The pilgrimage

 As you travel on the impressive roads of Ladakh, enjoying the barren beauty, the rich silence and the redolent emptiness of this high-altitude desert, almost on the roof of the world, you come across many workers along the way, working on road repairs.

These are contract labourers hired for keeping the roads in shape. They work across the seasons. In winters, they remove snow to allow mobility on the roads. In summers, they pick up stones that have glided down the slopes from above, repair cuts made by glacial melts, or work at places where the valley-side support and embankments of the roads have given way.

They are working day in and day out.

A majority of them are women—broad in structure, short in stature, but mountainous in spirit and willpower to add something extra to their meagre incomes and run their homes.

These Ladakhi women, ranging from the young to even those in their sixties, can be found working in groups at intervals along roads throughout Ladakh, in almost every direction.

They wear dark clothes, trousers, heavy jackets and sunshades to protect themselves from the biting winds and dusty conditions.

They are so diligent in their work, going about it slowly and steadily.

Since we have been exploring Ladakh, we have seen them in many avatars—mostly working, picking up stones, handling shovels and pickaxes; sometimes taking their lunch, sometimes having tea, sometimes resting and chatting while the mountain winds howl around them or vehicles speed past.

But on this particular day, when we travelled from Padum towards Phugtal Monastery, there was something special in the air.

Apart from the work they had been doing, there was something celebratory in nature, almost as if it were a festival.

In the morning, as we passed these groups, we could see the little ornate low tables that Ladakhi people use for having tea while sitting on the ground. Little carpets had been laid beside the road. There were baskets of eatables and bundles of clothes.

The women were working, but we thought that perhaps something interesting was going to happen later in the day. It seemed as though they were waiting for something special during the latter half.

And all along the route, for fifty or sixty kilometres until we reached the point where we had to leave the main road towards Phugtal Monastery, we found groups of women waiting in anticipation—working, but working with a pleasant casualness, as if they were looking forward to something special later in the day.

Along the little hamlets and villages, we also came across groups of men attired in their traditional Ladakhi dresses, carrying musical instruments and drums, preparing for something.

So we thought perhaps there was a wedding they were going to attend.

At a small restaurant on the way, run by a very energetic Ladakhi woman who was sharp in tongue and good in humour, everybody seemed to be in a hurry.

It was around eleven in the morning, and when we asked whether something was available for breakfast, they said, “We are in a hurry today.”

But they did not explain why.

So there must be something special, we thought.

But we had no clue about what was going to come.

The woman running the place was short, with a very smart face, perhaps in her forties. She had the tongue to give it back to anyone, but always with a smile. She had that smartness.

She ordered her helper to at least serve us tea.

So we had tea there.

We were carrying our own biscuits and snacks, so we had them with the tea and then started our journey onwards into the inner valley.

From near the village, the Tsarap River system carried its waters down through the mountains, and farther inside lay Phugtal Monastery.

We went there, and after spending three or four hours amid the beautiful majesty and mysticism of Phugtal Monastery—where generations of monks had lived through snowbound seclusion and kept the sanctity of Buddhism and its traditional knowledge alive and thriving to this day—we came back in the afternoon, rich and fulfilled in a beautiful way.

And when we returned to the same little cafeteria-cum-restaurant, the place had completely changed.

It was buzzing with dozens of men and women in a festive environment.

There was music.

Ladakhi men were dressed in robes of maroon and other dark shades of red. The women were in their extensively embellished and ornamented traditional wear—exquisite dresses—and everybody was moving around with such anticipation and joy.

It was the kind of joy little children have when they know they are going to participate in games, or when they are going to enjoy a day at a fair or a fun park.

I took permission from them to make videos and take photographs, and they were so happy to allow it.

There is hardly any insecurity or inhibition in that part of the world.

They seem free from many of the modern bugs that we, the people from the plains, frequently encounter. Here, we often look at anybody approaching us with a request with suspicion and a sense of separation. There is so much cut-throat competition that we almost take it for granted that whoever comes to us must have some ulterior motive.

But there, in that openness, the Ladakhi people, with their beautiful culture of accommodation and their religion promoting loving-kindness, do not seem to have been bitten by this bug.

And we had a free hand at photographing and videographing the little festival.

Then I asked someone what the occasion was.

He told me that a very senior lama, a Rinpoche, was travelling from Manali to Padum that day.

And these people, wherever there was a Ladakhi Buddhist settlement—whether on this side of Shinku La Pass or on the other side towards Himachal Pradesh—had been lining up since morning, full of joy and reverence, to welcome the honoured and learned man, the revered Rinpoche.

Suddenly, everything we had seen in the morning made sense.

When we started back on our journey towards Padum, the women whom we had earlier seen sitting in anticipation and working casually had now put away their working clothes.

They had changed into their traditional costumes, so deeply symbolic of their ancient culture.

The same women whom we had seen handling stones, shovels and pickaxes in the morning were now sitting beside the road around little ornate, colourful tables, having tea ceremonies, bantering and joking.

There was so much lightness in the air.

