a reverie?
-Rinchen
To my Abile (granny) the 2 day long Chemrey Angchok Chham (religious masked monastic performance event) was more about tending to guests in her bustling house. She recounts how our ancestral house would be full of guests, mostly relatives from outside Chemrey (our village). Chhang (Ladakhi beer) and traditonal barley and meat assortments would flow in plenty and Abile would be busy organizing rooms and food with the aid of helpers.
Read more-Rinchen.
“So Abile (granny), do you know how to read both Bodhik and Urdu?”, I asked in awe.
Abile’s answer was in the affirmative. She was telling me about her Urdu teacher when I asked her whether he was a Muslim. She said yes and that Sir Rehman le also taught Bodhik brilliantly.
Read moreBy Sonam Chhomo
Shungma, Jispa, Lahaul valley
The experience of visiting places you always wanted to see for yourself is ethereal. The journey to this shungma felt almost as if I had been divinely allowed to enter its doorstep after many years of waiting for the perfect opportunity to unfold. As a child, I resisted visiting places at high altitudes because Lahaul was/is not a weather friendly place especially during the winter months. Even this time (it happened after a day), my ears remained blocked and my body felt uncomfortable for about two days.
But this year I felt as if I accomplished something.
Read more-Rinchen.
I read a beautiful article this morning in The Hindu’s Sunday Magazine. During the pandemic, I like many others, have found great solace not only in nature but also in learning about nature. The article’s author had written emphatically about planting the right kind of trees in the right region. The author also pointed out the harm of planting trees in areas that are not natural havens for trees: open natural ecosystems (ONEs); Ladakh being an ONE.
In recent years, Ladakh has witnessed various environmental measures, but do we understand whether they are ecologically sound? I for one, honestly don’t pretend to understand, but I do know that not everything that we think is good for nature is good for nature; that not so incidentally applies to our own well being as well.
Read moreThere are stories which we choose to share and stories which irrevocably fade away with time.
— Sonam Chhomo and Nawang Chhoetso
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When we ask them about their stories, you would notice a sense of hesitation in the beginning, but internally we all know that they are too eager to feel the same emotions again as they traverse through memory lane. And when they speak, you’ll notice that it becomes hard to stop them, you fear interrupting them lest they change their mind and become silent after a pause. You don’t want that to happen, do you? You too want to understand them and wish to find yourself a place in their memory so that you witness them first hand, look at their obscurities and in a childish spree compare yourself to them. Of course our imagination too helps us to walk this same path as they start travelling back to these days in the hope of reliving their most loved memories.
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Perhaps listening to their stories may retain the authenticity of these experiences which no travel book may hold, perhaps their stories will be the last reminiscent of their generation’s experiences and it is only fair as this becomes our duty to document these as part of history, our history. .
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