Preparing for My First Winter in the Himalayan Shilha Village

Moving to the mountains, living a village life in a very pretty village in the Parvati Valley, it was all fun until I was warned about the harsh winters we were going to face very soon. In fact, that used to be the conversation starter with most of the villagers I met after deciding to live here full-time.

They would always go: Oh, so you’re here for a year?

Nice, are you going to be here for the winter?

My response would always sway as: let’s see how long I can stay, or I’m thinking about it, but let’s see!

Because the stories about winter in Shilha Village actually scared me for good. I was told there'll be almost 4 ft of snow here, which is roughly reaching most people’s waist. It'll get extremely cold with no sun during those months. The name "Shilha" means the shadow in the local language. Shilha doesn’t get much sunlight during the winter, and as a result, the snow doesn’t melt for a long time.

I always felt there was a hidden talk among the villagers that the outsiders won’t be able to survive the harsh winters in this village, Shilha.

All these things were already known to me since everyone warned me to make sure I was prepared. Prepared with wood, ration supplies and other essentials for 3 months. And, as someone who has never even seen snow falling in my life, I was excited and also equally scared by the narration of the villagers.

Finally, the GOT slogan, "Winter is coming" started to make a lot of sense.

So, this blog is about my first-ever winter preparations, lessons I learned from the villagers and more. I can't really imagine the green landscape I see around me is going to turn into white in some time!

Natural Heating above everything else

The major difference between the Himalayan villages in India and the other parts of the world, which are cold, is the heating arrangements. I’ve been told by many about how efficient their centralised heating systems are when it comes to buildings. However, in the Himalayan villages and most parts of the valley I’ve explored, two major setups are commonly used.

One is a tandoor or wood-fired fireplace, which is efficient in heating houses made of natural materials like wood, clay, mud, or stones. Electric heaters are the other option.

Even though I have enough electric heaters at my place, I’ve noticed frequent power shutdowns in this village. There is no guarantee of power in the valley. It can get disconnected so easily, even with minor changes in nature, such as rain or snow. So, I must collect as much wood as possible before I run out of time, that is, before it starts to snow.

That means I roughly have 15 days to a month to collect wood. You never know when it will start to snow. Especially with this year’s increased rainfall, everyone is predicting an early snowfall. As I'm writing this, it is already January, and the snow hasn't come yet. So, nobody knows what's happening with the snow this year.

Well, for my situation, even though I live in a concrete house, I have a dedicated room where I have a tandoor installed. This is ideally a chill-out place for my guests and cafe visitors. But the real purpose is to have a warm, cozy room with the tandoor heating up the entire place.

When it comes to collecting wood, the two options are:

You collect wood from the forests nearby yourself

Employ labourers to cut down the wood, chop it into small pieces and bring it to your place.

Hiring labour to bring the wood is expensive but easy. However, most of the labourers have already gone back to their hometowns or to the next location where they spend the winters, since it gets really cold in Shilha.
I remember my first step in collecting wood was when my parents were visiting. I was offered twigs by my landowner. I went with my father to collect them and brought them home after chopping them into smaller pieces.

I always felt underprepared seeing the stack of wood in front of each house. Wood is one of the luxurious items I've seen in these villages. Well, I’ve collected some wood before the labourers left the village, but it is nowhere close to what I will need to survive the entire winter. So, I decided to team up with the village ladies and go for the wood hunt in the forests nearby. So, today was my first day of wood hunting with them and here’s how it went.

A nature stroll with a purpose

I love hiking the mountains around Shilha Village. That means spending a lot of alone time, being with nature, and just being in nature. However, when the journey is with a purpose, a lot of those things change.

First of all, we need to go during the daytime when there is sun. Since the ladies I go with have house chores, it is usually 11am when we start. We go to a nearby forest-like valley, which is covered with huge trees and grass.

Even though it is near the road, there are animals like jackals and more in this area. I have heard stories of leopards and bears, but I'm not so sure if they come down that easily. That being said, I'm advised not to go there when it is dark. So, the timing matters.

