INDUS RIVER: Stephen Alter, in his article “With the River by My Side” says about Indus River that some rivers are older than the landscape through which they pass: “Nowhere is this clash between hydrological and geological history more apparent than along the Indus, as it passed through Ladakh. This seemingly eternal river has followed its winding course since long before the Himalaya were formed, tossing and tumbling over. Boulders, stones and pebbles that the water polishes and grinds into sand. Eroded flanks of the mountains on either side of the river are scarred and twisted by tectonic forces that lifted giant slabs of rock more than eight kilometres into the clouds but failed to block the persistent flow of the Indus. Driving along the highway that runs parallel to the river, from Leh to Kargil, it feels as if the landscape is a timeless epic that the waters of the Indus have etched in stone.”