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A
trek amidst tranquillity Ladakh
is a long way from anywhere by road -two days or 32 hours from Manali,
26 hours with an overnight stop from Jammu and 24 to 30 hours from
Srinagar. By air it is less than one hour from Delhi.
Distances
aside, it feels quite different from other parts of India. In the
province of Jammu and Kashmir, the region is often called "Little
Tibet", referring to the people, their culture and religion.
Its isolated location deep in the Himalaya makes Ladakh accessible
by road from only June to September. The rest of the year it is
covered by snow. The lunar-like landscape is stark and barren, but
beautiful. Only four inches of rainfall a year makes it a harsh
and severe environment to live in. The mountains
are the reason why most visitors come -to climb, to trek, or to
simply admire. To trek in Ladakh is to be far away from everything.
It is tranquil and calming. It is also invigorating and demanding.
It is not like trekking in other popular trekking destinations where
you may meet people of every nation. If you choose your route carefully
it is possible that it will be so remote as to not see anyone apart
from the friendly and at times, inquisitive, locals. Our trek in
the Nubra Valley is one such experience. Four people take part -
myself and a friend, a local man who acts as our guide and cook,
and another - the horseman, whom we call 'uncle'.
There
are four horses, one for riding, and three for carrying equipment
- tents, sleeping bags, food, old kerosene cookers, and an array
number of cooking pots - the Ladakhi tradition of kitchens with
many pots and pans seems to extend to trekking expeditions as well.
We start trekking at about 3,200 metres above sea level, climbing
to 4,300 metres where we set up camp for the night. For those born
and bred in these mountains walking at such high altitude is no
problem. For visitors it is not easy and one's lungs work very hard
to keep up. It is especially challenging on the two days when we
cross passes of 5000m. But it is the
spectacle of the surrounding scenery that makes it all worthwhile.
Imposing snow-capped mountains wherever you look; occasional glacial
springs supporting small patches of greenery and beautiful alpine
flowers. There are irrigation channels for summer barley crops,
and deteriorating stupas, worn from weather and age. Majestic eagles
glide effortlessly overhead, while cheeky marmots scurry from one
burrow to another - they are tricky to spot, blending in with the
rocks around them. There is little
noise, just the rhythmic ringing of the horse's bells and the soft
chanting of Buddhist prayers by our guide and 'uncle' to keep us
safe on our journey. It is as if we are in a far-flung valley, far
from civilisation. Yet in the middle of seemingly nowhere, nearly
always someone appears. A shepherd, taking animals home for the
night, or a villager on his way from one place to the next. One old man
who has great pleasure in showing us that he has no teeth, sits
to watch us prepare dinner and to chat with our guide and 'uncle'.
He spins yak's wool by hand and has a woven basket on his back,
carrying nothing but a small, used oil container full of chang.
Chang is the local liquor of these parts, made from barley and drunk
at any hour and at regular intervals during the day. 'Uncle' and
some local men who come to help shoe the horses, have it for breakfast
with leftover cold custard from the night before. There are a
few villages scattered in this valley, where people almost hibernate
in winter to cope with the extreme cold and snowfall. In summer
villagers collect animal dung to dry and use for fuel. Flowers are
used for food and medicinal purposes. Spun yak's wool is made into
blankets, full-length coats and other winter clothing. At this time,
July, the days are hot, and at heights of between 3500m to almost
5000m we find the nights cold enough. One morning we wake to lightly falling snow. We have no comprehension about what the conditions must be like in winter. The last day is long, after 10 hours walking we end in a small village called Saboo, close to the Ladakhi capital, Leh. In the evening we have dinner with the family who runs the village's only guest house. At their home we eat freshly made mutton momos - steamed dumplings, a salad chutney consisting of finely chopped tomatoes, onions, chilli and mint, as well as rice and curry. The
concise guide to the Anglo-Sri Lankan lexicon by Richard Boyle-
Part 14 beriberi (1703).
