Nomenclature

I know there are larger matters at hand, but "Joolay" looks terrible.

On another note, I think we should finalise the book's name....I vote for 'strangers in the mist', though other suggestions are still welcome :)

Nice to see more stuff flowing in...

Hope it continues..

Cheers!

Riya

Songs of the Pine Forest

This is a special forest. There is music in the air. The sunlight dances through the shimmering pines and settles on the soft earth below. And the trees talk to each other.
They have stood here for years, sheltering so many creatures and watching over so many people. They tower over these hills, sashaying softly as they hum a strange tune to themselves. As I sit and look up at them, they appear gentle and welcoming and compassionate. They whisper among themselves and laugh kindly at the motley group that has assembled in their midst.

I hope that these trees I walk under can sense how much in awe I am of them. How much I admire, respect and love them. I hope they understand that there are some compassionate humans too. People who see them for the great beings they are.

I wish sometimes that the trees would talk out aloud. But as I look around me now, I think their beauty lies in their quiet murmuring.
Maybe some of their secrets were never meant to be known. Maybe mankind isn't worthy of being told those secrets.
But maybe if I listen very carefully, I may catch a slight strain of a hushed whisper...


The trees whisper to one another
But what do they say to you?
Do they show you their deepest secrets?
Do they sigh and mourn their losses?

When the sunlight filters,
Through glittering leaves,
And the trees sway
To the whistling breeze,
Do you see eternity in this forest?
Timelessness, serenity, peace?

Can you see life
Brimming in this wood?
Nature's remnants
Of all that is good....

Another World

We are blood,
Of one soil,
But between you and me,
A world of difference exists.
Hate threatens to engulf us all,
And peace remains surreal,
A dream so distant,
That you and I cannot reach it.

But I understand you,
I know that hope dwindles in your heart,
I believe you when you tell me
That you have been wronged.
They came to protect you,
And now they hunt you
On earth that is your own.

I see your sorrow,
And I feel my shame,
For we are of one nation,
But our lives are worlds apart.
And I did not choose to see,
Before you showed me,
How you struggle with every day.
I understand your anger,
You resentment, your hate,
Life holds little value
For those who murder and rape.

I can see in your eyes
How they are breaking your spirit,
How your heart is shattered
By the shreds of the world you see.
And though we are born of one soil,
Only your blood seems to stain our land.

But somewhere within your soul,
I hope that you can see
How my heart bleeds
For a cause you call your own.
Remember
That when the time comes,
No matter what side of a border
You call your own.
You will still be
My fellow countryman.
Someone I call my own.

Ladakh

I have never known so much beauty to exist in one land.
It may not be what many people call beautiful, and in a way I am glad that we humans have such different ideas of what is beautiful because we always land up desecrating beauty at its best.

To me, Ladakh is beautiful. And every single time I rummage in my head for a memory of a place there, I feel the same powerful awe that shot through me when I first saw it. Such is Ladakh's intoxicating effect on the first time visitor.

Whenever it was possible to put the scene around me into prose, I did so without hesitation. These are my thoughts at various points during the journey:

At the Hundar Desert...

Looking out at the barren expanse of soft, sandy dunes, I feel at peace in the wilderness.
The quiet rings in my ears and the cool grains of sand between my fingers feel smooth and wonderfully fluid.
The desert holds good memories for me. Memories of a time gone by, a childhood long past. Of starry skies and laughter running through the air.
The sands and my memories fly by.
Whoever said there can't be beauty in barrenness.
Or that you can't find peace in the wild.

At Hemis Gompa...

The chant puts me at ease and the world falls away. There is something about this place and this scene that makes me feel at peace with myself. The monks sing their haunting chants and the younger ones in the order learn their dance for the coming days. I sit and soak it all in. Not wanting for it to stop, and wishing that I could stay for hours to come.
I have prayed more soulfully today than I can remember doing in the past few months. And not out of a need to actually pray, but a need to connect with something bigger and more significant than myself.
This is a very different world, but I am at peace in it. Maybe at this particular moment, more than I am in my own.

At Thiksey Gompa...

