Getting Leh'd : War Stories

Trying to utilise my acting skills

So, as you have read so far, we were all at the Drass army camp, with a broken down bike and a scary night's sleep. Para woke Bala, Gogo & me up at around 6. The prime focus was to try and fix his bike. I could only imagine how badly Para must have been praying, probably to some new gods as well, hoping that somehow we would manage to get his bike up and running. We removed the petrol tank and emptied it. Then pulled out the fuel filter and pump assembly and tried cleaning it. This is one awesome part of being the sweep. At every point, we are constantly discovering and learning more & more about our bikes. Gaining more confidence in our skills each time. After cleaning it and assembling it all back, we were all hoping, praying, begging for it to work, but alas, once-in-a-while prayers rarely work, and no miracle happened. Poor Para, god only knows how he felt. Much to his dismay, I had to secure the tow rope onto his bike again. The army officer told me that we might be able to find an empty truck at Drass town, and so the tow till town started.

At the town, Anil and a few others went in search of a truck. Being a very small town, there were hardly any trucks there. Drass, is in fact the second coldest Inhabited place in the world, and though it wasn't really cold when we got there, winters were a whole different story. Average winter temperatures are at -30c, with the coldest every recorded temperature being -60c. Trucks are so rare here, that the one drive Anil found, asked for Rs. 12000 to take it 300 kms to Leh. After some hard bargaining, he agreed to a total of Rs. 9000. Para having no choice, and with a smile of disappointment left with the truck. He would have his own adventure for the next 2 days.

Veer Bhumi
Photo taken from my photography page

The bullet holes filled bunker

Having only around 150 odd kms to cover, we rode, with no major hurry. On the way, we stopped at Vijay War Memorial, also known as Kargil War Memorial. A memorial built to honour the martyrs of the 1999 Kargil War between India & Pakistan. We entered the place, immediately hit by a deep sense of patriotism and a huge respect for our Indian Army. On the right, on display was the captured outpost & bunker used by the Pakistani Soldier. A chill ran down my spine, as I gazed upon the bullet holes on the bunker. Further ahead on the left is a field of tomb stones to mark the courageous souls that selflessly gave their lives to ensure our country was safe. After giving a moment of silence, we entered the museum containing artifacts and photos of the war. As I saw the photos, I was shocked and amazed. The environmental conditions seemed to be more lethal than any weaponry the enemy could have had. We also heard the story of the war first hand from one of the military persons there. Now, I wouldn't want to ruin the story or the experience for any of my readers. My sincere request is that you pay the place a visit and experience every emotion over there. As I exit the memorial gates and crossed the road, I saw something that really hit me. The driver of a passing military truck saluted the memorial as he drove past. I though to myself, if I was myself experiencing such emotions, imagine the connection those guys would have had.

Section of bad roads. Further up, even worse traffic

We left the war memorial, on the way to Budhkarbo. We continued on what was first an awesome empty road, but as the city of Kargil approached, the roads got worse and traffic even worse. The only respite to this was the rapid river flowing alongside. Strong, fast and deadly, the only 3 words I could possibly use to describe it. We were stopped at a police checkpost just before Kargil, where we had to show our documents (Name, DL, RC). This is for them to track our location incase something happens enroute. Crossing Kargil, we went around and above it. The view was magnificent. A city surrounded on 3 sides by a strong river and on the last side a huge mountain!!

The maginficent city of Kargil

Here we all stopped to fuel up. I had finished fuelling up, when Subbu asked me to call the others standing at the bunk office. I called them and was getting back to my bike, when Vik said, "Oi, Go fast da, Why are you wasting time?" (Something along those words), in what sounded like a very harsh tone to me. I got irritated and barked back at him, because I hadn't wasted any time but rather had just done what the lead had asked me to. His response to me was total shocking, surprising and frankly made me laugh. Seeing my anger, he said "Now look who's getting angry", which was in connection to our conversation at Srinagar where I had asked him to stay calm and not get angry with the lead. I have never quite got back a good piece of advice thrown back at me in such a way. :D
Anyways, we moved on, and started to cross the Namikla pass, which is at an altitude of 12198 ft, The pass was completely dry, neat roads, that felt more like the saudi highways shown in the hindi movie Race. Dry brown mountains all around, and dark black flat roads.

The roads of Namikla Pass

After crossing the beautiful pass, I found the whole gang had stopped ahead, minus Subbu. Some confusion had ensued, where people thought it was a break, but the lead had stopped for us sweeps to catch up. Subbu had gone ahead, while the rest stopped to take photos of a temple there. Bala and me, asked the others to quickly wrap up and got moving. A few kms ahead, as we were nearing Budhkarbo, Anil asked me to catch up with Subbu so that I could help with locating and entering the military camp. I raced past the others, and naturally many were surprised and curious as to why the sweep was overtaking them. As I came alongside Subbu, I slowed down, but he didn't seem surprised. He was a bit frustrated with the slow speed of the group, and was trying to ride coolly to the camp.

Chilling out at the camp

Reaching the camp, I stopped near the officer's mess. The sentry denied entry saying there was no booking. My hands clasped the back of my head and I said to myself "Not Again!!". Meanwhile Gogo had gone ahead to check if there was another camp ahead. He came back and told me that the main was a few 100 mts ahead. The sentry there, let us in without hassles and we parked our bikes outside our bunker.
The bunker was a long structure with a curved roof, having 15 beds inside, vaguely reminiscent of military bunkers used in extremely cold areas as shown in the movies. As the evening passed, we sat around for a conference call with Lohith, the club head. He tried to address the frustrations in the group but was unable to due to bad network. We too tried to address some of the issues. Vik raised a problem he had with Vishnu. According to him, Vishnu was very demanding as a time keeper and should have been more polite. He felt that Vishnu should request people to get ready/wake up, etc.. instead of telling them to. I voiced my opinion that I felt Vishnu was doing a good job. Anil being the chilled out person he is, solved the situation by declaring that Vishnu would no longer be the time keeper and everyone was responsible to get up and get ready on their own, at the risk of being left behind. This decision upset Vishnu as he felt his efforts so far had been undermined and unappreciated. Following this a very small and civil discussion happened between Vishnu, Anil, Gogo and myself, where we explained it better to Vishnu and hopefully made him feel much better!!
As the night proceeded, it started to get really cold and chilly. I stepped out of the bunker, looked up at the sky and the stars, and enjoyed the cold breeze move past my skin. The moon seemed 4 times its size and much closer to Earth. I felt at peace as I stood there on my own. A few minutes later, Bala who had been unwell till then, joined me for some fresh air. It really felt as close to heaven as I could be. Amazing place and feeling!!

The Beautiful moon, upclose and personal!!