Whenever we reached a little hamlet, there would be a larger gathering of people. Pickups and jeeps stood waiting for the honoured Rinpoche to arrive so that they too could join the convoy.

The men were beating drums.

The women were singing.

And we witnessed the same spectacle for fifty or sixty kilometres, almost all the way back towards Padum.

Wherever there was even the smallest human habitation, people had gathered along the road in their best traditional costumes, enjoying those moments as though it were a festival.

It was such a lively thoroughfare in the wilderness.

The brown stones looked tiny in comparison with the indomitable joy and faith of these people, as if these mountains had not been successful in subduing their spirits for generations.

Nature might give them the harshest of conditions, but these people would stick to their ancient culture, their religious beliefs, their respect and almost godly reverence for their Rinpoches and lamas, and their ancient identity that defines their uniqueness as such a distinct culture.

It was a lovely experience witnessing all this on our journey back towards Padum.

Ladakh is full of mysteries.

The more you wander, the more it opens up.

But the more it opens up, the more questions it puts on the platter.

It is almost like a teasing, mischievous beauty, seductively pouting and always inviting:

“Come after me. Come after me.

You will not get me in totality.

But the pursuit will be worth it.”

And pursuing we have been this beautiful landscape.

Every answer Ladakh gives seems to produce another invitation to wander farther.

A place where Mahadiddha Naropa meditated

 Ladakh is a beautiful landscape—a high-altitude desert. It is very appealing to souls that feel congested, overcrowded and stuffed into narrow boxes in urban landscapes.

The moment you step into Ladakh, you feel its vast emptiness. There is no competition. There is silence speaking through the mountain winds. It seems to embrace you, giving you the peace that is so much required.

You feel decongested.

So no wonder modern humans, who have been pushed into crowded corners by the competitive edges of modern society, are flocking to Ladakh like never before.

My brother and I visit Ladakh every year during the summers—to recharge our batteries, to feel the emptiness, to experience the unmanifest divinity prevailing everywhere. Its unique culture, its peace-loving people, the joy on their faces, their contentment—you can feel it.

So this is about my experience in Zanskar Valley this time.

Earlier, the road to Zanskar was a long, circuitous route from Leh to Kargil first, and then from Kargil to Zanskar Valley. It was a very long journey through treacherous roads. It would take almost the entire day, possibly even requiring a stopover at Kargil, so that you would reach Zanskar the next day.

But now the Border Roads Organisation, which has been doing a wonderful job developing infrastructure in this high-altitude, lofty desert adorned with high mountain peaks, passes, snow-clad slopes, rocks and challenging barrenness, has transformed connectivity.

It is a very tough job.

Now there is a smooth road connecting towards Padum in Zanskar, the main town of Zanskar Valley. What was once a formidable journey has become a matter of a few hours of comparatively smooth riding through this magnificent landscape.

The Zanskar River cuts through the mountains before eventually reaching the Indus near Leh, at the famous Indus-Zanskar confluence.

Zanskar is a completely different kind of cultural and geographical entity, even within Ladakh. It has its own unique culture, which has been retained to a remarkable extent, even in comparison with the rest of Ladakh.

One major reason is its historical isolation.

Till relatively recently, people would walk along the frozen Zanskar River. They would travel for almost two weeks and stay in caves along the route. I met so many people who had taken this journey during their childhood or youth, walking for almost fifteen days on the frozen Zanskar River.

Since Zanskar remained so isolated even from the rest of Ladakh, you can still see ancient Ladakhi culture in its houses, costumes, in the way people look at life—in the entire cultural landscape. It appears still more distinct and ancient-looking than much of the rest of Ladakh.

But the Zanskar River provides an amazing, curvaceous flow through valleys and floodplains where you find surprising stretches of greenery. In fact, a few villages were so green that it was almost unimaginable to look at those green patches from the top of a hill and remember that you were travelling through a high-altitude desert.

Then there are the famous monasteries, like Shongdey Monastery, standing high on a cliff. The famous Phugtal Monastery is also reached through this wider Zanskar landscape.

We visited many of these monasteries, and travelling around on a mountain bike is an unparalleled experience. You roam through Zanskar’s valleys and villages and ride along tough mountain roads—some maintained, some just unmetalled—until you reach a monastery on the top of a high hill.

And from there, you simply look down into the panorama.

One place, however, stands out.

Dzongkul Monastery

It lies roughly thirty to thirty-five kilometres from Padum, and we rode our bike towards this place through a beautiful passage across villages and open landscapes.

After the opening of roads, everything has picked up such a fast pace of development that you can already see that Zanskar will soon become much more connected and urbanized.

Poetically, you might think that we are losing the pristine touch of nature.

But merely for our poetic sentiments, we cannot deny these people the opportunity to enjoy the modern amenities and facilities of life.

These are people whose ancestors spent their entire lives in snow-bound, inaccessible recesses. For generations, their gateway to the outside world could involve the frozen river during winter or difficult routes during summer, journeys that could take many days.

You can imagine how limited and how tough life must have been.

