Favorite Tourist Spot In India
Ever wondered how it would look when two extremes of nature merged together? Ever seen where a desert and a mountain came to mutual grounds? That, to me, was only a surreal landscape painting, until I saw Ladakh.
India’s diversity blooms not only in the cultural repertoire of religion, dialects and heritage. It was strange indeed, to have this realization while looking through the hills encapsulated by sandy grains. But then, this beautiful convergence of nature in the cliffs of Leh’s roads in itself is a symbol of our country’s diversity. This was only one instance of the many, where Ladakh changed the way I perceived my nation’s subtle treasures.
Viewing the celestial scenery from a plane 19,000 feet above already made me call out the very title of this essay loud and clear. However, as I touched the ground, boarded the Airbus, picked out our drive to the hotel, I took in the first breaths of leh, and understood the meaning of nature at its purest.
Trees got lost in the haze of fog, hugging the crevices of hillsides that ran across us through the window of the jeep we were in. The crevices, barren, still held their beauty in the people working there. While sand and clay blanketed the surface, coloured flags and stupas adorned them.
The coloured flags in red yellow green and blue signify the five powers embedded in the earth’s core. This isn’t me describing them, but our driver’s own passionate explanation, as his eyes glinted in the pride he held for the countryside he drove us though.
It wasn’t just the coloured flags that strung along the threads. An invisible string strung an array of domes spread all a cross Leh’s hillsides. Like buds strung together on a terraced slope, these domes each signified a piuois monastery of a Tibetan Godhead, going by the name of “stupa”. The largest stupa that found our eyes was the Shanti stupa. Holding the last relics of Buddha like a treasure trove, it paid homage to the 14th Dalai Lama. It looked over Changspa village like a father over his sons. The dome’s omniscience never left your vision, no matter how deep to the corners of Leh you went. Inside, at three degrees and without a liable muffler, with tired legs, my father and I climbed the steep lanes, lit by the evening moon and the green light emanating from the dome. Indeed, the ethereal feeling proved the worth of our huffs and puffs in climbing up. Our visits ranged from monasteries that encapsulated Leh’s rural stretch, from the thiksey gompa to diskit monastery.
One would think the dominant place of worship was Tibetan Buddhism, until he spots a greystone gate, guarding a Sikh Gurudhwara. It held a part of the Kargil road in the local highway of Leh, and peacefully called for Sikhs to pay their homage to Guru Nanak. To find, amidst a strong essence of Buddhist tradition, this peaceful piety of Sikh, was how the Gurudwara Pathar Sahib showed us harmony in living together.
Leh prided its heritage in the embellished ruins of the royal Leh palace. The market blossomed its petals in special Ladakh pashminas and the luscious collection of apricots. Small figurines of Buddha and the prayer wheel thickened the crowds in their evening shopping hall.
“Kolkata se ho?” a mellow voice called after me. It was a young girl keeping her check on one such showpiece store. I nodded, responding in a nervous, eager voice with “KHAMZANG IN-A LEY?” as I recalled my vehement learning of different phrases and greetings in Ladakhian language to prepare for the trip.
I was fascinated by the wide eyes and welcoming smiles each Ladhaki person carried when they greeted us. We were tourists, sure, but never outsiders. We embraced their culture, while they gave space to accommodate ours. Mutual recognition between the native and the visitor showed how the distance in our states blurred somewhere in the feeling of unity that bound all our hearts.
Their enthusiasm in the little things they enjoyed reflected in the strength they held against the strong frost of Leh.
Yes, we were excited to reach the 17,000 high passes of Khardung LA. We anticipated the beauty of navy blue of Pangong Lake about to be captured in our camera lens. In the midst, we never realized how much pain we would endure reaching there, where the frigid air lacked oxygen. My mother and father gasped for breaths even in the closed windowed jeep. Desperate, I grew devout to ask God, why we had to struggle so hard for the mere sake of sightseeing.
My question was answered instantaneously when my eyes spotted the first glimmer of the sun on the lake. I’d never seen anything like it, the surface of the lake looked like the fabric of blue velvet. Pangong emerged in all its beauty, making us all forget the minus ten degrees celsius mark.
Stupefied, I exclaimed how another wonder our country holds at its helm.
Little did I know, as I’ll be writing about it on my notepad two months later, that it was gonna be captured soon by the grasp of China.
Ladakh was already in peril under the staunch eyes of the PLA, even as we visited there. The defense airport was guarded with soldiers, who irked at the slight stir of peace. Every guard, even with pleasant smiles on their faces, had one hand close to their rifles. With the fear of life hanging over them, they could still move their jaw muscles, smile for a mere tourist. The air around Leh felt different from the beauty of nature and culture. The Military Hall of Fame museum showcased the many wars expounding wins and losses of the Indian defense. The plight of Kargil, the peril of China, all in models of small replicated weapons were displayed in the disquiet room of talking tourists.
I eyed at the blood tainting a replicated coat, behind glass, as a visual for tourists to see. Nonetheless, I was struck by the other side of reality. I was flustered by how close death can be when colorful Ladakhi dresses slowly transitioned into a fading slideshow of a blood-stained camouflaged shirt. The section termed “Kargil” was a bolster of weapons, of stories of the gallant Indian army, rivaling in the Great Indo-Pak war. With so much noise of gunshots and fear of life. me in my privilege.
The Ladakhians accepted this ominous fear of attacks as a daily part of their life, and yet embraced their cultural part of who they are, and to think they do it because they’re compelled to by some unseen authoritarian force, will be defaming their own culture. It was what made their identity strong. Our driver narrating his time marching the Siachen and the Galwan Valley at minus 20 degrees, was a story for us, a reality he led.
Tourism, in many ways, inspires people to write poetry, start a travel blog, become a food critique or a photographer. Leh’s many tenets, however, gave me something different. Whether it was the immaculacy of pride for the country’s loyal guards, or the wonderstruck state its unraveling beauty put me in. Whether it was the union of different colours or the joy of struggling to witness it all, becomes all but a haze to me. These feelings aren’t just encompassed by calling Ladakh my “favorite tourist place In India.” They percolate beyond it, as every image is painted permanent in my heart.
