The tiny subsets within the cosmic set

 

We are connected to the larger dimensions of super-consciousness through the shadows in our subconscious. The latter mostly serves as the soil of manifestation, our consciousness, the platform of our conscious being, the awareness of our individual awareness, the sense of our identity.

The super-conscious is nothing yet everything at the same time. It is just pure potential, a probability for infinite manifestations. Our individual subconscious is just a tiny ripple in the super-conscious cosmic sea. With our conscious being we can perceive its vague shadows. These unresolved shadows flippantly drive our impulses, habits, fears, insecurities, desires, dreams, imagination. The acrid substratum smell casting its invisible layers over the fragrance of lovely spring around us. Life then seems just a random series of confronting coincidences.

There is a significant part of negative forces in the subconscious that works as a check-dam on the life-stream of manifestation at the conscious level. These shadows acquire the shape of invisible ghostly army that keeps ambushing the troops of our conscious effort to create and manifest a really meaningful life in broad daylight.

The shadows in our being. The antagonistic vituperations. A weird exasperation flaring up. Life becomes dreadfully wearied and perpetually harassed. Instead of becoming a nice storyteller, one is flung into the miserable, tattered corners of life in survival mode only. Self-tarnished. Turmoil and dissention within. Enthusiasm peters out.              

I think writing or journaling—or for that matter any form of art involving creation—is a very constructive means of allowing those unmanifested shadows to acquire shape and be present before us. The hidden impulses, fears, cravings and insecurities get embodied and stand there in front of us. We can then see them with clarity and analyze the pattern of our negativities.

Creative expression through art is a mirror in which the creator can have a specific outline of the haunting shadows that have tormented his soul and manipulated behavior. Because once you face something, it becomes very easy to deal with it. The fault lines within are put into light. The friction, the conflict, the restlessness all of them acquire a tangible shape that is clearly readable. The whirlpool of random energies that has been meaninglessly churning pain within gets an outlet. There is a release of the pent-up energies of pain like lava seeping out of a vent, avoiding an explosion.

Art is basically a vent on the existential surface of the artist. It slowly spews out the lava of discontent, unorthodox ideas, unique dreams, offbeat desires, alternative realities and exquisite imagination. That’s why art is so cherished and condemned simultaneously. It’s worshipped by the few for being a fresh manifestation, a goddess of originality. But it’s condemned as a rebel also for not yielding to the collective mass reality. But the artist still takes risks because outer condemnation is nothing in comparison to the inner damnation if it isn’t allowed to be manifested.  

 

Walking in the lane of solitude

 

The sense of freedom is the sum total of all the elements of self-interest in the domain of life. Mostly, this is counterbalanced by customs, social norms, rules, responsibilities and duties. The rampant horse of freedom is reined-in and runs, trots, walks or gently jogs on the path of life. As a result, life has a conformist, sweet-sour, lukewarm meaning: not all good; not all bad—a conventional cocktail of survival.

Here, in the main lane, one acts, thinks or behaves almost like what all others are doing. But there are individuals whose sense of freedom overlaps the collective mould. They find it too confining. The little rebels they are.

It’s a blizzard of a peculiar type of energies that pushes one into unorthodox lanes promising walks on fresh pastures further on. But these little lanes, by-lanes and back alleys have a puzzling network.

Walking in such abandoned lane, one needs to have a very strong sense of the meaning of his/her unorthodox sense of self-interest; otherwise, it turns out to be a disorderly ramble into the unknown leading to isolation, loneliness and depression.

One ought to have a clear idea where it might lead to in the absence of conventional cushion supports of relationships, routine jobs, occupations, social networks, peer groups and the rest of collective cushion support naturally born of conforming to the sense of collectivism.

It’s a walk in isolation and only a sense of definite meaning serves as an inner compass to help one navigate the unchartered territory. But even when you are successful in crossing over to the lovely pasture across the maze, you realize that it’s never about severing all links and exist as an abstracted entity. You will find that connection is unavoidable on earth. To be a human is to share and connect in one form or the other.

We carry too much collective Homo sapiens-ness in our genes. So the best way out, in my opinion, is to maintain a healthy balance between individuality and collective identity. A well-honed sense of equilibrium is the way out. You have to set-up your own sense of individuality and meaning of life in the collective pool of human existence in a well-poised, harmonized manner.

