Published On 15 Oct 2025
Dozens of dilapidated stone buildings are all that stay of the once-thriving border village of Martoli, within the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. Nestled within the Johar Valley and surrounded by Himalayan peaks, probably the most notable being Nanda Devi, as soon as thought-about the tallest mountain on the planet, this village had traded sugar, lentils, spices, and fabric for salt and wool with Tibetans throughout the border.
The nomadic inhabitants of a number of villages spent the winter months within the plains gathering items to be traded with Tibetans in the summertime. However, the border was sealed following an armed battle between India and China in 1962, disrupting life within the excessive villages and leaving folks with little incentive to return.
Kishan Singh, 77, was 14 when he left along with his household to settle within the decrease village of Thal. He nonetheless returns to Martoli each summer season to until the land and domesticate buckwheat, strawberries, and black cumin.
His ancestral house has no roof, so he sleeps in a neighbour’s deserted home in the course of the six months he spends on this village.
“I get pleasure from being within the mountains and the land right here may be very fertile,” he says.
In late autumn, he hires mules to move his harvest to his house within the plains, the place he sells it at a modest revenue.
The largest of the Johar Valley villages had about 1,500 folks at its peak within the early Sixties. Martoli had about 500 residents then, whereas a number of the dozen or so different villages had 10 to fifteen properties every.
Now, solely three or 4 folks return to Martoli every summer season.
A couple of villagers are returning in summer season to the close by villages of Laspa, Ghanghar, and Rilkot, as they will now journey by car to inside a couple of kilometres (miles) of their villages on a lately constructed unpaved street.
Among the scattered remnants of earlier stone homes in Martoli, a brand new guesthouse has appeared to cater for a couple of trekkers who go by means of the village en path to the Nanda Devi Base Camp.
