Sudhakar Natarajan

Her cry was bloodcurdling. The agony filled pleading was so loud that it could be heard over the roaring Kali Ganga river hundreds of feet below. She wanted the pain to end. We could only hear her cry; but could not see her. Our hearts were in our throat. The term ‘learned helplessness’ aptly encapsulated this situation.

Let’s rewind.

I was with an ITBP logistic convoy carrying ammunition, mortar shells, sugar, rum and condiments for the troops in one of the toughest borders in the world — A terrain that tests the character of soldiers; a terrain that distinguishes boys from men. This was not a tourist trek. We used to negotiate these slippery high altitude boulders daily. It was our job. We had signed up for this. We were proud of the fact that we were the lifeline for troops guarding these oxygen deficient borders.

We had just crossed Gala, Zipti and were on our way to Buddhi. Contrary to popular perception, climbing down inclines is more difficult than climbing up. If you want to test this theory, you are invited to the ‘Zipti ki utrai’ also called the hell slope. It is guaranteed that your knee caps would shiver after you take a few steps over steeply sloping haphazard boulders, with the entire weight of your body on your knees. It is here that the synovial lubrication of your cartilages would be tested. Even the toughest of men have shaking knees after a few kilometres on the hell slope.

We were 17 men with 14 ponies. We had started at 0400hrs from Mangti Nala. The ponies were loaded with 40 kg each, much lower than the authorised payload, due to inclement weather, risky route and steep undulating terrain. The ponies were effortlessly marching along the narrow track, carved on the mountain face, just enough to place one hoof. One on side was the mountain face and on the other side was a drop into a bottomless gorge, with the river gushing along its serpentine course. These were sure-footed Kumaoni ponies. We crossed a place called Ghatia Bhagad, aptly named ‘ghatia’ because it is really the worse of the worst. Ankle deep slush and no place for the ponies to rest. Then we reached Gala. Had an early