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Untouched by Corona

The beauty of village life in Ladakh

-Rinchen Angmo

Life has come upside down throughout the world and the urban areas of Ladakh. However, in most villages in Ladakh, life goes on as usual. Most villages here haven’t been either directly or indirectly been affected by covid-19. Not only is there an absence of corona cases, but also their livelihood has barely been affected. As people in villages live a primarily agricultural way of life, they eat the food they grow and make money from the surplus. In stark contrast, people living in urban areas like Leh have been struck hard economically due to the heavy reliance on tourism. What a wonderful way of nature to teach us that unsustainable ways of living can truly result in the inability to sustain even one’s own life. Over the past few years, people in Leh have been building luxury hotels and tourism ventures as if there was no other alternative. Moreover, the mindless nature of the growth of hollow concrete structures stand in stark contrast to the values that we as a people have been living by from time immemorial. In this rat race of money making through often questionable means, we’ve lost sight of all that was part of our way of life. A way of life that is still sustained in villages and is now sustaining them when the rest of the world suffers. Not only is village life environmentally friendly, but it is also socially uplifting. Besides the petty disagreements here and there, the whole village community comes together as one whole to help each other.

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Women in Ladakh

As a child, the question of gender inequality was quite foreign to me. Of course, I was aware of differences, but never of inequality per se.

-Rinchen Angmo

Image courtesy: watsupptoday.com

I grew up in spaces that were owned either by my maternal grandmother or by my mother. I guess this statement needs a bit of a context. In Ladakh, the system of marriage is very flexible in terms of which household the bride or the bridegroom goes to; meaning, either the bridegroom could go to the bride’s house(makpa) or vice versa(pagma). ‘Going to’ the other’s house also means assuming more responsibility over that household than your own. Both in my maternal grandmother’s and my mother’s case the bridegroom had come to their house; consequently, they received an equal share of family property. This is a common phenomenon in Ladakh and has been followed from time immemorial. In fact, even the daughters or sons who depart to another household after marriage attain a small share of family property. Hence, in Ladakh, the question of whether or not a woman can own property figures as a redundant one. Why does owning property become so important one may ask.. When one sees one’s mother or grandmother as a figure who owns property, manages it with finesse, and goes unquestioned by society, one also understands that those constructs of a-woman-can’t-handle-‘manly’-responsibilities, are after-all ‘man’-made fallacies. 

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Women of Spiti

One thing that I find common in the women of my region Spiti, is that they have a choice and say in all aspects of life.

-Nawang Chhoetso

Spiti women

The older generation of women -from my grandmother’s age group- are primarily housewives. Their succeeding generation went on to expand their horizons by exploring various career opportunities. Hence, women of my mother’s age group engage in a diverse range of jobs and activities, as teachers, nurses and various other occupations. My generation has ahead us of us a greater number of options. But, what has remained constant for women from all three generations has been the right to make our own decisions. 

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Losar

‘Lo’ means year and ‘sar’ means new.

A new year, a new beginning, a chance to be a new person…Don’t we all wish for a chance to be happy? Losar, like all other New Year festivals , signifies not only a happy event but also one when we can start afresh. It’s not as much about new resolutions as it is about accepting change…impermanence. For many of us it’s also about building a home away from home. After all home is not just about the landscape and the buildings, it’s about the sentiment shared by a community. 

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