The lost world

MALANA: Unsure slivers of sunlight unable to penetrate Malana's impregnable contours fall off its foreboding silhouette in miserable disarray. And the relentless snow in all its whiteness lends a sinister shimmer to the gloom as the horizon merges with clouds and forests in the distance without either identity or presence.
Nothing is clear or concrete in this heart of darkness where history, myth, legend and culture coalesce to form a reality that is intangible at best.In the indefinite, shapeless realms of existence one of India's most mysterious communities has chosen for themselves, there are hardly any definitions or explanations. Few, in fact, have any.
Distant and defiant, the scraggy lot of people who call themselves descendants of soldiers in Alexander's rampaging army, living in a close cluster at 11,000 feet in un-negotiable terrain they call home, have been dusting themselves off from the rest of the world for centuries, maybe even for two millennia. Fearful that its purity might be breached, its secrets exposed and its way of life compromised, the village of about 1,500 people has been mostly aloof and unconnected, trading with a select lot of locals and foreigners only in its famous hashish variant, the Malana cream, and trekking down furtively to Jari, in Kullu, for daily necessities.
But some of the happenings in the recent past are all set to alter this, for better or worse. There is a queer feeling Malana stands precariously at the cusp of great change and that soon its habitation of stone-and-wood houses will resemble common apartments, its culture inseparable from the rest and its people speaking in a tongue that's mundane and recognisable.
The fire of January 5, which briefly reminded India about the lost village, will most certainly hasten its submergence into the mainstream. Though the Kullu district administration claims otherwise, it will be extremely difficult to replicate the burnt house made in the distinctive kath-kuni architectural style that uses alternate layers of fine wood and flat stone slabs. Nobody here believes they will get back in its superb originality any of the 150 houses — out of the 400 or so — that were razed.
They could be right. It will be much easier to build modern houses, and that probably is what will happen.
‘‘Of course, things won't be the same,'' says village elder Dill Ram, inspecting the ravages as smoke billows from some of the still-burning temples and houses. ‘‘On top of that, they are building roads and dams. Others (outsiders) will come here often now. We don't want that.''
Kop Singh, his neighbour, nods vigorously, letting off a strong whiff of accumulated dirt from his unwashed body and clothes. Smoking furiously and reeking of alcohol, he says in halting Hindi, ‘‘All this is no good. We have been like this ever since we remember.''
Most Malanis aren't too happy either about the two hydel projects that would dot its vicinity soon — adding noise, pollution and clutter — or the roads being planned to link it to the world it has shunned so desperately.
Abhishek Jain, the Kullu DC, says the administration is merely doing its bit to help Malana. ‘‘We want the road to reach them and bring with it all comforts of modernity,'' he announces earnestly.
It is not what the village wants, though. That is why, perhaps, this lot of hardy people with gruff, high-pitched voices that resemble war cries, made remote Malana their home, sticking to a culture nobody in Himachal or elsewhere could comprehend, talking in a dialect only they knew, following rituals that made sense just to them. That is also why they fine visitors who touch their temples and advise people to generally stick to the roads and are very reluctant in letting physical contacts with non-Malanis ‘‘pollute'' them. They are still ruled by the gods and all decisions, social, administrative and cultural, are made by the devtas through human mediums. Not too long ago they had days of the week they were born in as their names — like Ahuta (Sunday), Suanru (Monday), Mangal (Tuesday), Biu (Wednesday), Bestri (Thursday), Shukru (Friday) and Sheyi (Saturday). The present generation has, however, mostly chosen common Hindu names.
‘‘One thing is certain,'' says Tshering Dorje, a scholar in Kullu who has been studying these people for two decades now and is writing a book on them. ‘‘These men and women have through years remained cut off on purpose. They made the choice after Aryans drove them away from their homes in Western Himalayas some 2,500 years ago.'' Dorje insists the Malanis are people of Tibeto-Burman race and have nothing to do with Alexander's Greeks.
The Malanis themselves are notorious for their reluctance to clear the air or the dread with which most people see them. Hunched over his cigarette, young Sher Singh says he and his people speak the language of ghosts and nobody will ever understand them. ‘‘Kanshi is what the demons spoke in,'' he grins. ‘‘Only they will understand it.''
Rather ironically, then, both gods and the demons seem to be on one side atop a high mountain in Malana. But for once, the battle is poised to be won by mortals down below.
anand.soondas@timesgroup.com