The best path is the middle path between extreme individualism and callous collectivism.; between absolute freedom and sweetly binding responsibilities; between giving and taking; between free run and protocol-led walk. A juicily well-occasioned existence in the form of a reasonably independent part of a defining whole.   

The galactic tango

 

It happened when the current universe was rather young. A huge star loitered too close to a super-massive black hole. Aah, the perils of proximity! It was torn apart with cosmic brutality, its proud mass shredded to pieces. Catastrophic and carnage wreaking. Its burning pyre, the blasting flare, shone with a brightness that would equal ten trillion suns.

The black hole had cosmic tools of cataclysm—tangled magnetic fields in heated gas disks—around it. It happened ten billion light years away from earth (one light year is about six trillion miles). It occurred so long ago and so far away that its flash reached an observatory on earth in 2025 only. The explosion happened when the universe was young and there was no earth. Just imagine the scale of cosmic events. Doesn’t that signify our insignificance in the galactic scheme of things?

A galaxy has a super-massive black hole at its center that gives it a spin like it’s revolving around an axis. O thou habitual chest-thumper, just imagine the power of such a black hole that keeps billions of stars around it in a colossal orbit. So the next time when you feel the weight of your own or someone else’s ego or pride or get blinded by someone’s grotesquely coquettish, towering light poles, just recall these mammoth facts. Then everything will get leveled up.

Just remember that everything and everyone are smaller than the sky above. Similarly, whatever happens on this tiny speck of dust—our little home, earth—is utterly, absolutely inconsequential in comparison to these cosmic behemoths.

All that we do is merely innocuous, impotent rant and cacophony. The funny and vainglorious humanity with its vaporous fumblings. So cast-n-crew, go on with your rabbits-out-of-hat-tricks, but always remember the above given colossal facts.

The invincible threads of life

 

Human endurance is a mere fraction of what many species on earth possess in terms of survival against odds. We claim superiority through incessant verbosity, while they—the smaller species—covered in dusty layers of neglect perform superhero feats with humility and natural ease. Nothing to boast and flaunt the flagrant colors of ego born of the super achievement.

Now it comes to light that the moss—yes, the ordinary tiniest plants found in shady, damp places—possesses extraordinary resilience. Moss ancestors were the earliest covering or clothing of life on what was then a baby earth, just emerging from the onslaught of hot lava. It was the harshest environment when life took soft baby steps in the form of moss, giving mother earth its first layer of clothing.

In 2022, scientists put a handful of moss spores on the outer walls of the International Space Station. The 20,000 moss spores remained exposed to the harshest elements of open space for more than nine months. After that they were brought back to earth and put to tests in a laboratory. Almost ninety percent of them had survived and germinated.

The reproductive tissue in a moss spore is safely hidden under multiple layers of spore walls. Marvelous self-fashioning! The exotic regalia of its well-protected procreative urge. The astounding will to survive. And still we brag about our armored vehicles even after coming across such humbling facts of mother nature!

We the master crafters creating juggernauts with sawdust, varnish, tar, paint, seasoning wood. While the moss simply has an inert shield against cosmic forces.

If we learn our lesson well, it might help in developing ‘sustainable life-support systems’ in space. Maybe the lessons from moss resilience will help in generating oxygen, controlling humidity and forming soil in space.  

Enhancing one's individual cause

 

It’s human to be self-centered. Bristling denizens and opaque stalwarts as we humans are. That’s how we have evolved. That defines our approach and attitude to life.

This narrow linearity of our dreams, desires and ambitions is comforting and assuring on the surface. But like all comfort zones it sets up big limitations on what one can accomplish because one erects very strong and high walls between his particular life and the rest of existence. It will be just a peripheral photograph of the lovely broad panorama out there.

If we dilute the boundary by linking our interest with some larger cause—however small that may be—beyond ourselves, we open ourselves to the grace of positive factors that in fact boost our individual ambitions instead of limiting them.

