Shepherd Diary

Shape-shifting Rocks

The dark and deep woods of rhododendron and oak give way to a grassy expanse. Tall, dry grass swaying in the wind, and beyond them a green undulating meadow strewn with white-grey boulders. On closer look, some of these boulders seem to be shape-shifting, like Pampa Kampana in the newest Rushdie novel Victory City, which is my break read. The ‘boulders’ are sheep huddled together, lolling in the bright sun. The ground beneath my feet becomes soft with pellets of sheep dung. I hear a bleat. After about three hours of trudging alone, with the ears finding it strange not to hear a honk, a police siren, a cuss word, a phone ring or any music, they are consoled by the sound of an animal. A domestic animal, that is. Two dogs come bounding down, fluffy like Snowy, but one of them is black. I stand still; they sniff, prance aro­und and shoot back to where they came from. A few more steps and I can see a tiny tent of blue plastic sheet. A man comes out, a big lathi in one hand, his other hand over his eyes to see who it is. I wave to him, and he waves back. It’s even more comforting to see a human being.

Uber Olas

He is Harnam. The tent is just about two-feet tall; anything bigger will fly away in the blizzards. Its roof has holes the size of lemons. Two weeks ago, the hailstorm was so fierce, olas the size of Harnam’s fists had torn through the tarpaulin. The sheep had sensed a big hailstorm coming and had taken cover in between the rocks or under the trees. Even then, some of them got hurt. Harnam’s relative, a younger man by the name Jagan, who has been lying inside—from stomach cramps which he thinks are because of kidney stones— emerges from the tent. Harnam, who guesses he will be over seventy (sattar ka toh hoonga) and Jagan (46, Aadhaar card hai) have been here at this meadow, called Gort locally, straight above Dharamkot in Himachal Pradesh at about 10K feet for three months now. They tend to about two hundred sheep and goats—which they call maal—who seem happy and content, chewing the juicy grass, soaking in the sun under a sky as blue as Greek seas.

Lonely at the Top

Jagan makes me strong tea with goat milk. They have meagre supplies, some dal, rice and atta, some ghee. One of them goes down once in about fifteen days to get stuff. What they run out of fastest is beedis. Vegetables are hard to get; they collect some spinach and edible ferns from the meadow. Harnam powders some rock salt on a stone. It’s for the maal, he says. Their teeth become sour after chewing all the grass that they have to be given salt once a week along with deworming medicine. They will be moving from here soon and going towards Spiti, to head down to the plains in Punjab by December where the sheep will be sheared. They get around Rs 120 for a kilo of wool, with each sheep rendering around 2 kilos of wool. The goats will be sold and probably end up as biryani or barra kabab. But all that’s for later. Right now in Gort, they don’t have a care; they are living in the moment, looking like Mulla Naseeruddin.

Karadi Tales

Harnam takes me to the top of the meadow from where we can see Gaggal airport down below. A plane, shining like a needle, and about the same size, lands on the strip. His village is near Gaggal; he points to a cluster of red roofs and says his house is in the middle of it. He has a big scar on the right side of his face. Bhalu ne phaad diya (a bear tore it open), he says. Last year while he was herding his sheep, a bear attacked him. There are many here, says Jagan. He had seen one two days ago, weighing about ‘two quintals’, walking past about a hundred metres from where Jagan was. They sometimes take a sheep or goat. They don’t usually attack humans unless wounded or frightened. Harnam had come in front of the bear suddenly and it probably panicked. Or they were saying this to make it easier for me to go back down, about two hours on a steep, desolate trail.

Satish Padmanabhan Managing Editor Outlook