Reviews - Books I Read - DRJG: July 2022

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Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth: A Natural History of The greatest Mountain Range on Earth

by Stephen Alter.

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Alter stamps on India, on Hinduism and other indigenous faiths- specifically, Buddhism - and on the ancient indigenous culture, the ancient Sanskrit literature, and more, of India, with a usual heavy Western boot.

That he does so with a seemingly heavily sugar-coated pill, might make those inclined to do so themselves, that he's doing it softly, subtly, or not at all; that he's merely waking up a somnambulant people with a tap, a caress, with thus book that does offer much information. That the book is about the much beloved Himalaya thats object of a universal adoration, reverence and cherishing, is the heavy sugarcoating, with a sparking glaze that's the beautiful photographs, on cover and in the book.

But a boot it is, by a descendent of missionaries aligned with erstwhile colonial regimes. But for this, it'd be at least worth reading for a little information on each of the several topics he discusses.

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"Forty kilometres from Mussoorie, near the historic village of Jagatgram, the Yamuna flows out of the Himalaya. On the eastern bank of the river lies the site of an Ashwamedha yagna, or horse sacrifice, by which the rulers of ancient India established their dominion over the land. Releasing a stallion and allowing it to wander at will, a king named Silavarman, who ruled during the third century CE, claimed all the territory his unsaddled steed traversed. Remains of brick altars where the horse was ultimately slaughtered and grilled are preserved by the Archeological Survey of India, amidst mango and litchi orchards, which have replaced the original jungles and grasslands that once grew here.

"Across the river, less than 5 kilometres to the west, stands the Ashokan edict at Kalsi carved on the face of a granite boulder. In Brahmi script the Mauryan emperor, also known as Devanampiya Piyadasi (He who loves all beings), proclaimed the Buddhist doctrine of non-violence and forbade the killing of animals. This edict was inscribed in 250 BCE and also includes the carving of an elephant. The antiquity and proximity of these two sites with their contradictory messages represents a long-standing tension between ritual sacrifice and compassion."

Yes, Alter is definitely attacking Hindu culture, although it's been over a millennium since Ashwamedha was performed.

One, why the horror about ritual killing of a horse in ancient India, when horses were used in Europe in battle until replaced by tanks - last was Polish cavalry facing German tanks in 1939 - and the horses thus used in wars weren't immortal, either?

Two, why so much horror about killing of a horse, which wasn't routine in India either, but then so much screaming and horror again about India’s cherishing cattle, instead of aping West and butchering milk givers and vital partners of humans in a tropical agrarian poor country?

Why this ludicrous 'horror, you once killed a horse from time to time' coupled with 'horror, you refuse to butcher cattle'? Or even further, 'horror, you feel bad about butchering cattle'?

Hypocrisy of insistence on lack of alternatives, dressed up as reason - and compassion, but only for horses, and insistence on 'none for cattle"?

Three, why hide the fact of how and why Ashok converted to Buddhism? India knows the history, of his seeing a battlefield with hundreds of thousands dead, after he'd waged a war to conquer a small democratic nation that refused to give up; this, seeing death of so many fue to his own insistence on conquest, turned him, from his - until then normal for him - wars, to become an emperor, to compete with those of history.

Nevertheless, he sent armies to spread Buddhism!

Thats 'compassion'?

Four, there were many other great emperors (of pre-abrahmic invasion era) of India, of which several are respected as righteous and great, some even revered, some deified, and more. India hardly recalled Ashok until West dug his history up. He couldn't have been that great, compared to others who are remembered.

Why the insistence by West on Ashok, obliterating all other names (oddly comparable to congress regime's almost obliterating all but two names of freedom struggle era)?

Is it because he was of only partly of Indian blood, or because he proceeded to convert - a la Rome - swaths of Asia, to a creed different from Hinduism?

Is this why West tomtoms Ashok? For a anti-India, anti-Hindu agenda of West?

Macaulay policy?

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Alter proceeds with direct attack against Hinduism and against India.

"The prevailing idea that the Himalaya represent a sacred landscape may seem an appealing vision of environmental and spiritual harmony. Unfortunately, by investing mountains with mythical significance and scattering their slopes with religious symbols and stories, human beings have set in motion a cycle of ecological destruction. Natural phenomena like hot springs, caves or unusual rock formations, as well as the sources and confluences of rivers, become popular pilgrimage destinations that are often cluttered with rest houses, food stalls and parking lots, obscuring the beauty and isolation of these sites."

So he'd wish Hindus to stop revering Himalaya and any spots therein, to leave it alone for everyone other than Hindu or Indian?

Bring back era of rule of invaders?

"Religious tourism is one of the fastest growing and least regulated industries in the Himalaya. The circumambulation of Mount Kailas in Tibet is the most sacred itinerary for Buddhist and Hindu pilgrims but much of the route is littered with rubbish—discarded juice packets, biscuit wrappers, aerosol tins, sanitary pads, cigarette butts and plastic Pepsi bottles. Remote shrines at the headwaters of the Ganga attract countless busloads of devotees from the plains. These pilgrims pay obeisance to highland gods and goddesses who embody ideals of purity, beauty and immortality. Mountains and rivers are revered and worshipped as maternal deities yet the same streams of holy water are defiled with untreated sewage from ‘Vedic Resorts’ while many temple towns along the Ganga are no better than garbage dumps. Poorly constructed, multi-storey hotels with sanctimonious names encroach along the riverside in defiance of regulations governing ‘eco-sensitive zones’. Himalayan vistas that once inspired the faithful to give up material pursuits are now hidden behind garish hoardings announcing the chauvinistic discourses of self-aggrandizing holy men, while the eternal silence of the Himalaya echoes with digitized hymns set to a Bollywood beat."

While mountaineers from West defining Himalaya in mountaineering or deforestation of Himalaya for wars in Europe was what, exactly? Sacred?

Not to mention his ancestors enjoying huge summer bonfires in Kashmir, becausethere were firests, and no shortageof wood! This was novelty enough to write home to US, so obviously it wasn't routine necessity, but something not affordable in US, despite greater need in US winters of subzero Fahrenheit.

In short, West wasn't merely using India for free labour, but selling her forests cheap. Or looting them for free?!!!

"Piety and pollution seem to go hand in hand while godliness has become inherently grubby. Pilgrims who travel to the mountains, along with those who enable these spiritual journeys, believe that Himalayan destinations will cleanse their sins. In return, the mountains receive nothing but offerings of filth. This depressing litany of devastation is the direct result of religious metaphors projected onto the landscape. It also reflects human indifference, wastefulness and greed as well as the wilful exploitation of nature’s generous yet limited bounty. Bad planning, poor management and a lack of spiritual and political integrity have depleted natural resources and reduced many areas of the mountains to a desperate, untenable state."

Whereas television preachers of US for decades squeezing those gullible, is godly? Or its just that badmouthing India is now a vital agenda, but Jerry Falwell et al are - what?

Sacrosanct?

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"While many Himalayan people trace their lineage to Tibet an even larger number came up into the mountains from the plains of North India. In Nepal, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh most villages are populated by Hindus who are divided into innumerable clans and castes, each with their own stories of origin and migration. Even those people who have lived here for so many generations they cannot remember when or how their ancestors first arrived, acknowledge that they must have come from somewhere else."

Within India and her neighbourhood, such migrations aren't unusual, and if visiting back isn't impossible, it's not a loss but a gradual acclimatisation. This isn't limited to residents of Himalaya.

Nor is there any reason to assume that every Hindu living in Himalaya is from somewhere else. Even Shiva and Parvati were not first of the Hindu culture residents of Himalaya, far from it.

"This sense of displacement is embedded in the cultural memory of Himalayan society and emerges in the beliefs, rituals and stories that animate both everyday life and extraordinary events. Though not always apparent or overtly expressed, an underlying sense of exile punctuates many Himalayan narratives, particularly those that recall and retell the great epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Both these texts contain core episodes in which the heroes are banished to the forests and hills. Hindus in the Himalaya, particularly those living within the watershed of the Ganga, identify closely with these myths of abandoned homelands. Both a real and imagined sense of separation and isolation, with all its traumatic anxieties and uprooted defiance, infuses the feudal hierarchies that govern village society."

There they go again, belittling the great epics!

India loves and cherishes them, whether or not there's any loss of home involved. Few have wives kidnapped post arrival of British, but that hasn't reduced India's love of Ramayana, nor was it prior to that because men fought invaders for bringing wives back.

By logic of Alter one should deduce that West loved and cherished Picasso because their faces looked like his paintings!

Or was that there a not too subtle implication there of a presumption that Himalaya belongs elsewhere, India must be only below?

Fie, Alter! How false can West get!

Or is he again not too subtly countering the fact that pakis have stuffed pok with Punjabis and similarly Baluchistan with others, just as China has done with Tibet, by saying that Hindus don't belong to Himalaya? Again, that's fraudulent propaganda.

Another factor he doesn't realise about having said the above is far reaching implications of his statement that Hindus who settled in Himalaya coming from other regions of India have the sense of another home, a homeland of origin.

For centuries now, West has propagated an outright lie about Arya having originated elsewhere and arrived in India on about 1500 BCE or thereabouts, as invaders or as migrants. This theory was propagated with two aims - one, to force Hindus of North to feel disempowered regarding being original inhabitants, vis-a-vis invaders of last millennium and a half, and their barbaric conduct; and two, divide the nation along North versus South, apart from all other divisions that British insisted existed.

But there's no memory in the psyche, nor in the Sanskrit literature that reaches deep in ancient past, far beyond appearance of Himalaya rising from the ocean, even beyond the time when there was an ocean separating India from Asia. Surely a culture that has legends recording evolution, and rising of Himalaya from ocean that vanished to North of India, would not simply wipe out a homeland elsewhere- if there had, ever, been one?

On the other hand, memories of India are everywhere in the same literature, strewn with names. And what's more, various records have been proven true, contradicting West's assertion that it was all imaginary, mythical.

On one hand, story about Dwaraka drowning exists as part of Mahabharata; ocean archeological surveys show existence thereof.

On the other, now there's better software in West, the astronomical observations about a planetary grouping, recording end of Mahabharata and beginning of Kaliyuga, has been found to exist at least once in past, circa 3,100 BCE. That contradicts flatly the Western assertion and assumptions about India's ancient Sanskrit literature being only mythology.

And there was no migration of Arya into India, but the same literature shows there was migration - from India, towards North-West, not only into Afghanistan or Iran, but further.

Yet, Alter speaks repeatedly about Arya having 'arrived'!

Ignorance combined with racism forces arrogance rock solid freeze in psyche doesn't it!

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When in questionable area, use 'some' to include all in guilt.

"Collared owlets (Glaucidium brodiei), also called pygmy owlets, are crepuscular hunters, most active at dawn and dusk. No more than 15 centimetres tall, their brown plumage has a barred pattern like the rough weave on a tweed jacket that complements a professorial gaze. In the west, owls are considered wise while in India they are thought of as foolish and bad luck. Unfortunately, human associations and superstitions have fatal implications for collared owlets. In the weeks leading up to Diwali, villagers near Mussoorie catch different species of owls and surreptitiously sell them for sacrifice. In Hindu mythology, owls are the sacred vehicle, or vahana, of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, who is worshipped on Diwali. By killing an owl, some devotees believe they can ensure that the goddess, and any prosperity she bestows, remains in their home. A second version of the myth recounts that Lakshmi has an inauspicious twin sister, Alakshmi, who takes the form of an owl and deprives us of riches. By killing these birds, a small, misguided minority of ardent believers is convinced that they can hold onto their wealth."

Anyone rational - with slightest familiarity with india - would know that here the word 'some' is trickster and convenient blaming of the whole, and the phrase 'some devotees' is used wrongly here, deliberately, albeit seemingly innoccuously.

While the parts about worship of the Goddess of Wealth on Amavasya, no-moon day and night, of Diwali is routine throughout most (but not all) of India, and while it's not only India but in fact the whole world that worships wealth, only without respect enough to deity it, it's a convenient fact to attach it to killing of owls to make India seem irrational.

The association of owl as vehicle of the Goddess of Wealth is correct, as is the sub-story about the sister; but most of those who are worshippers of Lakshmi on Diwali are vegetarian, and wouldn't kill creatures above insects or pests, due more to disgust for the act than compassion.

A couple of facts here, Wealth isn't only money in context of the Goddess of Wealth, but encompasses Integral Wealth, of whole bring and more.

And the term 'devotees' is incorrect because few worship Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, with a sincere focused devotion as such; mostly, it's raised a notch above the world outside India in recognition, and in some cases, routine everyday worship at home, more so at business, instead of only on one day of the year. But one would be at sea if one were to attempt to find a temple devoted to her.

Obviously, killing of owls this one day has other considerations, other necessities behind it, of everyday life, of need to reduce their numbers. It might be associated with well being, but isn't a universal practice through India, as it would be if due to faith or culture or creed.

So is Alter lying deliberately, when he says -

'By killing these birds, a small, misguided minority of ardent believers is convinced that they can hold onto their wealth'

- all the while knowing fully well that this culling of owls is only excused in name of a least blood related Goddess of India, is anybody's guess. But already the process of hurting Hinduism by 'a thousand cuts', objecting to one festival here and another there in their specific characters, has gone on for decades.

Is this new missionary agenda, attempting to reduce Hinduism to a variety of church creed, before toppling over the skeleton then left?

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"From its perch in the tree, the collared owlet looked down at me accusingly as if I were responsible for this cruel and unjust curse. While the story of a goddess borne aloft on the wings of an owl may have an innocent, beguiling quality, it has been perverted from an allegory of benevolence into a tale of greed. In this way, natural history is often misinterpreted and distorted, through myths and fables that reach back thousands of years. As these stories are retold and re-enacted, the relationship between human beings and other species often becomes increasingly divisive and fraught with sanctified antipathies."

That makes it clear. He's not attacking killing of owls, which few might protest - precisely those who fo it because it's necessary and vital for their life and environment. He knows this.

Alter is attacking mainstream Hinduism when he says

" ... While the story of a goddess borne aloft on the wings of an owl may have an innocent, beguiling quality, it has been perverted from an allegory of benevolence into a tale of greed. In this way, natural history is often misinterpreted and distorted, through myths and fables that reach back thousands of years. As these stories are retold and re-enacted, the relationship between human beings and other species often becomes increasingly divisive and fraught with sanctified antipathies ... "

He's directly attacking what he calls myths and fables, because they are of Hinduism and its safe to call them a man-made lie, unlike, say, fables of a fellow Abrahamic faith which, when questioned, bring down fatwa and demands with chores promised to beheaders.

He knows fully well, that what he calls myth and fable, is accepted by any Hindu who isn't of the variety that's on reality an atheist but only officially Hindu for a convenience; yet few, despite belief, indulge in this killing of owls. Knowing this, nevertheless he isn't attacking the killing per se, but the core of Hinduism. He's attacking 'myths and fables', festival of Diwali, core beliefs of Hinduism, Hinduism itself, beginningwith using the term 'myths and fables' in the first place, before proceeding to laying blame therein.

Idea is to convert India, a final frontier of non-abrahmic culture, living since antiquity in continuity, preserving its treasures of knowledge, of antiquity and since, everything that wasn't affected by the barbaric Abrahamic invaders who burnt libraries, destroyed universities and murdered scholars, by tens of thousands.

And this is attacking in high gear, unlike previous decades when it was slashing at sides - fireworks but not Diwali celebrations without sound (so it'd look like advent of Saturnalia, dressed identically as xmas except beef blood pudding?), or objecting to volours of holo and throwing water in holi, separately.

No, Alter is attacking beliefs of Hinduism, beginning with calling them myths and fables, and accusing them of decimation of owls.

How about standing guilty of decimation of lions in India, "white' man, and of deforestation due to huge bonfires in summer in Kashmir, apart from other uses India's forest were decimated for? Including WWI and WWII? Not to mention tea?

How about accepting guilt for forcing India to grow opium, driving farmers into poverty thereby, turning them into bonded labour shipped to Mauritius, all so that China was induced to get addicted to opium, so Brits may profit in trading opium for tea?

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"Unlike other sports, climbing a mountain takes place without an audience. Only after a summiteer returns home is he or she is greeted with applause and, perhaps, cheering crowds. Whatever motives may drive a mountaineer to ascend beyond the limits of life, alpinism is an extreme form of ascetic abnegation. Yet, paradoxically, many mountaineers claim to feel the ‘most alive’ when they are far above it all. Death may be their constant companion but the exhilaration of testing its limits and achieving survival seems to drive so many to take such risks despite unforgiving odds.

"Regardless of its primal appeal, mountaineering is an entirely modern pursuit. Until roughly 200 years ago, nobody thought of climbing a mountain simply to reach the top. ... "

There's the Hubris of West again, assuming Europe is ahead! There's no basis of logic or evidence for that statement there, except of assumptions.

As for climbing up and on to mountain tops in Himalaya, if a Buddhist or any Indian had done it before Europe turned it into sport, it'd be for different reasons, and arriving at the top would be the least of the endeavour.

As a natural consequence, it wouldn't be advertised, any more than say, a monk living in a Greek monastery on clifftop would advertise his going for for work and ascending on return as achievement. And the latter would be the lesser endeavour, whatever they did do at the said Greek monastery.

" ... Early hunters may have scaled cliffs in search of prey and graziers herded flocks to high pastures but there was no purpose seen in going beyond the snow line, except to cross into another valley. ... "

"Repeatedly, Alter hammers it in that India’s legacies of ancient culture, Sanskrit literature and everything else, are to be simply ignored. He may be delusional in opening or imagining he's being subtle. To those already stunned into a stupor via a Westernised education that adheres to Macaulay policy, his hammering might seem a gentle reminding tap, but only to those, and perhaps not even to all of them, at that. But hammering in he is, with this agenda.

Else why, how, does one ignore the annual pilgrimage India routinely carries on, despite avalanches, landslides and other dangers that have caused death on the said pilgrimage, to Kailas? And it's not just a look, and return, either - to those who can, it includes a Pradakshina, a going around the mountain in a fixed direction, as one would in a temple. And it's because the concept of a God residing ON, not in or as, Kailas, isn't imagination or theory, to India. It's as real as existence of Gods, as real as celebrations of Deepavali.

But then, Alter not only belongs to, but is rooted in via his heritage of ancestry from, a culture that lies about Rome murdering the king of Jews and forcing them out of their homeland, in process of subjugation of the then colony, but imposes worship of the said murdered king of Jews, with centuries of inquisition enforcing submission with the instilled subconscious terror that makes it impossible for West to not comply.

So the complete lack of ccourtesy to the land he was born and brought up in is merely a reminder from this descendent of missionaries aligned with colonial masters, of his real loyalties being with Macaulay.

So much so, he seems to be completely unaware of being illogical in his assertions there. But illogical they are, in that there's no evidence thereof, nor reason to assert such a thing.

" ... Though sometimes portrayed as a contest between man and nature, mountaineering is more often the struggle of an individual against the physical limitations of the human body and the onerous constraints of society. ... "

What 'onerous constraints of society' force one into a struggle with 'physical limitations of the human body' in process of mountaineering, isn't clear.

Clothes, socially imposed need thereof? Surely it's not clothes per se? Nor does society impose aspirants of a mountaineering career or activity to apport a full evening dress with black tie. Or did it, in a past century?

" ... Climbing is, essentially, a byproduct of the industrial age, not only because the sport depends on steel implements, nylon ropes, synthetic fabrics and bottled oxygen, but also because it is largely driven by a subliminal sense of discontentment. ... "

Whether that last bit is true or not, the previous bits aren't; mountaineers of previous era, prior to nylon and other paraphernalia surely learned from experience, and much was often invented by thought, post expeditions?

" ... More often than not, those who climb seek to break free of the oppressive conventions and routines of the mechanized, digitized world we have created for ourselves. ... "

Goodness he exaggerates! Has Alter forgotten that people still walk, however rarely in developed societies due to available and not available options? Children fo toddle before they drive, and nobody is driven within home unless handicapped. Children do run about in home, school, playground, and in sports.

Mountaineering is only an extension of the normal activity of walking.

People living in mountain regions on heights must find basics of mountaineering natural part of their normal everyday walking.

" ... Mountaineering promises a release from existential malaise through the physicality of climbing and its rejection of social norms and responsibilities. ... "

Surely few men go climbing Everest only to avoid grocery shopping, earning a living or home repairs? Most find a pub next door if avoiding responsibility is all they seek.

" ... Though often justified as a form of exploration and a quest for knowledge, it is essentially an act of defiance and repudiation of manufactured experiences, from motorized transport to central heating."

That defiance and escape is found by most in beaches, from Hawaii to California to Goa to Phuket to Gold Coast and other beaches of Australia. Few indulge in mountaineering merely to indulge in an 'act of defiance and repudiation of manufactured experiences, from motorized transport to central heating' - that much risking of life and limbs stems from a completely different source.

Like it or not, Alter, mountaineering is sheer spiritual aspiration, physically expressed. As is astronomy in physical and mental realms, physics more so - and mathematics most so - in realms of thought.

A descendent of missionaries probably isn't able to allow himself to see this, what with subconscious terror of heresy imposed via centuries of inquisition and, for the said descendent of missionaries, a subconscious shame stepping beyond thought permissible by institutions that gave a vocation and a living to his ancestors.

"While the history and culture of mountaineering demonstrates how climbers have always rebelled against the dehumanizing conditions of modern society, there is often a personal discontentment too. Psychologically, a mountain can represent many different things, from an overpowering obstacle to a great white hope, but as many mountaineers have observed, inner landscapes offer the greatest challenge. Nature in all its ferocity and benevolence is not only an external phenomenon, separated from the human body and mind, but an integral element of our psyches."

More psychological verbosity, rather psychobabble, to obfuscate something?

Surely not the most obvious fact, that Brits did survey and related mountaineering as integral part of control of a colony - and travellers of Western origin might produce other excuses, but real concern is to help enemies of India, propped up via partition?

"The question continues to be asked: why do mountaineers choose to climb? There are multiple answers, of course, but for many climbers it becomes an addiction. Maria Coffey’s Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow explores the motives behind mountaineering and the way in which a climber’s death can devastate family and friends. She also details the manic-depressive quality of climbing in which the mountain provides a ‘high’ while returning home often leads to severe depression. Coffey quotes Reinhold Messner: ‘Endurance, fear, suffering, cold and the state between survival and death are such strong experiences that we want them again and again. We become addicted. Strangely, we strive to come back safely, and being back, we seek to return, once more, to danger.’"

On those grounds, one may question anything, any occupation or choice of career, including research in science, with exceptions such as, say, reproductions of museum exhibitions of works of others, or critical analysis of poetry of ancient authors unknown to most, or cleaning desks.

"A large part of modern discontentment comes out of our alienation from the natural world. Aside from seeking adventure, many climbers are naturalists too, in the broadest sense of that word. Edward ‘Teddy’ Norton, who was a member of both the 1922 and 1924 Everest expeditions, and took over as leader in 1924 after General Bruce fell ill, spent most of the long approach march to the Rongbuk Glacier collecting specimens of birds, mammals and plants. He was so diligent in this scientific pursuit that Tibetan lamas strongly objected to his killing of living creatures. Later on, climbing to 8,500 metres, a record height on Everest, Norton carried a paintbox and sketchbook to record the scenery. His watercolours are some of the most beautiful images of the high Himalaya, with a discerning eye for light and texture. Even more remarkable is the fact that the water on his brush and paper kept freezing every time his shadow fell upon the painting."

Notice Alter slipping in an accusation of villainy against the mountaineer by painting him as the poor brit who was selfless in cataloging the wildlife of the colony (anyone ask, fir whose benefit?), while the Tibetan Lama objecting to his killings were, if anything, more right. But if one is right against Western invaders in power, one was - and is even now, in Western minds - a villain, or an unsophisticated and out of fashion ignoramus at best.

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Alter uses confusion to equate guilt of West with faiths of Eastern, non-abrahmic origins.

"Metaphors have consequences, not just for sacrificial buffaloes but for all living creatures and plants, as well as rivers, rocks and mountains too. Whether we are willing to admit it or not—and despite the Dalai Lama’s compassionate pronouncement—an inherent conflict exists between most religious narratives and natural history. The symbols, rituals, beliefs and social norms of different faiths that have evolved over time, as human beings settled into a sedentary, systematic way of life, are, at heart, a means of denying and repressing our wild origins. Being the dominant species on this planet and placing ourselves at the centre of a web of man-made meaning, we have consciously and unconsciously separated ourselves from the wilderness out of which our ancestors emerged. Nevertheless, from time to time, most of us still experience an inexplicable longing for the lost memories and mysteries of our primal habitat."

Isn't "civilisation' the usual nomenclature, used to sum up the convoluted construction here - 'we have consciously and unconsciously separated ourselves from the wilderness out of which our ancestors emerged' - by Alter?

"The impulsive urge to observe, recall, document, classify and preserve the earth’s threatened biomes is a strategy of survival but also the cry of a lost creature separated from its past. ... "

Is that why West does all of that, 'observe, recall, document, classify', because it's been separated from everything natural, by Roman institutions in name of faith, before returning halfway in name of science?

" ... Despite our exile from the wilderness, many of us seek out the remnants of a natural world untouched by man’s intrusive achievements. ... "

Yet, West manages to then destroy the part it touches! Not just nature, but civilisations too.

" ... Yet, to our inevitable dismay and discontentment, every Eden evokes a history that excludes us."

Wouldn't that be only natural? To 'seek out the remnants of a natural world untouched by man’s intrusive achievements' isn't possible without a 'history that excludes us', is it? It's akin to demanding that, having married a total stranger, one must then be not only intimate in future but part of their past!

And yet West is the poseur that pretends being rational compared to India??!!!

"Being a naturalist is a rational pursuit, even if it sometimes verges on mysticism. Instead of placing our confidence and convictions in the intelligent designs of an immortal creator, we attempt to track down the forgotten and forsworn connections between all forms of life, celebrating nature’s near-infinite diversity as well as our own finite existence. A naturalist’s compassion comes not from a god-given sense of morality and ethics or the teachings of philosophers and saints but out of an innate appreciation for our kinship with other species, both a genetic and an existential bond. Awareness of this ‘oneness of being’ leads us outside the boundaries of conventional religion, beyond the pale of sanctified culture and society."

And that's quintessential Alter, desperate to have credit for best of both worlds, instead of being natural and not seeing things divided in the first place!

Poles are far apart, but nevertheless, always, connected by a billion, or rather uncountable number of, paths - and to not only one another, but to every point on earth.

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"Activists like Sunderlal and Vimla Bahuguna, who protested the dam for years, had been warning about the environmental consequences, as well as the human costs. The Bhagirathi Valley lies in an unstable seismic zone and Garhwal has experienced severe earthquakes in the past. If another occurs, the dam might burst and the water will destroy all settlements downstream, including the holy cities of Rishikesh and Hardwar. Aside from the inundation of several hundred square kilometres of farmland and forest, the ridges on either side have suffered severe erosion and villages far above the high water mark are endangered because of subsidence and landslides.

"But the most severe environmental damage caused by the dam is its impact on the river itself. The Bhagirathi remains a lifeline for a variety of aquatic creatures as well as plants, trees, insects, reptiles, birds and mammals that live along its banks. The free movement of the river and its tributaries sustains a diverse community of species. With the creation of the dam, migratory fish like the mahseer have been blocked from moving upstream in the monsoon for their annual spawning. Even as the reservoir extended its reach above the dam, the effects downstream were immediately noticeable. The level of the Ganga now fluctuates significantly, rising and falling two or three metres within the space of several hours, as hydraulic engineers hold back or release the water according to their calculated needs.

"Most of the inhabitants of Tehri were resettled in a new town built on a high ridge above the reservoir. ... "

So far, OK. But then -

" ... Christened ‘New Tehri’ it boasts a replica of the old clock tower. ... "

"Christened"???

Attempt to subconsciously influence people and establish an assumption that "Christened" is universal term for named?

It certainly is not! Never has been.

Or is Alter claiming that the dam was actually, officially, "Christened"? Because the then ruling UPA regime, which had gone to the extent of giving an affidavit in court to the effect that Hindu Deities were non-existent and myths, had proceeded further and converted inorganic structures of concrete such as dams, into "Christened" objects?

Funny, they subsequently asserted post 2014 loudly enough that their leaders were high caste Hindus, unlike the leader elected by people who they attempted to dhsme with repeated references to his background of non-affluent family!

And not only India, but the NRI community, too, which is chiefly middle class hardworking educational aspirants who did well outside India strictly on their own, loved him all the more, and proudly, not condescendingly, when he declared before election that he wasn't 'high caste' like the then ruling UPA who were casting aspersions and throwing abusive epithets at him!

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"Wade Davis in his monumental book, Into the Silence, has shown in convincing detail how the early Everest expeditions were a quest for healing and redemption following the horrors of World War I—the first modern Armageddon. As he writes, ‘One of the peculiar and unexpected outcomes of peace was the desire of many veterans to go anywhere but home.’ ... "

Was that true of the victors, too, or only the Germans, and possiblyItalian, French, Swiss?

Surely Russians couldn't afford an alternative to how, except those who feed to exile for life and lost homes, estates, homeland, for foreseeable future?

" ... The trauma of the trenches and the residual anxiety of bombs, machine guns and poison gas haunted this ‘lost generation’ and the Himalaya, which were as far away as they could get from mechanized warfare, offered a kind of catharsis for men like Charles Howard-Bury, George Finch, Edward Norton and George Leigh Mallory. ... "

Whereas, for those used to skiing in the Alps - Germans, French, Italians, et al - it was a natural next step, an extention of the weekend routine.

"... All of them were survivors of the ‘Great War’ and bore the anguish and suffering of industrialized conflict, as if it were shrapnel in their souls. The same held true for German climbers who sought their destiny in the Himalaya."

Destiny is too large a term for what was a short time interval that occupied the mountaineering activity unless one did nothing else through life, however huge the catharsis thereby. Surely there were those who didn't do it lifelong, however free of danger their mountaineering had been? There must have been those who subsequently chose to occupy themselves otherwise by choice, and perhaps climbed or trekked up a neighbourhood hill - only for nostalgic reasons?

................................................................................................

"The British, more than any other people, found a need to explore vertical terrain, first at home and in the Scottish Highlands, then in the Alps and ultimately the Himalaya. ... "

The former was due to lack of better activity for exercise for lonely society that took pride in being asocial, but the latter was a deliberate mapping out of a colonial land to be subjugated thoroughly.

" ... Perhaps they were obsessed with mountaineering because they were the first truly industrialized nation on earth, with their furnaces and factories, rail lines, steam engines and iron ships riveted and welded together in the name of progress. ... "

All that could be remedied with a holiday in Alps, or on French visits, or even in German countryside - or Italian sites fir that matter. No, activities in Himalaya were for another reason or two, altogether.

" ... It was out of the anonymity of modern society that Kenneth Mason and his compatriots formed the Himalayan Club with its goal of creating ‘a solid core of men who have done something’. Whether it was Mummery scrambling about on Nanga Parbat, Shipton and Tilman breaching the Nanda Devi sanctuary, or the counterculture climbers of the seventies and eighties like Doug Scott grappling with the Ogre, British alpinists wandered away from the assembly lines and managerial flow charts of conventional careers in search of some sort of higher purpose."

That they saw higher purpose in peaks of ranges of Himalaya speaks of entirely another level of their awakened souls, sought to be smothered in previous centuries by church via inquisition. But as to the former, 'a solid core of men who have done something’ could be even better achieved by traversing Gobi desert and measuring it, or better, acquiring it!

No, the extreme ends of needs of activities in Himalaya were colonial aims at one end and personal, spiritual ones at the other. Like it or not, admit it or not, Himalaya is land of Gods, however overrun by the opposite for decades, even centuries, at the moment temporarily.

"Excavating our earliest preoccupations with alpine adventure, Robert Macfarlane’s Mountains of the Mind reaches back into the European imagination of high places, including scientific, romantic and spiritual conceptions of mountainous terrain. Macfarlane also reflects on how the upper reaches of the earth became both a modern problem and an enduring passion. He writes: ‘Mountains seem to answer an increasing imaginative need in the West. More and more people are discovering a desire for them, and a powerful solace in them.’ Mcfarlane then goes on to say that wild and remote places like the Himalaya remind us, ‘that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and order of existence. Mountains correct this amnesia.’"

Wouldn't Andes, with accompanying expanse all completely uninhabited compared to Himalaya, do just as well or better, if that were all? People did go exploring the jungles of Brazil and tributaries of Amazon, et al.

Admit it or not, like it or not, Himalaya IS different, belongs to another level of existence. Occupying it physically means as little as stealing a crown - or far less.

Hilton comprehended this far better, despite the superficial levels of his mind retaining the colonial racist disdain, and thereby ascribing a Shangri--La to a monastery not quite Buddhist, disdaining Himalaya and India, Buddhism and Hindu heritage, but raising Chinese on par with European, imagining he could reduce spiritual to mind and meditation to library cataloging, a European exiled on a remote peak in Kun-Lun.

Obviously he hadn't quite been able to unshackle his mind from his upbringing that equated physical subjugation with superiority of being, despite worship of a victim of Roman empire instead of that of the Roman emperor. Hilton hadn't quite been able to unshackle his mind to bring it into the natural harmony and unity of vision with his soul, and let his mind see that which his soul had grasped.

................................................................................................

A chapter is titled Evidence of Arrival and underlying presumption is, all ancient lore of India is a lie, including Samudra Manthan, whereby Sanskrit literature speaks of churning of ocean and Himalaya rising out of the ocean as an eyewitness account.

Nobody proceeding on this assumption has bothered to ask, much less answer satisfactorily, just how India knew of Himalaya rising out of the ocean. Or about India once having been an island, Jambudweepa.

And this knowledge - of Himalaya rising out of the ocean, and about India once having been an island - predates Ramayana, which has been dated to 14,500 - 11,000 BCE at the latest, modulo cycles of 26,000 years, and a million years BCE at the earliest.

So the attitude of West against India is exactly that of atheists against anyone who isn't atheist. If they don't have proof that they cannot write off, they assert that contrary is true.

" ... The traditional narrative of Indian history has always suggested that waves of invaders—Aryans, Kushanas, Scythians, Greeks and others crossed over the mountains at different times and settled in North India, from the borderlands of Bactria in Afghanistan and Kashmir to the lower reaches of the Gangetic Plain."

That particular "narrative' is begun there with a lie made up by West, as per Macaulay policy of breaking spine of India, beginning with calling Arya population outsiders. This was convenient propaganda for all invaders, but is a lie nevertheless, on par with, say, China claiming that Europeans are all descended from Mongolians beginning with Attila the Hun. China does not say do, perhaps due to a tad more decency than Western and Abrahamics.

Within India and her neighbourhood, such migrations aren't unusual, and if visiting back isn't impossible, it's not a loss but a gradual acclimatisation. This isn't limited to residents of Himalaya.

Nor is there any reason to assume that every Hindu living in Himalaya is from somewhere else. Even Shiva and Parvati were not first of the Hindu culture residents of Himalaya, far from it.

There they go again, belittling the great epics!

By logic of Alter one should deduce that West loved and cherished Picasso because their faces looked like his paintings!

Or was that there a not too subtle implication there of a presumption that Himalaya belongs elsewhere, India must be only below?

Fie, Alter! How false can West get!

On one hand, story about Dwaraka drowning exists as part of Mahabharata; ocean archeological surveys show existence thereof.

And there was no migration of Arya into India, but the same literature shows there was migration - from India, towards North-West, not only into Afghanistan or Iran, but further.

Yet, Alter speaks repeatedly about Arya having 'arrived'!

Ignorance combined with racism forces arrogance rock solid freeze in psyche doesn't it!

................................................................................................

" ... Smythe set off for Everest. Nona went on to New Zealand and visited her family, then sailed back to Bombay and the two of them were reunited for the return journey to England."

" ... Collecting wild clematis, columbine, larkspur, St. John’s wort and balsam, he seems to have experienced a transformative epiphany. As he writes:

""The West assumes its superiority over the East primarily because it is further advanced in mechanical matters, but woe betide it should it continue to associate mechanisms with spiritual progress. In Garhwal I met a true civilization, for I found contentment and happiness. I saw a life that is not enslaved by the time-factor, that is not obsessed by the idea that happiness is dependent on money and materials. I had never before realized until I camped in the Valley of Flowers how much happiness there is in simple living and simple things… Happiness is best achieved by adapting ourselves to the standards of our environment."

"A large part of Smythe’s feelings of contentment came from the company of the four Sherpas with whom he spent those weeks in Garhwal. ‘Such were my companions—I cannot think of them as porters—and I could scarcely have wished for better. They contributed generously and in full measure to the pleasure and success of the happiest holiday of my life.’"

"In passages like this and many others there is a distinct change from some of Smythe’s earlier writings, when he often expressed patronizing and racist views. On his first Himalayan expedition to Kanchenjunga, he parroted the prejudices of tea planters and other British colonials. Kamet Conquered contains derogatory remarks about Indians in general and some of the porters in particular, despite their sacrifices on the mountain. His Sherpa Sirdar, Lewa, who accompanied him to the summit nearly died and was badly frostbitten. Another porter, Kesar Singh from Garhwal, ascended with the second summit party and instead of wearing boots, he wrapped his feet in layers of burlap. Though Smythe commended both men for their loyalty and service, he also put them down as being weak-spirited and disingenuous. Reading these early books it is hard to forgive Smythe’s opinions, which are offensive by any standards, but a change occurs after he returns to the Bhyundar Valley in 1937."

Alter refrains from questioning if, much less admitting that, Himalaya brought about the transformation.

"Of all the Sherpas who climbed with Smythe, the man he admired most was Wangdi Norbu. They were together on almost every Himalayan expedition that Smythe undertook, beginning with Kanchenjunga in 1930. During that climb, Wangdi fell into a crevasse and was stuck for three hours, before being rescued. Later, on Everest, in 1933, Wangdi nearly died of pneumonia but after recovering, he quickly returned to carrying loads up to the North Col. Hugh Ruttledge, the leader of the expedition, referred to Wangdi as ‘a real “stilt”… Very strong’ and Tilman commented in his chit book that he was, ‘…a first class man and able to take charge of a party’.

"One of the revealing moments in The Valley of Flowers is when they first pitched camp. ‘Wangdi came to me with a happy grin on his hard face. He swept his arm in a single comprehensive gesture over the birches and across the valley, past the glowing snows of Rataban. “Ramro, sahib!” He was right; it was beautiful.’ Later on, Smythe describes how Wangdi often broke into song as they collected flowers or sat around the campfire. He even provides a few bars of musical notation, as well as a translation of the lyrics: ‘In immeasurable contentment I sat by the fire.’

"For a man who had struggled with discontentment all his life, the mountains were where he found true happiness. On his first visit to Darjeeling, sitting on the lawns of a planter’s bungalow at Rangli Rangliot estate, in April 1930, Smythe described his feelings: ‘Up there in the evening stillness of the tea gardens I experienced for the first time in my life that subtle feeling of joy and sorrow intermixed which comes to all who are born with the love for mountains, joy for the vision and hope, for the unknown and sorrow in realizing how many adventures there are to seek, and how pitifully short is the life in which to seek them.’"

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"Drums challenge boundaries and test territorial limits. Historically, in times of war, they were used to demarcate positions on a battlefield, threatening the enemy and inciting warriors to prepare for conflict. Garhwal takes its name from the many forts, most of which are now in ruins, scattered throughout the region, where duelling drumbeats once emanated from rival fiefdoms."

Here Alter takes up an opportunity to indict India for "inequitable" caste system, propagating the myth by West that caste never existed elsewhere other than in India, which is as fraudulent as it gets.

The very word 'caste' is of Anglo-Saxon roots - it means box in German - and it certainly wasn't invented for India, but was used for castes as they existed then and still do in UK. Nor was there anything equitable about caste systems as they exist outside India, based as they are on race, gender, religion, landholdings and other properties, and at the top, aristocracy, nobility and royals.

"Nevertheless, as Purohit explains, while the drummers are playing and singing, they are said to be ‘purified’ by the music and the sacred narratives they recite. Empowered by the beat of their drums, the bards control both the dancers and the audience. Ultimately, they are the custodians of these myths, which are preserved in the safekeeping of their collective memory. Though in their daily lives these men are shunned by higher caste Hindus, during festivals, weddings and folk theatre, percussionists can command both a high price for their drumming as well as an elevated level of authority. It is also intriguing to note that the Himalayan hunters who helped Frederick ‘Pahari’ Wilson track down musk deer and other ‘wild game’ in the nineteenth century came from a community of drummers near Gangotri and their skills as shikaris obviously helped them acquire the necessary hides for drumskins."

