Season146;s Greetings

THE icy wind pierces our bones, undeterred by the listless winter sun. In the distance loom the white peaks of the Shamasbari range. According to legend, these mountains are home to blind and deaf fairies, who kill travellers during the winter.

At 10,273 ft, a narrow winding road over the Sadhna Pass, with its slippery glass surface, is the only entrance to the stunning valleys of Karnah, where thousands of homeless villagers are braving the harsh winter. The October earthquake devastated lives across this isolated swathe, split between India and Pakistan by a heavily guarded Line of Control.

Moved by the tragic stories, four mountaineers, an adventure photographer and a Kashmiri expat have come from the US to help these remote and inaccessible quake-hit villages. This expedition has been organised by Kashmir Earthquake Relief KER, a Kashmiri-run charity in the US, with the help of Global Giving and adventure equipment chain, The North Face.

The team has already traversed the dangerous 180 km across the Sadhna Pass and set up base camp at Tangdhar, the centre of Karnah. They8217;ve brought several truckloads of relief goods including 12 tonnes of warm clothes. Their plan is to spend a day assessing the destruction and then attempt to reach Jabri, a village squeezed into an utterly isolated ravine caught between a barbed wire border fence and a minefield that cleaves its people between the two neighbours.

At dawn, we head to Sadhna Pass to join the expedition. Originally called Nastachun broken nose, this pass is in the lap of the Shamasbari and was renamed after the 8217;60s Bollywood star. On our left is Bangus valley, one of Kashmir8217;s more beautiful meadows. It was once earmarked for the world8217;s highest golf course, before militancy hit the tourism industry. Deep down, on the other side of the pass is Tangdhar, where we see the first major signs of destruction.

AT the base camp, expedition members have already pitched tents on an empty corn field. A local doctor, Zameer Ahmad Khawaja, has opened his uncle8217;s abandoned home, cracked walls and all. As night falls, the team gathers around a bukhari an indigenous firewood heater with a group of villagers to discuss the climb to Jabri village.

8220;It is up across that high peak,8221; says Khawaja, pointing to a steep mountain in the dark. 8220;But I have never been there. In fact, none of us have ever been to Jabri.8221;

But Willie Benegas and his teammates are used to treacherous and unknown journeys.

Trip leader Benegas, 37, has climbed Everest five times. An Argentine who lives in Salt Lake City, he scaled the walls of Yosemite, was the fastest in the world to summit Aconcagua 22,831 ft8212;the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere8212;conquered Nameless Tower and Trango Towers just across the LoC and has been to the Himalayas on more than a dozen expeditions. 8220;The people of the Himalayas have always helped us,8221; he says. 8220;Now we are here to give something back. A handshake, a little gesture of support.8221;

His friend and teammate, Patrick Kenny, 41, has climbed Everest twice. An expert in avalanche safety, Kenny is from Utah and recently spent two years trekking and climbing in India, especially in Ladakh. The others, Cedar Wright, 30, and Renan Ozturk, 25, are seasoned rock climbers and North Face athletes. Ace Kvale, a renowned adventure photographer, makes up the rest of the team along with avid climber and co-leader Usmaan Ahmad, who is one of KER8217;s founders. Back around the firewood heater, the team listens to the patriarch of the host Khawaja family,

65-year-old Mohammad Ayan. This old man is the only person who knows about Jabri. Three months ago, he had taken the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus to visit his relatives in Lepa valley. 8220;There I visited the other side of Jabri,8217;8217; he says.

The Army has offered unfettered access to the expedition members, who will be the first ever outsiders to be permitted into the village, literally closed to the world since 1947.

Next morning, the team loads a small truck with dozens of 15-ft-long pink foam insulation rolls and heaters. As the car climbs a tiny winding road covered with ice and snow, it skids into a deep ditch. Now the ride is too dangerous and the team prefers to climb.

A few hours later, we finally reach the pinnacle of Tolley mountain. Jabri lies in a deep ravine, 3 km straight down the other side. In fact, the barbed wire border fence laid along the top of the ridge has an iron gate that is opened only for bonafide residents carrying special border identity cards.