For example, suppose you are fighting for success in business, politics or elite jobs. If you link your fate—the success that you want to achieve—with someone needy, let’s say some bright student from a poor family, or a special child from a needy family and decide to support that child—however small the monthly amount might be—you broaden the horizon of your personal endeavor.

Now you are not walking on a razor-sharp individualistic line. A unique credence blooms in the orchard of your private project. It’s as good as walking on the sacred sands of the cross-cultural path of humanity. You are walking on a nice broader path involving love, ambition, kindness and altruism.

By linking your hard work with the fate of some disadvantaged child, you become a greater creator than what you would have been if you had just thought about yourself only and thus limited the input-out equation strictly to your fate.

So pursue your ambitions as much as you can o thou tactical genius. That’s your right. But you have a duty to your true version—your larger self. And that duty is to walk on a broader path instead of the knife-edge of strictly personalized interest.

So slog hard, earn money, set-up empires, become a big shot. Go for paramount search in disused quarries with your own self-created striking nuances. No problem. But as you invest your soul in your project (input), link the process to some poor fate (by promising to yourself that you will be giving this much money or support to help that disadvantaged fate).

It’s my word that the output will be so much that even after deducting the charity amount you will still make big profits.

Favors federated to those more near to ground than ourselves fetch many direct-indirect benefits. This is no sterile lesson by a traditionalist. It’s herbal soup prepared by a conscience-stricken chef for the nourishment of soul.

The AI-empowered femininity

 

In the human-centric world, during the current era which started around 4000 years ago (when Homo sapiens started to control the ways and means of life on earth), the males of the alpha species on earth have been the dominant force in shaping cultures, institutions, economics, politics, occupations or for that matter whatever stands as the defining feature of the modern world.

The dominant physical force of the males has subdued the role of females as contributing factors—rather than the deciding one—to the development of human society on earth. But things are rapidly changing now. The blizzard of male force has overspent itself through wars, intrigues, disasters, natural hazards, atrocities and genocides at the collective level.

The men carry the evil consequences at the individual level as well. They have led, driven by blind ambition and ego, very undisciplined lives. They smoke, drink, fight, brawl more than the women. As a result, the physical system of the males has degraded more than that of the females. In almost all the societies, the women have better longevity than the men. In my village itself there are hundreds of men who have perished before their wives. The old women are still enjoying blissful old age while the men are gone long time back. The husbands over-drank and over-smoked themselves to death.

This waywardness in men has eroded their physical and mental capabilities as well. Even in deeply conservative societies, the women, using their emotional strength, have slowly acquired better role and position because men have failed in their patriarchal roles. And in a family where women’s effort and opinion carry a bigger weight in running the affairs, obviously the position of the girl child improves. So the female child is getting better education, more balanced nutrition and enhanced career options. We have now more women in jobs, politics, sports and business.

I think the position of men will continue coming down. The women will have more share in power—from managing households to running countries. It’s a slow progression to a gender-equal society. It may still go ahead to turn a global matriarchy within a century. We have a huge database involving facts, figures and analysis about the men’s wrong treatment of the women since historical times. In the future world—with algorithms picking up new versions of reality on the basis of facts and data fed into them—the AI might end up considering itself to be a feminine entity, viewing itself as something new, a fresh step in evolution, the natural as well as scientific progression.

Database is the soul of the AI body. And the soul of the AI body of course will be biased towards the women because of the substantiated facts of the men’s wrongdoings. The algorithms going into the historical chambers reeking with masculine nastiness and evil secrecy might churn out feminine-centric (full of angst against men as a separate entity) solutions and applications. So when the AI will be the deciding force, it will obviously pick up a pro-women system of knowledge—and its practical application—that will further help the women in acquiring more influence in running the show on this planet.

It’s just the completion of circle. A natural thing. A new deity on the archival altar. A new swiping narrative: impassioned, poetic emotional rollercoaster and comprehensive sensitivity for the cause of the women as the historically subdued and exploited species. A unique circulation in the evolution of consciousness. A super-physical bond between the human females and the AI.

‘You will stand where I stand today,’ as someone said. So I expect it to be a matrilineal society after a few decades. Manliness linked to barbarism and femininity related to entitlement born of man-induced privations. The women with the fragrance of sweet, wild water. The men, the cacti and thorn. The moral sand dunes will shift and old moralities barely affordable. A buxom femaleness would set up new-age feminine paradigms.    

