Tag: ladakh

Mountains

Kang Yatse 1 – Icy domes and dusty roads

Expedition to Kang Yatse 1 peak, Ladakh, India

There’s stasis on the face of it as one looks at the panorama from a mountaintop on a clear morning… all the snow-covered peaks and glaciers spewing out of their cold slopes brooding deep till the sun warms them up into frothing rivers down below… somewhere between the transition of ice into water, the elements …

Mountains

Ice stupa and its summer farewell

Ice stupa in Ladakh, India

Ice stupa, a progeny of the climate crisis… perhaps nothing is as adaptive as traditional wisdom when it comes to making the most of limited natural resources, but then this cul-de-sac called the Anthropocene comes about, leaving communities flummoxed, and livelihoods in peril… ‘Tis always enlightening to see subsistence farming in Ladakh, mushrooms of green …

Art & Culture, Mountains

Chortens and their chores…

Chortens are one of those religious structures that are universally revered, a harbinger of constructive contemplation – one that leads towards inner peace through reminiscent journeys – these trapezoids stacked over one another and topped with a crown are but Buddha posing himself they say… a structural representation of different stages of his mortal journey… …

Mountains, Nature

On blues of the blue sheep…

Himalayan Blue Sheep, Ladakh, J&K, India

Quite literally, the blue sheep lives on the edge… marvel many a folk at the sheer nonchalance of the caprid in the face of vertical walls… yet ‘tis a rather ironic quest for safety, for even the most exceptional climbing skills or large herd numbers fail to get them out of that twitchy demeanour – …

Mountains, Nature

postulates on divinity…

Divnity atop Kandi Galu Notch (~3,600 mts), Great Himalayan National Park, Himachal Pradesh India

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. – John Muir the leitmotif of any mountain, any protrusion that can make its surroundings feel insignificant, would unarguably be divinity… the sanctitude offered by the higher climes more often that not …