The ancients of Kongur - Chapter 1 - Part 5

Chapter 1: Part 5: At the Muztagh Ata Pamirs, the guardians of the sages

South of the Karakul Lake, and before the Karakoram Highway reached Tashkurgan, a small dirt road turned eastwards to the slopes of the Muztagh Ata Mountains. The peaks in these ranges equaled the Kongur and its neighbouring ones in majesty and awe-inspiring panorama. The small dirt road was usually noticed by the passing traffic going north-south, for a very brief moment, and then, immediately forgotten. This road was hardly used. And if anyone would wander in by mistake, or curiousity, or on government mission, they would reach the tiny hamlet of Ka Usi.

There were about ten large huts, mostly Yurts, in the Kirghiz style, circular, and made of different types of materials. Some huts were made of mud-bricks, stone and had extensions made of asbestos and tin-sheets. The small dirt road ended at Ka Usi. Strangely, there did not seem to be any vehicles of any type, including a cycle or a motorcyle, leave alone a truck or a car or jeep. The transport buses would stop on request at the junction where the small dirt road met the Karakoram Highway. Some trucks helped the villagers of Ka Usi to travel to the Karakul Lake with their sheep and goats, to allow for trade and barter for vegetables and oil.

Nearby, the Subash Pass, allowed access for mountaineers and tourists to travel through to the Muztagh Ata slopes and the Pamir Mountains. The tourists were usually dropped at the Subash Pass, and they would climb up the Pamir Mountains and camp for the night, before walking down to the Karakul Lake on the following day. A small settlement near the Subash Pass helped the tourists with their needs. These were also Kirghiz nomads, as were some of those who lived at the hamlet of Ka Usi. Some tourists would camp on the Pamirs for four to six days, and there were those who would come for shorter visits.

The Kirghiz at the village near the Subash Pass had Bactrian camels. The Ka Usi villagers found it amusing and had never kept camels in their settlement. They usually discouraged tourists from wandering about in their village, and therefore, they bred large Tibetan Mastiff dogs. Some Kirghiz at the Karakul Lake claimed that the villagers at Ka Usi knew that the wolves from the higher slopes came down to mate with the Mastiffs, and how else could one explain the unusually larger size of these dogs, in comparison to other regions. The villagers at Ka Usi denied such stories. But, of course, they would.

Mian Humayun Khoja, the village headman at Ka Usi, was of the ancient families of the Khojas of Kashgar. He was a Moslem, and his father before him and his grandfather before him. His neighbour, Soheli Beg, a Kirghiz nomad, could never explain to the officers from Kashgar about the native origins of his family. The government officers had stopped bothering about the villagers of Ka Usi, and came rarely, except when it was time to conduct a census, or to search for source of any epidemic that would break out among the livestock along the Karakul Lake.

Mian Humayun and Soheli prepared for the day like any other day of their lives. They never gave a thought to the aspect that they could perhaps change the pattern of their days and their lives. They could never do that. They had gone through the same routine, for more than three hundred years, since they had come to this remote hamlet. The settlements at the Subash Pass had not existed in those years, and the Karakoram Highway had also only been a caravan path, a mighty dusty road. The caravans had moved from Kashgar to Tashkurgan to the Khunjerab Pass and on southwards to Quetta to Lahore to Amritsar to Delhi and further.

They had seen the slow moving caravans for hundreds of years, and now they did not wish to see the fast moving oil-driven vehicles. They did not wish for anyone to explain that there were different types of oils, and that the vehicles went by on petrol or diesel. Mian Humayun always said, it is only a matter of another hundred years, and man would have found some other fuel or method to travel. Man had to always go from some place to the other, but for Mian Humayun and Soheli, it had been the mission in their lives, to stay at the village of Ka Usi, and never to travel outside, even for a day or half a day. They had done so, for these hundreds of years, and had never thought that their lives could have been different, and perhaps, have gone out of the village.

