A Photo Essay

Written by : Nawang Chhoetso

Last year while organising my grandfather’s prayer room I found an old colourful picture of him with a calf. It took me a while to realise that it was taken just outside our house, as things are different today.
We don’t have that beautiful green lawn today it has been replaced by hotel constructions. Only the majestic mountain behind them still stands the same.

That picture was taken in the year 1999. It’s been twenty-three years since then. Much has changed in these years and things are still changing.

Like the La Darcha festival this year was celebrated at different venue than the conventional place which had been the school ground. La Darcha is the much-awaited event next just to Dachang which falls during winter .I wasn’t there to attend it personally but got a glimpse of it through social media.
Earlier during my childhood days this event was covered by local network channel and we could all view it later together with our families .Later this local network got replaced by Tata Sky.
I don’t remember the year but I remember my grandmother hating it as now she couldn’t watch the local programs which she loved watching on the local channel .When this happened my father while recalling his childhood told us about how during his time there was just one black and white TV in Kaza(my village which is the largest one in Spiti) and he would sneak out to watch a movie every Saturday.

I also remember the first cell phone that my father bought. Actually he bought 3 cell phones ,one for grandpa ,one for mom and one for himself. My grandmother wasn’t given one and she still doesn’t have any.She refuses to keep one stating that it’s of no use to her since she can’t read or write.But her sister has one who like herself can’t read but manages to make urgent calls using emojis. She uses distinct emojis for each of her family members.

Things are much different now, in just few years a lot has changed. We have 4G connection now and just few days back Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said Jio will launch 5G telephony services across India by December 2023. He made a promise to deliver 5G to every town, every taluka by December 2023.
Each generation has a different story. Mine was the one with “Tatasky “, my father enjoyed the “one TV for all” , my grandmother grew with “oral storytelling”, and my great-grandmother lived enough to tell her stories to me. Her stories had no mention of television or mobile phones. Instead, her source of entertainment was her uncle who would tell horror stories. She told me about the Britishers who visited Spiti. She also said she was friends with the late Indira Gandhi which back then I believed to be true but today I know that she just got a picture with her as back then she was the only woman in Kaza who could speak Hindi.
We still have that picture of her with the late Indira Gandhi framed, which my family is most proud of, guess we couldn’t cross the benchmark she had set.
Different generations grew up with different facilities and stories but they all grew up in a happy environment.
What remained constant and passed through these generations since time immemorial were the unsaid values which were not taught in schools or at home. These values were self-taught by looking at their predecessors.
The coming generations will have a completely different story, a different La Darcha but I hope the values stay forever.