20 days ago you were coming. Since then, we have been waiting to see someone not in olive!
We were to reach Camp 4 (Connaught Place, remember?) next, but had to return as the weather turned foul. On our way back, we discussed what life after Siachen would be. Shobit Prakash said he would send the pictures to all his colleagues: They must realise what our soldiers face. Yana Bey, the lady from Indian Mountaineering Federation said: This is just like other treks, but it is much too overwhelming. I feel lost in this huge, harsh reality. Her pictures from Siachen will be in her drawing room, a constant inspiration. As for me, the pictures tell the story. For me, Siachen was heaven because it took me closer to the Infinite. But for the soldiers in those tents, braving blizzards, it is close to realizing what hell is all about!
Mayank Singh | Photo by : Mukunda De
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