It was minus eight degrees. All three had sat with me in a dimly lit tent on a mid-June night, narrating how Tololing was taken. A few days later, all three had died in action on another peak. Combating cold was not an easy task for the two of us. One looks like an astronaut and one has to literally learn to walk again.
Bathing is also a luxury out here.
While interacting with the soldiers, one could figure out that isolation was the biggest problem for those holding heights at cut off posts. Officers are more hit by isolation since they maintain a healthy distance from jawans, and have no peers on the high posts. Keeping the men and their minds occupied is one way officers try to beat the isolation which, as a Captain in Drass said, is more biting and numbing than the extreme cold. To fight boredom and monotony, soldiers take to cooking as a time-pass activity. So, you have Haryanvi soldiers trying their hand at South Indian recipes.