Others at the village of Ka Usi regularly visited the Sunday Bazaar at Kashgar. The open market at Kashgar was one of the oldest events and traditions of the region, perhaps since the times of the Silk Route or even earlier. It was a day when several hundreds or thousands of Uighurs, Kirghiz, Tibetans and Afghans came together, under the open scrutiny of the Han Chinese. There were Khojas from Kashgar and from other regions as there were the many different communities of Kirghiz nomads who came together. This was the best location for gathering news, gossip and rumours. All tradesmen came together to exchange news and ideas, including those whom Mirabhe, the old man of Kongur, permitted to come together.

Mian Humayun sent his sons to the Sunday Bazaar to trade, buy or sell their stock of yaks, goats and sheep and camels. The herds and animals were located in many Kirghiz and other nomad villages and settlements along the Kashgar to Tashkurgan Highway. One and all, the traders and herdsmen from Kashgar to Tashkurgan knew of the sons of Mian Humayun, but none had ever met the old man. They knew that these tradesmen came from the Muztagh Ata, and they spoke of them, as the ‘Old herders from the Ice Mountain Father”. The Muztagh Ata was locally spoken of as ‘Ice Mountain Father’, and Mian Humayun’s sons were definitely old men, actually, more than two hundred years old.

The villagers of Ka Usi smiled when they heard the name, ‘Ice Mountain Father’, and seemed to be proud of the translation. Mian Humayun stood with his chest pumped out in pride, for he deemed the title to be like an award given by history. Little did these people realize, thought Mian Humayun, that the Muztagh Ata was indeed the ‘Ice Mountain Father’. The old man of Kongur, Mirabhe, had assigned the task of protecting the secrets of the Muztagh Ata to Mian Humayun, and he had succeeded in doing so, and continued to protect the knowledge, for the past several hundred years that he had been at Ka Usi.

Up in the hills of the Muztagh Ata, as the slopes folded and curved about and around them, were hidden canyons and rock walls that could not be seen to those who did not know how to search for them. It was to these hidden canyons and rock walls that Mian Humayun and Soheli Beg walked to, every day, following the herd of sheep and goats that wandered in random manner, up the lower slopes of the Muztagh Ata. The forest line stood, as guardians of the slopes and the sheep and goats never entered them. The young boys of Ka Usi ran about among the herd, and would find their usual spot in the trees to sit through the day and keep a watch.

Mian Humayun and Soheli Beg walked past the forest line and through to a small lake, sheltered inside a narrow canyon. A faint foot-trail allowed them to walk around the lake and climb up to a ledge on the canyon’s sheer walls. Any newcomer would never have been able to spot the ledge, and if indeed seen, nobody would have had the courage to walk on it. For these two old men of Ka Usi, the ledge had been their foot-trail for hundreds of years, and they could walk on it at night, with their eyes blindfolded. The trail led them upwards through a steady slope, within the forest, until it disappeared behind a fold in the canyon. Here, there was a small platform, smoothened over the years, and the two old men sat and waited.

Up ahead, they could see four cave openings on one wall, and three cave openings on the opposite wall of the canyon. These caves were high up on the canyon, and yet, the mesa top of the walls was much higher, and was capped with snow. The two old men sat at the platform and looked up at the cave openings. This was their responsibility. These inaccessible hidden caves were to be protected, and they had done so, for hundreds of years, as had their ancestors, before them, for thousands of years. Mian Humayun and Soheli Beg stood up and walked along the platform towards a stone slab that protruded from the canyon wall. A narrow opening behind the stone slab allowed them to enter a cave, similar to the ones above. A flight of stone cut stairs led them to climb within the canyon, probably going up more than a hundred feet inside the mountain.

They reached the first of the caves that were set high up. They stood together and bowed in reverence. Here, sat a man, bearded, in meditation, naked and covered with mud. Each cave had one such sage, deep in meditation. They had come here, hundreds of years ago, from the south.