On walks through the hills in the Himalayas, Shriya Malhotra finds an assortment of berries, plants, and an age-old symbiotic relationships that have existed between people and the land they live on. She shares notes from some those walks.

On a recent trip to the hills, my friend Jamila pointed out that what one considers alternative medicine is often the native medicine system of another place. Her comment was a reminder about valuing and understanding constructions of knowledge.

The impact of climate change is having a real and direct effect on people’s health, and on the fragile ecosystems in mountains and foothills. Stark, white vistas of the ice-capped Himalayas are now greyer: a visual mark of melting glaciers which contributes directly to food scarcity and wellbeing. The local apricots, (known as khumaani) are also disappearing due to fast-escalating temperatures and dehydration, as a result of the greenhouse effect and urbanisation.

These hills hold methods of conservation and preservation of the land and all of its produce from before capitalist modes of exploitation took hold. For people living here, mountain life has always been a distinct way, bound by the ethic of gifting, bartering, and borrowing in lieu of capital.

Similarly distinct ways of life in the foothills of mountains — whether in the Himalayas, the Caucasus, the Alps, or the Andes — demonstrate age-old symbiotic relationships that have existed between people and the land they live on. Lands which people use and nurture in return nourishes them with produce, contributing to the basis of many belief systems. There is an important relevance to the traditional knowledge systems in indigenous communities, particularly plant-based knowledge in the context of climate change impacts.

The Endangered Wonder of Wild Fruits

Remote places at specific altitudes comprise ecosystems, which are bound by unique forms of knowledge and cultural norms. Their similar forms of knowledge and wisdom have partially been preserved in their isolation: reflected in techniques and processes of preservation. These altitude-related ways of knowing about nourishment and well-being are almost an antidote to the ills of modernity, because they connect human health directly to the balance of the ecosystem.  

Indigenous diets emphasise native, whole and wild foods as context-specific, local and folk remedies. There was always an understood connection and respect for the land, animals, and plants, contained in the context of minimal waste. But tourists and visitors continue to visit and litter these hills on an unprecedented scale.

In India, a varied and layered form of indigeneity comes from diverse rural and tribal cultures; people have subsisted on hunting and gathering practices that existed well before contemporary economic systems set in. These communities have always easily identified and known, for instance, that local or seasonal foods: fruits, vegetables, grains ensure well-being and good health by contributing to a more robust immunity; something that indigenous health systems incorporated. That consumption is not for profit, but is primarily a way to care for one’s self, and one’s families or communities needs.

In European economies, the same realisation has come from people like Carlo Petrini who founded the slow food movement, and has advocated about the importance of these knowledge systems from the perspective of rights: access for all to clean air and food and a slowing down to savour and enjoy the sensations of both preparing and consuming foods.

Similarly, in North America, Robin Wall Kimmerer has expounded upon the ways in which alternatives to capitalist economies can and do exist, with an emphasis on native and indigenous knowledge. She notices how ancient or traditional and indigenous wisdom are not limited to just food and caring for the land which provide solid economic alternatives, but are reflected in related cultural constructs like health knowledge, and arts and craft practices. 

Walking as a Research and Archiving Method

Foraging in Uttarakhand exists as a form of knowledge in practice and a mechanism for survival. Foothills are known to be difficult and complex ecosystems to standardise or ‘tame’. Agriculture on small landholdings with often limited fodder remains a challenge to many who live here. Walking and foraging as a means of sustenance throughout the day is therefore a practice that everyone naturally engages in as a way of everyday living for themselves and the beings which they tend to. Sadly, these days one can almost equally forage for plastic and wrappers. And yet these wild and native fruit are the best alternative to mass produced and packaged snack foods which are increasingly, and cheaply, available.

One of my favourite activities is to head out on walks alone with music, keeping my brain busy while paying attention to the natural world around me as I move through it: looking out for little bursts of brightly-coloured berries; finding unusual leaves or flower silhouettes to turn into earrings; and collecting uniquely patterned rocks to gift to my parents. Walking up and down, into and around old carbon-capturing trees or discovering old and new wells and shrines with little or no disturbance from cars is seemingly, also, a form of medicine.

If you visit the region, you see people climbing over or bending under the spatial and territorial restrictions like newer walls and barbed wire, to navigate the foothills; climbing into trees to access fruits, or running up and down the hillsides with firewood, grasses, fruits and other materials.