Intricacy in every detail of the idol's profile. Vibrant colour visible from every angle. A small, upturned smile, as if to promise kindness and the blessings of all the beauty life has to offer. An overall expression of peace, so beautifully captured on a large idol that mesmerises everyone who lays eyes on it.
How did they achieve an expression like that? How is it possible unless the sculptors themselves had some idea of the meaning of inner peace?
To me, that soft and gentle half-smile is what gives the entire monastery the air of serenity that it offers all who enter it. The idol seems to radiate a sense of peace that envelopes everyone around.
It's amazing because the idol is a creation born out of human skill, an ancient relic that has the capacity to touch so many other people in turn. And so generations will be touched by that serenity and peace that a group of men helped create in an idol.

P.S.- I love walking on loose floorboards.

The Leh-Manali Route

If ever there was a road journey I would love to make again, I would pick the Leh-Manali route. Keeping your eyes peeled is an excellent idea because there is always something to gape in awe at.
Towering masses of mountains with sculpted shapes emerging from all possible angles, shimmering green rivers bouncing along, vast expanses that seem to merge with the bright blue horizon, snow covered peaks peering down from halfway up in the sky, shadowed layers on steep mountains, clouds that look like brush strokes in the sky....
All the sights on this route make you feel like you're in a massive, life-size painting. This feeling is heightened when even the clouds are still and the gentle wind stops blowing by and you're the only moving object in a beautifully created painting.

A Simple Introduction to Ladakh

Ladakh is a land of contrasts. On one hand you are surrounded by stark, barren mountains for miles around and on the other you are treated to colour in all its glory in the monasteries that seem to dot every few kilometers.

As a people, Ladakhis are extremely polite and hospitable, often to the point of being servile. This works to their disadvantage when it comes to the rude, arrogant tourists who swarm the place every second month. All said and done, I thought they made some wonderfully warm strangers, and I think they're like that with everyone, regardless of whether you're a tourist or a local.

What strikes you about Ladakh and the journey there is that most often you find yourself in what seems like the middle of nowhere. But there is nearly always something that is arrestingly beautiful about these vast and numerous nowheres, and chances are that you will look around you with your mouth agape and an awe-stricken look on your face.

It is easy to lose yourself in a land like Ladakh. The more you see of it, the more aware of yourself you become. To live there is a constant challenge. Everything the Ladakhis do seems foreign to us because at the best of times, we cannot imagine living in the conditions they do. To visit Ladakh is to set yourself a physical, emotional and mental challenge at the end of which you feel a strong, heady sense of accomplishment.

Update! [Search Party Wanted for the Research Team]

Everybody!

It's great to see that this place is finally buzzing and that posts are flowing in, albeit by a select few only....Hope that will change sooner than later...

Please do remember to label the place along with your name.

So when you post, put it like this... Riya, Kashmir, Pangong, etc...and whatever else is required...
Though this seems a bit lame and pointless right now, when we finally get to sorting out content place-wise and segment wise, it'll help... As of now, I've updated everyones posts with the labels, but please do the needful from here on...

I agree with Mini when she says that this place is getting some amazing stuff and that soon we might just need a forum to exchange thoughts...the content we're getting is amazingly written and very intense and that's awesome, but *screams* RESEARCH!?!!! WHERE ARE YOU GUYS!?


Anyway, great start, but we need to move faster...

Keep going, and good luck :)

Riya

Update!

I think we should have a fixed set of labels or have names only. Or a mix of the two. I can't figure it out so please do give in some suggestions. The labels are useful because we can help compartmentalize a lot of the content we put onto the blog and it'll make it easier to crosscheck, reference and for the research and content folks as well.

Maybe we can have the following labels....



General - Thoughts on the Trip [for posts that are not about any single place, but about some observations or other matter of that type]

- Updates

- Experiences [which can include funny incidences, sad stuff, happy stuff, etc etc...more personal emotion-based.]

- Various other labels like History, Geography, Natural History, Politics, Culture, Issues...

Maybe if the different teams could come up with particular labels for what they require we can keep everything on track easier than just posting and searching through all the posts later.
This is meant to be a forum where everyone for every group can check on the happenings of the whole project, and so it'd help if updates were regular and people contributed continuously.

