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Ladakh,Trance Himalaya
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- By Sankar Sridhar |
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The travel writer’s darling, the travel photographer’s favourite muse and the
travel agent’s most lucrative land — that is Ladakh. And by that description,
the region’s foremost appeal, whether through photographs or articles,
remains its isolation. The grand land of nothingness.
This same vision finds itself in countless books, over and over again. In
talking about the same places and the same events and people, Ladakh has
been reduced to a just a handful of destinations and portrayed as a land
caught in a time warp. |
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Trance Himalaya is an attempt to break that mould and cover
hitherto uncharted territory. The
vision of this book is not blocked
by the mountains, but spreads all
over Ladakh. The writer has travelled extensively — living with the nomadic
Chang-pas on some occasions, and with monks in cavernous monasteries at
others. Over nine years, he has walked this land and on frozen rivers to find a
fast vanishing culture and a region under siege from modernity. |
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While the photographs capture the essence of the Ladakh of old —
ranging from landscapes, people, monasteries and the cultural and economic
tapestry — the write-ups are a juxtaposition of the modernity that is
spreading all over. Each chapter gives readers a glimpse into the region’s
topography, history, popular culture, faith and its inhabitants’ lives. Right
from the region’s oldest nomadic tribe, the Chang-pa, down to the modernday
monk (caught between tides of tradition and modernity), this book
takes a ride into the quintessential Ladakhi world. |
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Unlike most other books on Ladakh that have seen light of the day,
some of the photographs included here will take the reader to its remotest
places — places that
are rarely talked
about, let alone
captured in frames.
Places that never find a mention in tourist guidebooks, the
Internet or the innumerable articles in various publications; places
close to tourist hotspots in the district and yet far from the myopic
vision of travel agents or tour operators. For example, the village of
Chumur, a stone’s throw from the Chinese border, the hamlet of
Chushul where a witch’s hand adorns the chorten containing the
head lama’s mummified body. These frames are complemented by
nuggets of information
drawn from the author’s
personal diary on Ladakh.
Through the lens — and at times, the pen — of the author, Trance
Himalaya is an earnest attempt at celebrating Ladakh. The aim is to create a
stir or even a surge of emotions in the reader’s mind for one of the most
beautiful places on this planet. It is a far cry from the typical traveller’s guide,
which devote reams of print or countless frames to only a handful of Ladakh’s
beauty spots. Ladakh unedited and uncropped — that’s what this book is all
about. Not a bird’s eye view, but the whole picture. |
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