That very first word, 'nevertheless', informs an alert reader that someone who considers a non Indian caste system natural is looking askance at the tapestry of caste system in India, not because the latter is wrong, but because this outsider expects their own background to work, thinking it's natural.

Thus, Alter would take it as a matter of course that upper castes of UK occupied upper echelons of every profession therein, and similarly in Germany - until nazis turned things topsy-turvy - and upper castes didn't like or approve it, but had to lump it. And he's surprised that in India, a community untouchable due to nature of traditional profession, nevertheless is not kept at bottom of every social rung.

But this merely shows either his ignorance or his fraud and hypocrisy, or both. He should know that untouchability isn't about castes, it's a matter of what West would call quarantine, only a system set up before modern medicine and cleaning fluids changed life. He should recall that until a doctor figured out why women were doing in childbirth, doctors in Europe weren't washing hands as hygienic precaution between touching dead bodies and new mothers. He might ask a few questions about practices in traditional Hindu homes regarding cooking, childbirth, and other areas of concern. He should observe Pandharpur traditions, including the image worshipped and story thereof.

And he should remember that seeming lack of racial diversity in Europe is partly due to droit de seigneur, and largely due to preference for a racial stereotype that drove others, not so tall or blond or light of eyes and hair, into sort of hiding. If an author didn't mention it, non-Europeans might never know of them!

Yet, in India, no one can tell caste of anyone stranger, certainly not just by looking, certainly not in an urban crowd.

"Yet, more than the material substance of the instrument, it is the performance too that unsettles and discomfits social norms. Drumming excites unwanted desires, held in check by the rules and etiquette of civilized society. As we absorb its beat, the rhythm arouses something of our primal, primitive selves and we are often afraid that our bodies may respond with unrestrained passion."

That comment, very Abrahamic-II, pointing at a deep fear rooted in centuries of inquisition, of wondering if one would be consigned by one's priest to eternal damnation, of allowing one's soul or spirit or heart to resonate with something not quite blessed by Vatican!

................................................................................................

As one reads the prologue, one is almost led into a flight, by a wish to live like this in a Himalayan home surrounded by cedars, Devdars and other lovely trees, apart from vista's of Himalaya dominating North from North-West to North-East - and Ganga valleys to the south.

Until one reads his casual mention of leopards prowling around the house, jackals living under the dining room and difficult to evict - and scorpions in the bathroom!

Uncertain Altitudes is the mystifying tilte of the first chapter, after one has just finished with reading in the prologue about the beautifully described homestead, Oakville, of the author. Apart from its exquisite setting, that is to say.

" ... Altogether, fourteen of the world’s tallest summits exceed 8,000 metres and ten of these are located in the Himalaya. The other four are in the neighbouring Karakoram. More than half of the fifty highest peaks on earth lie along the Himalayan chain. Five nations—China, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan—include a portion of the Himalaya within their borders, though many of these boundaries are in dispute and the exiled government of Tibet still lays claim to much of the territory occupied by China."

The book is worth buying just to see the black&white photograph at head of this chapter, a shot of a brilliant Sun framed by two mountains forming a V, throwing shadows in skies above.

One may have bought the book due to the beautiful photograph of a peak of Himalaya on cover, which is OK if one expected little else.

But if one expected descriptions of beauty of Himalaya, one would be disappointed, unless one knows nothing thereof, and accepts glorification of history of British rule and denial of indigenous culture a la Macaulay policy - or else cares little and accepts it as a valid discourse about the topic.

Alter does proceed with erudite discourse and beautiful descriptions one naturally expects from the title and cover, but only after he's satisfied himself that he's punctured such naive expectations - chiefly from sentimental natives - by firmly imprinting the beginning with just how important was footprint of European regimes were to colonies, especially in the region natives consider sacred, but rational West does of course no such thing, not until it's West Asia!

Just when one thought he'd done with it, he returns to stamping on such naive native hopes.

"The naming of Indian birds has a colonial legacy going back to the early nineteenth century. ... "

No, he isn't done, perhaps won't throughout the book. He must insist that anything known by anyone about and in Himalaya was hard work by European traipsing through the difficult terrain.

Which, incidentally, he condescends to admit, does and did have natives, who, he's kind enough to admit, did and do know the terrain and its residents, including birds. But he refrains from mentioning if they had names in any local language, primitive or Sanskrit, while he returns to imposing on reader how painstakingly extensive the work by European travellers was in naming them, and so forth.

No different from naming another continent after a minor, now forgotten sailor, Vespucci Amerigo, without asking natives thereof what they called their own homeland - or, for that matter, continuing calling them by the fraudulent nomenclature that is not only known to be false but is as racist as, say, China calling every European nazi.

Which the Chinese do not; their racism stops at calling them 'barbarians' and 'foreign devils', but short of confusing one them with another of a different tribe.

"The tradition of recognizing renowned scientists by naming species in their honour continues today, though the discovery of new birds or animals is now a rare event. In 2016, an international team of ornithologists, with the help of genetic analysis, determined that the plain-backed thrush (Zoothera mollissima) should be split into two species. The new bird, renamed the Himalayan forest thrush, was dubbed Zoothera salimalii, in honour of Dr Salim Ali."

How very kind of the white to admit one native to the ranks, even if selected carefully, and how fortunate that they could find one of possibly antecedents closer to themselves, in indoctrination, at any rate, if not entirely, or even at all, in his ancestry!

Alter may title chapters after Himalayan objects, whether flora or fauna or whatever, but more often than otherwise, the discourse thereafter is about the British who occupied various positions, travelled here or there, and named things after one another.

Having bought it, one either has to have frozen nerves or hatred for India to prevent one's losing cool, not every word or paragraph but even occasionally, as Alter indulges in typical attitude of a colonial master, disdainful of the land and her culture, knowledge and traditions, while assertive of his rights to live therein nevertheless, pretty much as his ancestors migrated and occupied various other lands across various oceans.

In a sense, this book reminds one of annual Thanksgiving fest celebrated by descendents of migrants in US, even as those who belonged and who had welcomed them, helped them settle and celebrated that first Thanksgiving with them, were massacred subsequently, through infested blankets given as gifts, when not by weapons.

This book, too, has author speak of matters revered by India while he's repeatedly disdainful of India, following Macaulay in a manner less obvious than, say, Sheldon Pollock or Ignatius Donnelly, but definitely more so than Mark Tully. Alter isnt obvious, but a racist colonial master's arrogant disdain nevertheless infuses the book behind the thin veneer of a scientific, atheist cosmopolitan outlook.

Russell Bond manages to write well, have his writing loved, not come across to his readers as colonial master or one with an attitude of disdain, and he certainly doesn't come across as having 'gone native', a fear most Western visitors have lurking, which probably haunts residents more. To risk being seen as 'having 'gone native', is 'losing caste' for those who must maintain a 'sahib' status.

Before he proceeds with the facts and science of forest vegetation, Alter takes care of a vital assertion, but more cleverly than, say, Ignatius Donnelly. Instead of asserting that India has its in take of Adam and Eve, he recounts his Lepcha guide say they have one "‘It is almost the same as the story of Adam and Eve,’", and proceeds to tell thereof.

Do we conclude every primitive society has similar tales, and thereby - but, of course, naturally! - conclude, that India’s civilisation was far advanced several tens of millennia ahead of others, since India has no such story? Hindu loves, legends, epics and more, are galore, and abound with things that parallel evolution, and a tale of rising of Himalaya from ocean that vanished to North of India. But nothing about a first man or first woman!

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"Her father, Dorjee Singh Aitwal, used to travel to Tibet, taking his flocks of sheep and goats across the high passes to the trading town of Taklakot on the route to Mount Kailas. He carried grain for barter and brought back salt. Chandraprabha remembers accompanying him on these journeys from Chhangru, walking three days in each direction. She remembers on one of their trips, a goat carrying saddlebags of sattu or barley flour, slipped and fell down the side of the hill. The load burst open in a cloud of flour as the animal died on the rocks below."

"She makes a clear distinction between Shaukas and Bhotias. ‘Our people are not Buddhists. We are Hindus,’ she insists, though they speak a Tibeto-Burman dialect and share the same ethnicity as the people of Taklakot."

That's testament to the historic fact of lands not only throughout what was known since antiquity as India, but surrounding lands, as well, were Hindu.

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"Another artist, whose watercolour miniatures capture the essence of the Himalaya, is Bireswar Sen (1897–1974). Ameeta and I are fortunate to have a dozen of his paintings on our walls at Oakville. These were collected separately by the two of us, almost fifty years ago, when we were in high school, long before we had any interest in getting married. My parents also bought several of Sen’s paintings, which our art teacher, Frank Wesley, sold on behalf of the artist, who was his guru and friend. Most of Sen’s paintings are Himalayan mindscapes, slightly larger than a visiting card. We were told that the artist painted one miniature every morning as a form of meditation."

" ... His paintings provide the answer in luminous, contemplative detail, like mantras of colour. A student of Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose, Sen taught at the School of Arts and Crafts in Lucknow, where Frank Wesley was his student. In 1932, he met Nicholas Roerich, the Russian artist and émigré, who settled in the mountains of Kullu where he built a Himalayan home and studio. Sen was inspired by the charismatic personality of the expatriate artist whose work was praised by Tolstoy. In addition to his paintings, Roerich designed sets for Russian ballets, including the premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in 1913. Today his art survives in several collections, a few in his Kullu home, as well as in the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York City, where his paintings fill several rooms of a gallery in Upper Manhattan.

"In later life Roerich created some of his most memorable mindscapes of the Himalaya, many of which are based on allegorical imagery from his own mystical wanderings, which he describes in his travel memoir, Heart of Asia. Fascinated by the mythology of Shambala and fuelled by theosophist philosopy, he transformed the mountains into a symbolic realm of ancient wisdom, hidden truths and lost traditions. Even his most realistic paintings, such as the spectacular vision of Kanchenjunga seen from Darjeeling in 1924, rising out of the clouds, contains a metaphysical dimension. Other paintings like ‘Arjuna’ or ‘The Master’s Command’, his final work of art, completed shortly before his death in 1947, depict mountain landscapes with Hindu and Buddhist figures arranged in bold relief with the vivid colours of a Russian icon.

"As Roerich wrote in a letter to his wife Helena, who shared her husband’s fascination for spiritual quests:

""Himalaya! Here is the Abode of Rishis. Here resounded the sacred Flute of Krishna. Here thundered the Blessed Gautama Buddha. Here originated all Vedas. Here lived Pandavas. Here—Gesar Khan. Here—Aryavarta. Here is Shambhala. Himalayas—Jewel of India. Himalayas—Treasure of the World. Himalayas—the sacred Symbol of Ascent.""

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"Eaglenest Sanctuary contains more than just birds. Driving along the forest track, we turn a corner and come upon a male serow (Naemorhedus sumatraensis) in the middle of the road. With a dark brown coat, prominent ears and short spiked horns, it looks like a cross between a donkey and a goat. Usually a reclusive animal that stays hidden within the underbrush, this one seems unbothered by our presence and takes his time before climbing the hill out of sight. Belonging to the same family as goral, these goat-antelopes are found throughout the Himalaya up to Kashmir, though serow are more plentiful in the east, ranging across Southeast Asia. They are also related to takin (Budorcus taxicolor), the national animal of Bhutan. While birdwatching, we also spot several giant squirrels but they are more skittish than the serow, scrambling away from branch to branch. Eaglenest is home to clouded leopards and golden cats as well as red pandas. The other large mammal in these forests is the mithun, a cross-breed of wild gaur and domestic cattle that stands almost 2 metres at the shoulder. Tribal communities raise semi-feral mithun and these massive animals are considered a measure of a man’s wealth. Wandering through the sanctuary, we encounter several mithun with dangerous-looking horns. They seem docile enough, browsing in the forest, but could do a lot of damage if provoked.

"The biggest surprise, however, is finding elephants at 3,000 metres above sea level. This is the only place on earth where Elephas maximus climbs to these heights. The forest is full of bamboo and wild bananas, but the terrain seems too steep and temperatures too cold for elephants. ... "

If Alter were familiar with Indian ancient Sanskrit literature in general, as his quotes in various places might lead one to surmise, he'd know about the assignments of various species to Gods as specific vehicles for them individually. King of Swarga -world of Gods - is Indra, and his specific vehicle, an individual elephant named Airavata, is the one who carries him.

Here, one may notice that Airavata literally transltes to 'of Iravaty', and this might vary well refer to the river valley in Burma, which in India was called Brahmadesh, Land of Brahma, which in turn might be interpreted as Brahma in sense of All-Encompassing (Unmanifest) Divine, or as Brahmaa the Creator, one of the Trinity of Gods over and above World of Gods.

But more relevant to Alter's surprise is this - which, if he'd remembered it and realized the connection, he'd nit be surprised at elephants at heights - its that, Swarga cannot be lower than Himalaya, even as Himalaya is held to be Land of Gods by India; while Gods reside above, they not only venture more often in Himalaya for enjoyment of the beautiful land, but often enough some reside therein.

Indra isn't a resident of Himalaya, but Airavata is certainly resident of Swarga, so elephants living in Himalaya therefore isn't surprising, it's quite in conformity with India’s thinking since antiquity! Presumably they'd be everywhere in Himalaya but for the barbarian invaders who misused them, and even carried them away in hundreds of thousands as booty looted in wars from India, marched over mountains to North Western lands across passes where Hindus, bound and marched as slaves, died by hundreds of thousands.

Had they been treated properly, elephants would have survived, across borders of India to North-West. And Alter would be less surprised finding them in North-East in India.

Even in Delhi, once called Indraprastha, they aren't now except in zoo; but once abounded in the region, original capital of which was named Hastinapura.

" ... Less than 200 metres away, I can hear a herd in the jungle, breaking branches. Not wanting to confront them on a narrow mountain trail, we leave the elephants alone."

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"A few days earlier, at Tawang Monastery, in the north-west corner of Arunachal Pradesh, we saw a large pair of tusks on display, the aged ivory stained a burnished brown. A small sign below them read: ‘This pair of elephant tusks was discovered by the mother of Khandro Drowa Zangmo (the Queen of King Kala Wangpo) in the 7th Century A.D. buried deep underneath her field where she was ploughing to prepare her field for cultivation.’ From the curved shape of the tusks, which resemble giant forceps, it seems possible that these might be the remains of a woolly mammoth that wandered across the Tibetan Plateau during the last ice age. Mammoth tusks are regularly dug up in Siberia and there is a growing market for Pleistocene ivory, now that the sale of elephant tusks has been banned. The provenance of the tusks in Tawang is difficult to determine, except perhaps by DNA testing. Drowa Zangmo (also spelled Sangmo), whose mother is said to have dug them out of the earth, is a popular character in Tibetan and Bhutanese folklore, a wise Dakini reborn on earth in order to spread the Buddhist Dharma. History, science and myth have a way of getting muddled, particularly when it comes to sacred relics. The other intriguing image at Tawang is a large Garuda figure with a serpent in its beak, overlooking the main courtyard of the monastery. Both in Buddhist and Hindu tradition, this divine raptor is the enemy of snakes."

The reference to 'sacred relics' brings to mind not tusks so much, although elephants are regarded highly in India, as the shroud once exhibited through Europe as 'the' object of worship. Perhaps the more recent discovery of scrolls from Israel before the nation was firmed ought to have eclipsed that, except they told of matters not approved by church, more bent on its official version.

Alter refrains from discussion of just how maligned snakes and serpents are in Abrahamic lore right from old testament on, while how Hindus certainly include them amongst objects of worship, which do omit some species. So this enmity between eagle, divine or otherwise, is a natural observation.

Snakes incidentally are not merely companions of Shiva but proliferate around him, adorning his head, neck, et al; while the Ultimate Divine, Vishnu, reclines on coils of a great serpent, Shesha Naaga, whose hood shades the God Vishnu from heat of a harsh sun of his own world.

In yoga, moreover, there's another connotation.

So, how snakes and serpents are viewed by India versus Abrahamic creeds is extremely opposite.

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"Thanks to the efforts of conservationists, Eaglenest has been spared from army occupation. Had the old NEFA road been widened it would have certainly destroyed the Bugun liocichla’s habitat and disturbed many other rare species in these forests. Even the few short sections of the road that are being paved to provide easier access to the sanctuary are causing damage. Given the fact that no villages are located in the core zone, there would seem to be no need to improve the forest track beyond its present condition."

Does Alter belong in Urban Naxals?

Every sign points that way in the paragraph above.

Not just opposition to army, but to roads and posts, to development necessary for military, in absence of which China has free reign to advance, establish its posts and claim the territory, a la Aksai Chin?

Alter even ridicules the camouflaged equipment and not too subtly let's readers know that China is not thereby fooled, but is aware of everything.

"Though the original NEFA road leads down to the plains of Assam, only 40 kilometres away, we leave the mountains by a much longer, more circuitous route. Micah and others have warned us that Bodo insurgents still operate at the foot of the hills below Eaglenest and it is better to avoid this region and travel to Guwahati by the military highway. A few years back, a group of butterfly enthusiasts were kidnapped and held for ransom."

And yet, Alter argues for military leaving the region alone.

"The extended detour offers us an opportunity to compare the forests along the highway with the protected jungles of the sanctuary. It comes as no surprise that the motor road has caused widespread destruction. Not only are there large military transit camps but also a number of temporary shanties for road crews, all of whom depend on the forest for firewood and bamboo. More than anything, erosion is the most evident result of road building and it has a devastating effect on the forests. At several points, where the slope is unstable, landslides have carried away most of the vegetation leaving huge lesions of mud and rock. While the highway linking Tezpur with Tawang was initially constructed fifty years ago by the Defence Ministry’s Border Roads Organisation, it remains in a perpetual state of disrepair, with JCB power shovels clearing rubble and dumping debris into streams and rivers. Military planners, whose first priority is national security, require motorized access to border regions and they show little concern for ecology that gets in the way."

There's another legacy Alter refrains from labeling British, despite this very work categorically giving statistics regarding forest destruction by British, in terms both of timber felling and hunting. Then, it was fine grain selfish ends for use of 'Raj'; now, China having hit India wide awake in 1962, out of a Gandhian opium of a philosophy whereby India had a first PM claiming that India needed no military at all, but only some police, even at the border, India certainly cannot leave a border in a state that might please Alter - and, of course, urban naxals, left, et al - but please China far more.

................................................................................................

"Higher up in the mountains, where the shepherds spend the summer, their flocks will share pastures with blue sheep or bharal (Pseudois nayaur) that also represent an intermediary link between goats and sheep. Bharal have adapted perfectly to harsh climates and vertical terrain, blending into the rocks. Human beings arrived long after these creatures populated the Himalaya, first as hunters who stalked goral, bharal, ibex, thar, markhor and the argali with spiral horns. ... "

That's implying India's ancient literature and knowledge does not count, but how then does the legend of Samudra Manthan have a churning ocean, Himalaya rising out of it, and the ocean vanish? Either this was eyewitness account by India and her Sanskrit speaking Arya ancient population, or there was tremendous yogic power in those that envisioned it if the said Sanskrit speaking Arya ancient population evolved later, but at any rate its a tremendous knowledge.

What's more, Ramayana has Himalaya and Vindhya looking at one another eye to eye, which pretty much dates Ramayana, at the very least.

So no, "Human beings arrived long after these creatures populated the Himalaya" wouldn't be correct, apart from being highly racist in dismissing treasures of ancient Indian knowledge.

................................................................................................

"At the confluence of the Indus and Gilgit rivers lies the ‘Fulcrum of Asia’ where the northwestern extremities of the Himalaya face off against opposing ranges of the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush. Much older than the mountains it divides, the turgid, glacier-fed current of the Indus has its source a thousand kilometres away in Tibet. All around us is crushing evidence of geological trauma, where the clash of continents has levered up some of the highest peaks in the world. Despite neat lines on survey maps, separating distinct regions, the mountains seem to merge into each other ... "

How do they prove there was this river in existence before Himalaya rose, before India was no longer separated from Asia by an Ocean? It makes no sense whatsoever. The river's course follows the curve of the thrust of India lifting Himalaya, including the separated or partitioned ranges thereof, certainly those named Kun Lun and Karakoram; and perhaps Hindu Kush as well.

................................................................................................

"Deosai means ‘place of the gods’ in the Shina language, which is spoken throughout much of this region. As Didar explains, Shina is Sanskrit-based unlike the Balti language, which is closer to Tibetan, and Burushaski, the mother tongue of Hunza that has no ties to any other linguistic heritage. Though Islam predominates throughout Pakistan and the people of Gilgit–Baltistan are mostly Shias and Ismailis, there are remnants of ancient faiths dating back to periods before Muslim conquest. Folktales of djinns and fairies, giants and animistic sprites, are woven into narratives of traditional communities like the Gujjar shepherds who bring their herds to Deosai each summer. Didar speaks about village shamans in Hunza who still dance to the beat of drums and inhale juniper smoke to induce a trance. Though mosques remain the primary place of prayer, where mullahs preach monotheistic sermons, here in the upper reaches of the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush, wandering ghosts of ancient gods still haunt the land."

Insulting faiths indigenous to India seems to be considered a nonsequitur by Abrahamic-II, Abrahamic-III and Abrahamic-IV, equally. Except when it's considered a cheap entertainment combined with a sacred duty entrusted to them by their single gods.

For heaven's sake! "wandering ghosts of ancient gods still haunt the land."????? Because Abrahamic gods are what, exactly? Infant, newborn? Moloch, Baal, Pan?

When do they plan to realise, the idiots, that destruction of a temple is not murder of God any more than spitting at Sun at midday is humiliation of Sun - or someone chopping another person's photograph into shreds has murdered that person.

One shudders to imagine what result would a parallel and equal insult of their faith might bring on the heads of Alter clan.

"Heading back to camp, we pick our way through the marshy wetlands, jumping from one tussock to the next. Suddenly, Sher Muhammad gestures to our left and far off on the broad hump of a distant meadow, we see another bear running full tilt. With binoculars, I follow his progress up the sunlit slope. He blunders along at a rapid gait, as if chasing his own shadow uphill.

"After packing up our tents and other gear, we drive westward across the plateau, scanning the open terrain for any signs of life. Except for a few raptors and gulls, the broad expanse of sky and meadows remains empty. With the end of summer, whatever flocks of sheep and goats are still permitted to graze here have left. Unlike the forests of the Eastern Himalaya, which support a wide diversity of species, these bleak grasslands contain only a limited population of creatures. Though we have been fortunate enough to see brown bears, I can’t help but feel that there should be more wildlife present."

Alter refrains here from thinking it through logically, lest he accuse a fellow Abrahamic-III culture, and allow himself to realise superiority of indigenous culture and creeds of India that do not allow humans freedom to take life by ascribing superiority to monotheism with no logic or evidence thereof.

"At one time argali and urial sheep must have fed on these pastures and perhaps even musk deer and hangul, emerging out of the lower forests. Their presence would have attracted wolves and snow leopards, so rarely seen these days. Even though the Pakistan Army is stationed out of sight, the militarization of this region has had a significant impact. Pakistani officers, shooting for meat and sport, have wiped out argali in the Khunjerab National Park and it is likely that many of the ungulates that would have come up to Deosai in summer have suffered collateral damage in the decades-long battle over Kashmir."

Here, Alter is pointing finger at India, he thinks subtly. But Kashmir would have joined Pakistan as first choice has Jinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan not sounded pompous and arrogant to Sheikh Abdullah, who was inclined to socialist democracy, while the two were inclined towards feudal privileges for landlords. He returned without giving them Kashmir, against his first inclination, having been not only ignore and humiliated but severely disappointed.

Later, Kashmir signed accession to India out of desperation after Pakistan attacked, looting and raping on their way to the capital Srinagar. They might have got there sooner if they had not stopped to rape and murder nuns. If Jawaharlal Nehru had listened to his cabinet and military instead of the pro-muslim, pro-paki Brits, Kashmir conflict wouldn't exist.

But if Pakistan hadn't attacked in the first place, Kashmir would have been independent. So would Baluchistan. Jinnah attacked them, one after another, forcing accession, and never giving citizenship rights. Punjab rules everything roughshod out in pak, with others fed up and looking to separate.

Face it, Alter, a barbaric primitive culture that prizes numbers killed as evidence of manhood isn't conducive to either life or civilisation.

................................................................................................

"After Deosai was declared a national park in 1993, many of the shepherds were moved out and even the military surrendered this territory to conservationists. Though the Pakistan Army used to operate throughout the plateau, which extends to the Line of Actual Control, harsh conditions in winter meant that there was little strategic value in building army installations here. Though we come upon several police posts, as well as a convoy of United Nations military observers, who monitor the volatile ceasefire between Pakistan and India, there are no army vehicles or troops in sight."

Easily fooled, Alter, because they are Abrahamic-III and he's Abrahamic-II? Or was it colour?

Is he unaware of facts known about Pakistan soldiers sent to fight in what Europe would call pajamas, pretending to be 'tribals' or local, in war after war, jihadist attacks, over and over? If families of the decimated Northern Light Infantry hadn't set up a cacophony for bodies of their sons, Pakistan were never going to admit Kargil attack involved them at all!

................................................................................................

Alter describes, extensively, some details of religious practices and history thereof, of Bhutan, which he must be certain must shock Western readership of this; that this makes it a biased account doesn't seem to bother him, nor the fact that equally or far more shocking details about Abrahamic-II or Abrahamic-III, while publicly known and admitted by the respective creeds, if mentioned by others, draw not merely death threats - but, one, outcry internationally for execution of one who mentions the said known detail; and two, in absence of possibility of making such a demand, murders of the particular person or arbitrary targets in the respective office, organisation, city, and in general anywhere around the world of anyone associated in any way whatsoever.

But offending Buddhists, Hindus, et al, seems to be a duty an Abrahamic must obey, diktats thereof prescribed seemingly as a necessary duty an Abrahamic must perform, and they fo, at least Alter does, since it invites no danger as a consequence, as it would were the insult offered a later Abrahamic creed.

Alter ends chapter by accusing Hindus and India of veneration cows while unfair treatment meted out to buffalo for no fault of the species, and of demonisation thereof.

He refrains from comparative analysis regarding the general views held of, and treatment meted out to, diverse species in Western sphere.

Restaurants serving horsemeat may certainly cause a scandal and lose business in US if discovered, but it could get far worse. So could anyone discovered eating anything sold as pet be not only forced to undergo psychiatric treatment but be imprisoned or worse, apart from social ostracism.

Not too long ago, horse thieves were legally executed in US.

But West not only refuses to comprehend importance of cattle for a rural agrarian poor society, there's a propaganda against India and Hindus for the veneration thereof, and it takes time to see it in proper light for Hindus to understand why.

There's nothing natural about eating cows and not respecting them, while regarding horse and dog as man's vital partners. This is part of a cold Nordic hunting society thinking.

That they don't have brains or hearts to understand the far more vital importance of cows and oxen and bulls for poor rural tropical agrarian India, is bad enough. But that's not all.

It's about a scene in old testament, about Moses thundering, and instilling a horror of worship of calf. And about Abrahamic-II and Abrahamic-III, even Abrahamic-IV forcing conversion of the world to their own view, culture, cuisine and couture, regardless of land, weather and climate, nature thereof or any other consideration.

As for buffalo, just because Alter sees nothing of misbehavior from one, he presumes that any other attitude is unreasonable, however ancient a culture which holds it.

There's the arrogance of racism that West targets India with - ours is readon, ours is faith, any alternative that India has is unreasonable superstition, is the underlying presumption. It has as little basis as calling Samudra Manthan legend 'myth'.

................................................................................................

"The lamas of Pemayangtse Monastery in Pelling believe that under the surface of a landscape lies another world of even greater beauty and spiritual significance. ... "

That would be unlikely to be unique to them, but far more likely to be a concept shared by at least Tibetan, if not all, Buddhists outside India, at least those to East. In India, Buddha was another of great men who achieved spiritually great level, and his vision is since part of India's thinking, but not separate.

" ... They consider the high meadows of Dzongri a beyul or hidden paradise, like Shambala. Every monsoon, around the full moon in August, they hold sacred ceremonies in the monastery’s temple to worship the mountain deity, Kanchenjunga. Simultaneously, a delegation of monks are dispatched to Dzongri, where they sit in meditation. One of the lamas told us they were guided by a wild yak. Synchronized to the seasons these auspicious rites are perfumed with the fragrant smoke of burning juniper and rhododendrons. ... "

One has shivers as one reads of that. But then, Alter must spoil it.

" ... In all their colourful fertility, the meadows reveal a landscape of eternal, organic bliss. ... "

Alter does see "fertility" everywhere, because it's East, even in monks' meditation on top of a mountain, above vegetation! Does spirituality for a Westerner require a hot barren desert, and Romans leading someone innocent to gallows? Apparently!

" ... The austerities and penance of the monks aspire to visions of this celestial realm and as the lamas sit in meditation, their consciousness opens like the petals of rhododendrons blooming in the mist."

There he goes again, diminishing them! They sit in meditation at the top if a peak in Himalaya, remote, under skies open and little obstructing their view of heavens, but to him, their consciousness isn't opening to encompass the universe, only "like the petals of rhododendrons blooming in the mist."!

Is he even aware of his racism?

And he must repeat it, just in case! So he reduces, not only the monks in meditation, but the humongous peaks of Himalaya reaching towards heavens - and higher than anywhere else, too - to floor of the forest he's treading under his boots.

" ... Higher up, when the clouds separate, the forbidding cliffs of a nearby mountain called Black Kabru rise above the meadows and guard the white-capped ranges beyond, including Kanchenjunga. Here is a landscape full of symbols that pollinate a spiritual imagination. Like an invisible network of fungal fibres, through which a forest or meadow communicates, hidden layers of reality connect us to a secret web of floral dreams."

Hubris, thy name is West.

................................................................................................

"While I gave up hunting in my early twenties, I can still understand the excitement of the chase and the challenges of stalking wild animals across mountainous terrain. However, there is something contrived and perverse about these commercial shoots in which wealthy foreigners are guided within range of well-endowed trophies, simply to line up a crosshairs and pull a trigger. Most hunters pride themselves on a code of sportsmanship but in this case the odds are clearly stacked against the unfortunate ibex or markhor. Several organizations in America and Europe, such as the Safari Club and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, promote the hunting of rare animals, mostly to foster competitive bragging rights amongst their members. While they do support certain conservation initiatives, the driving motivation behind these institutions is always the preservation of the hunter rather than the hunted.

"Though I try to set my scepticism aside, it is difficult to reconcile images of privileged white hunters gloating over the carcasses of endangered Himalayan mammals. Trophy hunting may generate much-needed funds for conservation in places like northern Pakistan, but this strategy seems to be a short-sighted option based on questionable compromises rather than a sustainable long-term solution. While poverty alleviation, funded through regulated culling of ageing wildlife, may seem to be a valid case of the ends justifying the means, the fundamental ethics are not so easy to balance. The core problem with this approach is that it is motivated by human arrogance and greed. If these hunters really wanted to protect rare animals they could easily donate the bounties they pay to the local communities without collecting trophies in return. And if they still felt a pressing need to end the lives of wild creatures there is nothing to stop them from shooting white-tailed deer or other plentiful species in their own backyards.

"Conservation must be grounded in a moral sense of responsibility and stewardship towards nature. So long as we continue to consider ibex and markhor fair targets for commercial bloodsport and people profit from their destruction there can be no lasting solution. Pragmatism is certainly a good thing but when it comes to our relationship with other species it must be linked to compassion and cannot surrender to the convoluted calculus of persuasive dollars."

Alter was probably, repeatedly, warned off by various priests, including missionaries, against "going native", and by Brits, about 'losing caste'. Hence the deliberate and repeated insults to indigenous culture and faiths of India, hence the see.ingly unquestioning sympathy with a supposedly nation with a card-carrying Abrahamic-III stance, without asking any questions about just why they must depend on handouts.

And yet, in that last paragraph above, one detects alter having gone sentimental with compassion for life! India wins.

................................................................................................

"The grand architecture of the dzong with its huge walls of rammed earth and stone convey a sense of historic solidity while the tiered rooftops with gilded finials add elements of lightness to the structure. Ameeta and I cross a wooden, cantilevered bridge and then climb a steep staircase to pass through the main gates into a spacious, flagstone courtyard with a spreading ficus tree at one end. Bare, whitewashed walls contrast with heavily decorated balconies and windows. Monks in maroon robes pass by silently, while from an inner sanctum there is the sound of drumming and chanting, as mynas chatter in the branches of the tree.

"Not only does Buddhism preach the protection of all forms of life but it also employs animals, birds, plants and trees in its proverbs and parables. Inside the main sanctuary of Punakha Dzong the walls are painted with bright murals depicting episodes from Gautama Buddha’s life, including his mother’s dream of a white elephant that signalled his divine conception. Each of the four critical moments in the Buddha’s earthly existence occurred beneath the sheltering branches of trees. He was born in the shade of a sal tree in Lumbini. He received enlightenment under a pipal tree in Bodh Gaya. He preached his first sermon in a forested grove at Sarnath. And, in the end, he died beneath two sal trees in Kushinagar.

"One of the most popular jatakas or teaching tales that also appears in the murals at Punakha is ‘the story of four friends’. As Tandin recounts this parable, four wild creatures contributed to the propagation of a fruit tree: the bird ate the seed and then dropped it on the ground; the hare dug up the soil and buried it; the monkey fertilized it with his dung; and the elephant sprayed water on the seed with his trunk and stood guard until the tree grew tall and healthy. Years later, in order to pluck the fruit from the high branches, the four friends had to collaborate once again. Illustrating this jataka is the image of an elephant with a monkey, hare and bird perched on each others’ backs. As Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, one of the queen mothers of Bhutan, elaborates in her memoir, Treasures of the Thunder Dragon, ‘The fable underlines the virtue of cooperation, and the connections and interdependence between all creatures great and small, and all the elements, in nature’s cycle.’ She goes on to emphasize how these stories have promoted a conservation ethic. ‘A unique aspect of Buddhism in Bhutan,’ she writes, ‘is that it has absorbed many practices from the earlier Bon religion and its strong animist beliefs, which imbue not just trees and forests, but also mountains, rivers, lakes, rocks, caves and other natural formations with divinity.’"

................................................................................................

Within India and her neighbourhood, such migrations aren't unusual, and if visiting back isn't impossible, it's not a loss but a gradual acclimatisation. This isn't limited to residents of Himalaya.

Nor is there any reason to assume that every Hindu living in Himalaya is from somewhere else. Even Shiva and Parvati were not first of the Hindu culture residents of Himalaya, far from it.

There they go again, belittling the great epics!

By logic of Alter one should deduce that West loved and cherished Picasso because their faces looked like his paintings!

Or was that there a not too subtle implication there of a presumption that Himalaya belongs elsewhere, India must be only below?

Fie, Alter! How false can West get!

................................................................................................

"The merchandizing of Sherpa identity is only natural, for trading has always been in their blood and Namche Bazaar has served for centuries as a centre of Himalayan commerce. While some might argue that the people of Solu-Khumbu have sold out to Western demands, this was the most obvious route leading from poverty and deprivation to self-sustaining sources of income.

"Nonetheless, Namche’s hustle and hype can be disorienting. Chuldim had warned me, ‘It’s just like Thamel, in Kathmandu. You can buy anything here.’ Aside from trekking gear shops, art galleries sell oil paintings of Everest, baristas offer mocha cappuccinos, and an Irish pub serves Khumbu Kolsch, Sherpa Breweries’ craft beer as well as Khukri Rum. Street vendors display Tibetan handicrafts and cheap souvenirs, while everything from a Thai foot massage to herbal smoothies is available for a price.

"More remarkable than the array of products on sale in Namche is the fact that virtually all these items were carried up here by porters. No motor road connects Khumbu with the rest of Nepal and except for a couple of Russian-made cargo helicopters that deliver construction materials and cooking gas cylinders, every can of Coke or Red Bull has been transported on someone’s back. Trains of mules and yaks haul supplies, including bags of rice and lentils, but the predominant mode of transport remains manpower.

"Porters engaged by trekking companies shoulder a maximum of 30 kilograms each, which usually amounts to two clients’ duffel bags. Yaks and mules are loaded with no more than 60 kilograms. But the strongest porters often carry triple loads, up to 90-100 kilograms, at least 30 per cent more than their own body weight. To secure and balance these impossible loads, they use triangular bamboo frames, to which they lash crates of beer and boxes of mango juice, bags of sugar and powdered milk, or whatever else must be delivered. Steel girders for building new lodges and even refrigerators travel on the backs of these men.

"‘Porters are paid by weight,’ Chuldim explains. ‘The current rate, from Lukla to Namche, is sixty rupees per kilo.’

"This means that for a gruelling 14-kilometre walk uphill, which takes at least a day, a porter can earn as much as 5,400 rupees. In the abstract, that is a considerable amount, given low wages in Nepal, but anyone who has watched these men struggling up the steep switchbacks to Namche will realize it is an inhuman effort. Tendons and muscles in the porters’ necks and shoulders strain to hold the load steady on slippery, uneven ground. Every few bends in the path, they stop to rest their burden on crude wooden supports. Manual labour throughout the Himalaya is a harsh, inequitable reality, but nowhere else do human beings force their bodies to such backbreaking extremes."

Shouldn't an 'and' replace that 'but'?

................................................................................................

"Originally, Sherpas made their reputations hauling loads up mountains like Everest and earned acclaim for their feats of endurance at high altitudes. But part of the change that has overtaken this region and the people of Solu-Khumbu is that those who bear the heaviest burdens are no longer Sherpas but poorer men, from lower elevations and other districts, particularly the less privileged Tamangs.

"While some of the early European mountaineers entertained a self-serving impression that Sherpas chose to climb for the sheer pleasure of alpine adventure and they would happily carry loads for no wages at all, Ortner makes it clear that this absurd, idealized misconception was anything but the truth. As hierarchies within expeditions became established, Sherpa Sirdars contracted other porters and the first thing the men from Solu-Khumbu did was lighten their loads, except when climbing at high altitudes. This should come as no surprise. In virtually every occupation there is a tendency to pass off the most onerous tasks to younger, poorly paid workers. The Sherpas are no different ... "

"Despite their obvious and desperate need for work, both Tenzing and Ang Tharkay make it clear in their memoirs that they were looking for something more in their relationships with foreign climbers than simply wages or letters of recommendation. Like anyone else, they also wanted equality and respect. On early expeditions there were ‘sahibs’ and ‘coolies’, colonial terms that became common usage in most of the early published accounts of mountaineering. Yet, from the beginning, Sherpas negotiated a rise in rank, elevating themselves to a position that was certainly lower than a ‘sahib’ but considerably higher than a ‘coolie’. As consciously and as skilfully as they cut steps in the ice and fixed ropes to ascend the mountains, Sherpas also ensured their own incremental elevation from the ranks of menial day labourers to trusted companions and mountain guides. By the 1970s, according to Ortner, expedition terminology gradually changed so that the foreign ‘sahibs’ were being referred to as ‘members’ of an expedition while virtually nobody was using the derogatory expression, ‘coolie’.

"Both Ang Tharkay and Tenzing Norgay were conscious of their ambiguous rank within European expeditions, even as they became ‘sirdars’ or Sherpa leaders. They appreciated the acceptance and bonhomie of the French and Swiss mountaineers who were not as class-conscious as the British. Tenzing explains:

"With the Swiss and the French I had been treated as a comrade, an equal, in a way that is not possible for the British. They are kind men; they are brave, they are fair and just, always. But always, too, there is a line between them and the outsider, between sahib and employee, and to such Easterners as we Sherpas, who have experienced the world of no-line, this can be a difficulty and a problem."

................................................................................................

"Plenty of disagreements arose between Sherpas and sahibs, even on early expeditions, when strikes occurred and discord erupted at base camp or above. Most mountaineering books gloss over these disputes with the moderation of hindsight but the Sherpas themselves seldom forgot the slights and disrespect. The successful 1953 Everest expedition, in particular, began on an acrimonious note when Sherpas were housed in an empty garage in Kathmandu, without a toilet. Their response was to urinate on the British embassy walls. Colonel John Hunt, an infantry officer who led this expedition, stuck to protocol and didn’t fraternize with the Sherpas. After returning to Kathmandu, following his triumphant climb to the summit of Everest, Tenzing refused to attend a celebratory function at the embassy because the staff had earlier turned him away and treated him with disdain.

