Sanctuary Of Random Keystrokes

We were woken up early by the sound of strong winds howling outside. By the time we stepped out of our tent, things had calmed down but the sky was no longer the clear, blue Ladakh sky we were so used to seeing by now. Instead, it was a turbid, pale-grey.

On our way to the famous sand dunes near Diskit monastery, we came across a few domesticated horses grazing in a marshy field. Their clear reflections in water made it look like they were engaged in some form of auto-cannibalism.

Anywhere else and the sand dunes would be almost impressive, but being surrounded by close cousins of the Himalayas means that even their expanse doesn’t impress, let alone their height. The much-talked-about two-humped Bactrian camel is another let-down. All you’ll find is half-a-dozen gaudily decorated specimens of their species being used for taking people on joy rides. Given how the poor things looked, I doubt there is any joy to be had; not for the camels at any rate.

Diskit, like a lot of other monasteries in Ladakh, is a cluster of squat white structures streaked with maroon, constructed on a hill. The structures look like they grew out of the mountains naturally, like mushrooms growing under a tree.

On a hill opposite the monastery, a statue of ‘Gyalwa Chamba’ or the Future Buddha was being constructed. This is the first time I was seeing a statue of buddha depicting him sitting on a chair and not on the ground with his legs crossed. The statue was all concrete and scaffolding right now but I made a mental note to visit it again upon completion.

As we headed back to Leh, we realized how drastically the weather had changed within a day. The sky was a sullen grey all the way till Khardungla and we experienced what must’ve been the first snow of the season. It wasn’t much, but just about enough to allow me to be technically correct when I say I saw snowfall.

Leh was its usual welcoming self. Bright, sunny and even a tad warm during the day. The weather just a few kilometers ago had shown us how temporary the summer here was. On our way back, we were stuck in a small traffic jam on a mountain road and had stepped out of the car. We ran into a soldier of the Indian Army who was headed to his base somewhere near Siachin. “Fancy living here in winters” he had mentioned half-mocking, half-challenging as we parted. I should very much like to find out one day what it is like.

On the third day of our visit, we drove along the Indus river – a river we had only vague memories of having read about in our history and geography books in school. Occasionally, the river would vanish behind a hill or a mountain but it was never quite out of reach.

Our first stop was the Maitreya Temple of Basgo. Repair/construction/renovation work was on at this site and except for a few walls and rudimentary structures, it is is hard to tell the old from the reconstituted.

We then drove towards the Lamayaru monastery. The terrain got considerably difficult; the roads unpaved and narrower. We kept encountering heavy machinery – excavators, ground movers and such – toiling on patches of broken road in perhaps the world’s harshest terrain. Often we’d encounter heaps of boulders strewn about a narrow road and an excavator working on them. All you can do then is wait patiently for the excavator operator to execute some tricky maneuver from his playbook that would allow you to pass.

On our return from the monastery, we stopped at a small shack for lunch, which was a packet of Maggi cooked with chopped vegetables and served in a soup-like consistency. A stream – probably a tributary of Indus – roared past us.

Our stop for the night was at a place called Uley. The accommodation consisted of semi-permanent tents in a valley surrounded by mountains. The Indus gushed a few meters below. There were a few houses nearby, but hardly a human soul in sight. The barren mountains, a few scattered trees enjoying their brief summer and the river below reminded me a lot of the place where the protagonists of the movie The Planet of Apes found themselves when they landed on a desolate planet after hundreds of years in space.

Except that we found quite a few trees that had apples growing – we were told later not for commercial purposes – and hence free of pesticides and fertilizers. They weren’t the sweetest apples I’ve had, but they had the most apple-y aroma I’ve ever experienced.

The camps are designed in a way that they collect all the warmth they can during the day and gradually let go of it during the nights. Which means that they are unbearably warm till the sun has well and truly set. A siesta was thus completely ruled out. We sat in the gazebo that the owners of the camp had so thoughtfully built. I was fascinated by its roof, made of layers of wooden bars.

It was a clear night and the moon was in one of those distant phases from full where it doesn’t meddle with your pupils’ dilation. What looked like a passing cloud turned out to be the Backbone Of The Night – The Milky Way. It’s the sort of view that makes you feel inconsequential. It is hard not to feel light because a realization quickly sinks in – no matter how big your problems, they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things – and the overall of scheme of things is very grand indeed!

Taken at Shimoga some two years ago while visiting Kuvempu University for presenting at a weekend workshop. I rose early to catch the sunrise but the clouds denied me the opportunity. Still, there was no dearth of photographable things