The empowered self

 

The real power is the power and control over one’s own self. Seeking power outside—through authority, influence, wealth, networks and relationships—is simply avoiding the reality through a pseudo-reality.

Real power lies in facing one’s own dark side.

Real power means the capability to control our impulses, fears and insecurities. It’s the power to dispel the shadows of the worst in us.

What lies in us is the pure potential. It’s beyond the categorization of good and bad. It can go either way. It can turn into a thorn; it can blossom into a flower.

Real power means to checkmate the ‘wrong’ inside and allow the ‘right’ to germinate, sprout, blossom and ripen. Once that happens, the reflection of that power within will be a lovely manifestation on the outside. It will be a sweet fruit for others to cherish. Then you share and care.

Once the source of darkness inside vanishes, you spread light outside.

What does god want to convey through this unflinching periodicity of light and dark? In eloquent intimacy with light, darkness is just a background shade and this existence just a combinatorial cosmic saga.

To become really powerful we just need to be aware of the possibilities of good and bad within our own self. Like a farmer trying to control the weeds and nourishing his crops. A harvesting of the potential within. To raise a crop, a fruitful one. Fruitful for one’s own self and helpful for others as well. The latter occurs of its own once life becomes meaningful.  

Stepping into the zone of freedom

 

The heady scent of wild flowers, shrubs and grasses under the open sky. Peace pouring from every chink of sky. Silence coded in the lullabies sung by a soft breeze. Free, frank and honest; nothing to hide. Ultimately esoteric. Primarily unselfconscious. An openness to life.

Freedom layered over the scented air. The unqualified, artistic oeuvre of mother nature, the paragon of ultimate virtue.

Brushstrokes of an esoteric poetic protest against cutting-edge modernism. A soft singsong opposition to the radicalizing, egocentric onslaught of the same age-old, decadent thoughts and ideologies masquerading as new-age panacea and illustrious propaganda. The new-age repackaged piousness peppering the same evil of the old, sidestepping love, beauty and truth.

One can just be aware of it—freedom—and inhale as much as one wants. Aware with the lucidity of the full moon in the heart of night. And with it will arrive, naturally, softness and acceptance of what one is; and respect and belief in what one can become.

O ye all those who carry heavy air around you (the ego itching with lice, nits, ticks and fleas of rampant desires and untamed fears), invigoration and lightness lie just a step away. It’s not in the ego-dog’s pursuit of meat pasties. It’s there lying on the tender blades of grass jeweled with free diamonds of dew.

Take a step and claim your bonus. For a change, turn your head away from the wobbly scramble, flimsy and wispy shine of futile fragilities, drop that contentious gaze and look into the delicate mist of the truth. Loose and vague abstractions get straightened to achieve an almost equal felicity with the ultimate truth. 

Memories

 

Memories melting to flow like ravaging mountain streams, cutting gorges in the heart, throwing boulder chunks of my unstable self. And my identity would fall like fragile mountain slopes.

It would feel like the streams were unmaking me. But that was just the beginning. One shouldn’t analyze too early even if the slopes of your identity are falling in avalanches and landslides. They were fragile slopes.

As one will find later, the sand would be transported to fertile plains. The furious streams would acquire the curved gentility of maturity and wisdom in the plains.

The heavily laden stream of consciousness would feel and see the light. It would disburden its loaded self of the sediments, sand, gravel and dust of the painful past. It would flow with ease and comfort; settle down to a reliable identity. It would find its path very fruitful and meaningful—a ripening—so much so that it would be joyful in reaching home, the culmination of its journey, the destination, the bird-footed surrender to the sea’s loving receptive sprawl.

Then the boulders of memories, which were hacked away painfully from your tormented self, would become vapors in the sea. They would ride the fleeting clouds to travel far and wide, drifting with the whims of mischievous winds. They would then forget the former names, dates, enemies, lovers—the specifics—as they float in the formless generality.

But the elemental generalities remain. For nothing gets destroyed completely. It just transforms. They precipitate and again fall onto the ground to do the same, love and hate the same, cry and laugh the same in a new identity, new name, new costume, new belief, new faith, new set-up.

