Hunza Water

In 1963, Dr. Patrick Flanagan was consulting for the United States’ Pentagon when he met the Father of Fluid Dynamics, Dr Henry Coanda. “Water is the most important thing you put in your body, but not all water is equal”, said the legendary Romanian scientist as he told Dr Flanagan about his quest for the Fountain of Youth for the past 60 years. He had been studying the five mountainous regions in the world where people commonly lived healthy and productive life for over 100 years, and discovered that while their diets were different, the one thing they had in common was the type of water they consumed.  One such region was Hunza land in North Pakistan, where the water contained certain silicate minerals that originate from the surrounding glacial mountains and the people drink the glacial water containing all those minerals.  Taking over the research, Dr Flanagan discovered that these minerals gave the Hunza water anomalous properties such as a lower surface t...

The hems of his jeans rolled, Rehmat Ali climbs barefoot up a tree to pick the grapes dangling from climbing vines, defying hostile religious injunctions against alcohol to celebrate a wine-making tradition that is older than Islam in the mountains of Pakistan. Every autumn in the remote village of Sher Qilla in the foothills of the Himalayas, Rehmat joins the many agile young people taking to the trees for the long-awaited harvest under the watchful eye of their gnarled and chiselled elders. Drenched in sunlight, bunches of grapes crown the treetops, where they are safe from the opportunistic reach of greedy farm animals. Rehmat — slim, and with an aquiline nose — begins to pick the forbidden fruit. Working with his bare hands, he places the green and crimson grapes in a wicker basket that is lowered to the ground along a rope. The fruit is tossed into the khor, a cement tank washed with icy glacier water, where barefoot villagers trample it to press the juice. Then, ...