The first important lesson I was taught is: there's plenty of wood in the forest (dry or fallen off course), but all that matters is how much you can carry back home.
So, I also went with a plastic basket, which they locally call "Kilta". Some ladies also carried ropes, which made me wonder how that works.

Finding a perfect spot

Even though I’m surrounded by mountains all around, finding the right spots to find the right kind of wood isn’t as simple as it seems. It takes an intimate understanding of these mountain ranges to know exactly where to look. The villagers who have spent their entire lives here, are the best guides you could ask for—they know these mountains the way only time can teach.

For today’s spot, we hiked to a place near the road, which I always wanted to go to but seemed like a very difficult one to climb. With them, the trails seemed easy. I had one kilta with me, which they asked me to leave at the starting point itself. Then we climbed up, collecting wood on the way and keeping it in one place to pick up on the way back. However, the first step was to ensure we were not on the way to any trees that were being chopped down.

Signalling

Before entering the slope of the mountains, one of the Didis made a whistle-like sound, and I was wondering what it was for. Then she did it again, and then came the response far from the top of the mountain. They wanted to check if someone was cutting the tree and to let them know we are climbing up this route.

This exchange of information also helps us to stay away from any potential accidents. Since it is a busy time when there is a lot of activity happening in these mountains to prepare for the upcoming winter, this step is very important. As someone who loves to quietly navigate the places I hike, I wouldn't have bothered about this step if I went alone, and that would've been a mistake.

Once the route was clear, we climbed up the trails and picked up wood that was already on the ground. Other ladies started cutting down the dried fallen wood into smaller pieces. These are good fuel in the tandoor for longer.

I even found some gems, which are thick wood that might give me good heat for at least an hour. I felt so rich after taking them up. And then I was lured by this leftover trunk of the tree. As soon as I was getting closer to it, one of the didis called me back since that is a dangerous area to be in at that time.

Then they climbed up further into the forest and asked me to stay where I was, and I paused. I was also not sure about going up since the whole place was slippery with dry leaves. They came back after sometime with the full stack of wood tied with their ropes.

Little hacks that make a huge difference

Wisdom that comes with experience and practise is priceless. This short trip was one that taught me a lot of things to be careful with a simple chore like this. The first one was to carry a walking stick. It was immensely helpful hiking through the slippery trails.

Even though I fell down once with the fully loaded wood on my back, I could reduce the damage with the help of the stick.

The second one was the way we carried back the wood. Like they mentioned, it is not the lack of the wood in the forest but our capacity to bring it home that matters. My kilta was full when we were going back and it was pretty heavy. But carrying the kilta was not as easy as I thought it would be. Balancing the kilta was one stressful task itself. Maybe I should've paid more attention to how I filled it.

One of the things these ladies insisted on was not to go alone for these chores. I didn't know what it meant until they stopped multiple times for rest. These pit stops were mostly where we got some sunlight.

The difficult part was to sit and get up with the loaded woods. I almost fell into the valley at the first spot we decided to take rest. I didn't know how to sit with the kilta or I underestimated the weight of it. All of a sudden the fully loaded basket turned to one side taking me with it, which is at the edge of the valley. Thankfully, one of the ladies helped me bring back to the posture and fixed the kilta.

Then I understood why they don't generally go alone. You always need help from someone to sit, get up and more. Well, our trip back home continued with a lot of curious eyes checking out an outsider carrying a kilta. Or, maybe I had a bent down back with the kilta. But, we were back within 2-3 hours collecting enough wood for the day.

One of the major preparation is the wood, which is also pretty expensive and time consuming.

The rest of the village is busy with other winter prep chores such as collecting grass for the cattle, leaves for their bedding and more. I think this blog is already long enough for you to read and will make others around this topic. For the day, I'm pretty happy with my finds for the tandoor and for the memorable experience with these ladies.