"Chuldim’s career reflects a fairly typical trajectory. Born in 1961, his first employment, at the age of twenty-four, was on the 1985 Norwegian Everest expedition. He began as a porter then gradually worked his way up the ladder until he was providing high altitude support for summit parties. Most of his climbing has been on Everest. While he summited ‘only twice’ Chuldim ascended at least a dozen times from every side, including multiple attempts from the North Col and Kangshung Face. He worked for British, American, Chilean and Japanese teams. Towards the end of his career, he was employed on a couple of commercial expeditions. In addition to Everest, Chuldim has climbed on Makalu, Annapurna III and Hungchchi. When I asked him what his most difficult expedition had been, he said, ‘the Kangshung Face, which is very exposed and vulnerable to avalanches’. In 2005, after twenty years of climbing, he finally quit because his wife didn’t want him to continue. Over the years, he has known a number of Sherpas who lost their lives on the mountains and acknowledges that he is fortunate to be among the survivors. For a while, he worked for Nepal’s first trekking agency, Mountain Travels, as a guide before setting up his own lodge."

"‘Many times, when someone books a trek, they are told that a Sherpa will be leading their group,’ Chuldim says with a cynical smile. ‘Foreigners ask for Sherpa guides and tour companies promise them. But then, a week before the trek, the travel agent writes to say that the Sherpa is sick or has been called away for family reasons. Sometimes, even Chhetris and Bahuns just call themselves Sherpas and the foreigners can’t tell the difference.’

"Another complaint that Chuldim repeated more than once was the lack of government support for the people of Khumjung and Khunde. ‘The politicians come by helicopter and promise a lot, but nothing happens,’ he said. ‘In 2015, the earthquake did a lot of damage and there were huge cracks in our walls. We were even afraid to sleep indoors and asked the government for help but they gave us nothing. We had to rebuild our houses ourselves.’

"Though Namche has several government offices, there remains a sense of isolation from the rest of the country. On the other hand, compared to many places in Nepal, Solu-Khumbu appears to be thriving and probably needs fewer handouts of development funds than poorer regions, where tourism does not provide jobs or investment."

"The walk from Namche to Khumjung takes less than two hours but the contrasts between the two settlements are much greater than the distance that separates them. Khunde and Khumjung have several lodges but the two villages remain agrarian communities, where potatoes and buckwheat are the main crops grown in a single, short season. Yaks were once an important part of the economy but today the most valuable product is their dung, which is used for fuel. All over the hills surrounding the village young children and older people scour the hillside for yak droppings, which are then flattened and dried into disc-shaped cakes. Wood is scarce because of the creation of Sagarmatha National Park. Villagers are only allowed to gather firewood for ten days of the year and each household is restricted to two loads a day. Park authorities also rotate the areas of forest where they are allowed to cut dead branches and trees, so they often have to haul the wood from 8 or 10 kilometres away."

"Later in the afternoon, Kinju sends Tsering Tashi off for private tuition.

"‘To make sure he doesn’t forget what he learned at school,’ says Chuldim. ‘My elder son, in Mumbai, has a daughter the same age. He keeps trying to get me to send Tsering Tashi to live with them, but we don’t want him to go right now. He needs to stay in Khumjung for a while and understand that this is home.’

"‘Do you think he will become a climber like you?’ I ask.

"Chuldim shakes his head and glances at Kinju, suggesting that his mother would prefer he followed a safer, more secure occupation. There seems little doubt in either parents’ minds that for Tsering Tashi, a successful future lies somewhere outside the Khumbu Valley. On the walls of the lodge are pictures of Chuldim standing on the summit of Everest and other images of the high Himalaya but these seem part of a past existence, a proud but precarious legacy that is unlikely to be passed down to the next generation."

................................................................................................

" ... surrounding mountains are lit up with moonlight rather than the first aura of dawn. Sunrise is still an hour away. Though the moon is only half-full, it is bright enough to illuminate the entire valley, decanting its milky luminescence over the encircling ring of peaks. Immediately in front of us rises the frosted profile of Pumori, its snow-plastered summit reflecting a lunar glow. Below this frozen tower, where converging ridgelines fold into shadows, I can see the dark pyramid of Kala Patthar, our destination. A straggling procession of headlamps is already moving up the steep slope ahead of us, as groups of trekkers set off to get a daybreak view of Everest.

"The dry lakebed at Gorakshep looks like a salt flat in the moonlight, so bright I switch off my headlamp as Chuldim and I head across. The temperature is well below freezing and the rocks are rimed with frost. Thankfully, the sky is perfectly clear and the persistent clouds that stalked us all week have finally vanished."

" ... The altitude at Kala Patthar is 5,643 metres above sea level, high enough for me to feel the lack of oxygen in the air, though I remind myself that the top of Everest is still another 3,205 metres above us. As we continue to ascend towards Kala Patthar, the summit and South-West Face gradually come into view. Stark white streaks of snow crease the mountain’s brow while the exposed rocks are much darker than the sky. No stars are visible though Venus punctuates the night with a single laser-like bead. More than any of the other mountains, including Everest, Nuptse dominates the scene, caked with glaciers on its lower slopes and rising to a sharp, uneven cone that hides Lhotse from view.

"Time seems to have stopped, arrested in this early hour as fading moonlight seeps into a brightening dawn. For a while it is hard to tell whether night has ended or day has begun. When we finally reach the top of Kala Patthar, thirty or more people are clambering about on a heap of rocks along the crest of the ridge, trying to get the best seats in the house. Instead of competing for the highest perch, I move across to a narrow ledge, where tilted slabs of rock form an exposed balcony facing east. My fingers are cold but the rest of me is still warm from the climb and I have come prepared, wearing several layers. Chuldim, however, has only a light jacket and no gloves. When I suggest he return to the lodge, he seems relieved and gladly heads back down the trail."

" ... Stray wisps of windblown snow, like strands of lint on the upper slopes of Everest, catch the first light along the mountain’s rim. Faint streaks of sunbeams angle off the ridges, forming a pale chevron in the rarified atmosphere. ... Over my right shoulder I can see the opaque moon, like a misshapen pearl, disappearing in the west. ... "

"Minutes later, Pumori catches fire, its icy crown turning gold. Changtse, which stands beyond the border in Tibet and connects with the North Col of Everest, is the next peak to ignite, its eastern slopes kindled by the rising sun, still hidden behind the Mahalangur Range. Soon afterwards, off to the south, Ama Dablam is aflame, its tapered summit like the burning wick on a butter lamp. Reaching for my camera, I try to capture each moment, before realizing that the sky behind Everest is noticeably brighter."

................................................................................................

" ... Thok La, just below the snout of the Khumbu Glacier. This rocky meadow rimmed with glacial debris has become a memorial site for Sherpas and foreign climbers killed on Everest."

"The memorials at Thok La have a melancholy quality, partly because of the number of cairns as well as the empty, windswept landscape. Most of the dead are men from these mountains who gave their lives in support of foreign adventurers. Their sacrifices underscore the dangers of mountaineering but also serve as a testimony to their community, whose ancestors had no quarrels with these peaks and no ambitions to reach their summits. Yet, the fatal motives of European and other climbers sealed their destiny as Sherpas sought to make a living out of scaling forbidden heights. Each winter, the harsh winds and weather eat away at the cairns, just as they do with the mountains, eroding the memory of men who dared to risk their lives for lonely, tragic quests."

................................................................................................

"Everest was Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843. He began his career with the East India Company at the age of sixteen and soon joined the Great Trigonometrical Survey, started by William Lambton in 1802. Following Lambton’s death in 1823, Everest took over as superintendent and carried on measuring and mapping the Great Arc that extended like triangulated vertebrae along the spine of India from Cape Comorin to the Himalayan foothills. ... "

Is it a secret readership that's intended to be haven a coded message here, what with terminology such as "Great Arc that extended like triangulated vertebrae along the spine of India from Cape Comorin to the Himalayan foothills'? What 'Great Arc that extended like triangulated vertebrae along the spine of India from Cape Comorin to the Himalayan foothills'? There certainly is no mountain range that fits the description 'spine of India from Cape Comorin to the Himalayan foothills', and the "Great Arc' can only be Himalaya, but it's along a shoulder, not 'spine'.

Googling 'Great Arc' results in sites about the survey, including Wikipedia, but not about any explanation of the phrase.

" ... Between 1833 and 1843, George Everest lived at Park Estate in Mussoorie. Also known as Hathi Paon (elephant’s foot) the area around Everest House is a forested estate to the west of the main town. Rumour and folklore have promoted whispers that Everest built an adjacent structure called the ‘bibighar’ where he kept his ‘native concubines’ but this story seems unlikely for the surveyor general seems to have spent all his waking hours either working with his theodolites or sick in bed with malaria and other diseases. ... "

Alter is speedy in denying rumours about a fellow of his race, but just as careful casting aspersions against, and badmouthing freely, a non-abrahmic of India, Bhutan or Nepal.

Is it about harvesting souls?

Notice that nobody exerts pressure to channel a child or a student into say, winning a Nobel prize in physics; but social pressure, including billions spent in advertising, definitely is exercised to push peer or youth to smoke, drink, or worse. In case of females, the same exercise is applied towards getting them to use all energy to catch or hook after and thereafter spend energy lifelong into housekeeping, fashion and cosmetic products. And that's in most developed lands of West.

So what does energy, billions and pressure including lies and guilt in speech and writings and publications, to push Abrahamic-II, Abrahamic-III and Abrahamic-IV, say about abrahmic creeds?

About Everest, surely a male who is single or a grass widower for decades together may have, when thousands of miles away from his own society, had the sort of establishment that he saw rich - including his own race - and royals keep in India, and European migrants did tend to copy royals of India in matters that could be kept discreet. If there were rumours about his separate establishment for a harem, he was copying a nawab, perhaps one he'd met?

" ... Five kilometres to the north-west, below the nearby summit of Benog Tibba, lie the remains of an observatory Everest built, overlooking the snow peaks of Garhwal.

"Towards the end of his career, Everest was forced to shift his office and residence 30 kilometres downhill to Dehradun where the Survey of India headquarters still stand. John Keay’s The Great Arc chronicles the exploits of British surveyors and recounts how Everest joined the survey as a young lieutenant. He was passionate about his duties but a difficult man, even at a young age, prickly and particular about everything from the precise length of a baseline to the pronunciation of his name. ... George Everest was a stickler for details and had little time for informality. When one of his fellow officers casually referred to him as a ‘compass-wallah’, Anglo-Indian slang for a surveryor, Everest became irate and insisted on an apology.

"The Doon School’s former headmaster and mountaineer, John Martyn, wrote a short account of Everest’s career for the Himalayan Journal in which he quotes Henry Lawrence as saying that Everest, ‘completed one of the most stupendous works in the whole history of science…a measurement exceeding all others as much in accuracy as in length’. ... "

Wasn't the actual work of measuring carried out by an Indian?

................................................................................................

" ... In October 2013, during one of the Mussoorie Writers Mountain Festivals, I had an opportunity to visit Everest House in the company of historian Shekhar Pathak, co-author of Pundit Nain Singh Rawat’s biography. Also with us was Loveraj Singh Dharamshaktu, a mountaineer from Kumaon, who has climbed to the summit of Everest seven times. Though I’ve been to Park Estate on a number of occasions, it was illuminating to see these colonial ruins through the eyes of two contemporary Himalayan explorers, one of whom has researched and written about the mountains throughout his academic career and the other who has ascended the highest peak on earth by various routes.

"Shekhar immediately recognized the significance of the site, pointing out: ‘This building should be restored and renovated. Anywhere else in the world it would be a historic monument that crowds of tourists would visit, not just because of George Everest himself but because of the Survey of India’s heritage.’"

Do crowds visit survey offices in US? Elvis Presley estate, yes. But survey memorials? Doubt it. Do people even care about Andrew Jackson, explorer, despite the biographical novel by the excellent Irving Stone? Majority of US population probably hasn't heard of Irving Stone, although they might, perhaps vaguely, know the name of Andrew Jackson - but only because schools in US do teach names of presidents, if little else.

"He admits the Great Arc was an overtly colonial enterprise that employed oppressive means, such as forced labour, to survey the length and breadth of the subcontinent. Nevertheless, Shekhar argues, ‘The Survey of India ultimately contributed to the greater body of human knowledge and our understanding of geography. It was started in 1767, only ten years after the battle of Plassey,’ in which the British East India Company’s army defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, to become the dominant colonial power in India. The fact that one of the first major projects of the British Raj was to map its future dominions shows how scientific exploration and cartography served as a driving force of empire."

Alter is hiding an obvious fact behind the verbosity here, by seemingly giving both sides - its that, having won one war in Bengal where brits entered, the supposedly trading corporation had every intention of ruling all of India as a colonial power, right from the word go. The survey was intended to help neither India nor abstract science or knowledge, but colonial rulers. It was an instrument of use for colonial empire.

That it employed Indian, local men, is admitted by Alter above. What he hides is that this did NOT consist only of labour carrying equipment and other necessities for the Brits, but included intelligent, learned employees who carried out the actual work of the survey especially including but not limited to, survey of Himalaya including measuring height of the tallest peak.

And it did have local names, not only in Tibet and Nepal, but in Sanskrit too. Chomolungma and Sagarmatha are subsequently acknowledged, but in keeping with Macaulay policy, the main name Gaurishankar is forgotten, except by poor students in India who first go to expensive western agenda ruled schools, convent or otherwise.

" ... Shekhar Pathak founded the People’s Association for Himalaya Area Research (PAHAR) ... Some of his early research was on the Coolie–Begar Movement, in which activists during the early twentieth century led a non-violent struggle against the institution of forced labour in the hills. Men from villages in Kumaon were coerced into serving as unpaid porters for the British authorities.

"‘A range of mountains in Tibet, stretching from the east of Pangong Lake across to Mount Kailas, used to be called the “Nain Singh Range” and his name appeared on maps until 1961,’ Shekhar tells me, ‘after which it was removed because the International Geographers Union felt that mountains shouldn’t be named after individuals.’

"Nevertheless, Everest’s name persists. When I ask Shekhar if he thinks it will ever be replaced by Chomolungma, he hesitates for a moment and then muses, ‘Probably not, but there’s nothing wrong with having several names, is there? That’s a more democratic approach. We also call it Sagarmatha in Nepali.’"

His omitting of the Sanskrit name has definite political overtones that are also in evidence in Alter mentioning his being part of award return brigade of 2015, one of the many fraudulent and mostly far more violent agitations by the opposition since 2014, but Alter evidently approves thereof, is he a key mentor of the urban naxals? Being a writer is as good a cover thereof as travelling in Himalaya for something far more ominous.

................................................................................................

"In 2012, Loveraj was part of an international ‘eco-expedition’ that climbed Everest with the objective of removing garbage off the mountain."

"Loveraj has climbed Everest from several directions including the North Face, above the Rongbuk Glacier, and the Kangshung Face, where he was injured in a rockfall. He has also summited other major peaks like Nanda Kot and Kanchenjunga, though he still feels that Everest is the ‘toughest challenge, especially the risks on the Khumbu Icefall and Lhotse Face’."

"Being one of India’s most successful mountaineers, Loveraj is an officer in the Border Security Force (BSF) and has received numerous awards including the Tenzing Norgay Award and a Padma Shri. His wife, Reena Kaushal Dharamshaktu, is also a mountaineer and the first Indian woman to ski to the South Pole."

Again, notice Alter giving more importance to anti-India politics, to disgusting details that would put off or hurt Hindus, and mention the more primary, important details about Loveraj and his wife, Reena Kaushal Dharamshaktu, both, only at last.

"Coming from the same area of the Himalaya as Pundit Nain Singh Rawat, Loveraj has carried on a tradition of exploration and adventure. He laughs, however, when I ask him which man he heard about first—Nain Singh or George Everest.

"‘Definitely, Everest,’ he admits. ‘When I was growing up, nobody spoke about Pundit Nain Singh, though he was a famous surveyor from our region. It was only much later, when he received recognition that we learned about all he had done.’ A statue of the Pundit now stands inside the gates of the Survey of India Headquarters in Dehradun, alongside a bust of Sir George Everest."

" ... Around the same time, the ruins of the observatory on Benog Tibba were dismantled to build a temple nearby."

Because British had never destroyed any temples in India, however ancient, revered, or sacred?

Including the attempted destruction of Konark, the building of a train station by destroying the Mumbadevi temple that gave the name Mumbai to the city, and who knows how many others?

That is apart from the loot of countless temple property including worshipped Deities, to sell in antique markets in West, or decorate museums and homes of Brits.

And stolen jewels from temples, which include Hope diamond.

................................................................................................

""My thoughts, my dreams, my whole life were nothing but the Mountains!… I climbed down a gully, crossed some boulders to the left, but soon found myself facing a vertical rock face, to climb which seemed to me a sheer impossibility. I was finding great difficulty now in keeping myself upright. I kept on sitting down on the rocks, wanting to go to sleep, overcome by a terrible feeling of lassitude. But I had to push on; the final prize glittered before me and some secret urge drove me on, its daemonic energy planting one foot ahead of the other, endlessly."

"Hermann Buhl’s ascent of Nanga Parbat in 1953 remains one of the most remarkable achievements in Himalayan mountaineering. Defying the conventional wisdom and siege tactics of the day, he set out from Camp 5 by himself to reach the summit and survived a forty-one hour ordeal that included standing overnight on a snow ledge. At a time when medical science still didn’t have a clear understanding of the effects of oxygen deprivation and extreme cold, he swallowed amphetamines called Pervitin, to keep himself going, and another drug, Padutin, which was supposed to increase circulation and protect him from frostbite. The pills made him hallucinate, adding to the disorientation caused by altitude, so that his descent from Nanga Parbat became a delusional nightmare out of which he only emerged after reaching Base Camp. Despite the Padutin, his feet were badly frostbitten and he had to be carried off the mountain. But Buhl’s photograph of his ice axe with a Tyrolese pennant, planted on the summit, proved that he’d been there."

Wonder if Mallory had left such a photograph on what's named Everest by West?

................................................................................................

"Aside from standing atop Nanga Parbat, the only way to get a complete sense of the enormous dimensions and complex structure of this mountain is to see it from the air. ... to Skardu follows the course of the Indus, circling to the west of the mountain, each of the three main faces come into view. To the south is the terrifying 4,600-metre wall of the Rupal Face bounded by the Mazeno Ridge, a crenellated rampart of ice and rock. On the other side of this barrier, along the western flank of the mountain, lies the Diamir Face, a huge trough of snow scored with aretes and glaciers. Turning north-east, the aircraft banks sharply as it crosses another buttress beyond which rises the North or Raikot Face (often misspelled Rakhiot) directly beneath the airplane’s wing. The main peak of Nanga Parbat (8,126 metres) sits atop the southern end of a summit ridge, trending roughly north to south, with broad snowfields to the east. This aerial view reveals both the tremendous scale and tortured features of the ninth highest mountain on earth, situated at the north-western extreme of the Himalayan arc.

"While flights to Skardu take forty-five minutes or less, driving back by road to Islamabad involves a journey of almost twenty hours because of the rugged terrain and twisting course of the Indus. The Karakoram Highway, built for Pakistan by the Chinese, is a breathtaking feat of engineering and provides a relatively smooth, two-lane surface even as it coils its way through gorges and across high passes. ... "

His tone of approval and admiration is as anti-India as, say, Nixon, only better toned down for a possible or a plausible camouflage as freedom of speech. Oneight wonder if Alter would approve equally of a superb space facility on Cuba built by USSR, or even only Russia?

Not likely.

It's not those who fight Confederate war re-enactment every year that support separatist movements in India, just as those shouting 'right to life' usually neither oppose nuclear weapons proliferation nor enforced abortions of Chinese second children.

................................................................................................

"Holt also reveals a darker, more damning side of Paul Bauer. In addition to being a well-organized and skilled mountain leader, whom Kenneth Mason praises, Bauer was clearly part of the Nazi regime and helped shape and steer German legends of mountaineering to promote the Third Reich. Hitler’s propaganda machine used sport and film as part of its efforts to justify anti-Semitic and other racist doctrines. Movies made about the Himalaya during the 1930s clearly underscored this theme like Nanga Parbat: Ein Kampfbericht der Deutschen Himalaja-Expedition 1934 (A Frontline Report on the German Himalaya Expedition of 1934). Under Hitler, the German Mountaineering Association was an instrument of the state and Bauer faithfully carried out Nazi orders.

"The censorship of G. O. Dyhrenfurth’s film Der Dämon des Himalaya (Demon of the Himalaya) illustrates this point. Following his 1930 expedition to Kanchenjunga, Dyhrenfurth had made a successful documentary, Himatschal: Der Thron der Götter, released in 1931. Inspired by the 1934 catastrophe, Dyhrenfurth conflated the mythology of Kanchenjunga, its deities and demonic creatures, with the dangerous terrain and monsoon storms on Nanga Parbat. Der Dämon des Himalaya was a feature film, starring Gustav Diessl, which dramatized the horrors and heroics of mountaineering. It was also littered with racist stereotypes, including a Yeti-like Sherpa who repeatedly ogles the German heroine played by Erika Dannhoff. The rest of the Sherpas are depicted as childish elves who touch the Europeans’ feet before setting off up the mountain."

How does that square with the words of Sherpas, quoted earlier by Alter, where they said that Swiss, German and French climbers had not treated the Sherpas as lesser, but British, however decent and just otherwise, always did?

................................................................................................

"Der Dämon des Himalaya was not well received. Reviewers complained it was too melodramatic, though they praised the cinematography. Within the German mountaineering fraternity, Dyhrenfurth’s fictional account of the Nanga Parbat expeditions elicited scorn and derision. They saw it as a cheap, perverse exploitation of a noble, national crusade. Of course, it didn’t help that Dyhrenfurth was Jewish.

"As an example of the kind of liberties the director took, there is a climactic scene in which the hero, Dr Wille (an obvious nod to Willy Merkl), confronts the demon, high on the mountain. In a surreal sequence with shadowy special effects he is hurled off the ridge and tumbles headlong down the glacier into a Tibetan monastery full of chanting monks, where he finally breathes his last."

It's unclear who is hurled, but one assumes it wasn't the German; so it's demonizing Asia, Buddhism, and perhaps Buddha as well.

Disgusting.

Besides, unlike an Abrahamic place of worship, a Buddhist monastery wouldn't need to take into consideration needs of being accessible, but on the contrary, would be at the top or thereabouts, and certainly not at the bottom of a glacier.

"Scenes like this offended Bauer’s sense of authentic alpine adventure but also outraged his conviction in the national cause. Under the Nazis, Paul Bauer had been promoted head of the Mountaineering Department in the German Association for Sports. In this capacity he petitioned the Reich Film Office to ban Dyhrenfurth’s film. His reasoning: ‘At this point in time in the Third Reich, when the fundamental law of nations clearly identifies the Jews, and international Jewry, as the opponents of Nazi Germany, we should have no patience for Jewish business people who try to bring their shady deals into the Reich; these Jewish businessmen are clearly exploiting the current interest in faraway mountains.’"

................................................................................................

"Following two world wars in the twentieth century, an uneasy sense of disillusionment and alienation with modernity extended across the developed world and found particular resonance in the countries of Eastern Europe ruled by communist regimes. Bernadette McDonald’s books on Polish and Yugoslavian mountaineers show how a disenchantment with industrialized development and socialist autocracies led a large number of climbers from Soviet Bloc countries to project their aspirations and ideals onto Himalayan landscapes. In particular, McDonald’s descriptions of Polish climbers roping up to earn a living by painting factory smokestacks, in order to save enough money to finance expeditions in Nepal, show how they exploited limited resources and opportunities to realize their dreams. Unlike well-funded climbers from countries like Britain, America or Japan, East European mountaineers had to rely on subversive, entrepreneurial means of support. Because of a shortage of foreign currency, Polish climbers smuggled sausages, Bohemian crystal, chewing gum and alcohol overland to South Asia, in order to garner enough funds once they reached Kathmandu to pay for climbing permits, porters and other expenses. As repressive regimes in Poland and elsewhere began to lose power, McDonald argues that mountaineering was at the forefront of resistance. ‘Success in the mountains and the resulting optimism amongst Polish climbers reflected the growing popularity and influence of the Solidarity movement. Nothing seemed impossible as individual citizens rediscovered their potential; Polish climbers were ample proof of that.’"

They do seek to camouflage obvious by verbosity instead, imagining it'd be respectable. It's obvious that one might wish to escape a suffocating, repressive regime. But obviously Chinese cannot, nor could Tibetan subjects, escape Chinese repressive regime.

East European and Russian people managing it by aspiring to climb Himalaya makes their travails sound like being tied with thick ropes of jute instead of iron gripped barbed wires combined with bamboo cages of the other.

It's easy to 'free' Afghanistan from USSR, since USSR were only helping Afghanistan by invitation, against jihadists. Helping Tibetans and Tibet, US dare not pronounce, not even prior to nuclear capabilities of China.

Easy to 'help' Ukraine. Anyone helping the archbishop Romero and the nuns of Central and South America? Or those in paki control? Anyone dare free Afghanistan now, from jihadists? Free the Afghan women aspiring to education and to work, to rights of free speech and vote? Rights of Afghan children to food, and Afghan men to protect their families from jihadists?

Easy to screech about Kashmir, but try a whisper about rights of Kashgar if you dare.

Anyone?

Or even victims of a far weaker regime, say the Baloch, the Shia, the Ahmediya and the Hazara, the poor native residents of North Kashmir in Gilgit and Baltistan and pok, or those of Sindh?

................................................................................................

"In Alpine Warriors, Bernadette McDonald quotes Nejc Zaplotnik, whose book Pot (The Path) is a cult manifesto of Slovenian mountaineering that describes a mystical connection with high places:

"" ... you are just a part of desolate valleys, green meadows, broken glaciers, that you are part of the rushing river and the black, silver-strewn sky. This is when you become aware that these lonely paths keep drawing you back to the highest peaks, where the sky and Earth meet amidst the howling wind."

" ... On his first Himalayan expedition to Kanchenjunga, he was struck not only by the ethereal splendour of the great mountain they sought but also the semi-tropical abundance of the jungles en route to Base Camp. Later, after summiting Kamet in 1931, Smythe and his party crossed over a high pass and entered the Bhyundar Valley in Garhwal, a place he made famous in his book The Valley of Flowers:

""As we descended, the flora became more and more luscious, until we were wading knee deep through an ocean of flowers, ranging in colour from the sky blue of the poppies to the deep wine red of the potentillas. We filled our buttonholes and adorned our hats. A stranger had he seen us might have mistaken us—at a distance—for a bevy of sylphs and nymphs. But had he taken a closer look he would have seen, beneath a canopy of flowers, beards sprouting from countenances browned, scorched and cracked by glacier suns. Nor are tricouni-nailed climbing boots an appropriate footwear for sylphs and nymphs."

"The Bhyundar Valley left a lasting impression on Smythe and in 1937 he returned to spend a month amidst its alpine flowers while ascending several nearby summits. His son, Tony Smythe, has written an insightful biography, My Father, Frank, in which he recounts the circumstances surrounding this interlude between major expeditions. At home in England, Smythe had become an avid gardener and on two earlier trips to Everest, he had attempted to collect seeds and tubers. After visiting the Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, Smythe became acquainted with the curators, who encouraged him to bring back seeds and plants from the Himalaya and provided him with the equipment he required. He was driven, in part, by a commercial motive, for there was a ready market for exotic seeds, corms and bulbs. Smythe hoped to defray the costs of his expedition by selling these to horticulturalists."

" ... The success of his publications—both large format photographic books like The Mountain Scene and his accounts of adventure travel, Kamet Conquered and Camp Six—led to resentment amongst fellow climbers and accusations of opportunism and self-promotion. Not being independently wealthy, Smythe had to hustle to support his family. This entrepreneurial spirit was frowned upon by other members of the Alpine Club, like Tom Longstaff, one of the first Englishmen to explore Garhwal and the Bhyundar Valley. Just as it did in all walks of life, the British class system cast its layered shadows over the mountaineering community. Those who had to make ends meet, through writing and lecturing, were scorned by others who could afford to indulge in the sport because of inherited wealth."

Alter carefully avoids calling it caste, but caste it was. Changing the word to class falsified more than reality, it falsified very language.

Here's a fact - even Alter says "inherited wealth', making it clear that those who did not do so were not "class'; but that's obviously caste! Moreover, however poor nobility and aristocracy, they'd never lose 'class' in British eyes; that's caste.

................................................................................................

"Even when I am away from the mountains, I can still see them in the distance, rising up like waves of light and shadow in my mind, profiled against a pale grey sky, as if at dusk. Receding colours stain their slopes—slate blue where snowfields fold in upon themselves, a blush of pink on glacial ice that quickly fades to ash. Green forests in the valleys turn as dark as exposed cliffs above, each tree converging into shades of black.

"An artist friend, Tobit Roche, visits the Himalaya from time to time and does oil sketches en plein air, trekking with his box of paints and collapsible easel packed into a rucksack. Over the years he’s done a series of pictures of Nanda Devi from different angles and at different times of day. His wanderings have taken him to Chaukori, Binsar, Kausani, Gwaldam and Auli. Each vantage point provides a unique perspective. In one painting, the twin summits glow at sunset amidst a flurry of purple brushstrokes. Another image frames the mountain within a panorama of surrounding peaks, bleached white by a midday sun. Elsewhere, looking eastward, Nanda Devi stands alone at daybreak, a solitary silhouette.

"Returning to his studio in London, Tobit paints the mountains once again, but this time from memory. These are much larger canvases on which he projects a remembered vision of the Himalaya that does not depend on the accuracy of immediate observation. Imagination has often been described as ‘imperfect memories’ and a dreamlike abstraction emerges in Tobit’s mountain mindscapes, range upon range of fretted ridgelines held together by clouds and valleys. Each coat of paint adds another layer of pigment and texture. Rather than the swift, deft lines of his plein air sketches, Tobit’s studio paintings evolve slowly, one day at a time, over weeks and months, until they accumulate the polished depth of lacquer so that the light upon the mountains looks like varnished gold."

................................................................................................

" ... Animal rights activists have also come to their defence. Out of desperation some communities have resorted to using monkey catchers who trap the macaques and then release them at a distance of twenty or thirty kilometres, so they become another person’s problem. In many cases these displaced monkeys live by the side of the road, begging for handouts from passing motorists. Controlling and managing the proliferating monkey population in India raises legal, ethical, environmental and practical questions. ... "

"As with most tribal communities in the Himalaya, the Rautes literally live on the edge, both geographically and culturally. Modern society in South Asia has little patience for hunter-gatherers or nomads of any kind and the general thrust of development tries to draw them into the mainstream, erase their gods, stop their wanderings and eliminate their language. Those who advocate for tribal culture are often accused of promoting primitivism and holding these communities back from the benefits of economic and social progress, particularly education. Yet the extinction of cultural identity, language and indigenous knowledge represents an incalculable loss that can never be retrieved."

Yet he wouldn't denounce missionaries, nor extend the concern to mainstream Indian culture under attack from Western and from Abrahamic creeds.

................................................................................................

"Just as the spelling and pronunciation of the Himalaya has been debated for centuries, ever since the Sanskrit name was first transliterated into English, geographers have struggled to define these mountains with any coherence or consistency. While most writers, like myself, limit the Himalaya to the mountains that stand between the river Tsang Po or Brahmaputra in the east and the Indus in the west, others allow for a more flexible definition, often including parts of the Karakoram and Hindu Kush as well as some of the mountains further eastward. ... "

Considering India has known Himalaya since its beginning of rise from the ocean North of India that vanished, captured in Samudra Manthan legend of ancient treasure of literature of India, its name has to apply as understood in India since ancient era, comprising of all contiguous ranges.

" ... Regardless of these discrepancies, the two giant peaks that bookend the Himalaya are Namche Barwa in southeastern Tibet and Nanga Parbat at the north-western edge of Kashmir. An equally difficult question is where to draw a line for the northern and southern limits of this range. For example, Mount Kailas, the most sacred mountain of all, sometimes called the ‘keystone’ of the Himalaya, is technically situated in the trans-Himalayan region to the north. ... "

Considering it's been sacred to India as abode of Divine, and most visitors are pilgrims from India who, as they would in any temple, trek around on feet if possible, it cannot be technical definitions established by strangers that apply due to superior force that already looted India humongously.

" ... On the other hand, the Shivalik foothills to the south are considered a separate range, though they merge with the Himalaya at many points. Similarly, the Duar Range, the ‘doorway’ to higher mountains in north-eastern India, is virtually contiguous with the Himalaya. ... "

All these separate nomenclature are justified only if applied just as much to Alps, the tallest peak Mont Blanc of which is as much a part of Africa as Italy to south of it - geological criteria being more relevant than political.

But as long as neither Italy nor Mont Blanc are officially pronounced part of Africa, extent of Himalaya is defined by ancient india's literature.

" ... Both the Bhabar and Terai, consisting of grasslands and jungle, below an altitude of 500 metres, that skirt the central foothills, are an integral part of the Himalaya, as are the upper margins of the Tibetan Plateau, where the northern slopes of the mountains level out at 4,000 metres. Nevertheless, whatever ambiguities are found on maps, these mountains rise above the contentious and confusing boundaries of cartography and politics that divide them."

................................................................................................

"‘In a thousand ages of the gods, I cannot tell you all the glories of the Himalaya,’ exclaimed a Vedic sage, while another wrote: ‘As the sun dries the morning dew, so does the mere sight of the Himalaya dissipate the sins of man.’ ... "

Subsequent paragraphs talk of primitive mythology. In a racist discourse usual to West, even though the author claims belonging to Himalaya via three generations or longer descended from the Invading Brits, he give equal or more prominence to tales by tribs, on par with ancient Sanskrit literature, deliberately.

This is comparable with, say, Indian writings equating Europe with Congo in history of architecture.

It's ridiculous, but the arrogance of invaders has been left unchallenged, chiefly due to tolerance of invaders by Hinduism being on par with that by the mother for an infant in societies that cannot afford modern diapers.

"At the opposite end of the Himalaya, where the Indus circles Nanga Parbat, another folk tale recounts how the world was once submerged beneath a primordial sea. Ghulam Muhammad, who recorded this story in 1905, explains how certain areas of water were frozen and a race of giants, called Yaths, lived on this desolate ice cap. ... "

The tale, as told by the Indian Muslim, combines biblical tale of the flood with that of Samudra Manthan from Sanskrit literature; but latter is history of the region.

Yaths as the author writes is a word that obviously is a deformation of the original Sanskrit Yaksha, beings who had various powers including that of flight, and were amongst many other such diverse varieties of beings that were known to be residents of the Himalaya.

Thereafter it's another of the primitive tales that, as a descendent of a western invader, author must place above civilisation of India since antiquity, living in continuity.

"The scientific view of Himalayan origins, put forward by twentieth-century geologists, suggests that the Himalaya were conceived beneath the surface of the Tethys Sea. Their gestation and birth is one of the greatest creation stories of all time, as complex and awe-inspiring as tribal folk tales or myths from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. This formative epic was composed and written upon the land long before the earliest ancestors of man evolved, long before language and thought, long before life itself."

One, West had written off all of Knowledge and literature of ancient India as myth, just as author does in paragraph above, until the truth of Samudra Manthan, of rising of Himalaya from ocean was, forced to be accepted due to scientific discoveries; nevertheless author here is painstaking in labeling Indian epics "mythology" while his ancestors taught mythology of West Asia as unquestionable faith.

Two, they therefore have borne the flagrantly unscientific mindset on their flagpoles, since they won't admit rather antiquity of Sanskrit literature and civilisation of India, nor answer, or even ask, exactly how did India know Himalaya rising out of ocean, while still branding Indian literature "mythology".

But it's plain, that either India knew because India literally watched Himalaya rising out of the ocean, or else it was tremendous power of yogic vision that brought this knowledge.

It's only stupidity of an arrogant racism that has West hammering on against India.

................................................................................................

" ... Seeing these dens reminds me of films I’ve watched of polar bears hunting seals in the Arctic, waiting patiently beside air holes in the ice until their victims emerge. I also recall a favourite poem of mine, Galway Kinnell’s ‘The Bear’ in which he narrates the story of a desperate hunt in a frozen landscape and describes a dream of ‘lumbering flatfooted across the tundra… ... "

Starry skies of clear Himalaya remind Alter of sequins, cheap decoration for poor of taste, but he waxes eloquent with poetry when confronting carcasses feasted on by carnivores even if they are omnivores.

Typical of US male, his greatest fear that of being accused of sentiment, only allowed to females who, in US, were declared incapable of doing 'math', giving no credit thereof to social conditioning that they are put through early on.

Our class in India at M.Sc. level was evenly split across the gender gap, visibly so across the sister. But this, of course, is written about in US only in terms of Asian male's inability to court, ascribing any females in science who is not giving up already during teenage for a career in housekeeping to that inability, when not ascribing it to fridgidity or worse that West accuses females of routinely, for no reason other than two millennia of success with guilt practiced by church.

................................................................................................

"As with most festivals in the hills, drummers gather crowds as a throbbing tempo echoes between the ridges. Different villages are assigned to collect the leaves and bark of timru (Zanthoxylum armatum), also known as tejbal, a thorny shrub that grows in the Lower Himalaya and is used as a medicine and spice. Timru has anaesthetic properties and numbs a person’s mouth in the case of toothache. For the Maun Mela, timru is dried and crushed into a powder then stored in gunnysacks. ... "

"After half an hour the dancing becomes increasingly frenzied as the drums beat louder until suddenly the villagers rip open the bags of timru powder and throw these into the Aglar. A cloud of green dust fills the air. Being the dry season, the river is less than a metre deep and only 4 to 5 metres wide, forming long pools that descend into rapids. The timru powder quickly turns the clear water the colour of tea. Between 200–300 men dash downstream, some plunging into the river while others race further on to take up position, reaching under submerged boulders and logs, anywhere a fish might hide.

"The timru powder stuns all forms of life in the water and as the toxic infusion works its way downriver hordes of villagers follow in its wake, collecting fish that float to the surface. ... "

"Traditions like this raise contentious questions about culture and conservation. The wholesale poisoning of fish in a river, particularly minnows and fry that aren’t even eaten, destroys a whole generation of aquatic creatures, though the fishermen insist that timru only stuns them and those that escape will revive. Other fish from upstream and down will repopulate this stretch of the Aglar during the monsoon, but there is no question that a large number are wiped out in the space of two or three hours. It isn’t clear what long-term effects timru may have on the river but they aren’t likely to be beneficial. Other methods of killing fish, such as dynamite, are illegal and occasionally prosecuted by the forest department but as a part of Jaunpur’s culture, the Maun Mela continues without sanctions though some voices have been raised in protest to stop this aquatic sacrifice."

This might sound like genuine concern for environment and fish, but it isn't- for one, he isn't criticizing environmental or animal life destruction by West either in past or now; for another, Wikipedia gives information enough regarding use of this plant throughout Asia, not only in indigenous medicine but in food as well, and gives indigenous names in languages of South East Asia, South India and more. The Hindi sounding name 'tejbal' sounds close to that of something used in North Indian food for feasts, but that latter is a leaf; so the similarities must be of taste and effects.

What Alter is doing is carrying out an agenda by West, left and more, by Abrahamic-II, Abrahamic-III and Abrahamic-IV, to destroy culture of India with a joint assault on anything indigenous, including all knowledge.

Usually this assault takes the form of assaulting Hindu festivals, food and other traditions such as family ties and traditions regarding marriages et al, so that structure of India’s societies breaks.

Its worth asking, who then plans to take over?

Missionaries, global shopping malls, fashion industry?

So this assault by Alter is one of those, intended to shame India. But the pretext of caring is just that, pretext. He isn't about to ask whether encouraging cattle theft will affect rural poor so deprived of nutrition, transport and more, how drastically; nor is he concerned about loss of cattle in a land heavily dependent on it for agriculture might, apart from starving poor to death, cause Bangladesh to drown faster, because cattle might be substituted by gas guzzling machines a la USA.

No, loss of India is OK with him, it'd merely have his compatriots and others occupy it again as they once took Canada, USA, Australia et al.

................................................................................................

"Gould argues that science depends on ‘creative thought’ to propel knowledge forward and it was only through a leap of imagination that such a theory could emerge. John McPhee, in his Pulitzer-winning Annals of the Former World, confirms this view, explaining how, until 1963, editors at Nature were still rejecting articles on plate tectonics because this emerging theory was considered far-fetched while their colleagues at The Journal of Geophysical Research suggested that discourse on continental drift was more suited to cocktail party conversation. He goes on to explain that the proof for this theory was found not on mountain heights or exposed surfaces of the earth but in the depths of oceans where the technology of naval warfare helped unlock these submerged secrets. McPhee writes: ‘The Second World War was a technological piñata, and, with their new fathometers and proton-precession magnetometers, oceanographers of the nineteen-fifties—most notably Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp at Columbia University—mapped the seafloor in such extraordinary detail that in a sense they were seeing it for the first time.’ He goes on to say that though these naval charts of the ocean floor were kept secret to protect the location of submarines, they revealed deep trenches and mountain ranges beneath the surface of every ocean around the globe—the wrinkles and stretch marks of continental drift."

