The whirlybirds strain against the altitude like oversized bumblebees. Many an airdrop is swallowed by the snow. Both sides deploy about 3,000 soldiers. Gen. R. K. Sawhney, the army's director general of military intelligence. Transporting kerosene is one major expense.
Some Indian soldiers live in igloos made of fiberglass panels.
Six soldiers can sleep in jigsaw configurations, crowded into a room the size of a king-size bed. Others live in ice tunnels gouged out with a pickax. Either way, small kerosene stoves are the hearths they huddle around. The hissing competes with the howling of the wind. Black smoke seems to color everything, including a man's spit.