Tumbling Through

‘Just scream if I’m too close to the edge’ joked the driver as our jeep slowly reversed, attempting to turn around on a narrow stretch of dirt and stones that was clearly not constructed with U-turns in mind. Seated in the back, I looked down at the void behind us, a sheer drop of over 5000 feet. I was devoid of any rational fear but washed over instead, by an odd sensation of calm. This was another life after all. Perhaps the normal rules didn’t apply here.

We were on a journey from Srinagar to Leh, in the northern most Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. While a 55-minute flight from the lakeside capital of Srinagar gets you there- it is the road that one must take. It is the road that mesmerizes you, grabs you and takes you straight through the looking glass. As you navigate all 420 Km of it over a backbreaking course of 14 hours, it comes alive and shares the secrets of the land it traverses through.

Setting out early morning from Srinagar, we were immersed in the verdant green bounty of the Kashmir valley. Cottages with sloping roofs rested among lush fields where ponies and sheep milled about. Tree-shrouded hills jostled next to each other, jutting out an endless row of slopes - nature’s very own can-can performance.

But as the road ascended, the bucolic harmony began to fade away. The playful hills were growing before our eyes, shedding their foliage and becoming increasingly barren. Instead, we were surrounded by an increasingly unrecognizable lunar landscape. Towering around us were mountains ranging in hues from lightest cream to deepest crimson, with sudden patches of purple. Furrowed and creased, they resembled giant elephants, curled up and resting in the afternoon sun, their wrinkled backs to the world. I almost expected them to wake up groggily and turn over, oblivious to the havoc it would cause.

Winding throughout this unearthly terrain was the most spectacular sight of all- the road, snaking precariously across the sides of gargantuan, pre-historic monoliths of sand and stone.

As we rumbled into the town of Kargil at dusk, greeted by a gang of screaming schoolchildren spraying each other with a hosepipe, I thought back to that brief moment when it felt like the jeep might slip into the abyss. It was perilous, unpredictable and unforgiving, but I couldn’t feel anything but gratitude- who can complain about a road that guides you through not just another country but a whole other world?