Interesting word there, 'drift', giving the impression that continents are all gloating as casually as rubber ducks on ocean.

Same word, though, has been used by Ignatius Donnelly in his Ragnarok in a very different context, although perhaps because before his work it really was supposed to be drift, from glaciers extending far south in ice age from arctic latitudes.

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"As the mountains rose up over millions of years, they hosted more and more plants and grasses, as well as insects, birds, reptiles and mammals such as rodents, wild sheep and goats, along with predators like wolves and Panthera blytheae, the ancestor of snow leopards and other big cats. The presence of human beings in the upper Himalaya is a relatively recent intrusion, dating back to somewhere between 10,000 to 7,000 years ago, during the Neolithic Age when the first nomadic hunters crossed over high passes in search of meat."

Part of the above is evolution, captured neatly in Dashaavataara, but the insistence on humanity being recent is the result of tremendous subconscious terror of inquisition coupled with church dictating that results in various scientists of West making up theories to match biblical line.

India, to the contrary, has records in the epics that not only show various stages of evolution, including where human civilisation flourished while other species, still evolving, communicated with humans. And timeliness are far more anterior of biblical dictates regarding estimates by West, evidence thereof being astronomical visual observations in the epics.

Going thereby, Mahabharata has been estimated to be before 3,000 BCE, since timeliness of Kaliyuga as given in the epic has exact astronomical observations, latest date of which is before circa 3,100 or so BCE. But the observations within Mahabharata about other, rarer phenomenon place date thereof at prior to 4,000 BCE.

"7. Other observation noted by Indra and mentioned to Skanda as causing him worry is the fall of a nakshatra from the sky. Which one? The choice of Abhijit for this role seems unanimous. What is meant by fall from the sky? It should literally mean Disappearing from the Sky. This could not have happened to Abhijit for any observer in northern hemisphere, (in northern India in particular, with Latitudes around 25-30 degrees), anytime in those ancient days, when Abhijit was never too far from the North Pole. It would remain visible during its journey round the Pole. At best the words can mean Abhijit disappearing below the horizon during a part of its journey around the North Pole, every day-night. I therefore conjecture that Indra meant exactly that! He just means, ‘The star Abhijit which was once close to north pole, was helpful in mapping the sky and was always above the horizon has now moved so far away from the pole that now, for a part of its path, it actually goes below the horizon. In other words, it has fallen from the sky!’"

Makes far more sense.

"8. Abhijit was closest to north pole around 12000BC, about 5 degrees away. Earlier, for about 2000 years, it was close enough and was actually moving towards the North Pole. However, by about 6000-6500BC, north pole had moved sufficiently away from Abhijit to make Abhijit dip below horizon. Timing of Indra-Skanda Dialogue therefore can be considered to be around 6000-6500 BC, in my opinion."

And there one has approximate timeline of the great epic, not only of its writing but of the events taking place.

Further precision is brought about by an observation and a discussion in a rarely taken seriously dialogue, about an astronomical occurrence, that was picked by Nilesh Nilkanth Oak as serious and factual, visual astronomical observation, and subsequently discovered as factual before 4.500 BCE, from 6,500 BCE on. This fixes the time further, modulo cycles of 26,000 years of precession of axes.

Mahabharata was era of high civilisation in India, and Ramayana, prior to Mahabharata, already so north of Vindhya. Other factors of visual astronomical observations have Nilesh Nilkanth Oak fix Ramayana timeline to 14,500-10,000 BCE, but of course, this is true only modulo cycles of 26,000 years further in past, even with his choice of a particular polar star. If another star were picked, the latest timeline possible would be affected only slightly, and again with consideration given to timelines modulo cycles of 26,000 years further in past, upto about a million years ago.

For a critical observation in Ramayana is about Himalaya and Vindhya looking at one another, eye to eye. This presumably amounts to their heights being comparable, approximately equal, which would be about a million years ago.

So when Alter says

" ... The presence of human beings in the upper Himalaya is a relatively recent intrusion, dating back to somewhere between 10,000 to 7,000 years ago, during the Neolithic Age when the first nomadic hunters crossed over high passes in search of meat."

He's going with an arrogant racist imposition of a biblical, at best true of West Asia, timeline, on India and Indian culture, where cultural and scientific advances were tremendously ahead.

As Phadnis discusses, in his work on Mahabharata discussing that of Oak,

"9. As I have mentioned above, Abhijit has always been way far too distant from the ecliptic to be counted as a Nakshatra. They are all strung along the ecliptic, more or less. It was simply the most important star in the sky besides the nakshatras, being at that time pretty close to the north pole. My conjecture therefore, is that the Nakshatras themselves were probably identified and named, at some time in the past, when Abhijit was fairly close to North Pole, say between 14000BC to 12000BC."

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"On another cluster of rocks nearby, a herd of ibex with long, arching horns and fleet hooves escape the arrows from a hunter’s bow. They seem to race across the burnished, undulating surface. The animals on display exhibit a primitive beauty that underscores their antiquity. Himalayan petroglyphs are found throughout Ladakh, extending from Lahaul–Spiti in the east and westward into the Karakoram and beyond, as far as Mongolia in the north and across the Pamir in Central Asia. ... "

Typical of a European in particular and Westerner in general, author universalises this to mean that everyone was primitive in the region then, despite plenty of evidence of coexistence of different levels of civilisation at any given time including now, in era of global communications.

"Petroglyphs are precursors of mane stones, the Buddhist engravings of prayers like Om Mane Padme Om (Hail the sacred jewel in the lotus) inscribed on rocks throughout the Himalaya and piled up in walls or cairns along pilgrimage routes. Tsewang Rigzen, my guide and companion in Ladakh, runs his fingers over the outline of a bharal, or blue sheep, tracing the double arch of its horns. A few centimetres away a spiral sunburst suggests a solar deity, or maybe it simply signifies another dawn. On some of the rocks are handprints, where the anonymous artists signed their work with impressions of an open palm."

Height of racist arrogance there, in insinuating that Buddhism wasn't for from primitive! In reality, era of Buddha was not only of high civilisation in India, but of civilisation that was several millennia old.

" ... On ahead, rounding another bend in the road, the opposite slope also seems to be clad in green, but a much darker iridescent shade. Again, it looks as if life were springing abruptly from the sterile soil but this time it is minerals that give the ridge its illusory colour. What appeared, at first glance, to be a fertile hillside is nothing more than bare green rock, devoid of life."

Why isn't the author, so anxious to give a scientific discourse about Himalaya to separate himself from India where he lives, question this unusual occurrence? Surely 'bare green rock, devoid of life' isn't an occurrence common in nature?

The least he could have done is to ask what stone it was, what mineral produced that colour.

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"In 1906, a young geologist accepted a position as a lecturer at the Prince of Wales College in Jammu, teaching both science and English. ... The geologist began to explore this puzzling terrain, where the Shivalik Hills converge with the Dhauladhar and Pir Panjal ranges of the Western Himalaya.

"As he wandered through valleys and across crumbling ridgelines, the scholar discovered seasonal watercourses filled with stones, which had been smoothed and rounded by monsoon floods. The variety of colours and textures caught his eye. He came upon creamy quartzite, pink limestone and purple shale. Some rocks were the size of pigeon’s eggs, others larger than footballs. A few boulders were as big as oxen. Compared to the mountains that rose above them, the river rocks were like granules of sand. Washed down from higher elevations, out of the core of the Himalaya, these were the crushed debris of forgotten epochs filtering through an hourglass, each grain composed of minerals containing vital secrets of the earth’s creation.

"Most of the riverbed rocks were distinctly different from the composition of the Shivalik Hills. This wild and rugged foreland consisted mostly of loose conglomerates and reddish clays. The stones in the riverbeds came from drastically different eras. As the geologist began to record his observations and investigate the research done by others, his curiosity was fired by the mysteries he confronted."

" ... A contemporary of Charles Darwin who explored the Western Himalaya, Falconer served as superintendent of the botanical gardens in Saharanpur, 450 kilometres east of Jammu. In the 1830s, he discovered a trove of fossils in the Shivaliks, including Stegodon ganesa, an elephant ancestor with fourteen-foot tusks, prehistoric hippos, and Sivatherium giganteum, an extinct giraffe from 2.5 million years ago, with antlers like a stag. The clayey soil of the Shivaliks also offered up the bones of Sivapithecus, an early hominid, who walked across these hills between twelve to seven million years ago. This distant predecessor of man resembled an orangutan and stood 4 feet tall."

"In those days, the traditional route to Srinagar lay farther north along the Jhelum River beyond Rawalpindi and Murree. But from Jammu, the geologist could ascend directly into the Pir Panjal, on the other side of which lay Kashmir. The Panjal Thrust of the Himalaya tilts above the Shivaliks in a densely wooded concertina of ridges and valleys.

"The geologist Darashaw Nosherwan Wadia was born at sea level in the coastal town of Surat at the western edge of Gujarat. He came from a Zoroastrian family, whose ancestors were exiled from Iran to India, sometime between the ninth and tenth centuries. ... "

Alter avoids mentioning islamic persecution that resulted in exodus of a small percentage of those who escaped it, managing to reach India where they found refuge.

Apart from genocide of Persians, what Arabs had immediately perpetrated was burning of libraries and forbidding of indigenous culture, including language and script. In less than a century Persia, once a high civilisation comparable with Greece, had been reduced illiterate, as per one source.

Parsis or Parsees as Zorostrians are called in India by others and themselves (Paras having been indigenous name of Persia), survive now chiefly only in India, mostly in Gujarat and Mumbai.

................................................................................................

" ... His route, on foot and horseback, eventually took him over the western syntaxis of the Himalaya, a ‘deep knee bend’, where the strike of the ridges suddenly turns at right angles from east-west to north-south. This massive hinge fastens Kashmir to the rest of Asia, forming the dividing line between the main Himalayan range and the Hindu Kush to the west and the Karakoram to the north."

" ... His journeys through the Pir Panjal revealed evidence from almost every period of Palaeozoic history. In Cambrian layers, he discovered trilobites and brachiopods. Silurian strata divulged corrals. In the Lower Carboniferous, he took note of ‘Syringothyris limestone’, named after a prehistoric species of clam, Syringothyris cuspidata. Resting on this were Middle-Carboniferous Fenestella-shale beds, containing crystals of feldspar and quartz.

"Crossing the Banihal Pass at 2,832 metres above sea level, Wadia finally got his first view of the Kashmir Valley. Rather than echoing the romantic hyperbole that so many others have spouted on seeing this fertile dale, he surveyed the landscape with a studious and critical eye, remarking how the Pir Panjal Range, which he had just traversed, ‘…generally present a steep escarpment towards the plains and a long gentle slope towards Kashmir. Such mountains are spoken of as having an “orthoclinal” structure with a “writing desk shape”.’"

"He could just as easily discuss the poems of Thomas Moore as he might give a lecture on Himalayan stratigraphy, tracing the main thrust of the Lower Himalaya as deftly as scanning lines of verse.

"Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere,

"With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave,

"Its temples, and grottoes, and fountains as clear

"As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave?"

Did anyone think of that verse proving Hindu antecedents of Kashmir reaching into antiquity but still alive when English regime's poets wrote from observations thereof, of temples and Grottoes that were obviously of Hinduism and related indigenous faiths of Indian origin?The mass exodus enforced via a genocide of Hindus on 1990 has been since covered up, via lies perpetrated about Hindus on one hand and silence about the ethnic cleansing enforced in Kashmir by jihadists, on the other.

Fraudulent propaganda against India and security forces of India has dominant in West, despite their own experience of both communities. Is it about Abrahamic-III fraternity with Abrahamic-II, or an attitude of allowing a Rottweiler to devour a poor neighbour hoping one's own might be safe thereby, somehow?

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" ... For him the picturesque panoramas of the Lidder Valley leading up to Kolahoi peak and glacier became all the more dramatic and enticing when he saw, ‘a thin but continuous band of Silurian strata’, which he described as ‘sandy shales and shaly sandstones’. Higher up were Permian deposits known as the ‘Zewan beds’, and finally those granite spires that form the high points of the Western Himalaya, towering pillars of silence where little or no evidence of life can be found.

" ... The Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun is named after him. ... "

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"Because of his Bhotia ethnicity, the Pundit was generally mistaken for a Tibetan, and spoke the language fluently, along with Hindustani, Urdu and Nepali, as well as a smattering of English. He made friends easily, whether they were armed Khampas from eastern Tibet who hunted antelope and kiang, or Muslim traders from Yarkhand and Khotan. When questioned by provincial governors or curious abbots, revenue officials and soldiers, he lied convincingly, spinning out stories of fictitious origins and itineraries. A number of other spies were employed by the Survey of India towards the end of the nineteenth century, including the Pundit’s brother and cousin, as well as Abdul Hamid, code named ‘The Munshi’. There was also Mirza Shuja, who was trained in Dehradun at the same time as the Pundit and later travelled throughout the Hindu Kush and Karakoram. Meanwhile, in Darjeeling, Sarat Chandra Das (known as ‘the Babu’), a Bengali schoolmaster who travelled to Lhasa twice, recruited and trained a coterie of spies in the 1870s. This included Kinthup, a Lepcha man who was one of the first to connect the Tsang Po to the Brahmaputra by floating marked logs down the river, though he was enslaved by the Tibetans before his discovery could be confirmed.

"Each of these men risked their lives for the Great Game—a futile, paranoid contest between the British and Russian empires, competing for power and influence on the roof of the world. Unlike the other men, however, the Pundit was not just a spy but a consummate geographer. He travelled where few others had gone before and sought to understand the places and people he encountered. Though employed as a secret agent who crossed forbidden frontiers, the Pundit pursued much more than ordinary intelligence, seeking to unlock the secrets of the Himalaya and beyond. He had sworn loyalty to the British, who would ultimately reward his services with a generous pension and land grants, or jagirs. But his motives were as fluid as his aliases and he had a persistent sense of curiosity for whatever he discovered along the way, extending the boundaries of knowledge.

"In their book, Asia ke Peeth Par (On the Shoulders of Asia), Shekar Pathak and Uma Bhatt have pieced together an authoritative biography of the Pundit and have republished the Royal Geographical Society’s reports on his exploration. These include extracts from his journals, which are full of descriptive passages that prove the Pundit was an astute observer and compelling storyteller. Aside from distances and altitudes, he remarks on the habits and appearance of fellow travellers, such as official messengers from Lhasa, whom he meets along his route:

""…these men always looked haggard and worn. They have to ride the whole distance continuously, without stopping either by night or day, except to eat food and change horses. In order to make sure that they never take off their clothes, the breast fastening of the overcoat is sealed, and no one is allowed to break the seal, except the official to whom the messenger is sent… (I) saw several of the messengers arrive at the end of their 800 mile ride. Their faces were cracked, their eyes blood-shot and sunken, and their bodies eaten by lice into large raws, the latter they attributed to not being allowed to take off their clothes."

"The Pundit also comments on the weather:

""During my stay at Lhasa, Shigatze, and in the Lhasa territory, I do not recollect either having seen lightning or heard thunder, and on making inquiries I was informed that during the winter season there is neither one nor the other, though there is a little during the rains…

"The inhabitants regard snow as an evil, and attribute the slight fall during the winter to the goodness of their chief divinities and head Lamas. Should the fall ever exceed a foot, it is looked on as an evil sign, expressing the displeasure of their gods, and to propitiate them large sums of money are expended on the priests, &c. They call snow ‘kha,’ after the word kha, meaning nothing."

"All of this was written in Hindustani using the Devanagari script in a legible, fastidious hand that suggests a devotion to precise observation and unembellished detail. The journals were translated by Montgomerie and other Survey of India officials. Recording the myths, lore and customs of those he met, the Pundit describes funeral rites of Tibetans and methods of mining gold. He also relates several dangerous encounters.

""Marching along the bank of Yamdokcho Lake we came upon a band of robbers. One of them took hold of my horse’s bridle and told me to dismount. Through fear, I was on the point of resigning my horse to him, when a Mohammedan who accompanied me raised his whip; whereupon the robber drew a long sabre and rushed on the Mohammedan. Taking advantage of this favourable moment I whipped my own horse forward, and as the robbers could not catch us they fired on us, but without effect and we arrived at Demalung village all safe."

"After reaching Lhasa, the Pundit happened to recognize a provincial official he had met on an earlier journey and took cover before he was discovered.

""I was at about this time very much alarmed by seeing the Kirong Jongpon on the streets of Lhasa one day; and I was still more alarmed on seeing the summary manner in which treachery in these parts was dealt with, in the person of a Chinaman, who had seditiously raised a quarrel between the priests of the Sara and Debang monasteries. He was (on the receipt of an order from Pekin to kill him) brought out before the whole of the people, and beheaded with very little hesitation. Owing to my alarm, I changed my residence, and seldom appeared in public again.""

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"Formed of a living god, Himalaya, supreme

Raja of the Mountains, rises in the north

and bathing in the western and eastern oceans

stretches out like a rod that could measure the earth."

"The opening stanza of Kalidasa’s verse narrative, Kumarasambhavam, deifies the mountains even as it maps out their geography. By comparing the Himalaya to a measuring rod, the poet suggests not only their height and breadth but their mythical and spiritual pre-eminence too. Kumarasambhavam is one of the earliest Sanskrit poems telling the story of Parvati, daughter of the Himalaya, and Lord Shiva, the supreme creator and destroyer of the universe who sits in meditation on Mount Kailas. The poem, which exists only as fragments, recounts the birth of their son, Kartikeya, the war god. In Hank Heifetz’s modern translation it is a timeless narrative with contemporary resonance."

Alter, for reasons of nothing if not racist disdain, for the beautiful original verses by Kalidasa, in beautiful original Sanskrit language, chooses not to give them.

"Little or nothing is known of Kalidasa, though he was likely to have been a court poet in the fourth–fifth century CE. His patron was probably a king of the Gupta dynasty, possibly Vikramaditya, who ruled over much of North and Central India. ... "

Goodness author is extremely racist and arrogant.

Life of Kalidasa is legendary, very well known, and thus statement by Alter is so utterly a lie, one has to recall the extreme disdain for India that prompts it, before one could suspect that Alter might not be lying deliberately. Then again, there's no reason he wouldn't know the legends about Kalidasa, and claim nevertheless that nothing was known about him. All that amounts to is West holds India on a lesser than animal level, and attempts to keep time stuck to before twentieth century.

As for whether he saw Himalaya, the reasoning by West is that if Europe couldn't imagine it, nobody else could have done it.

This is, of course, racist.

Yet fact is Ramayana already pretty much maps out a rough travel across India by three, later two, people walking, from Ayodhya in middle of region of Gangetic Plain, between Ganga and Himalaya, to Panchavati at foot of Sahyadri in now Maharashtra, to Kishkindha in now Karnataka, to Rameshwaram on East coast of South India; what's more, it records building of a bridge from the then coast to Sri Lanka, still visible to satellites under sea.

Kalidasa was several millennia post Mahabharata, which was several millennia after Ramayana. And legend places him in Lanka at end of his life. If he, as a famous and renowned poet in a land where culture valued learned men, travelled to Lanka where he was known by reputation to the king, there's no reason he couldn't have travelled to Himalaya as a young man in process of his learning before his writings began.

Besides, era of Kalidasa already had Kashi established as the city of learning where young travelled, usually on foot, mostly alone, for education, from everywhere in India. This continued until later part of Maratha empire.

And travelling to, and into, Himalaya is, always has been, the secret dream cherished by every Indian, as a pilgrimage usually undertaken after duties of household and family have been dealt with; only monks who aren't thus bound achieve it earlier.

So there's no reason to assume that Kalidasa did not see Himalaya. But reading his works, it would be extremely surprising an achievement for someone to describe Himalaya as he does, if he had not experienced it firsthand.

Hereon, Alter discourses about Deities held in Supreme regard by India, in a manner that would get him legally executed via mob stone pelting, were it about another faith and another nation.

And yet, his likes defend such countries and faiths, but not India and Hindus. One would think they value their own lives little. But then what does one expect of idiots who respect predators, but ridicule India for valuing cattle.

................................................................................................

" ... Parvati, the daughter of the Himalaya. She is a reincarnation of Lord Shiva’s first wife, Uma, who immolated herself. ... "

Incorrect apart from the misleading omission leading to fraudulent inferences by ignorant readership.

Parvati IS Uma, and has a myriad other names send epithets. Parvati literally means 'Daughter of Mountain', Parvata means mountain. Uma because she was naughty and was ever called after, 'U, Ma' literally meaning 'O, don't'; one can imagine parents scared about a little girl who runs around on heights in those mountains!

Her name in previous life was Sati, literally related to Truth; she was an uninvited guest at her then father's home for an occasion, when other Gods, but not her husband, were felicitated, offering given in person or sent via the ceremonial Fire, Agni (Fire) being a God, who incidentally conveys offerings to Gods when so entrusted.

She, seeing her father’s omission, chose to correct it by offering herself to the God Rudra who was her husband.

Sati was and is a revered name, and was not 'tradition', not enforced but a matter of choice, until danger to women of India from Invading islamic barbarians forced women to resort to the drastic step to save themselves from humiliation, as in case of the legendary Queen Padmini when all possible escape from Khilji was closed.

Thousands of women of Chittor, having sent their men off to last battle that day, consigned their bodies to fire, choosing death over humiliation.

................................................................................................

" ... The goddess assumes a new form in Parvati and, against her parents’ warnings, approaches her lord and master, the wild ascetic on Mount Kailas. With a sense of duty and self-abnegation, she submits to Shiva’s austerities and accepts the harsh existence of her consort’s home."

This is so imbecilical a distortion, one suspects it us deliberately done so.

In the legend, he's not found by her on Mount Kailas; he's the one who finds her, in process of her own harsh Tapashcharyaa conducted so as to force the God to be pleased enough to accept her. She's not asked to, or expected to - much less made to! - 'submit' to 'Shiva’s austerities', but carried out her own intentions and charted out her own 'austerities'. He finds her after she's proceeded, from eating only leaves to not even that much, whence her another name Aparna, 'One Who Did Without Leaves'.

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"The opening stanzas of Kumarasambhavam are, in essence, an invocation to the Himalaya, a statement of desire and an acknowledgement of the mysteries the mountains contain. Kalidasa’s verses blend religious lore and legends with keen observations of Himalayan landscapes, celebrating a fecund, life-giving world in which the poet’s imagination roams freely between the heavenly realm of gods and goddesses, as well as the equally enchanting forests and meadows on earth. Mingling the exotic with the familiar, Kalidasa eulogizes the natural beauty of the mountains, which are the source of life-giving rivers like the Ganga."

This was neither individual nor unique, but a beautiful expression of everything India has always known and held true. Kalidasa documented it in his works, most beautifully, but did not invent any part thereof.

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"A translator of Sanskrit is like a geologist teasing the meaning out of fossilized remains, resuscitating an ancient language in which the grammar and syntax has been garbled and all the punctuation marks removed. At places the ink has dissolved, forming new patterns on the page. ... "

What complete, utter nonsense! And this when perfectly legible printed, published editions are available. As for grammar, Sanskrit is mathematical; there's no language so beautiful, so rich.

God this author is foul garbage.

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"One of the traditions of trans-Himalayan trade, up until the early part of the twentieth century, was to seal a partnership by splitting a stone. As E. T. Atkinson’s The Himalayan Gazetteer, published in 1886, recounts, each Bhotia trader, from opposite sides of the mountains, kept half of the broken stone as a simple means of confirming his identity and acknowledging transactions. When a shipment was dispatched, one piece of the stone went with it and upon delivery the two halves were fitted together and returned, providing proof of receipt. In this way the stones guaranteed debts and symbolized a connection between two sides of the mountains, an unwritten trust amongst merchants but also a larger, more enduring covenant with the land."

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"With the rapid spread of recent development, transport and industry, man’s intrusive effect on the mountains has escalated, dominating the landscape. The building of roads destabilizes fragile terrain and landslides scar the slopes. Trees are cut for firewood and fodder, their roots no longer anchoring the soil. Riverbeds are dug up for stone and sand, increasing the impact of erosion. Concrete or earth-filled dams block rivers, creating huge reservoirs to produce electricity and regulate the flow of water. Strip mining gouges the face of ridges, exposing belts of limestone and gravel that are quarried to build more homes. Miners tunnel for veins of phosphate and other precious ore, deep within the heart of the mountains.

"Only the highest peaks and passes remain inviolate, far above the limits of human habitation. But even here, man leaves his mark. At almost every crossing in the Himalaya stand cairns of rock that recall the passing presence of human travellers—migrants, pilgrims, traders and explorers. Each person who follows these paths instinctively picks up a stone and places it upon another, building a crude structure to represent our common dreams, desires, fears and fortunes."

Reminds one of the last scene of Schindler's List.

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"A wave of rain and hail bursts through the deodar branches and onto the verandah of our house like a tidal surge breaking over a sea wall. Spray hits me in the face and drenches my shirt as a deafening cannonade bombards the sheet-metal roof accompanied by rolling thunder and blasts of wind in the trees. Pellets of ice lash the wisteria vines and hydrangea bushes—our garden planted for gentler days. Rain gutters overflow with hailstones that cover the lawn like an avalanche of mothballs. A bolt of lightning strikes one of the tall trees nearby with a phosphorescent flash followed by a sharp explosion, as if the sky has split in half.

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"Each year, when the monsoon arrives in the Himalaya it carries with it the momentum of a deluge that has travelled more than 2,000 kilometres from the Malabar Coast, overflying the burning expanse of the Deccan Plateau and Gangetic Plain. India is shaped like a funnel with water on either side. This tapered wedge of land, stretching from 8 degrees above the equator at Kanyakumari to the 34th parallel north in Ladakh, is heated in summer to temperatures as high as 50° Celsius, siphoning moisture from the sea. Arranged across the top of the subcontinent is the arc of the Himalaya that forms a meteorological dike. While the lower slopes of the mountains absorb the summer heat, at the uppermost elevations temperatures remain below freezing year round.

"On the other side of the Himalaya, as days grow longer, the vast expanse of the Tibetan Plateau thaws out, creating thermal suction and wind patterns that help draw the monsoon inland. Through this annual confluence of elements, the evaporated waters of the Indian Ocean flood the sky, moving northward as a torrent of clouds until they wash up against the mountains. Armadas of moisture, travelling as fast as 30 knots—the velocity of an aircraft carrier heading into battle—collide with the Himalayan headlands."

" ... For anyone who lives at sea level today, the realities of a watery demise are anything but mythological. Here in the mountains, 2 kilometres above the highest tide, rising oceans aren’t an immediate concern. However, in recent years, we have seen catastrophic cloudbursts, prolonged droughts, widespread forest fires, flash floods and other extreme events that suggest unsettling, inauspicious trends in the atmosphere."

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"If we trace the latitude of Mount Everest, which coincides with the 28th parallel north, and follow that line around the world, it leads us westward through Nepal and North India into the deserts of Rajasthan and Sindh, beyond the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Peninsula. After dividing the Red Sea, the line passes over Egypt and the Sahara, all the way across North Africa to Morocco, keeping well below the southern coast of the Mediterranean. In the Atlantic Ocean the 28th parallel north grazes the Canary Islands before making landfall in Florida and continuing on through the badlands of Texas, into Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. From there it crosses the Pacific, just north of Hawaii, and carries on to the Yellow Sea, after which it penetrates southern China and stretches into Burma, before completing its global circuit through Arunachal Pradesh, Bhutan, Sikkim and finally, the north-eastern corner of Nepal.

"The Himalaya are sometimes referred to as the ‘Third Pole’ because they represent the largest accumulation of ice, after Antarctica and the Arctic. However, as our mental circumnavigation of the globe illustrates, one of the coldest places on earth shares the same latitude as many of the warmest, driest spots on our planet. Compared to Saudi Arabia, Libya or southern Texas, the Himalaya are considerably wetter and retain frozen reservoirs that irrigate South and Southeast Asia. For this reason they are also called the ‘water towers of Asia’. One of the reasons they are especially vulnerable to climate change is because of their latitude. If Himalayan glaciers dry up and disappear, as some scientists suggest they might, this entire region would then begin to look like the sandy wastes of the Sahara. While the North and South Poles are experiencing rising temperatures, the Himalaya are subject to even greater warming because of their proximity to the equator."

................................................................................................

" ... Seemingly insignificant variations in temperature have dire consequences—glacial lakes bursting fragile ice dams, mudslides that bury villages, unpredictable monsoons, disappearing species and disrupted migration patterns.

"Ladakh, which has an average annual rainfall of 100 millimetres, experienced a catastrophic cloudburst in 2010, with some areas receiving as much as 250 millimetres in the space of a few hours. This caused severe flash floods, mudslides and debris flows that destroyed sections of the capital, Leh. According to official reports 234 people were killed and nearly 9,000 were displaced. However, when I visited several years later I was told, ‘The number of victims will never be known. The local people who died, we know who they were, but the labourers from Nepal and elsewhere, there is no record of them.’ Contractors will never disclose their names or numbers, because it would make them accountable for their deaths. Rigzen, my driver and guide, explained that there are many other consequences of climate change. He said that in Dha Hanu, a north-western district of Ladakh, ‘the apricots were all destroyed by worms because the birds that eat the worms never came—their migration was disturbed’. He also told me how his parents and grandparents used to speak of three seasons in Ladakh—four months of winter (when nobody does anything), four months of wind and four months of warmth. ‘Now it has all changed. The wind continues into July and we have warm days in November.’"

"Today, climate change or global warming, whatever we may call it, has been ‘accepted’ by the vast majority of scientists, becoming a new orthodoxy of environmental discourse. Most of those who debunk and debate its efficacy subscribe to other, older orthodoxies that emerged from the industrial revolution, presenting human development, enterprise and ingenuity as being the internal combustion engines of civilization and modernity."

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"Climate change in the Himalaya is everyone’s problem. The causes often lie far away, sometimes in distant corners of the globe. In 1991, during the First Gulf War, when Kuwait’s oil wells were set on fire, a pall of smoke drifted thousands of kilometres eastward. Flying home to India that year, I remember seeing a shadowy black smear stretching towards the horizon. When I reached Mussoorie, the oak leaves were covered with an oily film, the residue of fossil fuels set alight by war. This greasy soot also settled on snow peaks and glaciers leaving a stain that not only sullied the face of the Himalaya but accelerated their melting. Seasonal winds carry various kinds of particulate matter from sand and dust to vehicular pollutants. In his book Life in the Himalaya: An Ecosystem at Risk, botanist and environmental scientist Maharaj K. Pandit links the darkening of the surface of glaciers and ice fields to both local and global pollution. ‘A number of recent studies have shown that the deposition of mineral dust and black carbon has contributed to the darkening of the western Himalayan snow cover, which accelerates the seasonal snowmelt and the regional snow albedo feedback producing more warming and higher glacial ablations.’"

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"Chomolungma, mother of all mountains, commonly known as Everest, stands amidst an arena of peaks in the sub-range of the Mahalangur Himal, which harbours the watershed of the Dudh Kosi River. Aside from being the highest point on earth, the Everest region is an enormous assemblage of ice. Glaciers with multiple arms wrap around the ridges at altitudes between 4,500–7,000 metres above sea level. Directly beneath the south-west face of Everest, and bounded by Nuptse on the opposite side, lies the Western Cwm, an oval basin of frozen moisture hundreds of metres deep.

"Cwm is a Welsh word for a glacial trough, known in the French Alps as a cirque, and in Scotland, a corrie. Essentially, the Western Cwm is an enormous stone vessel that stores and decants an annual accumulation of precipitation from Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse. Avalanches slough off the steep slopes of these mountains and the compacted snow and ice feeds the glacier. Appropriately, cwm rhymes with womb, for this frozen source of life lies deep within the belly of Chomolungma, and the Khumbu Icefall is her birth canal.

"Though clearly visible in satellite imagery and on survey maps, the Western Cwm remains hidden from sight as we walk up the Dudh Kosi Valley. The first European mountaineers to approach Everest from this angle were Bill Tilman and Charles Houston, in 1950. Tilman was puzzled by the obscure access point to the cwm, which he described as the ‘merest slit, not more than three hundred yards across, filled by a broken icefall that falls steeply to the Khumbu glacier…’

"Today, thousands of trekkers ascend this valley each year, especially in October and November, for an opportunity to stand at the shifting site of Everest Base Camp, which lies on the glacier. From here the summit of Chomolungma itself is hidden and only the threshold of the icefall is visible, spilling through the narrow cleft that Tilman identified. Below this spreads a ghostly procession of frozen pinnacles descending for a couple of kilometres, like the bleached bones and cartilage of a mythological beast, a stark white contrast to the grey debris that covers most of the Khumbu Glacier. As Tilman and Houston discovered, a better view of Everest can be obtained by climbing a rocky outlook, known as Kala Patthar. From there the structure of the mountains becomes evident as the South-West face of Everest reveals itself, leaning away from Nuptse in the foreground. The South Col and a corner of Lhotse also come into view and it is possible to make out a ring of rock walls enclosing the cwm."

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"Crossing the Ngozumba is like threading a path through a tumultuous labyrinth that contains unexpected twists and turns, as well as plenty of dead ends. This obstacle course shifts from week to week. A clear passage one day suddenly opens into a crevasse the next, or is blocked by an uplifted slab of ice. A few helpfully placed cairns assist trekkers traversing the glacier. The indistinct trail detours around shallow ponds and icy grottoes. Fissured chunks of frozen mud calve off and splash into murky shallows, while a steady dribble of gravel and sand accompanies trickling streams of meltwater. Like most Himalayan glaciers, the Ngozumba is covered with a crust of rocks and soil that helps insulate it from the sun and hides the inner core of ice migrating towards its snout. Generally, the central portion of a glacier is extruded at a faster pace than the peripheral ice."

" ... One of the results of thinning ice, brought about by rising temperatures, are glacial lake outburst floods, which have caused immense destruction in many parts of the Himalaya. Melting glaciers harbour ice-rimmed ponds held back by fragile dams of unstable moraine, which pose a potential threat to all forms of life in the valleys below including human habitation. Unlike the Gokyo lakes, which have established themselves over centuries and are relatively secure, many glacial ponds are ready to burst their banks. Ice dams quickly reach a point where they can no longer hold back the water they restrain. A sudden monsoon downpour, such as the cloudburst that occurred in 2013 at Kedarnath, unleashed a wave of freezing water, mud and rock that obliterated most of the temple town. Similarly, entire settlements in Nepal have been decimated by glacial lake outbursts. In 2015, the village of Langtang was completely destroyed by mudslides and flash floods triggered by an earthquake."

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" ... Constricted gorges, through which the river descends, lend themselves to hydropower technology, though the reservoirs are already filling up with silt. By diverting and stalling the current, the Chinese engineers have rerouted the river but also arrested erosion. The myriad particles of sand and soil that flow down from the mountains will eventually choke the turbines, unless these channels are regularly dredged.

"Rivers are much more than just water—they contain a constant stream of mineral and vegetable matter, as well as microbial and other aquatic life. At several places along the drive, we pass fish farms, where trout are being hatched and raised. The fingerlings look like schools of semicolons punctuating the streams. Like the recently harvested rice fields, these trout farms thrive on the unpolluted currents that carry nutrients from their source. Human beings have redirected Himalayan streams for centuries, using the force of flowing water to irrigate their crops and grind grain but never before on the scale of giant hydroelectric projects.

"Nepal is as much a birthplace of rivers as it is the home of mountains. In their Illustrated Atlas of the Himalaya, David Zurick and Julsun Pacheco calculate that more than 6,000 separate streams have their sources in these highlands, flowing into a network of waterways that weave between the ridges. They estimate that Nepal’s potential for hydropower is sufficient to supply all of its own electricity needs as well the combined demands of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Of course, the investment required and the environmental consequences are forbidding, but these numbers demonstrate the enormous quantity of water that the Himalaya capture and release. Annually, more than 200,000 million cubic metres (200 trillion litres) of water runs off the mountains and into the plains of North India. At least one-third of the Ganga’s flow comes from Nepal and more than half of this water is discharged during the monsoon from June to September."

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"Annapurna, the Hindu deity after whom the mountain is named, is an avatar of Parvati, daughter of Himavata and consort of Lord Shiva. A goddess of fertility, she is the purveyor of plentiful harvests. One of the myths celebrating Annapurna’s sustaining powers is a story in which Shiva arrogantly declares that everything is illusion, even the food we eat. Annoyed by this dismissive pronouncement, Parvati sets out to prove him wrong and immediately makes herself vanish. In the absence of the mother goddess, the world suddenly becomes barren. Forests die and rivers cease to flow, while crops wither and animals starve. As hunger spreads throughout the land, Shiva quickly realizes his mistake. Meanwhile, Parvati cannot bear to see the world consumed by drought and famine, so she assumes the guise of Annapurna and descends from the mountains to the banks of the Ganga, where she begins to feed the hungry. Chastened, Shiva finally approaches her with his begging bowl and asks for forgiveness, after which the goddess feeds him with her own hands. He then builds a temple for her at Kashi and fertility returns to the land."

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"The Annapurna catchment area extends over the entire length of the massif, which is almost 90 kilometres from end to end and includes dozens of glaciers, snowfields and wetlands. Tilicho Lake, immediately to the north of Annapurna, at an elevation of 4,919 metres, is one of the highest waterbodies in the world, 4 kilometres in length and more than a kilometre in width. To the south, on the other side of the range, beside the town of Pokhara, lies Phewa Lake, only slightly larger than Tilicho but at a much lower altitude of 742 metres. All the streams and rivers in this region drain into the Gandaki River, a major tributary of the Ganga."

"Climbing a lateral ridge above Manang, I watch spindrift blowing off the scalloped rim of Gangapurna, a fleece of frozen vapours carried on the wind like shreds of cirrus dispersing in the dry, winter air. A few minutes later, the silence is broken by a muffled thump as an avalanche shears off, sending up a plume of snow. From every angle Gangapurna seems designed to collect the snow that coats her slopes, scooped ridges that curve into a deep bowl, their lips corniced with ice.

"Gangapurna’s glacier emerges from beneath a pristine mantle of snow near the summit. Groomed by the wind like a gentle ski slope, it abruptly tapers into a gnarled and fractured icefall, full of seracs and crevasses. Lower down, the glacier fills the valley with a mangled cascade of ice. Three thousand metres below the summit lies the snout, where two ridges of fluted moraine fan out to form a broad basin of rubble and rocks. As we climb up one side of this moraine our path skirts the crumbling edge, where the slope falls away to the shallow waters of Gangapurna Tal. At one time, this lake was covered by ice but all that remains is a cirque of debris. A sequence of photographs taken by the veteran Swiss geologist, Toni Hagen, who first visited the Marsyangdi Valley in 1952, illustrates how the glacier has rapidly receded to its present limits. A little more than half a century ago, almost the entire valley and lakebed were covered, though now the ice has withdrawn several kilometres upstream.

"More vertical than horizontal, the hanging glacier bulges with seracs suspended high upon the face of the mountain, as if defying gravity. These frozen cataracts accumulate over hundreds of years and gradually release their burden through avalanches. Unlike the Ngozumba and Khumbu glaciers near Cho Oyu and Everest, which stretch out into the valleys, Gangapurna’s icefall has very little debris on the surface to serve as insulation. Being on the north face of the mountain it is partially shielded from the sun, but less moisture is deposited here and it is likely to be depleted sooner than south-facing glaciers."

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"While some of the consequences of climate change are slow-moving, others arrive with unexpected swiftness. On 14 October 2014, the worst tourism disaster in Nepal’s history occurred on Thorung La. Forty-three people died and more than 300 had to be rescued after a sudden blizzard dumped almost 2 metres of snow in the space of twelve hours. Twenty-one of the fatalities were foreigners who had come to Nepal to undertake the Annapurna Circuit Trek. The rest of the dead were Nepali guides, porters, villagers and herdsmen. October is the peak trekking season and an estimated 100,000 trekkers pass over Thorung La every year. As Sam Moulton and Grayson Schaffer reported in an article in Outside Online, the storm was not unexpected nor was it unique but the warning signs were ignored. A severe cyclone off the eastern coast of India had moved steadily inland and northward, over the course of two days, striking the Himalaya with greater intensity than most monsoon storms. Many of those who died were poorly equipped and unprepared for this fierce blizzard that trapped them at altitudes above 5,000 metres. Those who survived suffered frostbite, dehydration, hypothermia and altitude sickness."

"Meteorologists strongly suspect that this event was the result of climate change. Post-monsoon storms can be severe but usually by the middle of October most of the unsettled weather has ended and clouds disperse. Abnormally warm temperatures in the Bay of Bengal created a tropical depression that made the Category 4 hurricane spin out of control."

