travel notes-rock a by baby on the tree top!

Hanging on the top of mountains almost at cliff's edge, must be someone's favourite ambition.

At least the monks in leh/ladakh and surrounding areas spreading further from its epicenter seem to thrive on it. No relief in the landscape can be torturous on nerves as delicate as mine especially when one is trying desperately to hang on for dear life on the stairs that go way up, up, up almost touching the skyline as the clouds seem to descend on you, while the valley below smiles gladly inviting you to miss a step and land in its gutless depth. The bus journey on this mountain terrain can be equally grueling and yet mind blowingly fantastic for each spasm in your chest needs to account for having moved ahead and not stepping back from fear.

Frankly there’s no room for that if you know what I mean…there is only one way on this lonely stretch and that is the road ahead there’s no turning back until you reach civilization’s end and honk for a turn, back to go the same way you came up from. Perched on side tops and sharp angles, monasteries that sparsely inhabit the horizon of these cold dry desert mountains seem equally barren of human space and life until you breathe in its domain and realize there is life here as well.

Walking into the compounds there is a feeling of relief for you are back on flat ground covered on the sides with bare minimum chance of you falling down to death. The view is spectacular from up here anywhere, no matter which monastery you take as an example. The silence is endless till a single lama enters your thoughts and leads you towards the shut doors opening them for you to strike your head inside and smell the essence of a religion that has such a long an interesting history behind it. The Tibetans have stories that need another space and another time and perhaps another journey from my end before I can even begin to account.

I don’t understand the script, nor the scriptures have any meaning for me but the Buddha has a way of overwhelming people who visit and come so far. The almost three floor high statues in Shey, Diskit and Sumer that I witnessed were just that. I stood there gaping, trying to fathom the wonders of this divine being; its presence in my life at that moment was very real unlike anything else. One doesn’t have to be a Buddhist to experience a certain spiritual existence or develop a craving for understanding it and needing it perhaps.

Our trip to Limayuru on the other hand was perhaps divine intervention; coz, till we boarded the shared taxi we were not sure if we were bound for this journey or Tsomoriri or any of the others on our to do list.

So six of us –Theodere (a Swiss student studying environmental engg in IIT Chennai under an exchange program) and Julien (a very young barely out of his teens, Swiss French tutor), another quiet French couple, Abhi and me, we set out early morning on the 22nd to witness the Limayuru festival. The journey in the middle has some enchanting villages that are picturesque and the taxi driver politely gave in to our demands for photo-shoots every now and then. I personally felt not taking the trip to Alchi was a loss for quite a few people recommended it yet the shared system had to account for our decision to forgo Alchi in this journey. The Swiss couple had done it three years back when they first came to leh and the French couple was rather busy on their own. Conversation was polite and friendly with the younger couple. Later when the ice broke we became good friends and decided to take the trip to Nubra valley together. They were the two people we had been looking for all along!

Rest for later, I'm quite sleepy now.

travel notes-invading nubra

No time for rest; we traverse from one end to the other; flitting like flies in a million zones from one to another-ceaseless movement and exertion, for what, one might just ask? However the sand dunes near Hunder (Nubra Valley) called a halt to our efforts and we sank, digging in our toes deep inside the mound of softness that seared up the soles and made us jump at our futile attempts to sample the simplicity and preciseness of being boneless! Our only contribution to the ever-changing pattern was a disturbed and sorry looking tale of footprints.
But peace seeped in, there was quiet; a rush of the wind as it changed its voice for each song across a country that contrasted without giving us reasons: sand dunes in the middle of nowhere and water flowing clean and sharp on the pebbles that since ages memorized the feel of its inevitable touch. Walking on them and slipping in the soft gooey mud is another of its contrasting experiences for nothing beats the softness of this slush and tired feet come to a rest aching to just sink and dissolve. Alas there is no depth here; at least not on the stretch we explored. The green that dots a landscape of barren mountains, dry as toast is sharp and needled baring thorns to those who wish to creep any further inside its abode.

This human season

'Well, to me you see it's part of the whole system, the fags.Imperialism, capitalism, exploitation. Small comforts in exchange for the big things like jusice. Fags, coca-cola, a bag of nuts, a nice car. That's what they throw you, instead of giving you your rights. It's what they call a pay off.'

...pg-57

Was killing educational?Perhaps briefly;as a genration is brief. The young sowed horror in their springtime with high hopes for the crop and it rotted down through a long summer. They harvested grief in the autumn of their lives. And did they believe, even as they held their grand children, that there would be an end to it all? After a hard winter killed what was left of them off, it came again, this human season, this springtime of hatred. The young went to it because it was in their nature.

...pg-75

By Louise Dean