Remember, 7th morning, the content team needs to have all the material to start proof reading and editing. Please do start posting asap.

Also, please clarify if it's better to put our names at the end of each post or as separate labels. I think separate labels will be better, so at a glance any of us can pick out posts that we want.

Opinions/suggestions/pointers / POSTS are welcome!

Cheers!

Riya

The Many Faces of Kashmir

Everywhere you go in Kashmir, you see the military presence that promises to ruin even the sunniest of days. No matter how you slice it, the very fact that there are soldiers and army personnel around leave you feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and seem to serve as a constant reminder that Kashmir is one of the most conflict stricken areas in India today.

However, there is something deceptively serene about a number of places in Kashmir. If you take a walk down the botanical gardens, or if you spend some time on a shikara on Dal Lake, you wouldn't for a moment believe that this part of the country could be witness to such bloodshed and strife. You'll hear the birds singing, the water gushing past the oars of the boat, you'll see beautifully silhouetted mountains in the distance, and brilliant flowers everywhere you go, and you'll wonder not once, but many times about how this particular paradise could ever have seen death and destruction.

Talking to the people, however, will fill in the gaps. We had the rare chance to visit Kashmir University and meet with a few students there. After a tour around what is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful campuses in India, we met five wonderfully chirpy students of the English faculty and another excellent bunch of law students. They spoke freely and without any inhibitions about any matters in question. The law professor who spoke to us was in an especially precarious position because he had his students on one hand and us outsiders on the other. But he maintained a wonderfully neutral and humane stance, and I think the world should have more professors like that to make it a better place. The session was intense and many times we could feel their anger, resentment and bitterness about the past and the future of Kashmir because of what they saw as India's shortcomings.

There has never been a time before this when I questioned my integrity as an Indian. These were my thoughts that night:

This is my land too. Part of the country I was born in. This place is part of what makes India whole. And yet I am ashamed at how completely clueless and ignorant I am about the trials my countrymen here face. I am ashamed that we as a country could not find a way to allow them to feel they belong here. I am ashamed because this is my loss too. This is my problem too.

I do not feel like I belong here. I feel different. I feel like this is not part of anything I know or am familiar with. And this is not something I consider good. Wherever else I may go in India, I know I will feel at home within the differences. Here the difference is of another kind. It's more of a barrier and a brick wall than anything else.

This is no longer an issue of borders, of strange demarcations or fights over land. We have pushed these people away from us, and so we have created the difference, built the gulf of unfamiliarity. As Indians, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

When the Kashmiris choose autonomy over being past of India, we should allow ourselves no surprise. This is our fault, for being so ignorant and so completely at ease in our little worlds that we have forgotten to include this state in our thoughts. We are content not knowing the brutalities our own people face, because they're so far away. We believe the lies that the media feeds us. We are content, because we don't want to share in their agony.

When Kashmir chooses autonomy, it is India that will weep.


Many people I've spoken to have told me that it is not India's fault that the Kashmiris want a separate state and that it doesn't concern the common man. By that logic, nothing that happens anywhere in India has anything to do with any of us as citizens of this nation.
All they want is for people to hear them, hear their voices and speak as one people and call for peace. Shame that something that appears so simple in essence is something we can't do without turning our heads away and telling ourselves that things are beyond repair, and that those matters don't concern us.

Stranger Strangers

Twenty days.

Twenty days in another world, another universe. Parts of which I never knew existed. Places I never could have imagined held so much beauty. People and a way of life so foreign and so different from everything I knew before.

I am still in a trance of some sort. I can't understand or explain what it feels like to suddenly be ensconced in a new place among people who look at you like you are the stranger in their midst. This is probably because when I reached there, I was looking at them like they were the aliens. When reality struck, I came to the conclusion that I was a foreigner on my own soil.

This realisation, that you are the stranger, and not the people around you, dawns very slowly.
In Kashmir, the enlightenment comes in the form of hot-blooded youth who rebel against the army and security forces they see as oppressive. In Ladakh, you stand apart because you see the distinctly East Asian features that dominate everywhere, making you feel like you've entered Tibet, or China when you weren't looking.

Yes, I felt like a stranger on my own soil.