Leh 2012

So I went to Leh. Last minute plans work out so much better than actual, planned ones, don't you think?

I could use a dozen words to describe it but I'm sure someone else somewhere else has used those already. Yes, it was magical. Yes, it was picturesque. All in all, an awesome trip. But one of the reasons I love travel is because of the people one gets to meet. So today I'm going to write about one of the people I met in Leh.

Mr. P would be about 50 or 60 and has a shock of black-white hair. He's short and thin and rather benevolent looking. He has the kindest eyes I have ever seen (obscured by glasses) which crinkle up in the most endearing way when he smiles. He is a sort of resort owner cum travel agent in Leh. He's quite the self-made man. His resort was built on his ancestral land, in the traditional Ladakhi architectural style. After dinner he was nice enough to shows us around a bit and the place had lots of open room to sit in and open corridors to walk around in, leading via stairs to the rooms, and the whole resort was set in front of a village. He had accomplished all this only in the past 6 years, before which he was in Delhi working for a pharmaceutical company. His wife still stays in Delhi with his young daughter and his son studies in Singapore.

But the most interesting thing about Mr. P was what he had to say because I had never really considered that kind of viewpoint before. He said that if things continue the way they are, Ladakh will disappear in 50-60 years. This surprised me initially but it was obviously a well thought out assertion. He said that there are barely 30-40,000 people who live here all year round, the rest are migratory who go back during the harsh, cold winters when the region remains secluded by snow for a good 6 months. These are mainly Bihari laborers, shopkeepers who are Nepalese or Kashmiri etc. He says the Kashmiri will take over this region in the next 50 years, migrating here incessantly as Kashmir itself becomes more and more fraught with danger and hence uninhabitable for the common man. This will mean trouble. It'll bring insurgents and terrorists and so forth and the whole valley will essentially just go to shit taking its beauty and tranquility with it. The world can forget about holidaying in Ladakh then. And a day will come when the valley would no longer be able to sustain that kind of thing within it and will collapse completely. 

Unfortunately,  our choot of a government (and not just the current one, he meant this in more of a generic sense) is overtly concentrated on Kashmir, which can sustain itself anyway, because deliberating on it gives them an opportunity for politicking (wrt Pakistan and so forth, a country that is a ‘gone case’ anyway), something which Ladakh does not because it does not involve any dire elements. It is a serene, tranquil place completely overlooked by the government. Politicians only see their short term gain and are blind to the fact that the valley needs to be protected. By the time enough people realize this, it will be too late. This is why tourism needs to grow in Ladakh, so more and more people can understand this reality and discuss it and bring it out in the open and make something happen. For instance, once he had had a wealthy and influential Gujarati family staying at his resort. They had asked him what they could do for him in return for his gracious hospitality and he had said he would be grateful if they could tell someone in power to make Ladakh a UT or a separate State.

He doesn't understand why Ladakh is a part of JnK in the first place. He says the language, the people, the culture, the customs and everything, it's all totally different. He thinks making it a UT is the best and possibly the only way to protect it so that it's own issues are not overshadowed by Kashmir’s.

To me, Ladakh had always been just a pretty place with nice mountains and good weather. But to think of it this way blew my mind. I have immense respect for this man, not least because he lives separately from his wife and kids and still loves them immensely. 

P.S. Crazy dream #57: Fucking in the mountains.