Geetanjali Krishna: Footprints of the mountains

October 31, 2009, 0:19 IST


We were driving in Sikkim, and the roads were so bad in parts, that all one could do was wait for sleep to lull us into oblivion. As we bumped and jerked our way across the verdant hills, I awoke to hear something pitter-pattering on the roof of our car. “We couldn’t be in a hail storm,” said I incredulously, for the sun was bright outside my window. The driver shrugged, “it isn’t a hailstorm madam. It’s a landslide!” Shocked, my husband and I craned our heads out of the window. Bad idea that turned out to be, as small pebbles hit us amidst showers of mud. The driver drove on, unconcerned. I asked him why he didn’t look more bothered and he replied: “This is a daily occurrence after the monsoons, just be thankful it is such a small one!”

Sure enough, the next bend in the mountain revealed another one. As we climbed higher and higher, we not only saw more landslides on the road, but also noticed many others on the mountains around us. As my only encounters with landslides have been within the pages of disaster novels, I was unnerved. Locals, on the other hand, seemed more sanguine. “This is a regular occurrence,” said the driver, “our elders believe that it’s the mountain’s way of showing men that their roads and mines haven’t tamed them…” This year, when the Cyclone Aila hit the North East, Sikkim and the Darjeeling hills saw over 100 landslides, resulting in over 22 fatalities and untold damage to roads and villages. “It rained continuously for over two days,” said our driver, “and the roads were impassable for a long time!”

Another time, the driver said, he found the road blocked by a landslide, and decided to turn back. “But a furlough ahead, the road had caved in thanks to another landslide — so I was forced to wait in my car for twenty four hours, hoping that the mountains won’t move again, waiting for bulldozers to clear the road,” he narrated. Local villagers, said he, shared a frugal rice meal with him, but he passed a long and cold night without any warm clothing. Ever since, he’s always prepared for the worst whenever he’s on the road. “I carry a blanket, pillow, plenty of water and several packets of biscuits. Who knows when one might need them?” said he.

Cyclones and the monsoon are, however, not the only cause of landslides — the increase in human activity on the mountains has also made the mountains restless. Illegal mining on these mineral-rich hills is rampant, and has greatly weakened the substrate on which the soil rests. There are several dams being built on the two big rivers of this region, Teesta and Rangit, which have necessitated the building of more roads, diverting the rivers from their natural course, and even tunneling deep into the mountain. The inevitable felling of trees hasn’t helped either…

We got off the car to stretch our legs, and I looked up at the awesome footprint of what the driver assured me was a very small landslide. Some of the fallen boulders would certainly do a lot more than pitter patter if they fell on the roof of a car, I thought. “You drive on these roads everyday — don’t you all ask the government what it is doing to safeguard people like you from landslides?” I asked. The driver smiled: “Look at the size of these mountains. Then look at how small we are…If the mountains decide to move, do you think we or the government can do anything at all — except to let things slide with them?”