The Long Road to Siachen

Published by Rupa & Co., the major part of the book is authored by Kunal Verma while the last section has been co-authored by Brigadier Rajiv Williams. The strategic significance of Kashmir (including Jammu and Ladakh) is not a modern-day issue but dates back 200-odd years to the beginning of the Great Game, whose ramifications were felt by England, Russia, France, Tibet and China, and which shaped events in the subcontinent. Drawing on the vast exposure he has had with all three Services of the Armed Forces, he has adopted a unique style of telling the story, sometimes even writing in the first person, which makes the narrative engaging. The reader is drawn into the vagaries of the terrain in Jammu, Kashmir, Zanskar and Ladakh at the very onset, as Kunal Verma talks of his early days as a trek manager with Tiger Tops Mountain Travel in the 1980s. His chance encounter with a French tourist after crossing Umasi La in 1981, which resulted in his obtaining USAF maps depicting the entire region north and east of Tortuk as PAF overflying areas, and the subsequent events, make the entire book part memoir, part history lesson, part analysis, and — given his ability to take stunning photographs — part photo essay.

• Ladakh & Siachen