Glide In A Firn Before The Ice Warms

A game of ice hockey brings into focus the whimsies of climate that’s eating away at Ladakh’s landscape

- Jayanta Oinam in Leh

HAPPENING on it abruptly, it seems to be a rich lick of cream appetisingly rolling on a dark crust. Till one takes in the shockingly blue firmament and the torn edges of surrounding mountains—a glacier lying in the sharpest of contrasts to its rocky underpinning. A glacier, moreover, in calamitous withdrawal. A plaque called ‘A letter to the future’, erected in August 2019, takes disheartening stock: “It is the first islandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow suit. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”

On a windy January morning, Leh played host to a game of ice hockey featuring a motley group of stick-wielders—a legend of the game from Russia, CEO of a staffing company, volunteers from all over the world and members of both the Indian men’s and women’s national teams. Called ‘The Last Game,’ the match was more than a friendly exercise. It was a call to join humanity’s fight to save the planet.

That very day, the World Economic Forum shared its Global Risks Report 2020, with an alarm: “For the first time in the survey’s 10-year outlook, the top five global risks in terms of likelihood are all environmental”. The report, Burning Planet: Climate Fires and Political Flame Wars Rage, painted a far grimmer picture than what the ice hockey players in Ladakh had tried to indicate with its doomsday moniker. For those who had gathered at the unfinished NDS Sports Complex on January 15, the game was not over. The fight had to involve future generations; only they know if ‘we did it’.