And now they are happy to see this change.

You can see their happiness and joy. There are new buildings, hotels, tourism and new sources of income. They are opening up.

Yes, this isolated part of the world is losing some of its solitude.

But we cannot expect these people to remain in ancient times just for us tourists, so that we can occasionally arrive and enjoy their remoteness and ancient feeling.

That is not justified.

They deserve modern amenities as much as anyone travelling from the plains does.

So we have to accept this fact: things will change everywhere, in every nook and corner of this planet, even in high-altitude deserts full of solitude.

Things will change.

There will be more crowds. There will be development.

That is inevitable.

These are simply the forces of change, as Buddha says.

Travelling towards Dzongkul Monastery, the road passes through beautifully spread-out parts of Zanskar Valley, through big villages, some of them quite prosperous because agriculture is possible there. The river system takes definite shape nearby, its streams broadening as they move through the landscape.

The Tsarap River comes through the lofty mountains, and on one of the remote tributary valleys associated with this river system stands one of the most remote monasteries in the world—Phugtal Monastery.

The waters eventually become part of the Zanskar River system. From here onwards, the Zanskar cascades down through its magnificent valley to reach the Indus—to submit its ferocity, submit its fluidity, submit its flow to the Indus River.

As we rode our bike on recently metalled, smooth roads, enjoying the beautiful ribbon of road spread between high mountains on both sides and the river nearby, we crossed little hamlets.

And then we came across a stone crusher belching stone dust into the pristine Ladakhi skies.

That stood as a contrast.

A dusty stone crusher, stones being crushed, that crunching sound of human endeavour to tame nature.

It appeared very, very odd in that landscape.

Poetically, there can be a feeling of sadness, of losing something. But again, you cannot deny these people what the rest of the world is enjoying.

So we have to accept change.

And we moved onward.

The last phase of the road towards Dzongkul Monastery goes across a very remote hillside overlooking a fast, glittering glacial stream. As we rode, we saw groups of yaks along the way, because this monastery is located in a very deep corner full of solitude.

When we reached there, we could see construction going on.

The monastery, of course, has every right to add to its facilities. The monks deserve the facilities that the rest of humanity enjoys.

There were migrant labourers from the North Indian plains working there, while the monks were supervising the work.

We met a young monk, almost a teenager. He was from a village down in the valley. The monasteries traditionally have disciples and monks from surrounding villages. Earlier, there was a tradition in which a family would give one of its boys to a monastery, helping keep the monastic lineage alive and the monasteries functioning.

We had a nice conversation with him.

Then he pointed towards the cave of Mahasiddha Naropa, high on the hill at some distance from the monastery.

It is here that the great Buddhist yogi Mahasiddha Naropa is believed to have meditated about a thousand years ago.

The path to this cave, set deep within a stony recess high on the hill, was very steep, ascending through a long flight of rough stone steps. Some had simply been cut into the surface, while others had been laid with cement and mortar.

It is a tough climb.

But it is worth it.

As I reached there, the cave stood out with its ancient imprint.

There are so many stories about Mahasiddha Naropa possessing mystical powers and developing extraordinary capabilities through yoga and Tibetan Buddhist tantra.

Tradition says that wherever he meditated, whether in Ladakh or Tibet, he could place his hand against the hard stone wall of a cave and leave an imprint of his hand there.

So many places associated with him carry this kind of spiritual branding.

Inside that approximately thousand-year-old cave, the stones have been blackened by centuries of incense and lamps. A brass idol of Mahasiddha Naropa looks upon you with spiritual intensity.

I sat down there to meditate.

And I could make out that it was a very high-energy place.

I feel that caves have the potential to retain the original frequency of a Mahasiddha who has meditated there, because there is greater stability in the earth element in comparison with air, water and the other elements.

Once a Mahasiddha has established himself at a certain frequency, a certain lightness of being, and has gone into profound meditative trances at a place, the entire cave can become a kind of yantra—a spiritual yantra, a spiritual tool—where energy has been stabilized and established in a specific form.

It then becomes a spiritual tool capable of energizing and providing energy to those who approach it with openness, with good intention and with full faith.

The moment you start meditating at such a place, you are plugging into that spiritual machinery, that spiritual yantra.

And it does for you whatever needs to be done for your evolution, for your consciousness, for the evolution of your consciousness.

At whatever platform of your evolution you are, you will get what you specifically need.

That is the beauty of such places.

So as I sat down to meditate, within a few minutes I could feel the energies pleasantly taking over my system, reshaping my energetic structure, aligning it in a better way so that my spiritual journey could become smoother.

It was a very blissful experience.

I felt a very strong and powerful energy overtaking my conscious system, like a mother cradling her child, taking utmost care to keep the child safe while still nourishing it.

The same was happening to me.

I spent about one hour there and allowed the energies to restructure, realign and reshape my energetic structure—to give me better chances on the path of evolution, on the path of understanding and wisdom, so that I could get more light in life.

Naropa cave at Dzonkul monastery in Suru valley of Zanskar.