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"After crossing Thorung La, our trail descends sharply to Muktinath Temple, one of the most sacred and remote destinations for Hindu pilgrims. Mukti means salvation, or a release from the cycle of suffering and rebirth. Devotees believe that they can visit all the holy sites in the Himalaya but until they have been to Muktinath, their sins will never be completely washed clean.

"A small, three-tiered shrine with a pagoda-style roof stands within a walled compound of poplar and willow trees. These are the first signs of life we encounter after crossing the pass. In early December only a few brown leaves cling to the trees and the grass has been scorched by frost. Dhaulagiri (8,167 metres), the seventh highest mountain in the world, rises directly from the riverbed below. We have now entered the northern end of the Kali Gandaki Gorge, the deepest valley in the world, connecting Tibet and Mustang with the central highlands of Nepal. Only a trickle of pilgrims visit at this time of year, though Muktinath remains open throughout winter for prayers and propitiation. Because of the dry climate snow seldom falls on these slopes. A mendicant, his skin smeared with ash, sits cross-legged near the gate, lost in cosmic contemplation as he soaks in the afternoon sunshine.

"The sacred waters at Muktinath emerge as a spring from the barren slope above. This perennial stream is channelled into a trough out of which a hundred and eight water spouts spill into a drain that encircles the temple and fills a rectangular tank before irrigating the trees and garden. The entire design of the complex is dictated by the course of flowing water. A hundred and eight is a sacred number—signifying the 108 names of god. The brass spouts are each shaped like the head of a cow with its mouth open to convey the stream. At either end are slightly larger spouts designed to look like makaras, an aquatic monster, part crocodile and part elephant. Makaras are the divine vehicle of the Ganga and are associated with the mythology of Vishnu, the presiding deity at Muktinath.

"The main sanctuary is dedicated to Vishnu, who is worshipped as the preserver and sustainer of life. Water is the element that transforms this raw and desolate region. Unlike the glacial streams that flow directly out of the ice, the sacred source at Muktinath springs from an aquifer buried beneath rocks and earth. At this time of year, where the spring emerges, strings of faded prayer flags are tied in a pinwheel pattern on the hillside above, like a tattered mandala.

"The temple complex at Muktinath contains a number of shrines, including a Shiva temple and a Buddhist gompa. To one side, just beyond the compound wall, an enormous Buddha statue is being constructed, out of scale with the older structures. Giant idols like this suggest religious chauvinism that undermines the unique blend of faiths at Muktinath. As I enter the main temple, a Hindu priest anoints my forehead with a vermilion tilak but when I approach the inner sanctum, a young Buddhist monk in ochre robes is lighting incense in front of Hindu idols. The caretakers of both religions seem to share ritual duties without compromising or contesting each other’s beliefs.

"Inside the sanctuary at Muktinath, along with images of Vishnu and dozens of other sacred objects and votive offerings, are several large saligrams. These fossilized ammonites are an extinct species of predatory mollusc that died out at the end of the Cretaceous period, more than 65 million years ago. Their closest living relative today is the nautilus, which has a shell that exhibits the same spiral shape as a ram’s horn from which ammonites get their name. Coincidentally, Argali (Ovis ammon), a wild species of sheep, live in Upper Mustang and share the same taxonomic root.

"Found in many parts of the world, ammonites are imbued with myth and lore. In Europe they are called ‘snake stones’ and here at Muktinath, Hindu mythology associates them with the coils of the celestial serpent on which Lord Vishnu sleeps. Finding these ancient marine creatures 5,000 metres above sea level and 2,000 kilometres from the nearest ocean only adds to their mystery, as does the prevailing theory that they were wiped out in a mass extinction, along with the dinosaurs and most other forms of life, when a giant asteroid struck the earth, kicking up a dense cloud of dust and debris that blocked sunlight and smothered the earth.

"Those who worship the saligrams at Muktinath do not question or confirm the scientific narratives that explain their existence. Instead, they see mysterious patterns embedded in stone that can only make sense within the logic of faith. At Muktinath, saligrams are venerated as symbols of Vishnu, the preserving deity of the Hindu triad, who keeps the world in balance, a divine conservationist in whose serpentine dreams we exist for only a fleeting fraction of eternity. These fossils from the Himalaya have been carried to temples all across India, as far away as Orissa and Tamil Nadu, where saligrams are placed alongside idols and invested with spiritual powers that drive our innermost fears and desires."

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" ... the dimly lit walls are covered with murals of bodhisattvas, Manjushri (representing insight) and Chenrezig (representing compassion), as well as Buddhist goddesses, both the green and white Taras. However, the primary object of worship is an eternal flame that burns in a sacred hearth, where natural gas emerges from a tiny crevice in the rocks. In the shadowy interior of the gompa, the air has a sulphurous smell though the fire burns without smoke. It looks like a pilot light in an oven, a guttering blue and yellow spark. Like the water that flows out of the earth, the fire emerges at Muktinath from a hidden source deep within the mountain. All five primary elements are here, including the wind that whips through the poplar trees outside and an ethereal sunset reflecting off Dhaulagiri. This enormous peak, with its concave eastern face, dominates the valley, catching the first and last rays of light while the rest of the mountains lie in darkness."

"From the courtyard of Muktinath Temple, the massive pyramid of Dhaulagiri dominates the skyline, one of the most beautiful, imposing giants of the Himalaya. Its slopes, gilded by the sunrise, descend directly into the Kali Gandaki Gorge. ... "

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"Later in the morning, I buy a saligram as a souvenir from a street vendor in Muktinath. A black pebble, the size of a walnut, it breaks neatly in two, revealing the spiral shape of the fossil inside. The ribbed whorl of a sea creature that no longer exists serves as a totem of Himalayan evolution. Encased in mud and through a slow gestation, this prehistoric sea creature has been transformed into stone. Nothing of the original life form survives. What we discover after splitting the stone is not what remains but evidence of something no longer there. Like the rocks that Himalayan traders once broke in half and then fitted together to seal commercial partnerships, these are emblems of intangible truths and a historical trust with the land.

"Each saligram coils in upon itself, a perpetuum mobile. The tiny chakras rotate on an invisible axis, signifying the cyclical nature of life and death, resilience and renewal. A natural motif of intrinsic motion, the saligram maps out the cosmos, the movement of galaxies and planets, the orbit of our earth spinning in the void. Tibetan monks form an endless knot, or phelbe, by interlacing their fingers in meditation. Like the saligram this sacred geometry leads us into a peaceful, eternal existence where suffering and sacrifice do not exist. Here is the elemental pattern, the coiled spring at the base of our spine, the eternal wheel of energy and creation."

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"In Himalayan legends and lore the crossing of rivers is a momentous event, a passage from one region to another, or from one life into the next. ... Albinia also quotes the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang in 645 CE who wrote: ‘The River Sin-tu [Indus] is pure and clear as a mirror… Poisonous dragons and dangerous spirits live beneath its waters. If a man tries to cross the river carrying valuable gems, rare flowers and fruits, or above all, relics of the Buddha, the boat is engulfed by waves.’"

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"Moving from east to west, the Himalaya curve from lower to higher latitudes, which affects everything from the distribution of moths and butterflies to the size of glaciers. Though birds have little respect for borders, ornithologists have determined certain dividing lines for avian species. Robert L. Fleming, Sr. and Jr., the father and son team who published the landmark Birds of Nepal in 1976, have observed:

"The Kali Gandaki River in central Nepal emerges as a very distinct breaking point in bird distributions. Eastern birds including the Brown Parrotbill, Golden-Breasted Tit Babbler, Rufous-bellied Shrike Babbler and the Blood Pheasant extend only as far west as the Annapurnas. Conversely, western birds that reach Dhaulagiri and apparently no further east are the Simla Black Tit, Spot-Winged Black Tit, White Throated Tit, Missel Thrush, White-cheeked Nuthatch and the Eurasian Nuthatch. Thus, virtually in the center of Nepal, and also in the center of the 2557 kilometer (1,600 mi.) Himalayan arc, we find a fairly narrow region of considerable species change."

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"Two rivers that remain in my memory from childhood are the Lidder in Kashmir with willows draped over its banks and the Parbati in Kullu overshadowed by groves of deodar trees. But of all the Himalayan streams I’ve known, the most beautiful is the Ram Ganga, which flows through Corbett National Park. Near the forest rest house at Gairal, it leaves the foothills of Kumaon and empties into the Patlidun, a relatively open valley that lies between the Shivalik Hills and the first range of the Himalaya. In the late 1960s a dam was built at Kalagarh and the Ram Ganga backs up into a broad reservoir, flooding a large area of the Patlidun, drastically reducing open grasslands that once supported a wide variety of wildlife ranging from hog deer and elephants to tiger."

"Without the river, the foothills of Corbett Park could not support its diversity of species and without the surrounding forests the Ram Ganga would not have its pristine character. Named after Jim Corbett, the British hunter-naturalist and author of the bestseller, Man-Eaters of Kumaon, who was born nearby in Nainital, the park protects one of the few unspoiled stretches of Bhabar and Terai that girdle the lowest elevations of the Himalaya. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, this belt of jungle remained uninhabited, largely because of the prevalence of malaria. Only certain tribal communities, like the Tharus of Nepal, were immune to mosquito-born fevers that made this region treacherous, particularly in summer. Corbett’s family owned a farm to the east of the park and most of his books were set in this terrain, along the lower margins of the mountains. He fished in the Ram Ganga and many other streams that flow through the foothills of Kumaon. As an interlude to his man-eater adventures, Corbett included a chapter, ‘Fish of My Dreams’, in which he describes a day on an unnamed river, very likely the Ram Ganga. With evocative detail, he recounts how he caught a large mahseer, estimated at 22 kilograms but as he reflects:

"The weight of the fish is immaterial, for weights are soon forgotten. Not so forgotten are the surroundings in which the sport is indulged in. The steel blue of the fern-fringed pool where the water rests a little before cascading over rock and shingle to draw breath again in another pool more beautiful than the one just left—the flash of a gaily coloured kingfisher as he breaks the surface of the water, shedding a shower of diamonds from his wings as he rises with a chirp of delight, a silver minnow held firmly in his vermilion bill—the belling of a sambhar and the clear tuneful call of the chital apprising the jungle folk that the tiger, whose pugmarks show wet on the sand where a few minutes before he crossed the river, is out in search of his dinner. These are things that will not be forgotten and will live in my memory, the lodestone to draw me back to that beautiful valley, as yet unspoiled by man."

" ... Today, the park authorities forbid swimming in the Ram Ganga and after a British birdwatcher was killed by a tiger in 1985, tourists are not permitted to venture out on foot and are only allowed to tour the park by jeep. Fishing too has been banned."

................................................................................................

"As we consider the future of the Himalaya and the ever-changing features of these mountains, it is important to remember that one of the great rivers of the past has vanished. In ancient texts there are references to the Ganga as well as the Indus and its tributaries. The Brahmaputra too is identified in scripture and sacred lore. But another Himalayan river called the Saraswati is also mentioned, which has puzzled scholars and geographers because it no longer exists. This elusive stream flows through the pages of Indian literature and mythology without beginning or end. The goddess Saraswati, who embodies its waters, is the patron deity of learning, knowledge and literature. She is listed as one of India’s seven sacred rivers, each of which is associated with a female deity."

Here Alter exhibits just disdain by quoting a relatively youngster of someone in a profession where being of the right race is as advantageous as thereafter writing anything abusive, incorrect or worse about India (althoughhere the quote isn't exactly bad), before going on to quote a great authority.

"In his Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo writes, ‘Saraswati means, “she of the stream, the flowing movement”, and is therefore a natural name both for a river and the goddess of inspiration.’ ... "

True to his mediocrity and stupidity resulting from a mind stunned by racism, he goes on yo quote others, as if demonstrating a leftist stance.

" ... In Max Müeller’s translation of the Vedic hymn Saraswati ‘goes on pure from the mountains as far as the sea’. But in other accounts her waters fall from the Himalaya and are ‘lost in the sands of the desert’. Echoing this, the Mahabharata contains a story of the Brahmin sage Utathya, whose wife is carried away by Varuna, god of the sky, oceans and rivers. Utathya becomes so enraged with Varuna, he curses the river: ‘Saraswati, disappear into the deserts, and let this land, deserted by thee, become impure.’"

It's obvious to anyone thinking that Alter has quotes given in 1:3:2 order of chronology; this implies that the river Saraswati was a tremendous flow during Vedic era, still mighty during Mahabharata but its disappearing in future was predicted then, and the quotation from unknown source in the middle is subsequent after its disappearing underground.

"A number of interpretations and explanations have been offered for the disappearance of the Saraswati including the most popular theory that it went underground and is now a subterranean stream that joins the Ganga and Yamuna at Allahabad. The meeting of their waters is often referred to as ‘triveni’, meaning the confluence of three rivers. ... "

Alter, of course, quotes the colonial product mindsets too, Macauley products who are ever ready to dismember anything Hindu. He proceeds further.

"Satellite imagery has revealed evidence of a ‘palaeochannel’ flowing out of the Himalaya, where an extinct river clearly entered the plains of North India. The location is east of Chandigarh near the foothills of Sirmur, below the royal capital of Nahan. The remnants of the lost river match the course of two seasonal streams called the Ghaggar and Markanda that pass through the Shivalik Hills. Coincidentally, the Markanda is the site of important archeological excavations near the village of Suketi, where fossils of prehistoric beasts like Stegodons and an ancestor of man, Sivapithecus, were unearthed.

"While the evidence is convincing that a substantial river once flowed out of the mountains, its origins remain unclear. The most plausible explanation is that the Sutlej and the Yamuna once followed a very different course than they do today. Instead of veering off in opposite directions they came together after leaving the Himalaya and their combined currents cut through the Shivalik Hills and carried on across north-western India to the Arabian Sea. Driving through the Sirmur region, the landscape can be disorienting because the streams and dry riverbeds that flood in the monsoon diverge in opposite directions."

Alter refrains from mentioning that it's not one or two but dozens, perhaps over a hundred of archeological sites dated to as far back as 3,000 BCE discovered and excavated along banks of this mighty river with a tremendous flow, miles wide along most of its course.

He discusses further, but unconvincingly, about why the river vanished, giving the impression that it was a stream that amounted to little without tributaries from either dide that changed course. This nay or may not be deliberate obfuscation, but does slot him as a no scholar, writing on a topic with information available far more than he gives.

Elsewhere, General Bakshi has written extensively on the subject, giving references regarding evidence from satellite observations, geology, archeological excavations and more, to the effect that plate tectonics may have had the result of this river shifting course, going underground, or both; he in fact only points to Saraswati going underground where its course is visible to satellites, while speaks of Yamuna shifting East to merge with Ganga instead of its earlier merging with Saraswati, and Satluj similarly shifting West to merge into Sindhu.

But it's easy to see that Saraswati, too, might have gone underground in not one but two, separated streams, one flowing West in its historical course while other flows East having shifted as Yamuna did, and merging into Ganga at Triveni Sangam as per common belief of India.

This is shown in two different places, between which it vanishes underground. One is its origin upstream from Badrinath near, but below and Southeast of, Vasudhara falls, where a mighty stream indeed roars out of a rocky crevice in Himalaya close to and below Bheem Pul before one, and vanishes underground somewhere below, 'to emerge only under and into Triveni Sangam', the guide informs one.

But at Triveni Sangam, one is informed by local guides, that there's a well, inside a temple on the shore of Ganga, right there at the confluence, where one can taste the water; that this well is reaching into Saraswati river stream, and the water tastes different from each of the other two rivers.

Obviously if a river can shift, or go underground, it can do both; It may divide and be underground in both directions; and there's no good reason - except a racist arrogance - to disdain a belief held by an ancient culture that wasn't wiped out as Egypt and Persia were, just because India lost to barbaric invaders. ................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"The common perception of an ice age is a continuous period of sub-zero temperatures that buries the land under snow and ice. In fact, the Pleistocene was an unsettled era of more than 2.5 million years during which Himalayan glaciers advanced and retreated, while the monsoon grew stronger and weaker. Scientists generally agree that the glacial maximum ended 10–11,000 years ago. What followed has been a gradual period of global warming during which the Himalaya emerged from a deep freeze. Even after the Pleistocene, there have been several sustained dips in temperature that led to the advance of Himalayan glaciers though nothing on the scale of the earlier period, when a vast carapace of ice extended from Namche Barwa to Nanga Parbat and the dead zone lay 2,000 metres lower than its present elevation.

"Seeing the mountains as they are today, covered by an abundance of life forms and diverse communities of plants and trees, the immediate question arises: How did Himalayan flora regenerate after thousands of centuries of glaciation that would have killed off previous generations of plants? ... "

"The monsoon, which stretches from June through September, elicits greenery out of the hardest, least fertile surfaces. Where winter cold and summer heat have left the rocks barren, rain and mist revive tiny spores that are carried by the wind and lie like fine dust in crevices and declivities. These primitive plants have shallow roots with filaments thinner than the finest hairs, clinging to rough surfaces. In most cases, they draw moisture from the air rather than soil. Yet within a few weeks of the monsoon’s arrival mosses and other bryophytes form a plush carpet, several millimetres thick, that hides the rocks beneath. Sometimes it seems as if the minerals themselves have turned into moss.

" ... Ferns followed mosses, just as they do in the monsoon season, equally adept at finding somewhere to grow on a vertical plane and quickly covering the most unyielding ground in verdant profusion. While only a limited number of fossilized mosses remain, ferns have a more rigid structure and lend themselves to transferring botanical shapes to stone. Stencilled by time on sedimentary layers of hardened mud and silt their unfurled fronds leave neat impressions, as if preserved between the pages of a collector’s album.

"The highest plants in the Himalaya offer clues regarding the first flowering species to colonize these mountains. ... both Stellaria decumbens, a variety of stitchwort and Arenaria bryophylla, a sandwort, are found as high as 6,100 metres. These plants look like mosses, with small, tightly packed leaves that form compact cushions growing close to the ground. They survive for months beneath layers of snow."

................................................................................................

" ... Though it may take thousands of years for a split to occur and a new botanical species to emerge, plants continually adjust to climate, soil conditions and other forms of life around them. Botanist Maharaj Pandit explains how plants have transitioned over time: ‘The biological diversity, established during the Miocene-Pliocene epochs, was subsequently reshuffled during Pleistocene glaciation. A period of prolonged glaciation ensued, which forced the displacement of several plant taxa to lower elevations and common habitats, facilitating genetic exchanges, among hitherto isolated plant populations.’

"Ascending Himalayan valleys and ridges, we often think of birches as the ‘last’ trees standing before the snow takes over, like resolute sentries guarding the timberline, but from another perspective these are the ‘first’ trees, because they represent the uppermost reaches of the forest. For this reason birches are often referred to as a ‘pioneer species’ because they go before others and establish their presence at the outer limits of climate change. Unfortunately, in places like Bhojbasa (birch camp) in the Bhagirathi Valley near Gaumukh, where a grove of birches once flourished a few hundred metres from the snout of the glacier, these inveterate pioneers have been destroyed by religious tourism, cut and burned to warm pilgrims and ascetics.

"Bhojpatra, the Hindi name for birches, comes from a legend about Raja Bhoj, the young heir to a Himalayan throne, whose uncle was trying to usurp his kingdom. The prince wrote a poignant letter on birchbark, pleading his case so persuasively that the uncle and his soldiers changed their minds and allowed Raja Bhoj to ascend the throne. ... "

Here's evidence that the racism by Alter against India forces him into idiotic mistakes that he could have avoided if he put racism aside and appreciated a beautiful, scientific language for its worth.

In Sanskrit the name for this isn't Bhojpatra,which incidentally would be a leaf or bark and not the whole tree; it is "Bhourjapatra"; 'patra' is leaf, and is so understood throughout India. So while patra also means letter, that would be because a leaf or a bark of suitable trees were used for such purposes, as Alter next mentions.

But the tree species isn't named after a letter by a king.

" ... Traditionally, the papery bark has been used for manuscripts including copies of the Upanishads penned in Kashmir. ... "

And now begins a subtle anti-India bit, where regions of India are mentioned separately, all contributing towards a not so subtle propaganda against India which was instituted by Macaulay but practiced by Abrahamic-III Invading barbarians for over a millennium and a half before Abrahamic-II, and subsequently Abrahamic-IV, joined in.

................................................................................................

" ... Soil testing on the Tibetan Plateau has revealed that large areas of birch, rhododendron and conifer forests once covered parts of this region but were burned to the ground years ago, probably by herdsmen who hoped to extend pastures.

"On an evolutionary time scale, ten or eleven thousand years is a very short span of natural history, yet the current Holocene age represents a sustained and rapid expansion of life in the Himalaya. Plants, insects, birds and animals, all of which had been pushed out of higher elevations by glaciers into lower refugia were suddenly on the move again as climatic conditions improved, ascending not just from the east but from the south and north as well.

"Among the fascinating puzzles of India’s natural heritage are relict species of Himalayan plants and wildlife found in the Nilgiri Mountains near the southern tip of the subcontinent. Separated from their northern counterparts by more than 2,000 kilometres, barberry bushes, whistling thrushes and thar, a species of wild goat, continue to flourish in isolation. A number of theories have been put forward to explain this phenomenon. For years, scientists have debated the ‘Satpura hypothesis’, which suggests that an ancient range of hills in Central India served as a land bridge for species that sought warmer temperatures and more welcoming pastures during periods of glaciation. Some have argued that these relicts were essentially exiled or left behind in their South Indian refugium, following the end of the Pleistocene when the Satpura ranges and the Deccan Plateau became hotter and drier."

................................................................................................

"Travelling from east to west along the Himalayan arc, the total number of species gradually diminishes. Arunachal Pradesh, where the Brahmaputra emerges from the mountains in eastern India, is one of the world’s most fertile biodiversity hotspots. On the other hand, northwestern Pakistan, where the Indus separates the Himalaya from the Karakoram and Hindu Kush, has far fewer varieties of plants and wildlife. Much of that region comprises high altitude grasslands and desert.

"Life along the two major rivers that border the Himalaya offers a clear contrast in botanical diversity. Both the Brahmaputra and Indus have their sources in the trans-Himalayan region, roughly 50 kilometres apart on either side of Mount Kailas. Flowing westward before turning south through Ladakh and along the edge of Kashmir, the Indus supports narrow margins of greenery on either side. Most of its course passes through areas of rain shadow. In Ladakh the river is fringed by essentially two species of trees—willows and poplars—mostly planted by man. Spring and summer bring about a dramatic flowering of plants and the banks of the Indus are carpeted with an array of alpine herbs but these are short-lived. For eight months of the year, the valley remains as dry and desolate as the barren hills above. Even when it flows out of the mountains near Attock and crosses the plains of Sindh, on its way to the sea, the Indus does not support a substantial variety of flora or fauna, flowing mostly through arid terrain.

"Meanwhile, the Tsang Po begins its journey in much the same way, as it crosses trans-Himalayan steppes, but the moment this great river bends south and carves a passage through Eastern Tibet, it enters some of the densest jungles in Asia. Where its gorges penetrate the main thrust of the Himalaya it is so wild and inaccessible that for years geographers failed to connect the Tsang Po to the Brahmaputra, which emerges on the other side. This ‘missing link’ lay obscured beneath a canopy of foliage so intensely varied and tangled, few travellers could cut their way through."

................................................................................................

"Hooker’s motives in hunting for plants were less practical or commercially driven than Moorcroft’s search for fodder. Though he collected quantities of seeds that were shipped back to England and successfully germinated in the nursery beds and hothouses of Kew Gardens, the purpose of Hooker’s quest was more to cultivate botanical knowledge and extend the reach of taxonomy.

"Not only was Hooker interested in plants; he was fascinated by the Lepchas who are the original inhabitants of Sikkim, an animistic community of mountain dwellers who settled in this region long before the arrival of Buddhists and Hindus. ... "

This, again, is the anti Hindu, anti India bias crystallized by Macaulay but exhibited by every racist of West, whether or not they ever heard of Macaulay.

There's no basis for assuming that Lepchas were native, or that they were "settled in this region long before the arrival of Buddhists and Hindus', or that "arrival of Buddhists and Hindus' from elsewhere is a matter to be taken for granted.

There's no reason to believe that Tibet and contiguous regions, just as Afghanistan was, weren't always part of Indian culture and land, mentioned copiously in ancient epics Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Another possibility, of course, is that they, like Tibetan of last few centuries since times of Kublai Khan, were migrants to these regions, arriving long after Mahabharata era. Or that they are part of India since before that era, mentioned in the epics by another name.

Fact is West invented the fraudulent theory of Aryan invasion and subsequently renamed it Aryan Migration, whole the evoke thing is incorrect, false, and invented just to make indigenous Arya population to be forced to lose moral ground against every invading barbarian.

................................................................................................

" ... This image, an etching by William Walker based on a painting by Frank Stone, was obviously drawn from the imaginations of British artists and is a mythological tableau. It depicts a mountainous Eden in which knowledge takes the form of a European gentleman in frock coat and tie, with an oriental turban on his head. The ‘native’ Lepchas are gentle, half-naked people, dressed in unstitched robes, intently plucking flowers from wild shrubs and trees. Altogether it is a visual parable of botanical science through which floral mysteries are revealed. Hooker sits like an oracle amidst a jungle of Himalayan rhododendrons, which became a horticultural craze in nineteenth century English gardens. This mezzotint would have illustrated the distant origins of those exotic blooms."

Sounds much more like West depicting every invader as a ruler class while 'native's must be depicted and disdained 'half-naked', so West might despise them without thinking regarding its in prejudices. This isn't that different from writing of Babar, who British wrote appreciatively of; both forgot, of course, that clothes and couture follow climate necessities, not the other way.

................................................................................................

" ... Hooker paid tribute to his friends and mentors by naming many of the flowers after them. Rhododendron Falconeri honours Hugh Falconer, one of the pre-eminent naturalists of his time. He was superintendent of the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta and hosted Hooker on his arrival in India. ... "

Alter gives several examples further of Hooker naming various species indigenous to India after his friends, who were, like him, of European origin.

Here begins fraud, whereby forever after any Indian indigenous names are questioned, denied, or ridiculed, or worse - adapted in broken, twisted forms, while names that had nothing to do with the land or her flowers et al are associated and the latter appropriated in their name. As the continent across Atlantic was, by naming it after a minor sailor Vespucci Amerigo.

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" ... The students’ faces register amusement and curiosity as they watch us striding off into the mountains while they prepare to study mathematics, science, Hindi, English, history and geography. Their uniforms—white shirts and ties, tomato-red jumpers and the girls’ pleated skirts—are crisply ironed and neatly buttoned. Our paths cross briefly as they amble towards a rapidly evolving future while we venture into a landscape that has scarcely changed over the past millennia."

Alter omits mentioning that this set of students, while they don’t seem to be of the wealthiest strata that patronise British schools that are boarding variety, set up to emulate English public schools superficially but produce brown copies of English perfected to serve West and therefore cut of for growing years from roots, nevertheless they are of similar variety that are only a rung below, wear uniforms that conform to British clothing suitable for weather of British isles and distanced from India in spirit, if not from family due yo living at home.

He isn't describing cheaper, government sponsored schools that poorer students must go to, wearing more affordable clothes and not unnecessary ties.

On the other hand the richer schools, especially church run variety, has been known to be deficient in education in all but English accent, and definitely lacking in education in science and mathematics, since British did not intend to encourage knowledge, only produce those who'd serve them. This, those schools still do.

Exceptions exist, chiefly amongst South Indian students whose families do not strive to be seen as up to date, and instead prefer to keep to roots, even if highly educated. They survive those schools and go on to fo science, even high level research.

................................................................................................

" ... In a nearby shed, young acolytes with shaved heads and maroon robes, instead of school uniforms, learn to recite Tibetan prayers rather than scientific formulae, English grammar and mathematical equations."

Cheap and cowardly, attacking Buddhist schools but not Abrahamic-II nor the next. At that, Buddhist schools are more likely than other two, especially in bible belt neighbourhood, to teach mathematics and science; latter fought legally to teach creation as per bible on par with evolution, and subsequently, fired any teacher who didn't refrain from teaching evolution.

That's in Confederate South, in land of Alter's family origin, post - presumably - Columbus.

................................................................................................

" ... The trail from Yuksam to Dzongri, and from there across Kang La into Nepal, has been used for centuries. This is also the path followed by early mountaineering expeditions to Kanchenjunga. As one of the first Europeans to travel this route, Hooker wondered why more people didn’t traverse the direct and easily accessible Singalila Ridge. Later, he learned that the valley above Yuksam had been popularized by smugglers who surreptitiously carried loads of rock salt from Tibet over Kang La, to avoid taxation. Instead of being transported by yaks or horses, the contraband was carried by porters, stooping under the weight of 50-kilogram sacks. It seems the remote highlands and dense jungles near Dzongri were not patrolled by the Chogyal’s revenue agents."

"Justin Lepcha, our guide, was leading a group up to Dzongri when the earthquake, measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale, struck on 18 September 2011. Returning to Bakhim, he and his clients discovered the path to Yuksam had been swept away in a landslide. Six years later, the scar is still visible though a new trail has been constructed up and over a broad gash of mud and exposed rock that stretches for several hundred metres down to the river. ‘One of the men from Bakhim agreed to guide us but we had to cut our way through the jungle,’ Justin recalls. ‘It was monsoon and leeches were everywhere. It took us ten hours to reach Yuksam.’"

................................................................................................

"Himalayan forests are complex communities that compete, collaborate and coexist in much the same manner as human society. Even the most casual observer can see how the different strata of foliage function in a hierarchical manner, from violets and primulas at the roots of an oak to the understorey of larger plants such as wild ginger and bamboo. Above this lies a mezzanine level of shorter trees like laurel and cinnamon, then further up are the trunks and branches of forest giants—oaks and conifers, each of which provide scaffoldings for elaborate ecosystems of vines, fungi, mosses, ferns, polypods and orchids. Epiphytic species like Rhododendron dalhousiae take root 20 to 30 metres above the ground, drawing nutrients and moisture not from the earth but from a nurturing cradle of branches and soft interstices within decaying bark. Only after ascending through each of these tiers of foliage do we come to the domed canopy of the forest, its leafy crowns arching toward the sun.

"On a mountain, most trees grow straight upward regardless of the angle or contours of the ridge. They align themselves with rays of sunlight that fuel photosynthesis. Only when a tree is bent in a storm, or when its roots are dislodged by a landslide or earthquake, does it follow a different trajectory, leaning outward or inward and often falling to the ground. Because level land is scarce in the Himalaya, trees must grow in precarious places, balancing their weight according to the pitch of the slope. As their limbs extend upward and outward in acrobatic manoeuvres, they distribute their weight to compensate for the force of gravity as well as the buffeting of wind and the burden of snow."

" ... the density of the forest on a slope is greater than on level ground because the foliage is stacked in order to absorb as much of the sun’s energy as possible.

"Just as skyscrapers in a city accommodate a larger number of occupants per square metre of plinth area compared to a single-storey suburban home, Sikkim’s forests house many more individual plants and trees per acre, tucking and crowding them into ravines and hollows, spurs and saddles. Because everything grows close together, various species must share resources. Most ferns and ground orchids, for instance, die off or become dormant in winter when days are shorter and less sunlight is available. Four to six months later, upon reappearing, they follow a kind of forest etiquette, queuing up as they take their assigned places within the dappled light and shade. Some species of trees, like magnolias and maples, shed their leaves in the fall, allowing shrubs and plants beneath to receive light and warmth during their dormancy. On the other hand, oaks cast off their foliage only as they bud and form new leaves, though in those brief few weeks between loss and renewal, smaller saplings and creepers receive a concentrated dose of sunshine to help them compete. In many ways, forest canopies are like venetian blinds that open or close with the seasons, rationing energy and allowing each species to survive. This also regulates and disperses precipitation and guards against soil erosion. Vital to the well-being of a Himalayan forest are clouds and mist, which ascend and descend from valleys to ridgelines with changing temperatures and wind patterns during the course of a day. These humid vapours penetrate the densest jungles, providing moisture for moss and other aerial species that have no access to water from the earth.

"Decay and degradation are as much a part of a vertical ecosystem as the procreation and life cycles of trees and plants. The dead foliage and humus underfoot, along with a multitude of microscopic organisms that feed upon them and break them down into particles of soil, are an essential element in every biome. ... "

" ... Bhrigu and I look back down the valley towards Yuksam, where the slopes are covered with mixed, broad-leaved forest. From where we sit, several firs and hemlocks are visible, as well as monstrous oaks, each of which have been colonized by dozens of species. Pristine white orchids with fleshy leaves are draped from an elbow on the branch overhead. Bracket mushrooms, like miniature pagodas, have fixed themselves inside a hollow bole. A thick creeper trails up the trunk as if it were an alpinist’s rope, offering a leafy belay through the crux of the tree. At the roots of the oak, which are gnarled and exposed, a pair of gold-naped finches search for fallen seeds, the male with a gilded chapeau and the female a ruddy brown. A hoary-bellied squirrel, the colour of dead leaves, scuttles about, its tail bristling in agitation, alongside a plain-backed thrush, whose mottled plumage provides perfect camouflage within the flecked shadows and leaves. Further up the trunk, a hunting party of nuthatches and tits are feeding on insects and seeds while a woodpecker drills beetle larvae out of the trunk with the determination of a dentist performing a root canal. Altogether, this scene is a living reminder that no species survives alone and here at 2,000 metres above sea level in the Eastern Himalaya the checks and balances of life are fully functioning just as they must have been two centuries ago or two millennia before that."

"Almost as remarkable as the flowers are the interwoven trunks and limbs of the trees, which form natural barricades that make it impossible for large animals, including human beings, to penetrate the jungle. Yaks and ponies along this route are forced to stay on the trail while squirrels and foxes, martens and other small mammals such as musk deer can penetrate these labyrinths with ease. Birds too find sanctuary under shingled parasols of leaves. As we climb to Phedang flocks of nutcrackers and black-capped laughingthrushes appear and disappear around us. Above 3,000 metres much of this region is covered in snow for several months of the year. Rhododendrons are perfectly suited to the seasons for they bend like springs under the weight of the snow. While taller, less compliant species like conifers and birches may lose their branches in a heavy snowfall, rhododendrons suffer little damage, even in a blizzard."

"In a groundbreaking study published in the journal Nature, Dr Suzanne Simard of the University of British Columbia discovered communication networks in stands of Douglas firs, which she dubbed the ‘Wood Wide Web’, suggesting the connectivity of trees. This research has been popularized by German naturalist Peter Wohlleben in his bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees. He describes how oaks and beeches share information using microscopic fungal filaments, comparing these to fibre-optic Internet cables. ‘One teaspoon of forest soil contains many miles of these “hyphae”. Over centuries a single fungus can cover many square kilometres and network an entire forest. The fungal connections transmit signals from one tree to the next, helping them exchange news about insects, drought, and other dangers.’

"If the forests of Canada and Germany are hard-wired with underground fibres, it is likely that Himalayan forests operate on a similar principle, though it must be far more complex because of the greater diversity of species. Evidence shows that not only trees communicate but plants, shrubs and grasses too. One can hardly imagine the level of silent ‘chatter’ that pervades a Himalayan jungle. Trekking through a multi-storied forest in Sikkim we appreciate the profound silence and stillness of nature though all around us are wild yet inaudible conversations. As we climb above the treeline onto the high meadows at Dzongri, the chorus of voices changes along with the vegetation. Another community of species takes over, with the fragrant Rhododendron anthopogon and R. setosum, both stunted shrubs that flower in late summer, along with junipers and cotoneaster, all of which hug the ground."

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"The lamas of Pemayangtse Monastery in Pelling believe that under the surface of a landscape lies another world of even greater beauty and spiritual significance. ... "

One has shivers as one reads of that. But then, Alter must spoil it.

" ... In all their colourful fertility, the meadows reveal a landscape of eternal, organic bliss. ... "

Is he even aware of his racism?

Hubris, thy name is West.

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"The cross-section of a massive deodar tree measures close to 3 metres in diameter, as broad as a banquet table. Time has stopped in its rings, a sequence of centuries locked within circular layers of wood. Until 1919, this giant cedar towered above the Tons Valley, in Jaunsar. According to a timeline painted on its trunk, the tree lived for 704 years. ... "

So far, so good. But then

" ... When the Qutab Minar was built in Delhi, in 1192, this deodar would have been a sapling."

Solidarity of invaders? Why assume the barbarians built so complex a structure, while having destroyed twenty seven temples around it, and been unable to either destroy or reproduce the iron pillar that refuses to rust? No, the renaming was the lie. Mostly, the invaders destroyed existing complex structures, using pieces thereof to humiliate the conquered; often enough, existing structures were taken over and simply claimed and renamed.

"The Timber Museum at the Forest Research Institute (FRI) in Dehradun also contains splinters of wood from ancient palaces, 2,000 years old, alongside a display on the modern process of pencil-making. ... "

Typical alter, in not only not naming the said palace or where it was, presumably Indian, but prompt in reducing it to oencil making, simply by juxtaposition. One can be sure he'd have provided tons of detail had the said palace not been Hindu and Indian, so the only way one may know the rest is by contacting the said museum.

The timeline takes to closer to when Buddha had given up his kingdom, of course, give or take a few centuries.

" ... The museum is testimony to the commercial exploitation of India’s forests. ... "

Alter does seem to point fingers doesn't he! Did West ever not think in terms of conquering and subjugation nature, other humans, et al? Or is he being subtle in omitting mention of trees cherished, worshipped, by India?

" ... The main gallery is panelled with planks of wood from 126 different species of Indian trees ranging in colour and texture from the velvet lustre of Kashmiri walnut to the resolute grain of Burma teak. ...

" ... With high, arched ceilings and rows of glass cases containing relics of ancient jungles felled in the name of progress, the museum feels like a mausoleum built for India’s forests."

The photographs on Google maps show a building that seems to remind one of Hermitage, St. Petersburg; the grounds match, more than match, the scale. It's obviously built by British and not for Indians. The Saud mausoleum, too, is an Abrahamic concept, more Abrahamic-II or Abrahamic-III or even Abrahamic-IV, but definitely not Indian, not Hindu.

"In 1923, the Imperial Forest Service acquired a thousand-acre estate on the outskirts of Dehradun, and constructed a grand edifice to match the magnitude of its dominions. Built on the scale of a maharaja’s palace, its main building occupies a plinth area of 6 acres. Among the largest brick structures in the world, it has a neo-Georgian facade of Grecian columns and peaked roofs that front a maze of arched corridors, opening onto a series of inner courtyards and arcades. The lawns in front of the institute stretch for almost a kilometre to the south. To the north rise the foothills of the Himalaya. Both the architecture and the landscaping represent a deliberate statement of expansive, omnipotent power and absolute authority."

Well put.

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"Most conservationists today and a few enlightened forest officials recognize the fundamental flaw in the colonial model of forest management that promulgates the wholesale annexation of forest lands and the exclusion of village and nomadic communities. By creating an adversarial relationship between the state forest departments and those people who have been using forest resources for generations, British authorities set in motion a cycle of conflict that continues today.

"Commercial deforestation in the Central Himalaya began in the mid-nineteenth century, when Frederick ‘Pahari’ Wilson made a fortune felling stands of timber in the upper reaches of the Ganga watershed and floating it down the river. A renegade army deserter, Wilson persuaded the Maharaja of Tehri Garhwal, Sudarshan Shah, to grant him a logging concession along the Bhagirathi above Uttarkashi. Having already explored this region, Wilson co-authored a book titled A Summer Ramble in the Himalayas. Using the pseudonym ‘Mountaineer’, he wrote an account of an extended shikar expedition that spanned the Central Himalaya. Referring to himself in the third person he writes, ‘It was considered a good morning’s work to meet with three or four (musk deer), now that the forests have been thinned; but when Wilson first commenced hunting here he sometimes met with more than a dozen.’ During one shikar trek of seventeen days, he killed eleven bharal, eighteen musk deer, two bears and a snow leopard."

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"After establishing his personal fiefdom at Harsil, near the headwaters of the Ganga, he became known as Raja Wilson and even minted his own coins. He also had a habit of taking the law into his own hands. In one instance, Wilson personally flogged the maharaja’s revenue officers for detaining one of his men. After setting up a timber depot near Hardwar, Wilson floated logs down the newly built Upper Ganges Canal. By the time of his death in 1883, this timber baron had become one of the wealthiest Europeans in North India.

"Most of Wilson’s fortune came from a single species, Cedrus deodara. Its vernacular name, deodar, translates as ‘tree of the gods’. Wilson showed little concern for divine associations though he described this species with a combination of awe and greed."

