Warm tribute to icy Siachen

Harish Kapadia could easily be introduced as a famous mountaineer.

But with his several books, lectures, longstanding editorship of the Himalayan Journal , Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographic Society and exploration of the Himalaya, he is much more. Few know the Indian Himalaya like Kapadia.

In his list of published works, ranging from a popular guide for trekking the Maharashtra Sahyadri to books on exploring the Himalaya, Siachen Glacier — The Battle of Roses is the latest title. It focuses on a glacier that exploded to India's imagination in the mid-1980s when the high-altitude war between India and Pakistan to posses it, started.

However, there is a difference between media narratives founded on the exigency of news and a book by a person moulded by mountaineering and exploration. That difference is what Kapadia brings to the table. His book provides the average citizen a ringside view of a portion of the Himalaya that is a paradox for the inhospitable terrain it represents and the urge for ownership it invited.

For long, the freezing lands around the Siachen Glacier engaged nobody except high-altitude communities and the trade with Central Asia. Then the legendary Dogra general, Zorawar Singh, passed through Kashmir and Ladakh in the vanguard of a Sikh empire. Later the region earned attention during the Great Game when the British and Russians manoeuvred in Asia for political domination. Eventually, the area got embroiled in the tensions between India, Pakistan and China, in particular the border dispute between India and Pakistan. Crucially the 76-km-long Siachen is a wedge into the link Pakistan and China have forged to the glacier's north in the Shaksgam Valley.

Amidst this drift to being consumed by the geo-politics of empire and nation, the glacier got its first set of modern explorers and after the outbreak of war, its first taste of real pollution. Rated one of the longest glaciers in the world outside the polar caps, Siachen is also said to be the most polluted. Despite the military confrontation at punishing altitudes, there is now an ongoing initiative to have a Peace Park on Siachen to rescue the glacier from war and, hopefully, further seeds of war.

With an eye on history and a thorough knowledge of its geography, Kapadia — who has been on this glacier several times, walked its entire length and stood on its many passes — tells you an interesting story. The quaint narration, peppered with humour, is rooted in the classical tradition of exploration reports. It introduces some of the early explorers of the glacier, takes you through Kapadia's own journeys and merges it into the life and times of the glacier's current occupant — the Indian Army. Unlike explorers and mountaineers who visit high altitude on missions of generally short duration, the soldiers stay and work for long lengths at heights of 15,000 ft to 22,000 ft.

The book has an occasional drawback. It has a pronounced but enjoyable slant towards geography, exploration and military operations. In Kapadia's narrative too, the physical map of the East Karakoram yields little space for the life and communities in its folds.

That said, if you are curious about Siachen — this is definitely a book to have.

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