Munsiyari

Munsiyari literally sits at the very end of India and all you have in front of you is this massive 7000 m wall of rock and ice across which lies the Tibetan Plateau. Munsiyari sits in the narrow Johar Valley, the village is just a stone throw away from Tibet and Nepal is not far either, thus the place has an Army base and only recently been opened to visitors.

The prominent visible peaks from Munsiyari are the Panchchuli 5 peaks, peak-2 being the highest at 6904 m, other include Hansling, Rajarambha and Chiplako.

Panchchuli peaks

The glacier at sunset

Temple in the backdrop of the the Greater Himalayan Range

Many trekking routes to the Namik, Milam and Ralan glaciers as well as the Nanda Devi base camp start from Munsiyari. Nanda Devi is the highest mountain fully in India standing as high as 7816 m. The route from India to Lake Mansarover and Mount Kailash in Tibet – the most scared mountain to the Hindus and Buddhists alike opens up not very far from here.

Munsiyari is inhabited by the semi-nomadic Shauka people who were actively engaged in trade with Tibet across the difficult Himalayan passes. Travelling in convoys, carrying cloth, salt and other provisions on the backs of sturdy mountain goats, each animal carrying over 40 kilograms. The British named these people ‘Bhutiyas’. However they are not Buddhists as the name might suggest, but Hindus worshipping Goddess Nanda Devi.

The Indian border with Tibet was closed in 1962 and the trade stopped completely resulting in the ‘Bhutiyas’ with no livelihood, forcing them to migrate. The villages of Milam and Burfu to the east of Munsiyari, are also largely deserted today.

Local ‘Bhutiya’ girl in Munsiyari

‘Himalayan Sheep Dog‘ puppy

Dr. Sher Singh or ‘Masterji‘ is a retired school teacher and has put together a small collection of antiques in a private museum about the ‘Bhutiya’ people at his home. I was fortunate to spend sometime talking to him over some tea about his passion to preserve what’s left of the ‘Bhutiya’ clan is truly remarkable. Masterji recalls his childhood, “I still remember when I was in school, the month of July brought our Tibet-returned friends with their flocks of sheep laden with salt; they hummed music while weighing salt and grain with local measuring pot. Beating drums and blowing trumpets every villager accompanied the outward-bound group to Tibet till the very edge of the village to bid them goodbye”.

Masterji has written a few books on the Trade of the ‘Bhutiya’ with Tibet and it is sad to see how this race has gradually vanished.

Masterji shared an interesting account of one Nain Singh, born in 1830 in Milam village, he was hired by the Royal Geographical Society. His contributions significantly helped to draw maps of these upper reaches of the Himalayas prior to which only vague pictorial Chinese maps existed. In those days foreign vistors were not allowed in the area but Nain Singh posed as a Buddhist lama, carrying a rosary in one hand and a prayer wheel in the other he walked on foot for over 1500kms through Nepal, Lhasa, then onto Lake Mansarover in Tibet and returned back into India through Ladakh.
The unique technique he used – instead of 108 beads, his rosary had exactly 100; with every tenth being a big one. A bead was counted after every 100 paces he took, the big beads represented a thousand. So Nain Singh went around counting his beads, twirling the prayer wheel and chanting ‘Om Mani Padme
Hum’ (Oh Jewel of the Lotus). Later in the evening he measured the height by observing a thermometer in boiling water and dropped his readings in the prayer wheel purposely constructed hollow inside.

Local girl in ‘Dar Kot‘ a small village outside Munsiyari, it is the best place to see the typical ‘Bhutiyas’ houses. Some of them have beautiful carvings on the wooden doors and windows. The art of weaving fine shawls and blankets from coarse goat wool is prevalent here even today.