"Without any concern for sustainable forestry, ‘Pahari’ Wilson clear-felled stands of virgin deodar near Harsil, where he built himself a palatial home. European travellers at the time remarked with dismay on the wholesale destruction of forests along the Bhagirathi. At the same time, Wilson’s approach to indigenous communities in the Himalaya was much more accommodating than the dismissive attitude of forest officers. In fact, Wilson’s hunting for musk glands and animal pelts was accomplished in close collaboration with local hunters who were members of the Bajgi community, temple drummers from the village of Mukhba near Harsil. According to his biographer, D. C. Kala, Wilson ended up marrying the sister of one of his shikaris, a woman named Sangrami, who bore him three children and later converted to Christianity, changing her name to Ruth. (Kala dismisses the popular belief that her name was ‘Gulabi’.) Wilson also had a longstanding liaison with Sangrami’s niece, Raimta, all of which scandalized Anglo-Indian society, though the ‘Mountaineer’ seems to have been indifferent to colonial mores and propriety."

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"Surprisingly, despite its ‘dominion over palm and pine’, Britain did not have a professional forestry service until the second half of the nineteenth century. When colonial authorities in India realized that they needed to scientifically and effectively manage India’s timber resources, partly as a result of depredations by freebooters like Wilson, they turned to the Germans. Dietrich Brandis, a lecturer in botany from the University of Bonn, was appointed head of the forest service in Burma in 1856 and went on to spend thirty years in the Imperial Forest Service, ultimately serving as inspector general of forests in India from 1864–1883. Brandis recruited two other senior German foresters, Dr William Schlich and Berthold Ribbentrop. These men brought a systematic, Prussian style of management to the Indian jungles.

"According to Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha in This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India, Brandis and his team began drafting policies that ultimately formed the basis of the Indian Forest Act, 1878, establishing the ‘absolute proprietary right of the state’ over all uncultivated lands. This meant that the forest department essentially became the largest landholder in India. In one of the most audacious land-grabs ever, the British asserted control over both man and nature, with an equal disregard for both. Colonial authorities were quick to annex forest land for the state and declare graziers, hunters and gatherers to be recalcitrant interlopers or poachers rather than stewards of the forest. Following Independence, when the former princely states relinquished sovereignty to the republic, extensive tracts of jungle within their kingdoms also devolved to provincial forest departments. Consequently, indigenous, forest-based communities such as hunter-gatherers and migrant shepherds lost most of their hereditary rights to natural resources and became dependent on forest officers for access and permits. Traditional methods of conservation were set aside in preference for government-approved ‘working plans’ that encouraged the felling of indigenous species and the planting of more commercially attractive timber."

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"Unlike his British superiors, Brandis seems to have had some appreciation for the conservation and utilization methods of forest dwellers in India. Brandis noted the simple strategies of traditional foresters, who maintained sacred groves and limited felling and lopping in a sustainable manner. However, the agriculture secretary admonished Brandis for proposing that forest dwellers could be given even limited freedom in the management of the forests, suggesting his ‘views as to rights of aboriginal tribes, forest villages, etc. are to my mind clearly in advance of my own, and a fortiori of those of the government of India’.

"The emphasis on commercial forestry from the 1850s onward was initially fuelled by the Indian Railways, which had an insatiable appetite for timber. As thousands of kilometres of tracks were being laid across North India, forests of deodar and sal from the Himalaya provided wooden sleepers on which the steel rails were laid. Roughly 400 trees had to be felled for every kilometre of track. During the middle of the nineteenth century, steam engines burned wooden billets rather than coal, adding to the demand for wood. Similarly, the British Navy placed huge orders for teak from India and Burma to construct their battleships. Later on, during World War I, many of the trenches of Europe were bolstered by timber from Indian jungles, as the forests of France were decimated in the conflict. Mesopotamia and the Middle East also swallowed up India’s forest resources throughout the war. During 1917, in one year alone, Gadgil and Guha calculate that ‘228,076 tonnes of timber (excluding railway sleepers) were supplied by the specially created “timber branch” of the munitions branch, 50,000 tonnes of fodder grass exported to help military operations in Egypt and Iraq’."

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"The persistent focus on commercial forestry remains a colonial hangover in the forest departments of Indian states, where officers look upon the lands they manage primarily as a source of revenue. This has led to destructive practices that have altered the ecological balance of forests throughout the subcontinent, most significantly in the Himalaya. Throughout the foothills of Kumaon and Garhwal, the chir pine (Pinus longifolia) has been a favourite species for the forest department, not only because it shoots up rapidly and provides usable timber within twenty to thirty years, but also because it can be tapped for resin.

"During the twentieth century, both before and after Independence, large swathes of chir pines replaced indigenous species such as oaks that foresters like Brandis disdained because they had ‘much too slow a rate of growth to justify their maintenance, as component parts of the high forest’. Monoculture has been blamed for a variety of unwelcome consequences from the prevalence of wildfires to the extinction of many shrubs and plants that once made up the forest understorey."

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"An equally dramatic ecological change, not often noted, has been the widespread disappearance of Himalayan grasslands. While focusing on trees, many environmentalists have failed to register this significant factor. If we look at photographs of Himalayan hill stations like Mussoorie or Shimla, from a century ago, the changes are immediately apparent. Most of the southern slopes of the mountains up to 2,500 metres, were once covered in grass, plants like sorrel (Rumex hastatus) or shrubs like mansura (Coriaria nepalensis) and kingod (Berberis vulgaris).

"Grasses have played a significant role in traditional Himalayan economies, providing fodder for animals, thatch for roofs, and materials for making ropes, shoes and other products. Covering much of the Terai, where the Shivalik Hills and the first range of the Himalaya form duns or broad valleys, there were once extensive grasslands that supported a variety of wildlife such as rhinoceros and buffalo, which today are found only in small pockets of Nepal and Assam. Part of the reason for their endangered status, along with poaching, is the disappearance of grasslands.

"Harvesting grass remains an important part of the daily routine in many Himalayan villages. Both women and men set out in the morning with sickles and return home carrying enormous loads of grass that are stored as fodder for cattle or used as thatch. Grasses grow faster than trees and do not require decades to mature, but it is important to view these ‘gregarious communities’ not just as seasonal pastures but as longstanding constituents of a larger biome. Their shallow network of roots has been knitted together over centuries. In the same way that thatch roofs shed water, this living carpet of fibres keeps the monsoon rains from washing away the soil. And when a landslide occurs, their roots and rhizomes are quick to suture and bandage the mountain’s wounds.

"More than trees, grasses shape themselves to the contours of the mountain to gather the sun’s energy efficiently. The photosynthesis that occurs gives them their nutrient value and attracts mountain mammals and other creatures. The loss of Himalayan grasslands has affected wildlife distribution for the simple reason that ungulates like deer and goats can’t climb trees. Species of birds like the chir pheasant and chukar partridge also depend on grasslands, feeding on this wild granary and using it as cover to protect themselves from raptors and other predators. The near mythical Himalayan quail, Ophrysia superciliosa, now considered extinct, was last found on grass slopes near Mussoorie and Nainital in 1876. It would seem reasonable to suggest that the disappearance of grass cover may have contributed to the loss of this bird. A large assortment of skinks, millipedes, ground beetles, spiders and ants, not to mention invisible mites and microbes, also depend on grasslands to survive and propagate their species amongst the matted roots. These tiny life forms may seem insignificant compared to the enormous scale of Himalayan landscapes but as we look out upon the vast panoramas of peaks and forested ridgelines we must also appreciate the diversity of species that exist at our feet."

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"A number of bloodthirsty creatures inhabit Jabarkhet Nature Reserve (JNR), near our home in Landour. Not the least of these are leeches, during the monsoon. There are also yellow-throated martens, leopard cats, foxes, jackals and panthers but the only animals that really worry me are bears. Unlike the other predators that can sense our approach and slip away into the leafy shadows, Himalayan black bears (Ursus thibetanus) are less attentive and short-tempered. In winter, particularly, there’s always a chance of stumbling upon one at dawn or dusk, though they usually move about after dark, mauling the oaks for acorns."

"Jabarkhet Nature Reserve is a hundred acres of private land adjoining a large tract of government forest. It consists mostly of the south-west face of a protruding ridge known as Flag Hill. The predominant trees in this forest are Quercus leucotrichophora, Rhododendron arboreum and Lyonia ovalifolia. In Garhwali these are known as banj, burans and anyar. From Western Nepal, through Kumaon, Garhwal and Himachal Pradesh, these three species dominate this crucial band of foliage in the elevation between 1,800 and 2,500 metres, which corresponds with the highest year-round settlements in the Central Himalaya. Though herders take their animals much further up in summer, few permanent villages and towns are situated above 2,500 metres, except for religious sites and trading posts on the way to Tibet."

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"As in other parts of the Lower Himalaya, several exotic or invasive species have taken root on Flag Hill, partly because of an old ‘working plan’ that the owners employed under the supervision of the forest department. These arboreal interlopers are mostly conifers—blue pine (Pinus wallichiana), chir pine (Pinus longifolia), and a few exotic cypresses (Cupressus arizonica and C. lusitanica) all of which were planted less than a hundred years ago and have spread through self-seeding. In addition to these, JNR has plenty of horse chestnuts, dogwoods, wild cherries and wild pears, all of which make it a healthy mixed forest. But the most aggressive alien species is Eupatorium adenophorum, a waist-high weed native to Mexico and Central America. Nobody is entirely sure how Eupatorium arrived in India, though it has infiltrated almost every part of the Lower Himalaya. Rawat suggests that the plant’s seeds probably came here by accident in a shipment, years ago, to ports in Burma or Bengal from where it spread rapidly into the mountains. In Garhwal Eupatorium is known as kala ghaas, or black grass, because of its dark stems. In many places, including parts of JNR, it has covered hillsides and choked out indigenous species. Neither wild nor domesticated animals eat its leaves and after a forest fire, kala ghaas is one of the first species to recover."

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"Darwin tested the plant’s reflexes by exposing it to both heat and cold as well as a number of substances including morsels of meat, cork, human hairs, splinters of glass and even gluten (to which the plant seems to have been allergic, for its leaves quickly withered and turned black). What fascinated Darwin most of all was the way in which the plant sent signals through the tendrils on its leaves. ‘Some influence does travel up to the glands, causing them to secrete more copiously, and the secretion to become acid. This latter fact is, I believe, quite new in the physiology of plants; it has indeed only recently been established that in the animal kingdom an influence can be transmitted along the nerves to glands, modifying their power of secretion…’"

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"As we sit down to breakfast on the verandah, Sudhir Prakash insists I take a chair facing the mountains. ‘A guest should always be given the best view,’ he says, though the clouds have closed in and there is no sign of Kanchenjunga or the nearer ranges that descend to the confluence of the Rangeet and Rung Dung rivers. To the south-west, I can just make out the rooftops of Darjeeling on a ridge above us, girdled in clouds. A rumpled counterpane of mist is draped across the foot of the tea gardens and the pleated contours of surrounding ridges."

"Glenburn Tea Estate was founded in 1859 by Scottish planters and its gardens have been producing fine teas for more than a century and a half. At breakfast, we are served a first flush, picked and processed less than a month ago, around the beginning of April. Poured into Wedgwood china, it has a pale saffron colour with a delicate but distinctive aroma and flavour described by connoisseurs as ‘luscious undertones of flowers and peach’. The terminology of tea tasting is as mysterious and full of garbled adjectives as a vintner’s vocabulary. Glenburn is not only a tea garden but also a boutique heritage resort for visitors who want to relive the romance and nostalgia of Darjeeling’s colonial past."

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"In the wild, Camellia sinensis is actually a tree not a bush and grows as tall as 5 or 6 metres. But in tea gardens it is heavily pruned, stunted to the height of a metre so that pickers can easily reach the new leaves as they sprout. Though tea bushes can live for more than a century, they usually have to be replanted every twenty or thirty years, on a rotational basis, to ensure the best results.

"Being a labour-intensive industry, tea planting also requires a large workforce. Teams of pickers are deployed over hundreds of acres of land and the harvest must be carefully choreographed so that leaves are plucked at exactly the right moment. Excess rain or drought, as well as humidity and varying hours of sunlight affect the timing and quality of new sprouts."

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"‘As soon as tea is picked, it begins to deteriorate and decay,’ Sudhir explains, ‘and it must be processed immediately. That’s why every estate has its own factory on the premises.’ Within twenty-four hours, the leaves are withered, fermented, rolled and dried. This process removes moisture while enhancing and preserving the natural flavours. Three or four hours of fermentation and oxidation gives tea its dark colour and brings out the taste. The standard method of processing—crush, tear and curl (CTC)—is done by large automated machines though most of the sorting and other factory work is completed by hand. Crushing and rolling helps release flavour and compacts the leaf. Finally, drying in an oven helps preserve the tea, reducing moisture to no more than three per cent.

"Alongside its standard black teas, Glenburn also produces partially fermented oolong, and unfermented green and white teas, as well as limited batches like ‘silver needle’, made only from the bud. Illustrating the time-consuming and painstaking nature of picking and processing tea, Jeff Koehler, in his book, Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World's Greatest Tea, tells us, ‘…it takes a staggering twenty-two thousand selectively hand-picked shoots—just the tender first two leaves and a still-curled bud—to produce a single kilo of Darjeeling tea.’

"After production, the tea is tasted, graded and packaged then shipped to Kolkata, to be auctioned by brokers. Each of Darjeeling’s estates is well known by reputation and the distinctive flavour of its tea. Makaibari, Castleton, Runglee Rungliot and Lopchu, as well as dozens of other gardens, feature different grades of tea identified by a confusing array of acronyms—FP (flowery pekoe), BOP (broken orange pekoe), GFBOP (golden flowery broken orange pekoe) and top of the line, FTGFOP (finest tippy golden flowery orange pekoe). In 2014, the average wholesale price of Darjeeling tea was Rs 150 per kilogram, though a special lot of Makaibari second flush set a record as bidding reached Rs 1,000,000 per kilogram. Another indication of the enduring value of Darjeeling tea is the fact that many spurious varieties, grown elsewhere and falsely labelled, are sold in the market to keep up with worldwide demand."

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"A few of the tea bushes are in bloom, small white flowers with bright yellow centres that look like tiny fried eggs. I ask Neetu what kind of tea she prefers and, without hesitation, she says, ‘Moonshine,’ a rare, white tea. All the employees at Glenburn receive a monthly ration from the factory, mostly lower-grade broken leaf, fannings or dust. Neetu admits, ‘At home we drink masala chai.’

"She picks the leaves of a plant growing by the side of the path. Artemisia vulgaris, known in Hindi as nagadona or nagadamni, is commonly called mugwort in English. Crushing the leaves between my fingers, I inhale its sweet pungency. Neetu lists nagadona’s medicinal qualities, saying it is used for everything from nosebleeds to stomach ailments. She also identifies a tall semal or silk cotton tree, which is shedding tufts of white kapok that carry its seeds on the wind like miniature clouds. Further down the hill, we see the lurid pink and yellow flowers of wild turmeric sprouting from the forest floor.

"Neetu confesses to being a fan of Bollywood films, many of which have been shot in Darjeeling, with picturesque panoramas of the tea gardens. She mentions that actor Ranbir Kapoor is currently in town, shooting a new romantic comedy. Countless dramatic scenes and song sequences, from Raj Kapoor’s Barsaat in 1949 to ‘Mere Sapno ki Rani’ in 1969, have featured Darjeeling’s scenery. Satyajit Ray’s film, Kanchenjungha, was shot here too. Though many Indian film-makers, seeking mountain vistas, have shifted to foreign locations like Switzerland, the Himalaya still serve as a popular cinematic backdrop.

"Descending into the Rangeet Valley, I can feel the temperature rising as we enter a dry teak forest, with large saucer-shaped leaves cast about on the ground. At the foot of the hill, Glenburn maintains a cottage and campsite on the southern bank of the Rangeet River. We are now less than a thousand metres above sea level, well below the ideal altitude for tea. The foliage and bird life is noticeably different. Noisy jungle mynas bicker loudly in the trees replacing the silent presence of furtive thrushes. Across the river lies Sikkim, where a motor road connects the state’s western districts with the capital, Gangtok. Both upstream and downstream hydroelectric projects interrupt the flow of the Rangeet but here the river tumbles between margins of rounded boulders. When I make my way to the water’s edge, the current is swift and brown with silt, the colour of masala chai."

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"A living legacy, tea carries with it a fragrance of fortune, a mercantile flavour and the bitter aftertaste of empire. Jeff Koehler explains that by the first decade of the nineteenth century, England was importing more than 12,000 tonnes of tea from China, which amounted to sales of roughly £3.5 million. For the East India Company, tea was by far the largest and most lucrative commodity. This British addiction led to an alarming trade deficit that drained the exchequer’s silver reserves. A growing demand for tea extended to America as well and fleets of merchant vessels were ferrying ‘black gold’ from Chinese ports to the Company’s agents in London, Liverpool and Boston. The economics were unsustainable but the shrewd merchants of Leadenhall Street and their nabobs in India came up with a botanical solution, as ingenious as it was immoral.

"In order to balance the trade deficit, caused by their growing dependence on tea, the British began to export an even more addictive commodity—opium. The East India Company’s Crest features two rampant lions and a pair of Union Jacks but it would have been far more appropriate if it had been decorated with the camellia and the poppy. The cynical strategy of encouraging the use of opium in China to create an insatiable demand and then using that monopoly to counterbalance the trade in tea ultimately led to the Opium Wars.

"Following the Treaty of Nanking, in 1842, efforts began in earnest to propagate tea in India. Until now, the Chinese had jealously guarded their crops but an enterprising Scotsman, Robert Fortune, smuggled close to 20,000 tea plants from China into India. According to Koehler, when the seedlings arrived in Calcutta, in portable greenhouses balled Wardian cases, they were transferred to the Company’s botanical gardens and then introduced to hilly tracts along the foot of the Himalaya. Some of the first Indian tea was planted in Kumaon and Garhwal and cultivation extended as far west as the Kangra Valley, where a few gardens still remain today. Meanwhile, another Scottish plant hunter named Charles Alexander Bruce had discovered wild tea trees in Assam and brought these to the attention of Nathaniel Wallich, superintendent of the Calcutta gardens. Though judged inferior to Chinese leaf, this indigenous species was well suited to lower altitudes along the banks of the Brahmaputra."

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"Darjeeling was first established as a hill station around 1835. The broad ridge on which the town stands was originally the site of a Buddhist monastery known as Dorje Ling, meaning place of the sacred thunderbolt, from which the current spelling has evolved. For more than 300 years, these foothills have been contested territory. In the 1780s, Gurkha armies from Nepal crossed over the Singalila Ridge and conquered much of this region from the Chogyal of Sikkim. Only after the Anglo-Nepalese War ended in 1816, were the mountains to the west of the Teesta River returned to the rulers of Sikkim by the East India Company. But the British soon had second thoughts and decided to set up a sanatorium and summer retreat so that Europeans in Bengal could escape the heat and diseases of the plains. The Chogyal was persuaded to hand over 138 square miles of foothills, from the Rangeet southward. As Koehler writes: ‘In exchange, the rajah received one rifle, one double-barreled shotgun, twenty yards of broadcloth and two pairs of shawls, one of superior quality, the other inferior.’

"This lopsided lease of territory soon became a contentious source of dispute, as Darjeeling quickly developed into a prosperous town. Eventually, an annual payment of Rs. 3,000 was negotiated. This was later raised to Rs. 6,000 but it did not quell resentment in Gangtok. At the same time, the British authorities began playing politics in the mountains. Sikkim was seen as a buffer between the hostile kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan. It also provided relatively easy access to Tibet, across Nathu La and through the Chumbi Valley. Later, in the 1920s, this would be the route followed by early Everest expeditions to their base camp on the Rongbuk Glacier.

"When the British acquired Darjeeling, tea had yet to be introduced, though by the early 1840s, Dr Archibald Campbell, medical superintendent in Darjeeling, began experimenting with growing tea in his private garden, using both Chinese and Assamese seeds. ... "

"Dr Campbell’s tea plants showed more resilience than many of his patients who are buried in Darjeeling’s cemeteries. It soon became evident that this part of the Himalaya had the perfect climate and soil for tea. Today it is hard to imagine the prescient vision of colonial planters, who looked down upon dense, vertiginous jungles and foresaw the cultivation of Camellia sinensis. By the middle of the nineteenth century the rush to grow tea in Darjeeling had begun. Ironically, though the British decried the traditional Lepcha approach to agriculture, known as jhum cultivation, planters used the same slash and burn method to clear the forests. The denudation of native species, replaced by exotic tea plants, dramatically changed the composition and character of Darjeeling’s ecology."

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"Over time, the town has acquired an exclusive appellation, similar to the wine-growing regions of Champagne or Chianti. According to Koehler this relatively small Himalayan hill tract currently contains eighty-seven tea estates, covering approximately 48,000 acres of steeply contoured land. Images of quilted green bushes lost in drifting shoals of clouds evoke romantic visions of an idyllic, manicured Eden but, in fact, the tea gardens with their single, cultivated crop, decimated the natural diversity of Darjeeling’s forests.

"Tea also altered the social make-up of the region. An influx of labour required for picking and processing attracted a large number of immigrants from Nepal, whose descendants now form the majority population in Darjeeling. The indigenous Lepchas, as well as Bhotias from Tibet and Sikkim, were soon outnumbered. Though some Lepchas found work in the tea gardens, Nepalis were more willing to do manual labour and the British were quick to hire them, allowing entire families to settle in villages established on each estate."

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"The Nepali language and culture now dominate Darjeeling. The political consequences can be seen today in the ongoing Gorkhaland agitation, where leaders from the predominant Nepali community have been agitating for a separate hill state, independent from West Bengal. Much of their power and influence stems from labour unions organized on tea estates.

"In addition to being employed in the gardens, Nepalis found work as rickshaw pullers, porters and day labourers, particularly in the summer months when the British moved up to the hills. In the 1920s, when Darjeeling became the point of departure for mountaineering expeditions to Everest and Kanchenjunga, it was labourers from Eastern Nepal, especially from the Solu Khumbu region, who were hired to haul tonnes of gear to base camp and beyond. When General Charles Granville Bruce sent out word that as many as 500 porters were required to transport equipment and supplies to the Rongbuk Glacier, the migrant network of Sherpas and other Nepalis produced those numbers. In this way, the cultivation of tea in Darjeeling contributed to the conquest of Everest."

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"The last of the great plant hunters was Frank Kingdon Ward, who came to the Himalaya almost a century after Hooker and explored some of the most remote corners of the mountains at the eastern edge of the range. He too was drawn to the upper limits of life.

""Of all the devices which so beautifully trim the fabric of a mountain chain—meadows, and bog, and cliff, and moor, the most barren, the most grim, the most harsh are the screes."

"But the high alpine screes are home to some of the finest flowers imaginable. On the granite screes are flaring Rhododendrons, and on the limestone screes, blue poppies, primulas, and best of all, species of cyananthus, with flowers of a soft lavender blue.""

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"Kingdon Ward first visited the Himalaya in 1911 and his last expedition ended in 1953. On twenty-four visits to the Eastern Himalaya, he collected the seeds, roots, corms and bulbs of thousands of species of flowering plants that were then propagated by British horticulturalists. The flower most often associated with his name is the blue poppy, which he collected in the highlands of Tibet. This species created a sensation when it first bloomed in London.

" ... In order to identify plants and gather the seeds, his expeditions followed a circuitous route, locating the blooms on his way in, then doubling back a few weeks later to collect seeds on his way out.

"Unlike most English explorers, Kingdon Ward approached the Himalaya from the north-east, out of China. Many of his journeys, on foot and horseback, took him to places where no other Europeans had been. His books record the wonder and delight he experienced on finding rare species but also the hardships and adventures. He was one of the first men to enter the thundering gorges of the Tsang Po and help solve its riddle, proving this was the same river that flowed into Assam as the Brahmaputra. He survived knife-wielding bandits, rock avalanches and an earthquake that measured 8.4 on the Richter Scale. After feeling the ground heaving beneath his tent like a storm-tossed sea, he found that his campsite had risen 200 feet."

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"Though Kingdon Ward’s legacy can still be seen in the bucolic gardens of country estates in England, he was happiest in the harsh highlands of Tibet and writes with nostalgic regret upon leaving those remote passes and mountains.

"There comes a day in the life of every Tibetan traveller when he stands on the crest of the last range, and gazes across the foot hills to the plains below. It is evening. The sun is wallowing in a lake of gilded mist, and fiery tongues are licking up the last wads of cloud. Behind him rise in awful and paralyzing grandeur the most desperate mountains in the world. Below him rise spirals of blue smoke from the hearths of men; and as he looks, and dusk slinks down the sky, he sees as it were men and the children of men, and families gathered into villages, and villages into towns, and towns into cities; and hears the dull roar of transport and industry, as man tries to inhabit the whole earth. But behind the mountains lies the garden of God."

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" ... We are joined by Rajashree Bhuyan, a postgraduate student from Assam, who is doing fieldwork for her PhD under Peter’s supervision.

"Glassy and chestnut tigers, cabbage whites and bluebottles swarm the buddleia, proving why this shrub is popularly known as a ‘butterfly bush’. Spring has just arrived in Kumaon and these are some of the first species to appear. In a flowerbed at the other side of the yard, Peter points out a pair of brimstones performing a courtship ritual. The female is white and the male bright yellow with orange flecks. ‘She’s not being receptive,’ Peter remarks. ‘You can see how the female raises her abdomen, so he won’t be able to connect with her.’ The male keeps flitting about like an anxious suitor while his prospective mate remains on the ground refusing to yield to his advances. ‘Brimstones live for ten months, longer than most butterflies. They are one of the few species that hibernate in winter. Sometimes they sit snugly in a hollow under the snow and emerge again in the spring. You can see from the damaged condition of their wings that these two are near the end of their lives.’

"Some butterflies live for only a few weeks and remain within a confined radius, while others enjoy a longer lifespan of several months and travel great distances. When asked about the migration of Himalayan butterflies, Peter shakes his head. ‘Not enough studies have been done,’ he says. ‘With most species we really don’t know where they come from, or where they go.’ Throughout the spring, an itinerant procession of butterflies stops over at Jones Estate.

"‘I’ve counted more than three hundred pea blues passing through this yard in less than forty-five minutes,’ Peter recalls.

"He explains that it’s likely some butterflies travel from Bhimtal, at 1,500 metres above sea level, all the way up to altitudes of 4,000 metres or more. ‘We know that a species called the painted lady (Vanessa cardui), which is also found in Europe, flies from Spain to the Scottish Highlands. If it migrates that far over there, we can assume it does the same here.’ The common emigrant is another strong flier that travels great distances, which is how it gets its name. Peter has found specimens high in the Himalaya near Badrinath, as well as in Ladakh. ‘They use air currents to migrate, blown back and forth across the mountains by the wind.’"

Reminds one of the twice a year one saw migration of butterflies passing in waves of colour through Riverside, Orange County, especially noticeable everywhere else, despite their presence seeming bit natural around the extensive orange groves surrounding the urban parts. Similar waves seemed noticeable in and around an automobile repair facility in India’s silicon valley, although elsewhere around the city they were natural, what with the profusion of trees and parks that abounded in the city.

In Riverside, a television channel had shown the place south of border where the butterflies migrated to, making a gorest grove seem full of orange fluttering trees. It took time to realise that they were butterflies. And a BBC serial that year shown on television there was titled "Butterflies"!

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" ... Lepidoptera can serve as bio-indicators of climate change. His research on hawkmoths, for example, proves that over the past century they have gradually moved westward in the Himalaya, as conditions became more conducive for breeding. The journeys of butterflies are also linked to the plants on which they feed. This relationship is twofold. While the adults nourish themselves on sugars of a buddleia bush they will lay their eggs on specific food plants, so their larvae, after hatching, can gorge on the leaves. Common emigrant caterpillars feed on cassia plants that grow at lower altitudes but as adults they sip nectar from a wide variety of flowers higher up. Through this reciprocal process they serve as pollinators, helping plants and trees multiply while, at the same time, propagating their own kind. Throughout the Himalaya this cycle of reproduction carries on year after year, as millions of insects contribute to the larger community of nature."

"By observing the laughingthrushes it was easy for Peter to discover the butterflies they relished and those they rejected. As he explains, the colours, patterns and shapes of a butterfly’s wings are like menu cards for birds, from which they select what they wish to eat. Yet mimetic associations between species are not always as simple as a tasty butterfly pretending to be toxic. In some cases, one poisonous species mimics another. The purpose behind this behaviour, as Peter describes it, ‘reduces the price of advertising the fact that they are poisonous’.

"Mimicry in butterflies takes many forms. One of the largest and most spectacular Himalayan species is the orange oakleaf (Kallima inachus). The inside of its wings are a colourful palette of saffron and indigo but the outside is a dull, dusty brown. When its wings are folded this butterfly looks exactly like a dead leaf, so that when it sits on the ground, or on a branch, it becomes virtually invisible.

"Orange oakleafs are distinct from the butterflies that swarm around the buddleia bush. While chestnut tigers, circes, common bluebottles (Graphium sarpedon) and brimstones (Gonepteryx rhamni) sip nectar through a thin proboscis inserted into the flower, oakleafs and certain other butterflies feed on rotting fruit. Because the sugar content in fruit is much higher than it is in nectar, which contains only 20–30 per cent glucose, these butterflies must wait for the fruit to ferment so their proboscises don’t get clogged with fructose syrup. As a result, butterflies and moths that feed on rotting fruit often become inebriated. Fortunately for an orange oakleaf, if it falls down drunk in the forest it can safely sleep off its stupor while camouflaged amongst the dead leaves."

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" ... A less destructive visitor is a barking deer that calls below the yard but darts off into the tea bushes as soon as we peer over the edge. Plenty of birds come and go as well, from tits and warblers to parakeets. A pair of yellow-naped woodpeckers keep up a persistent piping from a nest they have built in a hollow tree along the bridle path to Sat Tal.

"As the day wears on, more and more butterflies visit the buddleia. Peter identifies common peacocks (Papilio bianor) with iridescent wings, blue crows, and a red pierrot (Talicada nyseus), whose upper wings are black while the lower parts are a brilliant orange. All along the edges is black and white embroidery that looks like a hand-stitched hem. Until 2002 this species had not been recorded in the Himalaya and was confined to southern parts of India but it has gradually extended its range until it is now relatively common in Kumaon. During his research on palatable and unpalatable species, Peter discovered that the laughingthrushes rejected the red pierrot proving that in the butterfly world, ‘beauty can be dangerous’. Another dramatic species we observe is a common map (Cyrestis thyodamas), its ivory colour similar to the buddleia blossoms. When this butterfly opens its wings, it resembles a Mercator projection of the globe, with a tracery of thin markings that look like lines of latitude and longitude.

"Suddenly, late in the afternoon, both Peter and Rajashree grab their cameras and jump to their feet. When I follow to find out what is happening, all I can see is a drab-looking butterfly perched on a spray of buddleia blossoms. In a whisper, Peter tells me it is an evening brown (Melanitis leda), a common species that appears around dusk. His excitement, however, comes from the fact that it is feeding on nectar. Ordinarily, like the oakleaf, evening browns subsist on rotten fruit or tree sap. Rajashree takes more than a dozen pictures, zooming in on the tiny proboscis that is clearly sucking sustenance from the flower. ‘We haven’t seen this behaviour before,’ Peter continues, under his breath. ‘It must be desperate for food.’ The evening brown seems untroubled by all of this attention and after drinking its fill it flies off in search of more potent brew."

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"May 1945. Three days’ march beyond Taklakot, a small party of men and pack animals approach Thugolho Gompa on the shores of Lake Manasarovar. The water is a darker shade of blue than the sky and in the distance, to the north, Mount Kailas appears above the lower ranges, its striated, snow-covered slopes like the tiered chortens surrounding the monastery. Leading the party and walking ahead of the horses and yaks, is a diminutive, bearded man with a broad-brimmed khaki hat on his head and a pair of field glasses dangling from his sunburned neck. As the travellers arrive at Thugolho, a lone figure emerges from the monastery dressed in saffron robes with long black hair. Recognizing each other as fellow Indians, they exchange greetings, speaking a combination of English and Hindustani."

" ... Hindu ascetic and a Muslim ornithologist brought together by coincidence, shared notes on their Himalayan observations. As mentioned earlier, Pranavananda carefully measured Manasarovar’s dimensions and catalogued scientific data on climate and altitude as well as the physical features of the region, from minerals to plants and animals of Tibet. For his part, Salim Ali shared his knowledge of the birds that congregated on the shores of the lake, particularly bar-headed geese and brahminy ducks (ruddy shelducks)."

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"Pranavananda later published two books, Kailas-Manasarovar and Exploration in Tibet. The former served for many years as a standard guidebook for Indian pilgrims visiting the holy sites. Though he doesn’t mention his meeting with Salim Ali, the swami does explain that the mythical Rajahansa or Royal Swans that are said to swim on Manasarovar are actually bar-headed geese and he reassures the faithful that these birds subsist on a vegetarian diet of acquatic weeds. ... "

Alter seems to mention this, just to hurt Hindus, who translate swan as Hansa and assume that a Rajahansa is, being literally translated to 'royal swan', a glorious, extraordinarily beautiful swan; possibly the interpretation in Bengal, of Rajahansa being swan while Hansa being all similar aquatic bird species including geese, is sensible, possibly even correct.

But there's no reason to assume that if Pranavananda or other travellers and visitors of recent centuries haven't seen swan at Manasarovar, it guarantees that such was the state for all past. Swans are common enough in Europe and when Himalaya rising hadn't lifted Tibetan Plateau to such heights, they must have been common to the region, and also probably to most of India north of Vindhya, even if only as glorious and cherished visitors from Himalaya.

Geese, however lovely, do not evoke quite the level of adoration.

Alter goes further with attempt to induce confusion, at the very least, if not worse, in natives of India.

" ... Pranavananda also notes that the Dogra general, Zorawar Singh, who died in Taklakot in 1841, is buried nearby though one of his testicles is kept in a Tibetan monastery as an auspicious relic. Much of the guidebook is full of spiritual and practical advice as well as scientific data that Salim Ali would have appreciated."

Alter knows that non-abrahmic tradition of India is of cremation, with proper invocations to ensuresafety for further journey of the soul; that account of a native traveller out from India having missed this, and lying buried, would perhaps pain anyone reading this detail he provides, even if he has only quoted it from an older account by someone born and brought up Hindu - the latter being an old publication that few would likely read now, availability being that much harder.

What he perhaps missed is that the further detail he quotes is, most likely completely opposite of his expectations, doesn't exactly embarrass Hindus, as much as reassures on account of it being a Tibetan monastery that keep relic of the poor demised, and one reading has a simultaneously felt gratitude to Tibet and Tibetan Buddhist monastery for doing so, while a surprise at their valuing an Indian warrior so high. It brings together the two communities that British sought so desperately and with such futility to divide.

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"Three decades after these two explorers crossed paths in Tibet, they met again at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, when the President of India honoured Swami Pranavanada with a Padma Bhushan and Salim Ali with a Padma Vibhushan."

" ... Along the north-east shore of Manasarovar, he discovered a large number of nesting birds in the marshy wetlands bordering the lake. He comments on the dangerous quicksands along the shore and takes note of a number of breeding birds, including great crested grebes, brown-headed gulls and fifteen pairs of black-necked cranes, performing their breeding dance. ... "

" ... His expedition to Kailas and Manasarovar almost ended in a tragedy that would have deprived us of the many popular bird books and articles on natural history that he wrote in later life. Negotiating a narrow trail up to Lipu Lekh Pass, with a straight drop of 100 metres into the swollen rapids of the Kali River below, he spotted a yellow-naped yuhina. Grabbing his field glasses, he took a step backward to get a better view of the tiny bird. Hearing the sound of a pebble slipping from under his boot and rolling down into the gorge below, he realized that he himself had almost tumbled over ‘the very edge of beyond—two incles more and I would have followed that rollicking pebble. The great leap forward I made at that instant would have done credit to Mao’s reforming zeal.’"

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"Born in Bombay in 1896, Salim Ali grew up in what is now known as Mumbai, long before it became the megalopolis or ‘Maximum City’ it is today. He spent his childhood in a middle-class neighbourhood of Khetwadi and holidayed with his family in Chembur. ... For much of his adult life, Salim Ali and his wife Tehmina shared a spacious bungalow in Pali Hill, with his brother Hamid. ... It was from their house, 46 Pali Hill, at the top of Zig Zag Road, overlooking the Arabian Sea at an altitude of no more than 100 metres, that he set out on scientific expeditions throughout the subcontinent.

"Salim Ali had a particular fascination for the Himalaya and he conducted bird surveys in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Garhwal, as well as Sikkim, Bhutan and the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA). Both the Chogyal of Sikkim and the king of Bhutan, Jigme Dorje Wangchuk, sponsored his expeditions. He worked closely with a number of eminent naturalists like Hugh Whistler, Colonel R. Meinertzhagen, S. Dillon Ripley, Loke Wan Tho and E. P. Gee.

"Salim Ali’s exploration of NEFA, what is now Arunachal Pradesh, was particularly important. He was one of the first ornithologists to do research in this region, at a time when there were very few roads and travel was extremely difficult. Nevertheless, he recorded extensive data, particularly migration patterns of birds and the comparative distribution of species. In an article, ‘The Himalaya in Indian Ornithlogy’ he writes: ‘The Oriental element in the avifauna is richly represented in the eastern Himalaya and gradually diminishes westward until in Kashmir and far west it ceases to be a significant constituent, its place being taken by Palaearctic forms.’ As an avid trekker Salim Ali had an acute awareness of the effects of altitude on plant and animal life. He comments on the noticeable differences in ‘life zones’ at different elevations, where changes in temperature, humidity and other factors create easily recognizable bands of flora and fauna by which an experienced naturalist like himself could estimate the height above sea level ‘without the aid of an aneroid’."

" ... he decried the wholesale slaughter of birds that occurred under royal patronage and British rule at places like Bharatpur, where the viceroys and their entourages shot thousands of ducks. Salim Ali was instrumental in creating a sanctuary for waterbirds in Bharatpur, now the Keoladeo National Park, where hundreds of thousands of seasonal visitors from across the Himalaya migrate during winter."

" ... he began to use mist nets as soon as they became available and avoided killing specimens indiscriminately. ... "

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"Partridges are members of the Phasianidae family that includes pheasants, francolins and quail, as well as peacocks, junglefowl and chickens. They are part of the larger order of Galliformes, bulky, terrestrial birds that usually stay on the ground unless forced to fly. A variety of these wildfowl occupy different elevations of the Himalaya and some of them, like the snow partridge, live at the uppermost limits of life along the snow line. Older than the Himalaya, Galliformes have been around since the Oligocene, 30 million years ago."

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"As I watch the partridges cross the ridge above us, the first rays of sunlight strike the eastern profile of Kanchenjunga. Unlike the famous panorama seen from Darjeeling, where a broad massif with five summits floats above the lower ranges, here on our southern approach the mountain has a distinctly different profile, tapering sharply to a single, rugged spike above a chaotic foreground of seracs and glaciers, knife-edged arêtes and saddles of ice. At 8,586 metres above sea level this is the third highest mountain in the world. Earlier, in the darkness, Kanchenjunga’s summit looked unimposing, overshadowed by nearer peaks but now the rising sun heightens contrasts on the snow-plastered slopes that make the mountain stand out with greater prominence, as if it were elevated by light. Almost as soon as the first rays pick out its hidden features, we can see snow spume unfurling on the wind and the mountain is soon wreathed in frozen vapours."

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" ... Kanchenjunga is said to have its own demons, including yetis that prowl its slopes, but none of these creatures could match the abominable behaviour of Aleister Crowley.

"With gloved fingers, Justin points out Kabru North and Kabru South, as well as Kabru Dome. Each of these imposing mountains stands at least 1,500 metres lower than Kanchenjunga. Talung and Goecha peaks, at the head of the valley, directly beneath the summit, are now dwarfed by the magnitude of the holiest mountain in Sikkim, what the Lepchas call Kingtshoomzaongboo ... "

" ... When migratory birds pass through Sikkim, the Lepchas believe they go to Mayel Lyang where they build their nests and hatch their young. By some accounts, this hidden paradise is synonymous with Sikkim itself, suggesting the idea of a lost, ancestral homeland of fertility and peace."

"Lepchas believe that birds can tell time like the hornbill that flies back and forth from its nest at dawn and dusk. The whistling thrush, chamong pho, is also known for its punctuality. The first bird to call before daybreak, it is seen as a harbinger of dawn. Believed to be divine, the whistling thrush was chosen by the goddess and sent from Mayel Lyang to clean her sacred lakes by carrying away the leaves and twigs that fall in the water from surrounding trees.

