Mana Village - Uttarakhand
At an altitude of 3420 meters on the confluence of the Saraswati and the Alaknanda streams, and about 3 kms ahead of the holy town of Badrinath, is Mana village. It is the last Indian village, 48 km ahead of which lies the Mana pass on the old trade route to Tibet, disused after the border was sealed in 1962.
A quaint village with mountains behind in a Lord-of-the-rings sort of backdrop, Mana is home to the Marcha Bhutias, who came from Tibet ages ago in search of warmer climes. Back then, each spring, as the snows began to thaw they headed across the high Mana Pass, their yak caravans loaded with goods to barter with, crossing back in late autumn before the weather turned again. Today, though they no longer make this annual journey, they still roam all summer, herding their flocks of sheep and goats to high-altitude pastures deep in the inner valleys, spinning and dyeing wool from their animals, and handcrafting it into rugs and garments through winter.
Behind almost every doorstep there is a hive of activity — women busy at their looms or simply knitting. Mana, like many Garhwal villages, is thus not just a human settlement but a micro-ecosystem encompassing the local community, livestock, physical and organic resources.
To observe the lifestyle in this village one has flit though a labyrinth of narrow alleyways to reach inside. The tiled aangan common to the dwellings reverberates with the chatter of children, benignly watched over by the elders as they sit in the sun attending to chores, exuding a camaraderie that comes from aeons of community living. The community's dwelling idiom consists of stone cottages, single or double storeyed, mud plastered with slate-tiled sloping roofs, built into the hillside, some with carved wooden windows and doorway facades.
Mana is also steeped in mythology. Aeons ago it was known as Manibhadrapam, and it retains vestiges of its legendary past. There’s the Vyasa Gufa, the cave from which the sage is believed to have dictated the Mahabharata to Ganesha, who sat at another spot nearby, dutifully penning it all. |
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