There are 370 men, women and children who form the 74 families on the Indian side of Jabri. The village, however, looks much bigger on the Pakistani side.

The armymen guarding the ridge tell the mountaineers that the quake devastated Jabri. 8220;We were the only people to reach them immediately and we tried our best to help,8221; says a soldier. But apart from the tin sheets donated by a doctor from Srinagar, the village has hardly received any outside assistance. As the armymen open the gate, they advise the team to stick to the narrow path as clusters of landmines cover the length of the slope.

After another hour8217;s walk down the steep slope, the team finally arrives at Jabri, where snow has smothered the mountainside. The villagers can8217;t believe visitors have come to meet them. 8220;I have never seen a foreigner before. I don8217;t even remember anybody from Srinagar visiting,8221; says 85-year-old Kalam Din. 8216;8216;We will pray for you. What more can we do?8217;8217;

The team sets up camp under the canopy of a walnut tree and rests awhile. The mountaineers have carried loads of foam insulation sheets and other relief goods. Even photographer Kvale carried shovels, pickaxes and other tools needed to help the villagers in the reconstruction. A Kashmiri doctor, Rouf Malik, who accompanied the team, sits in a corner with his medical kit, treating the sick. The village has a government dispensary, which has remained shut since the quake. In any case, the villagers say, a doctor only visits once in two months.

From a distance, the tin-roofed houses look quaint. But as the team does a rapid assessment of the damage, the destruction unfolds. Half the village is a pile of rubble and there isn8217;t a single home left untouched.

At the edge of the village, Kali Begum is helping her family build a shed. Their house was completely destroyed. 8216;8216;We live in a jail,8217;8217; she says. 8216;8216;Caught between this huge mountain and the minefield, we have nowhere to go.8217;8217;

Kali Begum was wedded to Mir-ul-llah when Jabri was in Pakistan. The village was divided in the 1965 war. 8220;Her parents are dead and her siblings live just a few dozen metres away on the other side,8217;8217; says neighbour Altaf Hussain Shah. 8216;8216;Now the earthquake has taken away everything.8217;8217;

In this tiny village, the LoC stands like an invisible line across a 30-metre stretch of empty land. 8216;8216;It is mined by both sides,8217;8217; says Sarwar Jan, the ruins of his house lying right on the edge. 8216;8216;We have to keep watch over our babies and cattle. But once the children are older, they understand we cannot walk across those bushes,8217;8217; she says, pointing towards the vegetation that has come up on the minefield.

Three women in this village say their husbands crossed the minefield and never returned. Another tragic story is Bibi Fatimah8217;s. Her husband Noor Ali Shah crossed the LoC in 1988. 8216;8216;I live here, waiting for him. He will come back one day,8217;8217; she says. Her eyes fill as she points to the nearby debris. 8216;8216;This was my home. I had come here as a bride. I lived alone,8217;8217; she says. Now Fatimah lives in a cramped shed with relatives.

The villagers expect at least 7 ft of snow in the next 10 days. 8216;8216;They have nothing left,8217;8217; says Benegas, 8216;8216;I wish we could do more.8217;8217;

The sun soon hides behind the snow-clad mountains and the team begins their return journey. They plan to travel through seven more villages across Karnah until Christmas Day, after which local volunteers will take over.

8216;8216;I tried to disconnect from everything around me. It is tragic,8217;8217; says Benegas. Everybody looks towards the village, waving goodbye. 8216;8216;Who knows whether we will ever see these people again?8217;8217; says Ahmad. He says he wishes to help this village come out of this perpetual isolation. 8216;8216;But how?8217;8217;

The climb back is slow. 8216;8216;I looked beyond the destruction,8217;8217; says Kenny. 8216;8216;I think we made these villagers feel that they exist for the outside world.8217;8217;

When the team makes it back to Tolley peak, another cold evening has already cast its shadows over the village. A full moon has turned the snowy peaks silver, almost as if the fairies of Shamasbari want the stunning view to distract you from the tragic stories of Jabri.

Mail the author at muzamiljaleelyahoo.com

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