"But the most auspicious bird of all is the blood pheasant, sumong pho, which lives in high alpine forests above 3,000 metres. It is the state bird of Sikkim and regarded as the saviour of the Lepcha people. Sumong pho’s story begins with a great flood, when the rivers Rangeet and Teesta quarreled and their waters rose up in the valleys, inundating the forests, fields and villages. The goddess, Na-zong-nyo, sent the blood pheasant from Mayel Lyang to protect and guide her people to safety on Mount Tendong, the only peak that was not submerged by the flood. Sumong pho then drank up all the floodwaters and restored the mountains and valleys so the Lepchas could return to their homes. For this reason, the blood pheasant is never killed by tribal hunters and worshipped as a protected species. The high altitude forests where it lives along the treeline are preserved as sacred groves."

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"A number of birds keep us company along this stretch of the trail, the brightest of which are grandalas, the size of a small thrush, their plumage the colour of blue ink. With short, nervous flights, they seem to lead us up the trail. Sungmoteng Lake is wedged between walls of moraine that form a rocky barrier separating the valley floor from the higher mountains above. The water of the lake is a chalky blue in contrast to the vivid indigo of the grandala that flits along its shore. A ruddy shelduck takes off and circles overhead, as we avoid the muddy edges of the lake and scramble over scree and talus to follow the grandalas.

"By now the valley has narrowed and another half an hour brings us to the threshold of the pass. Somewhere above us stands Kanchenjunga, hidden from view. ... "

"As we return down the valley past Sungmoteng Lake, I hear a loud cackle and see a large bird darting up the slope. For a moment, I think it might be a blood pheasant. But as I reach for my binoculars, I realize that these are Tibetan snowcocks, another species of Phasianidae with grey plumage and distinct black rings around the neck. Dark vertical stripes mark their breasts and their wings are trimmed with white. Like the snow partridges we saw earlier in the morning, they do not take flight, but scurry along the ground, stopping occasionally to lift their heads and look down their beaks at us. There are two species of snowcocks, Himalayan and Tibetan, the former being somewhat larger and with slight colour variations.

" ... No more than a hundred metres into the trees, we are startled by two bulky birds crossing our path. This time, there is no mistaking a male and female blood pheasant. Alarmed by our approach they dart up a mossy slope, stopping for only a second or two, before disappearing into the tangle of limbs and leaves beyond. My binoculars and camera are buried in my backpack, so I focus on the pheasant with my eyes alone and recognize the streaked silver plumage of the male, flecked with splashes of red. The hen is a grey-green colour and slightly smaller."

"Elated, we carry on, and soon another covey of six blood pheasants appears ahead of us. They are less shy, loitering by the trail, amidst fallen birches and moss-covered moraine, as if intentionally posing to be photographed. For at least five minutes we watch the birds from a distance of 10 metres. Their eyes are upon us, alert and attentive, but without apparent fear. The pheasants have a natural elegance, each feather perfectly groomed and heads held high, seemingly aware of their sacred status. Like our view of Kanchenjunga this morning, these birds convey a memorable, mysterious beauty. Simply by their presence they seem to lead us towards an earthly paradise."

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" ... Hundreds of birds of prey have congregated in the trees or are circling overhead—mostly Himalayan griffon vultures and pariah kites, as well as fifty or more steppe eagles. Almost as large as vultures, with leaner profiles, they look strangely human, perched on the bare branches of silk cotton trees. Like wrestlers hunkering down before a bout, the steppe eagles flex their wings and twist their necks from side to side. Even at rest, they have a powerful, aggressive stance and their eyes dart about, ever watchful and aware of their surroundings."

"Birds of prey, observed on the wing, are difficult to identify. Seen with the naked eye, circling several hundred metres overhead, the silhouette and kink of the wings are recognizable features, as are the length and shape of the tail. Nevertheless, it is often impossible to be absolutely sure. Experienced bird watchers speak of the ‘jizz’ of certain species, an intangible element that helps them instinctively tell the difference between similar birds. (Also spelled GISS, the acronym for ‘general impression, shape and size’.) Even while listing the scientific details and field characteristics—the colour and shape of scapulars, tertials and tarsus—experts like Naoroji refer to a bird’s jizz with a note of clairvoyance. Unlike weight and size, or the calls and nesting habits, jizz is something that cannot be measured or described with any specificity, yet it serves as a means of identification for those who understand its subtle nuances and distinctions, even if these can’t be put into words."

"Collective nouns for birds are based on human judgements and imagination—a murder of crows, a wake of vultures, a kettle of hawks. The phrase, ‘a convocation of eagles’ invests these birds with nobility and gravitas. As they circle overhead their flight is orchestrated by invisible wind patterns in the sky. Soaring and gliding, eagles inspire us with their majestic detachment from the earth, a separation that seems almost divine. In Hindu mythology the vehicle of Vishnu is Garuda, part man, part raptor, who sports a hooked beak and wings. Stories of eagles travel as far as these birds migrate and Mongolian folklore recounts that Genghis Khan’s hunting eagle was named Girid, very likely a rendition of Garuda."

It's more likely a deformation of Grddh (Sanskrit), generic name for vulture as a species, which becomes Giddh in Hindi.

"The shamanistic Bon tradition in Tibet incorporates a number of winged deities in its pantheon, among which the most powerful and prevalent is the horned eagle depicted in ceremonial masks and thangka paintings. These fierce-looking creatures are mountain gods, inspired by the steppe eagle and other birds of prey like the imperial and golden eagles. In their rituals, Bon shamans employ bird wings and feathers as fetish objects that contain mystical energies by which they practise divination and map out the hidden contours of sacred geography."

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"Direct human contact with eagles is rare, except in Mongolia and Kazakhstan, where they are trained for hunting. Most eagles exist outside our reach, which imbues them with a mythic aura. We yearn to travel in their company beyond the mountains, above the clouds. They are creatures that connect the sky to the earth, stitching the horizon with their wings.

"Steppe eagles are transients in the Himalaya. They do not make their home in the mountains but pass through twice a year, often without touching down. A number of other raptors are resident species, such as crested serpent-eagles, mountain hawk-eagles and lammergeiers, or bearded vultures that can be found at different elevations, from the foothills to higher alpine zones. Their presence along the southern exposure of the Himalaya is closely tied to the forests and terrain, as well as small mammals, birds and reptiles on which they prey. Steppe eagles and other migrants who pass over the mountains amidst the clouds have little contact with the ground below. Yet the flight of these birds is an intrinsic part of the Himalayan story, occupying the heavens instead of the earth.

"To cross the Himalaya requires an innate knowledge of geography and climate, as well as an ability to predict changes in the atmosphere. As winter ends, the steppe eagles wait at the base of the mountains while the foothills grow warmer. Their initial sorties are a means of testing the air, which rises along with the earth’s temperature. The return flight across the Himalaya is more challenging than their autumn migration for instead of starting at altitudes of 4,000 metres on the Tibetan plateau and crossing over at 6–7,000 metres, the spring journey commences 3,000 metres lower down but still reaches the same altitude.

"While the end points of a steppe eagle’s migration may be roughly north and south, their flight paths don’t always follow a straight line. Studies have shown that tens of thousands of these birds cross over from Tibet at various places and then follow the arc of the Himalaya, in a northwesterly direction before heading to lower latitudes. This route is reversed in spring, stretching from as far west as Afghanistan and Pakistan, across North India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan where they breach the mountains at different points. These lateral flight lines allow the birds to use air currents along the lower ranges to position themselves for high altitude crossings. Timing their migration with instinctual precision, they gauge weather and wind patterns, until the moment arrives when they can feel sufficient lift beneath their wings to propel them northward.

"Moving back and forth across the mountains, steppe eagles occupy a vital niche on either side of the Himalaya, helping to maintain a balance of creatures in two very different eco-systems. As sky-borne predators, Aquila nipalensis are opportunistic by necessity for the open grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau and Central Asia are not the easiest hunting grounds. Though powerful killers that can bring down a young gazelle, steppe eagles are just as content to scavenge off a kiang carcass left by wolves ... In Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, Naoroji reports that steppe eagles have been observed feeding on the remains of both a python and a jungle cat. They have also been reported killing a mongoose and attacking herons and storks. Hunting is often done at night, by moonlight, when semi-darkness provides them with cover.

"The death of other creatures is vital to their survival yet they are an integral part of the life cycle of the mountains and open plains. Their wintering grounds range from Rajasthan and Gujarat to the Deccan Plateau. Vagrants have been identified as far south as Kanyakumari, at the tip of India. In summer they settle and breed throughout Central Asia, from Tibet, across the Chang Tang to the northern reaches of Mongolia. Occasional stragglers stay in Nepal year round."

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"The coming and going of eagles match a pendulum of seasons. Their arrival and departure is part of the synchronized patterns of nature. Aerial predators disturb the complacent lives of certain species that might otherwise overbreed. Whether it is rats and palm squirrels in India or picas and hares in Tibet, the rodent population is controlled by eagles and other raptors. In the cold calculus of natural selection, weaker, unhealthy individuals are eliminated while stronger, more agile members of a species survive. ... "

"Meanwhile, the Himalaya themselves play an important role in regulating the population of eagles. The mountains ensure that only the strongest fliers will be able to cross over. Diseased, injured or ageing birds cannot make this arduous journey and are thereby removed from the breeding cycle. Researchers have shown that juvenile steppe eagles tend to fly the farthest, ensuring that each new generation maintains its fitness. As with most raptors, female steppe eagles are larger than males, giving them greater strength and stamina to reach their nesting grounds. Even among the young there is a ruthless pecking order. Aquila nipalensis lays one to three eggs. When these hatch, the eaglets immediately begin competing for food their parents bring to the nest. Often the strongest chick will kill its siblings.

"Competition continues as the eagles mature. As Naoroji explains, some of their most dramatic behaviour takes the form of aerial combat. Both playfully and in earnest, young birds try to dominate their rivals in flight, gaining a superior position overhead and forcing opponents into submission. These winged tussles often end with the two birds locking talons and spinning through the air in a lethal chakra of beaks, claws and flapping wings."

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"In recent years, steppe eagles have played an important role in filling the gap created by the near-extinction of India’s vultures, which were decimated after feeding on carcasses of animals containing anti-inflammatory medicines like Diclofenac. Commonly used to treat livestock, this veterinary drug weakens the shell of a vulture’s egg and causes it to crack while the chicks are still in embryo. As a consequence, eight species of vultures in India, particularly the white-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis), have been largely wiped out. Steppe eagles and other raptors like kites do not appear to be affected by Diclofenac and have, to a certain extent, taken the place of vultures in the disposal of carcasses, which are left to rot along the roadside or in bone yards throughout rural India.

"Unlike many other species of eagles, Aquila nipalensis is a relatively sociable bird. It is often found in groups from five to twenty and when crossing the Himalaya they fly together in streams. In the fall of 1984, Robert Fleming Jr. estimated 45,000 steppe eagles passing over the Kali Gandaki gorge near Dhaulagiri and in the spring of 2002, Jan Willem den Besten counted 10,000 soaring above Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh. He recorded a peak number of 294 birds passing overhead in the space of forty-five minutes. Steppe eagles also migrate to Africa and the world population could range anywhere from 100,000 to 1,000,000. It has been included in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of endangered species because of declining numbers, largely due to degraded and disappearing habitats in Tibet and Central Asia.

"Mountaineers have found the frozen remains of steppe eagles in high places like the South Col of Everest, where the birds must have died in a storm or from exposure and exhaustion. A sudden drop in temperature or a shift in wind direction can be fatal for the raptors, whose migration traces a thin line between survival and death. In captivity, steppe eagles have lived up to the age of forty years though it is unlikely they would survive that long in the wild. Ultimately, the instincts that carry them over the Himalaya lead to self-destruction, when the winds they ride no longer hold them aloft or drive them into a blizzard out of which they cannot escape."

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" ... While paragliding uses the same medium of the wind to carry fliers aloft, even our friend with his electrified mittens cannot match the altitudes steppe eagles reach or the risks they face. The real struggle for survival begins above 6–7,000 metres as the birds enter a death zone. In 1933, the Royal Air Force (RAF) conducted the first aerial survey of Everest in a pair of Westland biplanes, one of which almost crashed because of turbulence, dropping several hundred metres out of the jet stream. A second survey was carried out twenty years later in 1953, immediately after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay scaled the summit. India’s first environment secretary, Nalni Jayal, was on that flight, as a young Air Force officer. A few years earlier he had been a member of two climbing expeditions to Kamet and Trishul, along with his cousin, Nandu Jayal, founding director of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling.

"When the Indian Air Force decided to photograph Everest from the air, Nalni was chosen for the mission because of his mountaineering experience. His account of this historic flight, in an old ‘four engine piston driven Liberator’, which had seen service in World War II and was officially retired by the US Air Force in 1945, illustrates the desperate odds against which migrating eagles make their biannual journeys.

"As the plane took off from Patna, on the Gangetic plain, sweltering summer temperatures were above 45° Celsius. ‘But in just over an hour, we climbed to 8,000 metres and the temperature dropped to 27 degrees below freezing,’ Jayal recounts. ‘Originally, we had planned to synchronize our flight with the Everest expedition, to try and get photographs of the climbers approaching the summit but this was postponed because they were afraid that the roar of the engines and wind from the propellers might trigger avalanches.’

"At 4,000 metres the pilot instructed his team to don their oxygen masks and electrically heated suits. The old bomber was insulated but the roar of its engines was deafening. Jayal and the others prepared to ‘shoot’ Everest through the gun ports. Every time these were opened the rush of air was so cold that several of the cameras jammed. Eventually, they had to make a second sortie the following day to complete their survey. With clear skies over Everest, the pictures they produced were dramatic, including 16 mm footage with a cine-camera, as the bomber circled the summit. The photographs were used to illustrate Sir John Hunt’s published account of the Everest expedition and the film clips became part of an accompanying documentary."

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"While Nalni Jayal and his fellow Air Force officers were protected by heated flight suits and breathed supplemental oxygen to stay alive, steppe eagles and other migratory birds enjoy none of these comforts. They overfly mountains like Everest without any protection other than their feathers, nor do they have navigational aids or weather reports. Flying under their own power, they ascend to heights at which human beings need weeks to acclimatize, whereas the birds rapidly adapt to icy temperatures and the lack of oxygen. This extreme exposure and exertion would be enough to defeat a lesser species but the eagles complete their trans-Himalayan journeys, twice a year, against all odds."

................................................................................................

"At 4 a.m., as we set out on foot from camp, at Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh, the jungle is submerged in darkness. No birds are visible but their calls surround us—the piercing wail of a common hawk cuckoo, the burbling of oriental turtle doves, a mountain scops owl’s chiming tempo, the piping of wren babblers, a solemn thrumming of imperial pigeons and the ardent crowing of peacock pheasants. Even as the trees gradually begin to shift from shades of grey and blue to different hues of green, most birds remain hidden from sight.

"Arunachal Pradesh means ‘land of the dawn-lit mountains’ and this region, once known as NEFA, lies at the eastern edge of the Himalaya. Here the sun rises an hour earlier than it does in Kashmir, at the opposite end of the time zone. Sensing a new day, even before the sky brightens, the birds have already risen.

"Gradually, as daylight seeps into the air a few birds begin to appear. From the top of a bare branch overlooking the valley, a golden-throated barbet is calling. This green herald is capped in crimson with a gilded beard. On another tree nearby sits an orange-bellied leaf bird that has a higher-pitched, more melodious call. In mid-air, a lesser racquet-tailed drongo chases an insect. Two long black feathers on its tail follow the drongo’s aerobatics like ribbons in the breeze. Minutes later, a slow-moving bird flies up in front of us and out of sight. Creeping forward we spot it perched on a low branch—a red-headed trogon, with a scarlet breast, buff back, barred wings and a long tail edged in white.

"In the moist gloom beneath a dense tunnel of leaves, a chestnut-headed tesia flits about, as if someone were trying to light a match in the humid shadows. The flash of yellow on the tesia’s throat, like a spark of sulphur, is the only glimpse we get of this tiny, stub-tailed bird. Its soft chirrup is barely audible within a decaying under-realm of humus and rotting moss, where the tesia lives out its secretive purpose on earth."

................................................................................................

"Few other forms of life capture our imagination in the same way as birds do, elevating and expanding our consciousness beyond the narrow limits of human perception. Their ability to fly gives them a freedom we covet while their variegated colours illuminate the bright palette of creation. Each morning, a dawn chorus of birdsong transforms the forest into a complex soundscape of wild cacophonies.

"By now, the birdcalls have reached a crescendo, from the fluting cries of scimitar babblers to a woodpecker’s inharmonius squawk. The trilled whistle of a spotted laughingthrush announces its appearance on a creeper above us. The plumage on this gaudy songster has so many polka dots and bars, it looks like a generalissimo on parade, sporting insignia and medals. As we continue to wander through the jungle, mixed flocks of tiny birds swarm around us, hunting parties made up of six to a dozen species. White-tailed nuthatches and minivets congregate with fantails and leaf warblers. A sultan tit makes a dramatic appearance amidst one flock, a handsome little bird jacketed in black with an unruly tuft of yellow feathers on his head and an underbelly to match.

"Juggling binoculars and camera, I try to consult my well-thumbed Oxford Pocket Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent. As I begin to double-check the list of species I’ve jotted down in a notebook, a flight of scarlet finches distracts me. The females are a dowdy brown but the single male among them is bright red as a raspberry. Leafing through my bird book, I try to find the coloured plates of finches but a flapping sound interrupts me as two large, ungainly birds pass overhead. Their awkward, syncopated flight is easy to recognize, as is the distinctive profile of their heavy beaks and long, flared tails. After the pair have alighted on a wild fig tree in the distance, my binoculars bring them into focus, confirming that these are rufous-necked hornbills. With a shock of rusty red feathers on their heads and throat, bright blue eye patches and dark lines on their beaks that look like a clown’s makeup, they have an absurdly comical appearance.

"Birdwatching proceeds at its own pace and rhythm, distinct from other forms of ambulation. Synchronized to the movements of avifauna, it doesn’t have the steady momentum of a trek, the competitive arithmetic of golf or the leashed routines of taking a dog for a walk. Joining me on this expedition are Bhrigu Singh and Viveck Crishna, both of whom are armed with lethal-looking cameras, bearing the appropriate brand name, Canon. Though we cover 5 kilometres before breakfast, this isn’t a morning constitutional. Every twenty steps or so, we pause to focus on a whiskered yuhina or a rufous-vented fulvetta. Gazing up into the trees, our group shambles along, as if we’ve lost our bearings. One person or another takes the lead as someone else holds back to photograph a beautiful niltava with iridescent feathers, sunning itself on a twig."

................................................................................................

"With recent advances in audio technology, many birdwatchers, guides and photographers use digital playback recordings of birdcalls to lure certain species into view. This has become a significant problem in places like Eaglenest because it agitates and confuses the birds, disturbing their normal feeding, social and breeding behavior. While skilled naturalists have always been able to whistle up the birds they are looking for, smartphones are now equipped with special apps connected to portable amplifiers that are used to mimic a wide range of calls downloaded from online sites. While the occasional use of recorded birdsongs probably has a limited effect, when a number of guides and birders in a relatively small area repeatedly use audio playback or ‘tape lures’, it becomes intrusive and disruptive, particularly for rare and endangered species.

"Between November and April every year, when the rains cease and leeches disappear, Eaglenest attracts an annual migration of ornithologists and amateur birdwatchers. They are drawn to these forests because of the diversity of resident species as well as transients that pass through on yearly journeys between the higher Himalaya and the lowlands of Assam. A narrow dirt track that runs through the sanctuary was once the old NEFA road, the only motorable access to the mountains until the mid-1960s, when the military highway was built from Tezpur to Tawang. Fortunately, the new road follows a different route and Eaglenest was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1989.

"In 2006, a previously unknown bird was discovered here, the Bugun liocichla (Liocichla bugunorum). This is the first new bird to be described in India in half a century. Ramana Athreya, an astronomer by profession, first spotted it in 1995 but only found the bird again, ten years later, in 2005, when he was able to catch a couple of live specimens using mist nets. A relatively small bird, about 20 centimetres long, with a black cap and distinctive colouration of greyish green with streaks of gold, the Bugun is easy to differentiate from other species, which makes it even more remarkable that it went unnoticed for so many years. These days, new birds are usually ‘discovered’ as a result of genetically ‘splitting’ a known species using DNA analysis. The closest relative of the Bugun is the Emei Shan liocichla from the mountains of Southeastern China. Athreya chose to name his discovery after the Bugun tribe of forest dwellers who share these jungles with the liocichla. From research done so far, this rare endemic babbler seems to inhabit a very limited range of a few square kilometres."

Does one spot therein an implication that this wasn't much of a feat by a mere native?

Before he proceeds further, Alter gives a couple of paragraphs that intend to stamp on an unwary reader just how primitive the native, just how superior and kind the English who not only took pains to travel but also, condescending to hear out the said primitive native, recorded the tales for erudite readership of West.

................................................................................................

"Our birding expedition takes us across Se La, at 4,000 metres, to Tawang, where we see pink-browed rosefinches and white-winged grosbeaks as well as a winter wren that looks like a check mark on the snow but the true diversity lies at lower altitudes. Eaglenest is a wild, unfenced aviary full of unique species, each of which has its own story to tell, from trogons to tragopans and sibias to sunbirds. Our guide, Micah, grew up in a small village on the periphery of the sanctuary and began working with ornithologists eight years ago, assisting them in setting up and monitoring mist nets for ongoing bird surveys in the sanctuary. These nets are virtually invisible and allow researchers to capture even the most elusive species without causing injury, so that specimens can be identified, weighed, measured, photographed, tagged and then released back into the wild.

"Birds have become a form of livelihood for Micah and several other young men in his village. When they are not working with researchers, they get hired as guides for visitors like us. Micah’s parents originally came here from Nepal. He is a confident, articulate young man who answers our questions with a look of mild amusement on his face. Having grown up in these forests, he knows every landmark, trail and water source. Though he has learned both common and Latin names from the scientists he works with, Micah was already familiar with these birds from an early age."

"Micah is now a committed conservationist. During our week-long visit to Arunachal Pradesh, he shows us three different species of sunbirds—green-tailed, fire-tailed, and Mrs Gould’s. Among the smallest but most intensely coloured creatures in the Himalaya, sunbirds have a jewel-like brilliance. With thin, curved beaks they feed on nectar, darting from flower to flower."

................................................................................................

Just when one thought he'd done with it, he returns to stamping on such naive native hopes.

"The naming of Indian birds has a colonial legacy going back to the early nineteenth century. ... "

No, he isn't done, perhaps won't throughout the book. He must insist that anything known by anyone about and in Himalaya was hard work by European traipsing through the difficult terrain.

Which the Chinese do not; their racism stops at calling them 'barbarians' and 'foreign devils', but short of confusing one them with another of a different tribe.

................................................................................................

Alter proceeds to give history of era post arrival of West, obliterating any thoughts that the East did exist prior to that, and gives names and details of what he considers relevant -

" ... In the text that captions her illustration of a male and female of the species, Nicholas Vigors, secretary of the Zoological Society, paid tribute to both the subject and the artist:

"This very elegant little bird—named after Mrs. Gould, by whom the ‘Century’ was delineated—was received from the highest portions of the Himalaya, to which it is supposed to be principally confined…The top of the head, ear-coverts, throat, a spot on each side of the chest near the shoulder, tail-coverts and the two middle tail feathers, are of a rich metallic blue with brilliant purple reflections; the back and sides of the neck, and shoulders, are deep sanguineous red; the rump and under surface bright yellow, the latter having a few sanguineous dashes; the quills and outer tail-feathers dark brown.

"The accompanying lithograph is an exquisite likeness that brings the luminous birds to life. Assisting the Goulds was a young artist in his twenties named Edward Lear who drew a number of specimens, as well as the foliage and foregrounds for Elizabeth’s illustrations. He later collaborated with the Goulds on Birds of Europe but soon gave up scientific illustrations because his eyesight began to suffer from the intricate work. Later on, after he became famous for his limericks and nonsense verse, Edward Lear sailed to India in 1874 and produced landscape paintings and a journal from his travels that includes visits to the Himalayan hill stations of Mussoorie and Darjeeling.

"Elizabeth Gould never saw her namesake in the wild. Her lithograph must have been based on specimens collected by Hodgson, who also had a number of birds named after himself, including a redstart (Phoenicurus hodgsoni) and a frogmouth (Batrachostomus hodgsoni) as well as the Tibetan antelope or chiru (Pantholops hodgsonii). Most of these names were assigned by Edward Blyth, curator of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal and one of the reigning taxonomists of his time. As the British secured their eastern dominions they carefully catalogued the natural history of the subcontinent, as if creating an inventory of prized acquisitions. The Himalaya were one of the richest repositories of new species and the list of English and Latin names became a roll call of East India Company officials.

How very kind of the "white" ( - as if humans could be white! Shouldn't a bird watcher, not unfamiliar with animals, know better? Or has he heard of anyone dressed in white giving impression of having indulged publicly innudity to onlookers? -), to admit anyone merely native, to the ranks, even if selected carefully, and how fortunate that they could find one of possibly antecedents closer to themselves, in indoctrination, at any rate, if not entirely, or even at all, in his ancestry!

................................................................................................

"While I try unsuccessfully to differentiate between a plain-backed and a Himalayan forest thrush, Micah is determined to show us a Bugun liocichla. In recent weeks, he has sighted this new bird several times and tells us that the best place to find a Bugun is an area called Alluvali, near his village, in a degraded patch of forest covered with open scrub, particularly the medicinal weed, Artemisia vulgaris. Bugun often socialize with barwings, Micah tells us, and we soon find a flock of rusty-fronted barwings, a hundred metres from the motor road. For half-an-hour we scour the underbrush keeping a lookout for a small brown bird with rosy patches on the secondaries and streaks of red under its tail.

"Eventually, Micah hears a Bugun’s call from the slope above and immediately beckons for us to follow. Scrambling through the underbrush, we stop every couple of minutes to try and locate the call. Though I cannot hear it at first, when Micah points excitedly in the direction of a patch of nettles, a warbling medley of notes is barely audible. The chase continues across a rocky ravine and up a forested ridge. Every time we stop, out of breath, the call grows fainter and fainter until, after twenty minutes, it fades away completely."

That was strange! Even if Micah deliberately led them away to avoid a possible capture and killing of the bird, didn't they realise that "Every time we stop, out of breath, the call grows fainter and fainter" was opposite of their intended aim of search? Or was the bird too clever for the lot, of mere bumbling humans?

"Though we fail to add the Bugun to our bird list, Micah shows us a variety of other rare species. One of these is the fire-tailed myzornis, an emerald-green warbler with a black mask over its eyes, like a miniature bandit who has dipped his tail in red nail polish. Three of these feathery gems move nervously through tangled shrubs at the side of the road. Soon afterwards we also get a good look at a wedge-billed wren babbler. An endemic species found only in the Eastern Himalaya, it has a lilting four-note call that emanates from the damp recesses of the jungle where it hides."

................................................................................................

Had they been treated properly, elephants would have survived, across borders of India to North-West. And Alter would be less surprised finding them in North-East in India.

Even in Delhi, once called Indraprastha, they aren't now except in zoo; but once abounded in the region, original capital of which was named Hastinapura.

" ... Less than 200 metres away, I can hear a herd in the jungle, breaking branches. Not wanting to confront them on a narrow mountain trail, we leave the elephants alone."

................................................................................................

In yoga, moreover, there's another connotation.

So, how snakes and serpents are viewed by India versus Abrahamic creeds is extremely opposite.

................................................................................................

"Though Arunachal Pradesh is now an Indian state, China claims that most of this territory was once part of Tibet. In 1962, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crossed over Bum La and took Indian forces by surprise. During a brief border war, the Chinese penetrated as far as Bomdila, about 30 kilometres from Eaglenest Sanctuary. As the Indian Army regrouped and fought back, they positioned an artillery battery on the high point of the ridge at the centre of the sanctuary, facing Bomdila. The guns have long since been removed but Micah recalls collecting shell casings and other scrap metal from the site when he was a boy. The dense forests and rugged terrain were difficult to defend but, fortunately for India, the Chinese commanders realized that they had overextended themselves and retreated before snow fell on the high passes. Since then, this mountainous frontier has been heavily militarized and new highways have been built up to the border. Tensions continue and for many years Arunachal Pradesh was closed to tourists. Even today, both foreign and Indian visitors are required to get a ‘restricted area permit’.

"Military installations are everywhere, with regiments from all across India stationed here to guard the border. Though the army camps are neatly maintained and squads of soldiers pick up trash along the roadside, the environmental impact of militarization is inevitable. Aside from the fact that Indian Army aesthetics seem to dictate that every rock should be painted white, the fences and fuel depots, lines of barracks and supply sheds are impossible to ignore, even when hidden under camouflage netting. Convoys of trucks, carrying troops, equipment and rations, inch their way up the switchbacks, emitting clouds of diesel exhaust."

Funny, the things Alter refuses to credit British with, even though they are glaringly British heritage!

Or did he think that the 'Indian Army aesthetics seem to dictate that every rock should be painted white' was a heritage from a previous regime? Not Maratha empire, certainly, nor Sikh, and none of the islamic regimes, certainly.

And if it were Buddhist, it'd be certainly visible everywhere, somewhere, in regions which once were Buddhist, even if not in regimes but only in the monasteries that abounded. But what survived was, for example, Bamiyan Buddha, until taliban dynamite them despite worldwide desperate attempts to save them.

................................................................................................

Does Alter belong in Urban Naxals?

Every sign points that way in the paragraph above.

Alter even ridicules the camouflaged equipment and not too subtly let's readers know that China is not thereby fooled, but is aware of everything.

And yet, Alter argues for military leaving the region alone.

................................................................................................

Alter describes them spotting Bodo tribal women in front yard of a home worshipping a plant, presumably a description for readership out West slumming through his book. He proceeds, subtly disparaging largest river of India in terms of width and monsoon water content, before providing further tidbits for the slummers.

"As we drive over a bridge spanning the Brahmaputra at Tezpur, the broad alluvial current stretches between forested hills and tea gardens. It is a striking contrast to my memories of the Tsang Po in Tibet, where the river begins as a tiny rivulet near Mount Kailas. The Himalaya are now an indistinct blur of blue ridges to the north and we have left behind the dense forests of Eaglenest with its multitude of birds. A few egrets are wading in a rice paddy and an occasional myna flies overhead. Along the highway, beyond Tezpur, I spot an Amur falcon perched on a power line. Further east of here, in the hills of Nagaland, these tiny raptors, no larger than a pigeon, migrate in swarms, their graceful silhouettes filling the sky. Several years ago this annual passage was threatened when local fishermen strung nets in the trees and caught hundreds of falcons to be sold as meat. Fortunately, conservationists intervened and the migration of Amur falcons has become a popular tourist attraction, saving the birds before they could have been wiped out."

Then he describes ragpickers competing with storks at a garbage dump.

Presumably he hasn't seen any in vicinity of NYC.

Dumps, that is.

................................................................................................

"Crossing an unnamed pass, more than 200 goats and sheep pour down the ridge, over a snowfield and onto a steep slope of loose scree. ... "

Alter begins the chapter by describing herd of sheep and goats descending the mountains, and is detailed in description of rough homespun wool the herders are dressed in; even more so in describing the stench.

Must say it brings to mind the travels we did through pastoral midlands of England around Manchester and bit North. One had assumed that those singing paens of pastoral life, scenery et al were impervious to the stench, but it did pervade even eateries there, including what are termed rasthofs in central Europe, but one forgets what they are called in UK.

"We greet each other with cautious reticence brought on by the silent magnitude of the mountains and the isolation of this place. The shepherds have been travelling for a week from their village to the south of here. After another day or two, they will reach the high bugiyal meadows, where they spend four months of each year, herding their flocks above the treeline."

Alter doesn't bother to explain why the herds were descending the ridge in process of going uphill into meadows for summer grazing.

"Most of the animals are fitted with compact saddlebags made of handspun woollen fabric. They jostle one another with their loads but seem untroubled by the extra weight. Each bag contains 2. 5 kilograms of rice or flour, provisions for the summer. Though a single load is small, a hundred goats can transport as much as a tonne. Years ago, these animals would have carried coarse crystals of salt, collected from the shores of saline lakes in Tibet, several weeks’ journey beyond the highest mountains. But the traditional trading routes between India and Tibet are now closed because of disputed borders."

Again, it's unclear if the shepherds are coming from Tibet, since he's describing the herd going up to meadows for summer.

................................................................................................

"The shepherds camp for the night beside a stand of moru oaks and firs, where a stream has cut a gash in the meadow. I pitch my tent a hundred metres above them, amidst a field of boulders dragged here by glaciers now extinct. Though the mountains appear static and frozen in time, evidence of movement is everywhere, a pulsing spring seeping down the slope, the upward thrust of tapered ridges, irises twitching in a gust of air. An accentor rises out of the grass on deft brown wings, catching a breeze and sailing down the slope. The goats and sheep fan out to graze.

"From the cliffs above, wild goral watch their tame cousins, suspicious of these creatures that share the company of man. Goral (Naemorhedus goral) are a species of goat-antelope, with short, sharp horns and grey-brown coats. Scientists believe they are similar to the ancient ancestors of goats and sheep. As George Schaller, the eminent field zoologist, writes in his book Mountain Monarchs, the genealogy of these species goes back to the formation of the Himalaya and other ranges. He explains that the evolution of Caprinae coincides with periods of prehistory when mountains began rising up in different parts of Eurasia and Africa during the late Miocene and early Pliocene epochs (between twenty-three to five million years ago). Subsequently, during the late Pliocene and Pleistocene (between three to two million years ago), when another spurt of ‘mountain building’ occurred, the ancestors of contemporary wild goats and sheeps evolved, with larger, more elaborate horns. Schaller notes that though few fossilized remains of early Caprinae have been found to establish intermediary links they appear to have quickly developed traits ideally suited to precipitous terrain.

What's more, Ramayana has Himalaya and Vindhya looking at one another eye to eye, which pretty much dates Ramayana, at the very least.

So no, "Human beings arrived long after these creatures populated the Himalaya" wouldn't be correct, apart from being highly racist in dismissing treasures of ancient Indian knowledge.

" ... Rather than being tied to the ownership or tenancy of terraced farms, nomadic herdsmen cover great distances, moving between lower and higher pastures. What they own and tend is a living acreage of animals that travels across the mountains, forming a drifting fleece upon the land."

................................................................................................

"Wildlife biology has evolved into a highly specialized field, in which species are now identified using DNA analysis rather than a pair of binoculars. Yet, Schaller insists that you cannot understand nature without observing it first-hand. ‘Natural history remains the cornerstone of conservation…’ he explains. ‘Technology helps to open the world but technology can also close it unless one learns directly from nature.’ He argues for a generalist approach rather than the narrow research in which a PhD student may study the enzymes in an urial’s digestive tract but rarely observes this creature in the wild.

"‘Look, to get a job today you have to know how to use a computer,’ he admits, when we meet at the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun, yet shakes his head in frustration. ‘But they do all this computer modelling, using fancy statistics and Google Earth, without ever going into the field. The other day, somebody sent me a paper on the botany of Eastern Tibet and I told him, “It’s all wrong. I’ve been there and seen what plants there are”.’

"When Schaller started his career as a researcher in Alaska, he spent months traversing the tundra on foot. Later, he got an opportunity to study mountain gorillas in Rwanda. ‘Some so-called professors told me that gorillas were too dangerous to study, but having spent time with grizzly bears, they didn’t bother me.’ Through patience and perseverance, Schaller gained acceptance from these 250 kilogram primates, who got used to his presence and let him approach within a few metres. After Africa, he moved on to India where he conducted research for his book, The Deer and the Tiger. He tells a story of walking alone through Kanha National Park. ‘There was a big boulder and I approached it cautiously because sloth bears often dig near these rocks. As I circled around it, I glanced up and there was a tiger dozing on top. He and I looked at each other at the same moment, a few feet apart. I backed away slowly and climbed into the closest tree. The tiger got down from the rock and came to the foot of the tree and stared up at me. I waved my hands and said, “Go away, tiger.” And that’s what he did, walking off into the jungle.’

"Of course, Schaller recognizes the risks he’s taken and explains that wild animals can be unpredictable. ‘They can have a bad day, like any of us, and if you’re in the way…’ He holds up both hands in a gesture that suggests the inevitable. He relates a story of another PhD student, like himself, who was researching grizzlies in Alaska. ‘They got used to having him around and he was able to approach them on foot, but then one night a bear came into his tent and ate him.’"

................................................................................................

"He tells me about a festival at a Tibetan monastery, where monks dedicated themselves to preserving the environment. ‘I was the only foreigner allowed to watch the ceremonies,’ he says. ‘Everything I write gets translated into Chinese, even if they don’t like what I have to say, but of course I can’t read the language so I don’t know what they change or leave out.’ Schaller has a pragmatic approach to his work. Acknowledging that the Dalai Lama has done a lot to promote conservation, he adds: ‘But I don’t try to meet the Dalai Lama because I know he’s got spies around him who report back to Beijing. That would cause problems for me when I work in Tibet.’

"Recently, his research has focused on the Chang Tang, in northwestern Tibet, which remains one of the least developed regions of the globe and home to several endangered species particularly the chiru or Tibetan antelope. Working alongside a team of Chinese scientists, Schaller helped locate several of the chiru’s calving grounds, witnessing the culmination of their annual migration. ... "

" ... Altogether, he and his team counted more than 16,000 female antelope gathered together on the plain, giving birth to another generation of chiru. Despite these numbers, the animals face an uncertain future because of poaching and the illegal trade in shahtoosh, the underlayer of wool, which is smuggled into Kashmir and woven into high-priced shawls."

But shatoosh has been declared illegal by Indian government, over three decades ago!

"Schaller helped expose the ugly truth behind shahtoosh. For years the merchants who sold this precious wool maintained the fiction that it was collected from live animals, or gathered from thorn bushes high in the mountains where fleecy strands simply brushed off a passing herd. Schaller and others revealed that, in fact, the antelope were being slaughtered for their wool and the carnage would soon lead to their extinction."

Hence the law. Even shawls already in possession had then to be registered.

................................................................................................

"More than with any other creature, Schaller has a special affinity for snow leopards. Panthera uncia is the highest roaming of the big cats, an animal that was hardly known outside the Himalaya and Central Asia until the twentieth century. ... "

"These reclusive predators exist within a narrow band of elevation that marks the upper margins of sustainable life. As the snow line descends in winter, the ghostly carnivores move lower in pursuit of their natural prey—bharal, urial and smaller mammals like marmots and hares. Domesticated sheep and goats are fair game for snow leopards, especially in the lean, cold months of winter. These high mountain cats walk a thin line between existence and extinction. ... "

................................................................................................

"In October 2016, Schaller returned to Dolpo for the first time since he travelled there forty-three years earlier. Accompanying him was Matthiessen’s son, Alex, whose father died in 2014. After revisiting Dolpo, Schaller describes the changes that have occurred. Instead of setting off on foot for weeks of trekking, before motor roads penetrated the Kali Gandaki Valley, they flew from Pokhara to an airstrip at Juphal. More than wild sheep, this time Schaller was interested in learning how things had changed for the human residents of Dolpo.

"‘I printed some pictures of people I’d photographed in 1973 and took those with me. It was interesting to watch how people reacted when they recognized friends or family, and sometimes themselves.’"

"‘At Shey, there was only one monk,’ he tells me. ‘The others were off in Kathmandu, “studying”, or overseas in places like New York, raising funds. The villagers had nobody to conduct rituals and prayers.’

"The reason Schaller originally visited Shey was because the head lama had forbidden hunting in the valley and protected the bharal, which allowed him to observe the animals closely and witness their annual rut. He still believes that religious edicts against killing wildlife are an effective tool of conservation. Buddhist beliefs in the unity of all life and the ethics of compassion provide a compelling message for preserving and protecting wild species throughout the Himalaya and Tibet."

................................................................................................

"While his recent visit to Dolpo was relatively comfortable and not overly strenuous, the original trek in 1973 was much more challenging, crossing snowbound passes with dwindling supplies and long hours spent under harsh conditions. At one point, while following the bharal and searching for snow leopards, Schaller spent a night in a small cave. In Stones of Silence he describes how in the faint light of his torch, he could see the fossils of scalloped shells and tube worms embedded in the rocks around him. Before falling asleep he imagines himself lying within the depths of the Tethys Sea, surrounded by aquatic life and eventually becoming part of those ancient sediments, his skull transformed into a saligram, or fossilized ammonite.

