Printed On 15 Oct 2025
Dozens of dilapidated stone buildings are all that stay of the once-thriving border village of Martoli, within the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. Nestled within the Johar Valley and surrounded by Himalayan peaks, probably the most notable being Nanda Devi, as soon as thought-about the tallest mountain on the earth, this village had traded sugar, lentils, spices, and material for salt and wool with Tibetans throughout the border.
The nomadic inhabitants of a number of villages spent the winter months within the plains gathering items to be traded with Tibetans in the summertime. Nonetheless, the border was sealed following an armed battle between India and China in 1962, disrupting life within the excessive villages and leaving individuals with little incentive to return.
Kishan Singh, 77, was 14 when he left together with his household to settle within the decrease village of Thal. He nonetheless returns to Martoli each summer time to until the land and domesticate buckwheat, strawberries, and black cumin.
His ancestral house has no roof, so he sleeps in a neighbour’s deserted home throughout the six months he spends on this village.
“I get pleasure from being within the mountains and the land right here may be very fertile,” he says.
In late autumn, he hires mules to move his harvest to his house within the plains, the place he sells it at a modest revenue.
The most important of the Johar Valley villages had about 1,500 individuals at its peak within the early Sixties. Martoli had about 500 residents then, whereas a number of the dozen or so different villages had 10 to fifteen houses every.
Now, solely three or 4 individuals return to Martoli every summer time.
A number of villagers are returning in summer time to the close by villages of Laspa, Ghanghar, and Rilkot, as they’ll now journey by car to inside just a few kilometres (miles) of their villages on a just lately constructed unpaved highway.
Among the many scattered remnants of earlier stone homes in Martoli, a brand new guesthouse has appeared to cater for just a few trekkers who go by means of the village en path to the Nanda Devi Base Camp.
