Photographs and text by Alex Masi

Photographs and text by Alex Masi

Known for its natural beauty and rollicking parties, the hill-station town of Manali in Himachal Pradesh, about 600 km north of New Delhi, is a favourite destination for Indian and international tourists alike. About 485 km north of Manali, meanwhile, is the Ladakhi capital of Leh, amidst nearly barren mountainous desert bound by the Kunlun hills to the north and the Zanskar mountain range to the south. Befittingly, the journey between these two points, along the Manali-Leh Highway, is an exhilarating one – along mostly unpaved tracks that traverse five high-altitude passes (the highest at 5359 m), to form what is often trumpeted as the second-highest motorable road in the world. Making the trip is worthwhile if only for the journey’s spectacular setting: replete with emerald lakes, rocky deserts, fields of bright-yellow flowers and ancient ochre mountainsides, the natural beauty of the terrain is dazzling.

There is, however, a grimmer, human aspect to this solitary road. Construction and maintenance of the highway – as with roads in other strategic areas considered potentially crucial to Indian military operations – is the responsibility of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). While this is partly staffed by Indian Army engineers, the actual building of the roads is undertaken by about 6000 labourers from Bihar and Jharkhand, with local labour comprising only about five percent of the workforce. Here, men (and only men) of indisputable strength and determination, mostly lacking formal education, use their hands and bodies to eke out a living far from home, surviving for months on just a couple sets of clothing from home.

In talks with this photographer, none of these men had even a photograph of their families, much less any other personal belonging. Tools, rations and essential supplies like blankets and bedding, meanwhile, are supplied by the BRO. Some of these labourers had been to Ladakh before, returning for repeated four-month summer-season stints, lured by wages – INR 4000 per month – far higher than those available in Bihar. Indeed, the number of these workers is growing every year, a result of the spurt of growth in Leh that has spurred the BRO to build roads rapidly, in addition to improving them to be able to carry heavier loads.

For these men, the workday begins at about 7:30 in the morning, and goes on until darkness falls at about 6 pm. As nightfall and the subsequent cold sets in, the men retreat into their tents. Living and working collectively in what at first seems to be a surreal environment, the men support each - like brothers. Together, they cook, eat and try to keep warm, as temperatures drop to -5 degrees centigrade. These are some of the people helping to sustain India’s growth, along a road running so near to the sky that one can almost grab the clouds running wild above it.

Alex Masi is photojournalist based in London.

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