Recently, I was at the Annapurna Base Camp along with some friends from France. Along the

trail known also as Annapurna Sanctuary, we were thankfully pleased to fathom that mineral water and beer bottles were banned. The lodges proposed boiled and filtered water as a substitute.

However, we were equally upset to discover that despite the ban on certain commodities, the trail was littered with beer cans, broken glasses, cigarette-butts, used shoes and slippers, papers and most ubiquitously, plastics.

While climbing up towards the Annapurna Base Camp, we saw oodles of garbage along the trail.

And while climbing down, we resolved to collect as much garbage as possible. At the end of three consecutive days, we collected at least 20 kilos of plastic. Our effort was the best gift offered to the gorgeously beautiful region.

Meanwhile, we requested travellers — both from home and abroad — to emulate our efforts. Understandably, all seemed to nod in the affirmative.

Local people whole-heartedly sang praise of our little efforts.

After all, clean and green Annapurna is in the interest of every one. During the trip, my fellow travellers had asked me, “Is the air in the Himalayas polluted as well?” “No way”, I had proudly replied, “there is no road, no factory, and no industry whatsoever. How can the air be polluted here?”

At Pokhara, to my horror, checking my mail had my heart aching. A mail, incidentally from France, stared at me mockingly: “the air in the Himalayas is as polluted as in European cities…the roof of the world is no longer a ‘land of purity’. The story adds: the research, first of its kind, was conducted by a Franco-Italian team at above 5000m in the Himalayas. The beautiful word ‘Himalaya — abode of snow’ — may soon imply ‘abode of pollution’.

The concomitant question is: if our Himalayas are as polluted as cities in Europe, what about our cities? No room for shilly-shallying to conclude: our cities are a virtual factory, an industry,

a brick chimney, a ditch, an engine of an old truck — in terms of dust, smoke, noise and filth. Even so, proudly say — we are city-dwellers, living in the abodes of death!