According to the OED2 it is: "[A Sinhalese word, from beri
weakness; the reduplication being intensive.] An acute disease generally
presenting dropsical symptoms, with paralytic weakness and numbness
of the legs, prevalent in many parts of India." Beriberi is
in fact endemic in East and South Asia. It is characterised by multiple
inflammatory changes in the nerves caused by a dietary deficiency
of thiamine (vitamin B1). The earliest
reference in English given in the OED2 - a translation from the
Dutch - dates back to 1703. Certainly the most curious quotation
given is from Jacobi Bontius's Account of the Diseases of the East
Indies (1769:1): "The inhabitants of the East Indies are much
afflicted with a troublesome disease, which they call beriberii
(a word signifying a sheep)." Bontius continues by suggesting
that the disease is so called because those who are afflicted by
it adopt the gait of a sheep. But why should he believe that the
word beriberi signified this animal? No illustrative
quotations from English literature pertaining to Sri Lanka are given
in the OED2. However, H-J2 has the following by Lord Valentia from
Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, etc. (1809[1811]:273): "A
complaint, as far as I have learnt, peculiar to the island (Ceylon),
the berri-berri; it is in fact a dropsy that frequently destroys
in a few days." There are many
references to this term in English literature pertaining to Sri
Lanka. The earliest is by Robert Percival from An Account of the
Island of Ceylon (1803:108-9), in which he describes a rather drastic
cure: "This disorder is known by the name of the Berry berry:
it is occasioned by the low diet and bad water, which the natives
are accustomed to use; and in part, perhaps, by the dampness of
the climate in the wet season. It swells the body and legs of the
patient to an enormous size, and generally carries him off in twenty-four
hours. The method employed for the cure, is to rub the patient over
with cow-dung, oil, chinun (chunam), lime-juice, and other preparations
from herbs; and then bury him up to the chin in hot sand." A brace dating
from the same period are to be found in 'The Extracts from the General
Medical Report of the Troops Serving in Ceylon for the Month of
April 1803,' as quoted by James Cordiner in A Description of Ceylon
(1807[1983]:439). One reads: "The disease from which most of
the men of the 19th have died has been Berry-berry, a species of
dropsy combined with great debility." The other (Ibid. 447)
reads: "In the year 1797, during which the troops suffered
much from remittent fever and Berry-berry, the rains fell late in
the season, and the monsoon changed early in April, so that there
was much moisture in the jungle, and stagnant water on the ground
when the south-west wind set in, and blowing over the land, carried
the unwholesome vapours towards the Fort, and produced diseases
similar in their nature, and almost equal in their malignity to
those lately contracted in the Candian territory." A reference
by John Davy in An Account of the Interior of Ceylon (1821:495)
is pertinent because the author was physician to the British troops
stationed on the island. It demonstrates the confusion regarding
the causes of this disease at the beginning of the 19th century:
"Beri-beria, a disease almost peculiar to Ceylon, has been
supposed to be owing to ordinary causes, as a moist atmosphere,
great vicissitudes of temperature, bad food, intemperance, etc.
But I am more disposed to refer it, like remittent fever and the
cholera morbus, to some unusual state or condition of the atmosphere;
or, to be more correct, to confess ignorance of its exciting cause."
Then there
is Constance Gordon Cumming, who writes of the Dutch siege of Portuguese
Colombo in Two Happy Years in Ceylon (1892[1901]:35): "Pestilence
in the form of fever, dysentery, and a disease called beri-beri,
of the nature of dropsy, broke out and thinned their ranks." There is a
corresponding entry in H-J2 that states: "The disease prevails
endemically in Ceylon, and in Peninsular India in the coast-tracts,
and up to 40 or 60 miles inland." parangi (1821).
"[Sinhalese parangi (lede) literally '(disease of) foreigners'
i.e. the Portuguese.] The name given in Sri Lanka to a disease now
known to be identical with yaws." The earliest illustrative
quotations given in the OED2 are by Henry Marshall from Notes on
Medical Topography in the Interior of Ceylon (1821:42): "There
is a complaint mentioned in the Kandyan medical works called parangy
lede (Parangy disease)," and (Ibid.) "Parangy lede seems
to have been originally intended to denominate a new disease; .
. . it may perhaps be inferred that the term meant Portuguese disease.
There is, however, no tradition among the Kandyans respecting the
importation of a disease," and (Ibid.44) "Many of the
cutaneous affections which they denominate parangy, are evidently
herpetic, and cannot be referred to a syphilitic origin." There are of
course other references from English literature pertaining to Sri
Lanka, such as the following by Gordon Cumming (1892[1901]:258):
"All the hopelessness had vanished, the skinny half-starved
children were fat and healthy, the horrible parangi had almost disappeared,
and the population had been increased by the return of many." A further reference
by Gordon Cumming (Ibid.262) is not so optimistic: "Foul water
to drink and scanty unwholesome food, together with the unavoidable
filth of having no water for bathing or for washing of clothes,
and that in a fierce tropical heat, produced a renewed outbreak
of the terrible disease parangi, which once again was seen on every
side." The most recent
or postdating illustrative quotation given in the OED2 is from English
literature pertaining to Sri Lanka - Leonard Woolf's The Village
in the Jungle (1913:11): "There were few in the village without
the filthy sores of parangi, their legs eaten out to the bone with
the yellow sweating ulcers." Michael Roberts,
Ismeth Raheem, and Percy Colin-Thome write of the complexities of
meaning of the word in People Inbetween (1989:xix): "As a Sinhala
word, parangi refers to (i) the Portuguese, (ii) such diseases as
yaws and syphilis, and (iii) the Burghers. The latter usage is now
somewhat archaic, but it appears that in the 19th century Sinhala-speakers
used it more widely to refer to the Burghers or the Portuguese Burghers." The corresponding
entry in H-J2 states: "An obstinate chronic disease endemic
in Ceylon. It has a superficial resemblance to syphilis; the whole
body being covered with ulcers, while the sufferer rapidly declines
in strength." |
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