IGNORED LIVING HERITAGE OF JAMMU SHIVALIKS A wake-up call for policymakers and historians.

Grandmother whom we called Bobo in Dogri had a massive badi (open hillside) and from the edge of the hillside was visible the most beautiful valley surrounded by a panoramic view of forested hills and taller Shivalik peaks.

- 

Every season the hills around our home in Bhaddu village would change color and the valley below would put different garbs too. They would become the most dramatic in winters when the peaks would become snowy, the hills violet and the valley would get decked with yellow carpets of mustard crop. In spring the forested hills would start picking colors--red, pink and crimson. Sometimes they would be greeted with orbs through which the far off peaks would look even more inviting.

Obviously as a child I always wanted to go to the higher peaks and I thought I could fly like a bird but it always remained a dream until last month when I finally crossed those layers of peaks forting Bhaddu-Billawar and reached Bani, my childhood's fantasy-I was on a journalistic assignment.

My aunt was from a village called Panyalag which is 8 miles uphill from Bani town and we grew up in a joint family listening to her stories of Padh (pahad) which was a dogri analog for Bani. Three decades ago she would take a 12-14 hour bus ride from Billawar and then trek or hire ponies to reach home. It must have been arduous but it sounded more adventurous to the innocent me. The same journey is now shortened to four hours and the final trek is reduced to a kilometer.

My aunt's father was an ayurvedic vaid (traditional ayurveda practitioner) and after every trip she would bring back some extremely effective home remedies-some of which her family still preserves. The most fascinating of those medicines locally called "Saprotri" was made from a herb found in the cracks in higher mountains for which the old man would hike into further heights. It was an amazing remedy for burn injuries. He also traveled to Amritsar for other herbs.