From Himalayan Roads: Chapter Eighteen - The Village Girl in the Azure Hijab

I became bored in Leh after only three days. On the fourth, I decided to pack up Solivagant for the penultimate time and head 300 kilometers west to the Suru Valley. Some friends were there climbing again and I wanted to join them. It was there that this story came from.

The gusts from the impending storm lifted the loose ends of the village girl’s azure hijab and rattled them in staccato with the distant sound of the muezzin’s call to prayer. She stood her ground, grabbed the fluttering ends of the headscarf and wrapped them around her neck until they only beat with a faint pulse. Her face was that of the interim Himalayas, where Tibetan script and Arabic coexist, where stupas sit among mosques, and Om mani padme hum is spoken as reverently as A salaam alaikum.

The wind did not appear to bother the girl, nor her friend who stood beside her in the tattered incarnadine headscarf and watched us as we cowered under a boulder a short distance away. Once the rain started, both girls remained far away in the open, ignoring our invitation that they join us in the shelter of the overhang. The rain came in at a sharp angle and still the two remained outside, crouching down among the sage, watching us.

It was one of those Kashmiri summer storms, strong but ephemeral, mostly bombast and empty threat. The wind caterwauled and there were some stentorian bursts of thunder and the rain lashed down for a few minutes. But it ended quickly. It was merely enough for the sage to be made more fragrant with the moisture, and for the purple streaks on the mountains to deepen their color. Not enough to send the girls running for home, nor to ruin our afternoon climbing. With a few moments of sun, the boulder was dry again, and we could resume our efforts to climb to the top.

The girls watched us, three foreign men (two Indian, and me the American) and one foreign woman (Indian), with rapturous curiosity. We were strange for many reasons, but most of all for spending all day trying to climb to the top of such a little rock.

When Tania began to climb, the village girls came nearer. Tania wore her hair in a messy ponytail. It poured down her back in silky black skeins and lightly swayed as she pulled herself onto the rock. She was strong, with a woman’s figure. The chalk on her hands stood out against her milk-chocolate skin. When she reached the crux of the route, a primal growl emerged from her that made the village girls giggle, covering their mouths with their sleeve ends and looking at each other with widened eyes. Tania fell to the crashpad and cursed and again the girls glanced at each other.

When Tania returned to the rock, the girl in the azure hijab was entranced. She keenly watched Tania’s movements up the boulder.

I motioned for the girl to come to the rock and climb the easy face just around the corner from where we were. She declined, shaking her head and then moving closer to her friend. They linked arms and continued to watch Tania. This time the girl in the azure hijab gazed back and forth between two interesting things: Tania, and the route I had invited her to climb.

Again I motioned for the girl to try.  “Go on,” I said even though she did not speak English. “Give it a try.”

Her friend released her grasp on the girl’s arm and took a step backward. The girl in the azure hijab stood alone and resolute, her eyes fixed on the route in front of her.

I went to the boulder and showed her where the holds were.  “Here. And here. Then here.” I climbed to the top of the slab. “Just that easy.”

She took a step forward and placed her hand on the first hold.

“There you go. Come on up.”

And then I could see that she had made her decision. She put her wilting sandal firmly on the first foothold and grabbed for another handhold and then she was on the rock. She pulled herself up to position for the next move, and then grabbed at the hold with steal resolve, her face giving way from that cool serenity of before to signs of effort, struggle, and an ecstatic fear. Again she placed her foot onto a higher foothold and again she lunged for a handhold.

“There you go. Almost there.”

Her friend stood on the ground nonplussed. With a final firm foothold, the girl in the azure hijab reached the top and sat beside me, a look of shock across her face. The shock did not mask the overwhelming sense of joy that she felt there at the top. She gave me a high-five.

“Nice job! Very nice.”

Her friend below was clapping and saying something in their language and the girl in the azure hijab beamed with pride.

We climbed back down the boulder together. The final move to return to the ground involved a jump. I hopped down while the girl stayed, hesitating. She stretched her arms out to me and I grabbed her as she leapt, placing her gently back to the base of the climb. Her friend ran to her and grasped her arm and the girl in azure scarf kept beaming as they walked off together and sat down not far from the climb.

The village boys came later, all shouting and pushing and bravado. They also wanted to climb the route. When their attempts failed, the girl in the azure hijab approached them and pointed out the holds and explained how to use them. The boys listened attentively. They had to. She was, after all, the only child from the village who had ever reached the top.