The Skeleton's of Roopkund

BENGALURU: Uttarakhand - The Land of the Gods. Year after year devotees of different faiths and beliefs from all over the world go on pilgrimages to this holy land seeking the blessings of various Gods. Bordering Tibet, Nepal and Himachal Pradesh, it is a beauty beyond comparition.

Although revered as a sacred place, the state has a dark side which becomes visible every summer. Lying at the foot of Junar Gali lies the famous glacial lake – Roopkund. During the summer, as the ice melts, few bizarre looking objects begin to float on the surface. Only on closer inspection can one make out that these are human bones and the lake’s bed is filled with them. The very sight send shivers down the spines and makes one wonder what horrors must have caused such a catastrophe.

There are many theories behind this and one must go back as far as 1942, the year the lake was discovered, to find the first of these theories. Back then it was speculated that the remains were those of Japanese soldiers who tried to sneak into India but perished in the harsh weather. This theory was later refuted as the bones looked relatively old. Others say it could be Zorawar Singh and his men, and someother believe it could be Mohammad Tuglak’s men, who unsuccessfully tried to capture Garhawal Himalaya. But it was not until 2004 that something solid came into light. A group of Indian and European scientists collaborated to carbon date these remains and found that they belong to the people who lived at least as far back as 850AD.

There were two categories of body types found – ones of smaller stature and others that were relatively bigger. This led the scientists to conclude that these could be the bones of pilgrims and the trekking guides who died during a hail storm. They zeroed in on hail storms because all of them seemed to have died due to a blow to the head with some blunt, round object.

There is also the possibility that a few of them escaped and came back to their village and gave an account of what had happened. That’s because there is a famous folk song among Himalayan women which describes a goddess so enraged at outsiders who defiled her mountain sanctuary that she rained death upon them by flinging hailstones as 'hard as iron'.

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