"Schaller’s writing often takes on a mystical tone, expressing a sense of oneness with the land and its creatures. Though he has experienced this in many different environments from Amazon rainforests to the grasslands of the Serengeti, it is the Himalaya that truly bring his experiences into focus and make him understand that his scientific inquiry is balanced by a spiritual search. ‘Sometimes, while watching bharal, my eyes unconsciously leave the animals to climb along the skyline, and my mind struggles to escape its confines, travelling, searching, seeking, until on rare occasions a brief vision of shining clarity seems to define the world.’"

................................................................................................

" ... Five years ago, when Dr Sejal Worah started using camera traps, most of the animals came to drink at night but now they feel secure enough to visit the waterholes at all hours of the day. The presence of koklass pheasant, not a common species, proves that JNR protects the habitat they require. Altogether, in the half-minute window of the video clip, we see wild creatures occupying a safe space without any human beings in sight."

" ... Her efforts and passion for environmental action prove that private land can be converted into a viable wildlife sanctuary that sustains at least twenty species of mammals and more than a hundred different kinds of birds."

" ... Her dissertation was on human and wildlife coexistence in the fragmented forests of southern Gujarat. While she fulfilled her dream of getting a degree in Wildlife Biology at Syracuse University, she found it frustrating. ‘In the US, everything has been done already and I found myself researching the drumming behaviour of ruffed grouse, which didn’t really interest me. Solving conservation problems did.’"

" ... The success of JNR rests on community involvement as much as it does on innovative and well-managed scientific approaches to conservation in the Himalaya.

"Adjoining the reserve is a large tract of government forest that allows the animals to extend their range. A hundred acres may be enough for a few smaller, sedentary species but most of the wildlife, including leopards, bears, goral and barking deer, need more space to roam. Nevertheless, with its waterholes and protected jungle, JNR provides a core refuge for resident species, as well as migratory animals like sambar that come down from higher forests in winter."

"Within 3 kilometres of Mussoorie’s crowded Mall Road, with its traffic jams and swarms of tourists, the sanctuary provides a haven for every major species of mammal that inhabits this altitudinal zone. In the winter of 2015, a tiger showed up on one of the camera traps. It was identified as a wandering resident of Rajaji National Park in the Dehradun Valley at the foot of the mountains, more than 50 kilometres away."

................................................................................................

"The fragmentation of Himalayan forests is caused by many factors including dry winters and erratic rainfall that leads to forest fires. At the end of May 2018, a severe fire burned through JNR, charring over half the area. Fortunately, the majority of trees will survive and the monsoon helped resuscitate the forest, though a large percentage of the ground cover had gone up in smoke. While most of the larger mammals and birds were able to escape into nearby areas, a whole generation of smaller creatures, such as reptiles and insects, was wiped out. Living nearby, I have seen these jungles go up in flames at least six times, over the past fifty years. The resilience of nature is remarkable but each time it happens, walking through the ashes and breathing in the sour, acrid odours of combustion that linger for months, I keep wondering how long these forests can survive. The cause of wildfires in the Lower Himalaya is almost always human beings and the destruction usually occurs when villagers burn grasslands, in the belief that new growth will be more abundant. Chir pines, planted by the forest department years ago along the slopes to the west and north of JNR, accelerate and disperse the conflagration, which quickly burns out of control, particularly when there has been little rain."

" ... ‘There’s a lot of interest in wildlife,’ Sejal explains, ‘yet very few people are doing the kind of studies that need to be undertaken. There’s an obsession with large carnivores but we must look at other animals too, particularly ungulates like ibex and markhor. They need to be seen not just through the lens of snow leopard prey. For example, when was the last musk deer study done? Maybe thirty years ago. We don’t really know what’s going on with these Himalayan mammals.’

"Camera traps and other forms of technology have made it much easier for wildlife biologists to carry out surveys and record the behaviour of certain species but there is a downside to all these innovations.

"‘Technology comes with a price. At WWF we probably have between three and four hundred cameras set up in North India. Recently, I had to approve Rs. 800,000 just to pay for batteries. Where is all that e-waste going? I keep saying we need to use rechargeable batteries but for some reason it doesn’t happen. Here at JNR we use rechargeable batteries and they work just fine.’

"The use of drones and surveillance towers for monitoring wildlife in national parks or other forest areas can be intrusive and disturbs animals, particularly when employed indiscriminately. At the same time, new technologies offer a number of tools for conservation. During her doctoral research, Sejal conducted one of the first aerial surveys of forest lands in India and she believes in the value of mapping wildlife habitat using satellite imagery. DNA analysis has proved exceptionally useful in tracking the illegal trade in skins and animal parts.

"She also points to ‘clear applications that have taught us so much,’ like a radio collar placed on a tiger relocated from Pilibhit to Dudhwa National Park. This tiger, known as ‘Chandu’, set off on his own from the park and crossed the border into Nepal, walking through heavily settled farmland, up into the mountains.

"‘We have learned so much from that one collar,’ Sejal says. ‘How tigers use human-dominated landscapes and follow water courses and streams.’ Information like this assists conservationists in designing and advocating the location and requirements for wildlife corridors."

" ... The reserve is open to visitors and researchers but the objective is to try to protect the forest as much as possible from human interference. Camping or entering the sanctuary after dark is forbidden, partly for safety but also to give the animals time to themselves. The camera traps are used judiciously and have become an effective educational tool for visiting school groups."

................................................................................................

"Some of the earliest wildlife photography in India was done in the 1920s by F. W. Champion, a forest officer in the United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Most of his pictures were taken in the Terai and foothills of the Himalaya between Dehradun and Haldwani. Champion was ahead of his time, as most of his colleagues and fellow-colonials were far more interested in hunting tigers and other large mammals with firearms, whereas he pioneered remote flash photography. The technology was unpredictable and cumbersome, involving glass plate negatives and magnesium flash powder ignited by pressure pads and synchronized to explode in concert with the shutter. Compared to the infrared beams and multiple exposures on camera traps used today, Champion’s equipment seems primitive, though he made up for its limitations by understanding his subjects and patiently using jungle craft to set up each of the shots."

" ... Champion’s books influenced hunters like Jim Corbett, who took up wildlife photography with a passion, heeding Champion’s call:

"I would…appeal to others who do not enjoy spilling the blood of beautiful animals, many of which are rapidly being exterminated, to abandon the rifle in favour of the camera, the use of which provides all the pleasures and excitements so dear to the heart of the big-game hunter. Indeed, it provides others as well, for, in addition to giving one a far greater insight into Nature and all her marvelous ways, a camera in skillful hands produces pictures of great scientific value, which may give pleasure to many others in a way that mere horns and skins can never do, be they ever so large."

"Though the photographs that Champion published, almost a century ago, may not compare with the bright colours and sharp focus of wildlife images today, they represent an important part of the legacy of conservation that needs to be remembered and reaffirmed. Most importantly, these are not just lucky shots clicked at random but carefully composed images based on hours of observation and accumulated knowledge gathered through years spent in the jungle."

................................................................................................

"In the early spring of 2014, below the false summit of Nag Tibba, one range back from Mussoorie, I watched a crested serpent-eagle (Spilornis cheela) chasing a pair of yellow-throated martens. Emitting a series of shrill cries, the raptor harassed them from a height of a metre or two above the ground, as the martens scrambled over a lightly wooded stretch of rocky, scrub-covered cliffs.

"Despite their names, serpent-eagles eat more than just snakes and pursue the same variety of prey as martens. They are equally aggressive and opportunistic hunters. A serpent-eagle isn’t likely to kill a full-grown marten but it is possible the pair may have had their young with them, though I saw only the two adults. ... Once or twice, when the bird swooped down, the martens wheeled about and made threatening, chirring sounds and lunged at the eagle. This adversarial display only ended when the pair finally vanished into a dense patch of jungle where the eagle couldn’t follow."

Alter discourses on conflicts between species, before proceeding to next anecdote.

"In January 2005, I visited Corbett National Park with my son, Jayant. A glossy travel magazine was footing the bill and our hosts at a jungle lodge had arranged an exclusive elephant safari, hoping I would endorse the experience and their establishment. Early on a winter morning, we climbed onto the back of Phool Kali (flower blossom), one of the oldest and most experienced park elephants. The foothills were silhouetted against the eastern sky as we set off through long, wet grass towards the Ram Ganga River. The mahout urged Phool Kali forward while sitting astride her neck, his toes tucked behind her ears. We were perched on a simple howdah made from an upturned cot, with a lumpy quilt for padding. The wooden legs of the cot, which we straddled, were the only handholds. The first half hour of the ride was a gentle, swaying journey across a series of dry streambeds. Docile and even-tempered, Phool Kali helped herself to leaves and grass along the way. Eventually, we came to a patch of thorn bushes and tall grass, beyond which lay the river.

"All at once, a langur monkey sitting on the branch of a terminalia tree gave a hoarse alarm call, as if he were clearing his throat. We knew that a tiger was nearby and I gestured for Jayant to get his camera ready. As the elephant advanced, our anticipation increased. My attention was fixed on a clearing ahead but when I happened to glance behind us, the tigress was following on Phool Kali’s heels. Her stripes blended perfectly with the long grass. At the same moment, our elephant smelled the big cat and pivoted abruptly. Letting out a shrill trumpet of rage, Phool Kali charged.

"Riding an elephant is a relatively secure means of moving through the jungle but when Elephas maximus lowers its head and rushes forward in a violent display of anger, staying in your seat isn’t easy. Fortunately, none of us were unsaddled, clutching the legs of the cot as Phool Kali blundered through the underbrush like a bulldozer whose brakes have failed. The target of her hostility backed away but gave a low, gruff cough of displeasure. In a stage whisper, the mahout informed us that Phool Kali had encountered this tigress several times before and there was ‘bad blood’ between them.

"Circling around another section of scrub jungle, a few minutes later, we came upon the tigress once more. She was standing directly in front of us, blocking our path and staring straight into our eyes. Without hesitation, Phool Kali charged again, rushing 50 metres over rough ground, as we held on for our lives. The tigress let out a snarl of annoyance before retreating into the bushes, from where we kept hearing her angry growls.

"At this point, I tried to persuade the mahout that we had seen enough but ignoring my protests he urged Phool Kali to cross a sandy channel and come around from the other side. This time, the tigress burst out of the bushes and we were treated to another violent charge. The elephant bellowed, trunk raised, and tried to trample the tigress who emitted a full-throated roar. Until then, I had only heard tigers calling at a distance, a deep, resonant moan that carries for several kilometres, but from 10 metres away a tiger’s roar is enough to shake anyone’s nerves. Every leaf in the forest seemed to quake and I was relieved when the mahout regained control and turned his elephant aside.

"A few minutes later we crossed back over the dry channels of sand and rocks, where we spotted the tigress’s two cubs—both of them full grown—lounging in the sun. They seemed content to let their mother carry on her quarrel with Phool Kali by herself, while Jayant and I were happy to have simply stayed aloft. Though the experience provided an exciting story to tell, I have always been ashamed of this encounter, for the tigress and elephant would never have come face-to-face if it hadn’t been for our intrusive foray in the jungle and the provocative compulsions of adventure tourism."

................................................................................................

"Shigar Fort was renovated and restored by the Aga Khan Cultural Service and is now run as a heritage hotel by the Serena Group, which is part of the Aga Khan Development Network. Many of the people in northern Pakistan are members of the Ismaili sect of Islam, who regard the Aga Khan as their spiritual leader or imam. Being an Ismaili himself, Didar is proud of the many philanthropic projects that the Aga Khan has initiated to provide employment, education and healthcare."

Isn't that considered non-Muslim, legally, in Pakistan, amounting to their bring hunted? Or is that only limited to Ahmediya? No, Shia are being bombed there too, while in mosques.

................................................................................................

"Shigar Fort is a seventeenth-century royal residence of the Amacha rulers, a feudal dynasty, whose descendants still live in the valley. Built at the foot of a vertical rock face, with a fast-flowing stream on one side, the fortified palace is surrounded by groves of poplars and willows, as well as a walled orchard full of apples, pears, mulberries, peaches, apricots and almonds. Flower beds overflow with roses, dahlias and cosmos. The fort is a rambling structure made of large boulders, half-timbered with rough-hewn beams of wood, supporting a three-storey tower at the centre. A green oasis tucked between desolate ridges, the raja’s estate at Shigar is more of a pleasure garden than a defensible citadel. At the top of the cliffs overlooking the palace is a secure fortification where the Amacha ruler and his courtiers could retreat if they were attacked. A historic wooden mosque stands nearby, with arched fretwork and chiselled calligraphy, as well as a flared pagoda-style roof instead of a dome and minarets.

"Though once isolated and remote, Shigar is a relatively prosperous settlement with plenty of water to irrigate fields of barley, corn and potatoes. Straddling traditional trade routes to Tibet, its rulers used to extract taxes from any shipments that passed through their territory. The mountains also yield precious gems like amethysts and other minerals, including a green, jade-like ‘serpentine stone’ that is carved into teacups and ornaments. These are supposed to provide protection from poisons and evil spells. Sitting under the shade of a venerable chinar tree at Shigar, it is easy to imagine the historical procession of travellers that used this route from warriors and merchants to explorers and mountaineers.

"Re-crossing the Indus the next day, we are joined by Izhar Ali, the son of Didar’s business partner. Having just finished his MA in economics, Izhar is spending the summer working as a tour guide and photographer. After stocking up on provisions in Skardu, our Land Cruiser climbs out of the valley towards the Deosai Plateau, one of the highest meadows in the world. Along the way, we stop to see a huge slab of rock carved with images of meditating bodhisattvas. These date to the ninth century, when this region was occupied by Tibetans. A delicate tracery of lines depicting different incarnations of the Buddha contrasts with the weathered solidity of stone."

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For heaven's sake! "wandering ghosts of ancient gods still haunt the land."????? Because Abrahamic gods are what, exactly? Infant, newborn? Moloch, Baal, Pan?

One shudders to imagine what result would a parallel and equal insult of their faith might bring on the heads of Alter clan.

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Easily fooled, Alter, because they are Abrahamic-III and he's Abrahamic-II? Or was it colour?

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"No glaciers intrude on the plateau though a number of streams and wetlands thread their way through the rolling meadows. This vast area serves as an extensive aquifer with several lakes, collecting snow in winter that gradually percolates into the ground and is then released through brooks and small rivers. Unlike glacial meltwater, which is always cloudy, these clear springs are as transparent as the air. ... Migrating from the Indian Ocean, these seabirds travel 1,500 kilometres inland from their winter homes near Karachi. The meadows and wetlands support a variety of other birds like terns, wagtails, buntings and larks. Eagles, buzzards and kestrels circle overhead, though it is difficult to identify them on the wing, as they wheel across the sky keeping a sharp lookout ... "

"We have come here in search of Ursus arctos, brown bears that spend the summer in Deosai. Though essentially the same species as European and Siberian brown bears, as well as grizzlies in North America, the Himalayan subspecies isabellinus is severely endangered and this is one of the few places where they congregate in substantial numbers. Deosai National Park was created primarily as a sanctuary for bears, though it is also home to a small population of wolves, snow leopards and wild sheep. Scientists estimate that when the park was opened there were only nineteen bears in Deosai and their habitat had been badly degraded and disturbed, mostly by nomadic shepherds. Poachers also threatened the population, killing bears for their fat and other body parts that are sold as medicinal remedies. After the park was established and grazing was restricted, the numbers began to climb. In 2006, a census conducted by WWF tallied up forty-three bears. By 2008, there were fifty-six and in 2009, the total had reached sixty-two. Current estimates have risen further to between sixty-eight and seventy-five bears. Deosai National Park is one of the rare success stories of Himalayan wildlife conservation and it proves that if the land is left to its own regenerative devices, nature can replenish her bounty. Minimal intervention is required, except to limit grazing and prevent poaching."

One notices there are topics he isn't touching, from human rights and freedom of speech to freedom of faith or food. Not across the borders out of India! Safety first, or where would you begin?

Both?

"This doesn’t mean that Ursus arctos isabellinus is easy to find. Arriving at our camp on the riverbank at Bara Pani, we meet ... With a despondent look on his face, he shakes his head and tells us that a group of Japanese wildlife enthusiasts just spent three days with him and he wasn’t able to show them a single bear. They drove to every corner of the park but without success. In the official Visitors Book the Japanese have written a complaint ... "

"With a generous admixture of expletives, he tells us a story about a divisional forest officer (DFO) who came to inspect the park several years ago. After two days of seeing no bears the officer began to berate the guards, accusing them of not doing their jobs. Finally, as the disgruntled DFO was preparing to depart, Sher Muhammad spotted a bear in a sheltered side valley, some distance from the road. Radioing the news he waited for the officer to arrive and then led him on foot over the rugged uplands until they had a successful sighting. On the way back to his jeep, however, the DFO stepped in a marmot hole and twisted his ankle. Sher Muhammad was then forced to carry the officer on his back for more than a kilometre. As this tale progresses, the language becomes more and more colourful and it is difficult to tell whether accusations of incest and other obscenities are being directed at the elusive bear or the officious DFO."

Punjab origin, judging from description of his language by Alter.

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"Though temperatures on the plateau are warm during the day, with sunlight streaming down on the grasslands, as soon as darkness settles the air grows frigid and I am reminded that we are camped almost 4 kilometres above sea level. A true test of any wilderness is the clarity of the night sky and the sequined dome of stars above us is as brilliant as I have ever seen. The burbling of the river is the only sound ... our driver and I had to wrestle with the tents to set them up in a strong wind that blew across the plateau. But now the air is still, as if crystallized by the cold. A rime of frost has already formed on the outer fly of my tent as I crawl inside."

Alter's desperation to break a description of a beautiful place or time or even his own personal experience, lest an expectation from readers in India be satisfied even slightly, are forced on one's attention, however courteous one might wish to be to a guest of the land who is determined to remain exactly that, and defy any possibilities of an exaltation that might overcome a reader reading about Himalaya, even if one is familiar with it.

................................................................................................

"At 5.30 the next morning, we are up again. The stars are still out though a faint glow of dawn illuminates the eastern horizon where the rolling grasslands give way to a line of white summits in Kashmir. ... "

"The plain is like tundra, with tussocks of grass underfoot. After fifteen minutes, we come to a stretch of wetlands, with pools of water and meandering streams. Clusters of delphinium are blooming here, their cupped petals a smoky blue. Missing my footing, I step into a hidden trough of mud halfway up my calf. Remembering the story of the DFO spraining his ankle I force myself to slow down. ... Fortunately, bears have poor eyesight and the two specks on the ridge are still there. After another half an hour we come to a gradual rise in the grasslands where the ground is drier and we are hidden from the bears. Cutting across the slope at an angle, ... forward into a shallow depression on a shoulder of the ridge."

" ... The bears are about 200 metres away, on a grass-covered knoll that is just catching the first rays of sunlight. In the tunnel vision of my binoculars I can see that they are feeding on something. By now it is possible to make out that one is an adult female and the other her large cub, only slightly smaller than its mother. The pair raise their heads and sniff the air, chewing and gazing in our direction without any sign of alarm. Though bears have an acute sense of smell there is no breeze to carry our scent at this hour.

"Ursus arctos are omnivorous and their staple diet in Deosai is plants and tubers that they root up with their claws, though they also hunt ... Though dangerous if confronted at close quarters, here on the open plain the bears mostly avoid contact with human beings. At our camp, however, we are shown a waste bin that one of the bears ripped open, several nights ago, searching for food.

"After twenty minutes of watching the two bears, I can feel the first gusts of air begin to stir as the plateau starts to warm up. Almost immediately, the mother and cub catch our scent, turning abruptly and shuffling out of sight, down the other side of the hill. We know there is little chance of spotting them again ... "

" ... Next to a large rock nearby, we can see the marmot’s burrow, which has been dug up by the bears, though the hole is only partly excavated and they must have ambushed their prey, ... "

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Face it, Alter, a barbaric primitive culture that prizes numbers killed as evidence of manhood isn't conducive to either life or civilisation.

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"Descending into swathes of birches and juniper, we come upon several groups of Gujjars herding goats and sheep to lower pastures. Didar explains that one of the problems in Deosai was that large ‘commercial herds’ were dispatched to the plateau, alongside traditional nomadic shepherds who raise animals primarily for milk and wool. Investors from the plains hired Afghan refugees to take thousands of goats and sheep up to the high pastures to fatten them up. Upon their return these animals were slaughtered and sold as meat. ... When a Gujjar woman knocks at my window, begging for money, I wonder about the economics of her occupation and how long the shepherds’ nomadic way of life will survive.

"Below Chilam, we pass a meadow where flowers are still blooming, including buttercups and balsam. Here we come upon two teams of beekeepers who have set up their hives along the side of the road. Didar explains that Deosai honey, produced from the nectar of wild flowers, fetches a high price. Like migrant shepherds, beekeepers truck their hives up onto the plateau in summer and spend two or three months amidst the flowering pastures. When the blooms are finished, they move downhill, collecting honey as they go.

"‘The only problem,’ Didar says, ‘is that the weather in Deosai is so unpredictable that when monsoon clouds close in and it rains all day for several weeks, the bees remain in their hives and eat up all their own honey.’

"Harvesting the sugars produced by Himalayan plants through photosynthesis, beekeepers depend on the same cycles of nature as the shepherds with their flocks of sheep and goats. The chemical process, by which carbon dioxide and water is transformed into glucose and oxygen, through the energy of the sun, also sustains the marmots and bears. In this way, the abundant renewable resources of the Deosai Plateau feed insects, birds and mammals, dispersing their sweetness as nourishment for all."

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"Trophy hunting is legal in parts of Pakistan. Ironically, it is touted as part of an innovative strategy for wildlife conservation and rural development. While the ethics and efficacy of the programme are debatable, those who advocate this approach seem to be convinced that allowing big-game hunters to shoot large horned sheep and goats with price tags of $50,000 to $75,000 is an effective means of protecting rare species. Silk Route Expeditions is one of the leading outfitters for trophy hunting in Gilgit–Baltistan. Didar’s partner, Mohammed Shifa, Izhar’s father, regularly takes foreign clients, mostly Americans, as well as wealthy Pakistanis, in pursuit of record-book heads. The hunting season corresponds with winter when the animals move down to lower elevations because of the snow. Each year, the forest department auctions a limited number of permits and 80 per cent of the proceeds are given to local village communities. The logic behind this arrangement is that instead of poaching animals for meat, the villagers will appreciate the value of protecting wildlife because it generates revenue.

"On one level, it can be argued that trophy hunting in Gilgit–Baltistan gives remote communities control over the land and natural resources, which was earlier taken away from them by government agencies. Royalties they receive from hunters are used to fund village projects like water pipelines and roads. Some of the earnings are distributed directly to each family, allowing them to pay back loans or invest in property or livestock. In one instance, villagers in Shimshal have used the bounty from hunting to buy land near Islamabad where elderly villagers can escape the harsh winters and be closer to their children who work in the city.

"Nevertheless, trophy hunting as a means of managing wildlife conservation is a highly controversial and divisive issue, though it has worked with some success in places like Namibia, the United States and Mongolia. Both the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have cautiously endorsed this approach."

" ... His phone also displays several photographs of clients posing with dead animals. Most of the hunters are middle-aged American men but there is also a blonde Norwegian woman who has bagged an ibex."

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And yet, in that last paragraph above, one detects alter having gone sentimental with compassion for life! India wins.

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"Bhutan is the last surviving Himalayan kingdom, a political relic of a feudal age when chieftans ruled from fortified dzongs, twenty of which still stand in different districts of this landlocked nation. ... "

How's any of that different from UK, except in geography and geological factors?

" ... Not only are the highest peaks in Bhutan inaccessible but also large areas of forest that cover roughly seventy per cent of country. With a remarkably small population of only 700,000 citizens, the kingdom can afford to set aside extensive tracts of land as protected sanctuaries. Approximately half of the country has been designated as national parks or wildlife corridors, covering every altitudinal zone from semi-tropical lowlands bordering Assam to areas well above the treeline. ... "

Sounds nice. But then

" ... Unlike most Himalayan regions there are places in Bhutan where Homo sapiens have never set foot. ... "

How does Alter see that, much less claim or prove it? It's simply not possible. It's not that one can assert the opposite, but either way, such an assertion about any remote place is unoprovable.

" ... An array of endangered species such as red pandas, musk deer, hispid hares and pygmy hogs are found here. In 2017, the Ugyen Wangchuck Institute for Conservation and Environmental Research counted 103 tigers in Bhutan. The most encouraging aspect of their presence is that camera trap images show the tigers roaming from jungles bordering the Manas River at 100 metres above sea level to points as high as 4,000 metres. Both the monarchy and parliament, as well as the religious establishment, have committed themselves to wildlife conservation as a national priority."

................................................................................................

" ... Dressed in the official state costume, a loose, belted robe called a gho that is gathered at the waist and extends to his knees like a kilt, Tandin explains that this form of dress for men is a variation of the Tibetan chuba. It was redesigned and shortened by the founder of Bhutan, Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, who consolidated his rule over the country in the 1600s.

"Known as Druk Yul, land of ‘the thunder dragon’, Bhutan is home to many fabulous creatures ... "

"Though the Takin Preserve above Thimphu is set amidst several acres of blue pines, it is essentially a zoo, caged in with wire mesh fences. Tandin explains that this herd of takin was originally kept on the palace grounds but the fourth king decreed that they should be released into the wild. However, the animals were so used to living in captivity that they soon found their way back to Thimphu, wandering the streets of the capital, feeding on handouts and garbage. After that, it was decided to establish the park, which now includes a number of sambar deer and a ‘rescued’ serow, as well as a monal pheasant and a satyr tragopan."

................................................................................................

" ... Punakha Dzong, which was the capital of the country until 1955, when the king and his government shifted to Thimphu. It remains the headquarters of His Holiness the Je Khenpo, Bhutan’s spiritual leader. At least 1,000 monks live and worship in the monastery, which has served as a venue for royal coronations and weddings."

" ... Tandin asks Wangchuck, our driver, to stop as he points out different elements of this sacred landscape. Punakha Dzong is built at the confluence of the Mho Chhu and Pho Chhu, the former being female and the latter male. Tandin also describes how the layout of the dzong reflects the shape of an elephant. The two rivers are its tusks and the fortress is built upon its trunk, while the hills beyond are its head and body. Elephants are a divine symbol of the Buddha as well as an emblem of political power.

"Situated at roughly 1,200 metres above sea level, Punakha is considerably warmer than Thimphu or Paro. Shelducks and cormorants congregate along the riverbank and a short distance upstream is one of the few places where the severely endangered white-bellied heron is found. Less than 250 of these birds exist, of which thirty live along the riverbank of the Pho Chhu above Punakha."

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"Driving eastward from Punakha, we arrive in the Phobjikha Valley after dark. Snow powders the upper slopes and sections of the road are covered in ice. A new moon glistens in the sky but offers only the faintest illumination and the headlights of our vehicle reveal nothing beyond the edges of the road. The next morning, however, we wake up to find ourselves in a seemingly magical world. When I open the curtains in our hotel room, a broad alpine valley is spread out before us covered in a white mantle of frost. Ringed by forested mountains, with circuitous streams winding their way across open meadows, the landscape has an idyllic quality like visions of paradise in thangka paintings."

Of course. Alter had to remind readers it's not really a vision of a true paradise allowed by faith of higher Abrahamic monotheistic creeds, it's only something quaint like not just a beautiful painting but a 'thangka' painting, ethnic, slotted, catelogued for a showcase.

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"Every winter, black-necked cranes (Grus nigricollis) migrate to Phobjhika from remote water bodies in Ladakh and Tibet, flying across the Himalaya, to spend the cold season in these sheltered wetlands. Only 10,000 black-necked cranes remain and their summer breeding grounds are threatened by development, pollution, the effects of climate change and predation by feral dogs. In Phobjikha, however, they are protected and relatively secure, though the frozen marshes where they feed are also used for grazing cattle. The cranes have an eclectic diet, eating roots and plants, as well as snails, small fish, amphibians and reptiles."

"At the Gangtey Gompa in Phobjikha, on a hillock above the valley, an annual festival is held every November to celebrate the arrival of the cranes. Their migration is seen as an auspicious sign and the graceful birds are said to circle the gompa three times upon arrival and before departure in the spring. Dressed in black and white costumes with beaked masks, monks imitate the cranes in a ritual dance. Though Bhutan’s national bird is the raven, which graces the royal crown, more than any other creature, black-necked cranes represent the country’s efforts to preserve and celebrate its natural heritage."

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"Leaving Phobjikha we pass three cranes standing in a sunlit glade by the side of the road, two parents and one of their young. Though juveniles are able to fly across the Himalaya within six months of hatching, it takes them two years to mature and pick their own mates. Ascending to the pass out of the Phobjikha Valley, we come upon several dozen yaks grazing on open meadows. The herders, Tandin tells us, have migrated to this region from summer pastures further north and their yaks, with thick black coats, are feeding on frostbitten grass and bamboo. Laughing, Tandin regales us with a folk tale about the yak and the buffalo, who were once friends and decided to enter into a business partnership. ‘If you lend me your coat,’ the yak said to the buffalo, ‘I’ll go to Tibet and bring back things to trade and sell.’ The unwitting buffalo removed his coat and gave it to his friend who set off across the mountains. But instead of keeping his promise, the yak never came back, which is why he has such a thick coat and lives at high altitudes, while the buffalo has little or no hair and remains in the lowlands.’ After a brief pause, Tandin adds, ‘That’s also why the buffalo always glances over its shoulder with a resentful expression, still looking for his deceitful friend.’

"Yak herding is an arduous and, for the most part, unrewarding occupation. However, Tandin informs us that these nomadic herders have recently found a new source of income, gathering Ophiocordyceps sinensis, the caterpillar fungus. Sometimes called ‘Himalayan Viagra’, it would seem to be a creature conjured up in the divine madman’s imagination. Essentially, the larvae of ghost moths are infected by a parasitic fungus that kills them and then grows out of the caterpillar’s dry husk. A valuable ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine, yartsa gombu, as it is also known, is considered a powerful tonic that is credited with everything from boosting immune systems to helping Chinese athletes win gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. Whatever its attributes, most of which would seem to be exaggerated, Ophiocordyceps can fetch a retail price of more than $100,000 per kilogram. Though found in Tibet, yartsa gombu has been overexploited in the trans-Himalayan region. High places in Bhutan and Nepal are now the primary sources. Government regulations restrict collection of the caterpillar fungus, allowing herding communities to gather it within their traditional high altitude pastures along the snow line. According to Tandin, this windfall has made some of the yak herders suddenly wealthy.

"Along the six-hour drive from Phobjikha to Trongsa, we pass the Black Mountains, which contain some of the thickest forests in Bhutan. The dark colour of the rocks and the shadowy foliage give this region its name. The entire area lies within the Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park. Giant hemlocks rise above a lower canopy of hoary oaks, maples and rhododendrons, as well as fast-growing alders that take over areas where landslides have occurred because of road building. When we stop for a cup of tea at a roadside restaurant, Tandin tells us that an infamous demon inhabits these forests. Her name is Neyla Dhuem and she takes the form of a beautiful woman, though anyone who sets eyes on her is doomed. ‘Years ago,’ he says, ‘there was a mail-runner named Garbi Lungkharlo, the fastest man in Bhutan. He used to carry official messages between Trongsa and Wangdue Phodrang. To save time, Garbi followed the shortest route, across the Black Mountains. Passing through an uninhabited part of the forest, he came upon a woman kneeling beside a stream and noticed that she was washing something in the water. Entranced, the mail-runner asked her who she was and what she was doing. The woman replied, “I am Neyla Dhuem and I am washing the entrails of an ox.” Unsettled by this encounter, Garbi continued on his way but the woman kept haunting his thoughts. When he reached Trongsa and lay down to rest after delivering letters to the governor, the messenger suddenly remembered that he had been born in the year of the ox. Next morning, Garbi Lungkharlo was dead.’

"Both Tandin and our driver, Wangchuck, insist that nobody dares enter the forest or cut any trees in the Black Mountains because of their fear of Neyla Dhuem. Further down the valley, Tandin points out a forested ridge that tapers to a point, clad in tiered pavilions of foliage. ‘That’s Neyla Dhuem’s palace,’ we’re told. With the sky overcast and the layered shadows of surrounding ridges converging on the eerie shapes of pagoda-like conifers, it seems the sort of place where a beautiful ogress might waylay unsuspecting travellers."

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"Trongsa is the largest dzong in the country, located at the centre of Bhutan, and this region has always been politically and economically important. Visiting the dzong in the late afternoon we come upon a group of men taking part in an archery contest in a field outside the walls. ... Archery is the national sport in Bhutan and dates back to a time when each dzong had to be defended against hostile invaders. A tall cypress stands outside the gate and Tandin points out dozens of arrowheads embedded in its bark. The walls of the dzong are more than a metre and a half thick, with narrow slits at strategic places, through which archers took aim. Today, the only invaders at Trongsa Dzong are troops of Assam macaques (Macaca assamensis), a darker, bulkier version of rhesus monkeys, with whom they share a penchant for breaking and entering to steal food. Tacked to the door of the main sanctuary at Trongsa is a sign warning visitors to keep the temple door shut while an elaborate network of electric fences have been erected on all sides of the dzong to ward off monkeys.

"After showing us the beehives on the cliffs, Tandin identifies a yellow-rumped honeyguide, a small, active grey-green bird that feeds on bee larvae. All along our route there is plenty of bird life, particularly spotted forktails and white-capped redstarts, as well as the ubiquitous whistling thrush. We also spot a subspecies of kalij pheasant (Lophura leucomelanos lathami) that has much darker plumage than kalij in the Western and Central Himalaya. Further on, when we stop to photograph a waterfall, Ameeta suddenly calls out and there is a loud, thumping sound like a helicopter passing overhead. Looking up, I see two great hornbills flying out across the valley. They have been feeding on a wild fig tree beside the waterfall. Another pair remains in the branches, watching us with wary eyes. The protruding orange casque on top of their long, curved beaks gives the birds a top-heavy appearance. Great hornbills (Buceros bicornis) are some of the largest birds in the Lower Himalaya with pied feathers and a wingspan of more than a metre. Their distribution extends across Southeast Asia, with an isolated population along the Malabar Coast of southern India. Great hornbills flock together in noisy groups, croaking and cackling at each other."

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"As we enter the buffer zone of the Royal Manas National Park, human settlements diminish and the dense forest takes over once again. The park is Bhutan’s oldest wildlife sanctuary, contiguous with India’s Manas Tiger Reserve. Roughly equal in size, these two parks together cover 2,000 square kilometres. At this elevation, below 1,500 metres, chir pines replace hemlocks and cedars. Stopping for lunch by a bamboo grove, we come upon our first troop of golden langurs. These agile primates live within a narrow strip of forest, between the Sankosh and Manas rivers. They are smaller and leaner than grey Himalayan langurs and have pale blonde fur that turns a russet gold during their breeding season in fall and winter. ... "

"In Buddhist teaching, monkeys are compared to the restless human mind that resists the stillness of contemplation. Watching the golden langurs moving from branch to branch, the metaphor seems appropriate though these gentle primates have meditative expressions on their faces. ... "

It's not invention of or by Buddhists, that comparison - it's part of yoga, one of the treasures of ancient India, and related philosophies.

" ... Trachypithecus geei (originally dubbed Presbytis) was identified as a separate species in 1956 and named after the man who first photographed golden langurs, the naturalist E. P. Gee. His book The Wild Life of India is a classic of nature writing and influenced both politicians and the public to take up the cause of conservation. Having heard uncomfirmed reports of ‘white langurs’ in the submontane jungles between the Sankosh and Manas rivers, Gee set off to explore this region. A tea planter by profession, he spent much of his free time pursuing wildlife with still and cine cameras. In 1953, Gee found two troops of golden langurs near the Sankosh River."

" ... Gee returned to the area and spent several weeks along the Manas River, where he found ten more troops of golden langurs. In his book he emphasizes the environmental significance of the Himalayan foothills, where the Duars descend into the grasslands of Manas. Gee also rhapsodizes over the beauty of this place and the tranquil current of the river as it leaves the hills. He writes: ‘This spot could well be described as the answer to a fisherman’s prayer and the artist’s dream, and the so-far unrealized hope of the wild life conservationist.’"

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"Unfortunately, within a few decades, this peaceful, unspoiled realm was under threat and nearly destroyed. During the 1980s and 1990s several militant groups in Assam, primarily the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and the Bodo Liberation Tiger Force, began an armed insurgency against the Government of India. Fighting a guerrilla war with state police and paramilitary forces, these militants retreated into the forests of Manas and set up camps in Bhutan, from where they launched attacks on Indian targets, carrying out kidnappings and extortion, while feeding and funding themselves by poaching wildlife."

"As Prerna Bindra explains in her book, The Vanishing, Manas ‘was emptied of its tigers and rhinos. Hundreds of elephants were slaughtered. Even “department” elephants, employed for patrolling during the heavy monsoons were shot, burnt, killed. An incredibly heroic staff stayed through this traumatic period to protect wildlife, and tragically, a few paid with their lives.’ Bindra praises one of the forest guards in particular, Babulal Oraon, whom she describes as armed with a ‘rusty .315 rifle slung over his shoulder. It’s not an antique showpiece purely for effect. It’s a weapon he has used repeatedly and brutally against the enemies of the park. In his career he has had over 100 encounters and killed 32 poachers.’ Oraon received an award for his bravery from former prime minister Indira Gandhi."

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"In Bhutan, the presence of Indian militants was viewed with alarm. Not only did their jungle camps threaten the kingdom’s sovereignty but the park had special significance for the king. A modest palace stands on a high bank overlooking the Manas River, at the point where it flows out of the hills. This has always been a favourite winter retreat for the royal family, who often spend three or four weeks in Manas.

"In addition to the insurgents decimating animals in the park there were serious security threats to Bhutanese citizens living along the border. As Tandin tells us, negotiations were carried out with the various militant groups who were repeatedly asked to leave but refused. In the winter of 2003–04, pressure was intensified and the infiltrators were warned that the Royal Bhutanese Army would take action to drive them back across the Indian border.

"‘Every attempt was made to reach a peaceful solution but at the same time the army was ready with a special commando force, like America’s Navy Seals,’ Tandin tells us. ‘In order to find out how many insurgents there were, the negotiators handed out oranges in the camps and by counting how much fruit they distributed they figured out the total enemy numbers.’

"The initial approach to the militants was exceedingly Buddhist in its spirit of compassionate dialogue but when the army finally struck at the insurgents they showed little mercy. The fourth king approved and commanded the assault, which was code named Operation All Clear. More than 120 militants were killed and a large number were captured and handed over to Indian authorities. Fifteen Bhutanese soldiers died in the fighting. At Dorchu La above Thimphu, 108 memorial chortens were constructed to honour those who died in the conflict, commemorating Bhutan’s first modern battle."

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"Following the ‘flushing out’ of militants, the difficult task of reviving the park began. On the Indian side, several rhinos and herds of elephant were reintroduced from nearby sanctuaries in other parts of Assam. Gradually the wildlife began to regenerate and wild buffalo, deer and even tigers reappeared. As Bindra reports, some of the poachers were rehabilitated and employed as forest guards, protecting the animals they once hunted. Today, Manas has reclaimed most of its natural splendour, though anxieties remain. Permits to visit Bhutan’s side of the park are difficult to obtain and we were restricted to a small area near the forest department headquarters and the palace. ‘Security’ was the main concern, we were told, and an army contingent is posted next to the palace. Though forbidden from entering the jungle, we were able to walk around the main compound, where several tame sambar watched us with complacent curiosity. Only 100 metres above sea level, the jungle had changed dramatically from higher up in the mountains. Huge silk cotton trees (Bombax ceiba) were in full bloom, with scarlet leathery blossoms that attracted hill mynas and Alexandrine parakeets."

"As we slip downstream, beyond a rippled confluence, a pair of ibis bills fly past us, going in the opposite direction, their wings snipping the air like scissors. Common mergansers, a duck that winters in Manas, float in the shallows while several great hornbills pass overhead, the pulsing sound of their flight like muted applause. ... "

"Wild buffalo (Bubalus arnee) are relatively common in Manas though they have disappeared in most of the forests along the foothills in other parts of the Himalaya. Several hundred years ago these massive creatures would have been plentiful across Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent but now there are only about 3,000 in the wild, mostly in Assam. They have the largest horns of any mammal on earth and can weigh more than a tonne. The solitary bull that we are watching is a grand specimen though he is now past his prime. According to the forest guards this buffalo was once the dominant male in a herd but a few weeks ago he was driven away by a younger challenger. Injured and beaten, the old bull retreated across the river and now lives alone."

There are some in Karnataka, specifically at a forest reserve on Kabini River. The forest has elephants families, spectacular, peacocks and tigers, apart from monkeys and so on.