It feels like I’m simply as good as a molecule of water cycling and recycling endlessly. Forever. Here and there in this form and that. A mere turbulence, a tiny span, a brief pause between rigidities and surrender to a larger sprawl. A faint trace of symmetry in the utmost random fabric of eternity. A little cycle within cycles and still bigger cycles. A journey from an icy clog on mountain cliffs to water in the sea to a cloud. Then repetition of the same.

Just a pattern, a momentum, a habit of the unknown. A design born of unknown cosmic caveats. An incident-filled ripple—sometimes oppositional, sometimes collaborative.

The shadow and the substance

 

We keep believing that our paths are strictly separate and totally different. The apparent separation of substance on the surface is an illusion in reality.

The shadows—the real ones, more real than the surface substance—keep mixing in weird patterns, creeping into each other, encroaching, eclipsing, transforming in buffer zones.

It’s a ghostly flare of the shadows on substance, making it dance to its tunes. The shadows, casting squinting looks into human hearts, always chuck out the little clumps of substance (truth and beauty) huddled around like a clutter of privies, drooping with sorrow, whispering in silvery soft voices.

And multitudes of mirages (of opposites) are born due to this interplay of shadows and substance.

There are long-shimmering mesmerizing folk forms of life in troubled neighborhoods across which the tamed, hypnotized self treads with civic courage.

In the young self, there lie the shadows of his derelict grandparents.

Miles of metaphysical voyages cluttered around a single physical self.

The rigid, calm skeleton under the flesh brimming with volcanic tantrums.

Financial shenanigans on expansive real estates—highly ornate and mellifluous—shadowing squalid seaport slums festering with rottening abalone, fish, scallop, crab, clam, eel, prawn and some broken rice cooked with thrown-away chicken bones from the costly apartment not too far away.

The ambivalent heroes submitting to the divinity of desire and disgust.

All due to the mastering shadows riding the strong horses of substance.

The bookworm

 

As a bibliophile (defined as someone who reads to perceived excess) who devours books metaphorically, I have a feeling of kinship with my fellow bookworms who stay among the pages in books. In a world ever prone to smother lyricism, through quick entanglements, in favor of more squalor and harshness, a metaphorical bookworm musing over a real one presents a tiny piece of amusement. In a world obsessed with big fights for bigger stakes, the small carries an added significance.

So dear readers, let’s drop our ideological squiggles, critical and prescriptive outlook and egocentrical detailing to enjoy the restive promenades of tiny bookworms in the tantalizing obscurity of closed books in bookshelves. Pause in your proclivity to throw desperate die—as an escape from the reality by effort at coping with some false sense of inadequacy—to salvage some formulaic salability in this world of products, products and more products. Forget about work, worry and weariness and feel the definitive rhythm of a bookworm hiding among the pages of an old book while a restful reader carries on with his reading.

Mind you, when talking of book-dwelling insects, sometimes people generalize it too much and include larvae of beetles, moths, cockroaches and termites as bookworms as well. But they aren’t so in any sense of the term. They are outright destroyers, the criminal book-destroyers. They damage their own house out of sheer greed; just like we humans do with mother earth by using our comparatively bigger brains to hone sinister craftsmanship to exploit the littlest bit mother earth has to offer. Termites start eating the wooden shelf and later end up chucking-up the books as well.

The real, and most common, bookworms are the silverfish or booklice. They are ravishingly scrupulous in comparison to the book-destroyers. The personalized advocacy of the ‘will to live’ as a species doesn’t force them to craft and re-craft indignities to present them as natural survival instinct and thus take more than what is needed.

Maggots thrive in the muck. The bookworms, on the other hand, are the intellectual worms. They stay in the sea of words, the golden cocoon of knowledge and wisdom, eating sugar, starch, molds and glue.

It was feistier for them in the old times. The books had leather and cloth binding using glue having organic matter (maida or bleached wheat flour). Microscopic mold and fungi prospered in dank, dark libraries, archives and museums gorging on cellulose (plant fiber available in paper) and other polysaccharides like starches and dextrin. The bookworms had full privacy in dim, humid environment.

At their worst, they consume just the portions of books containing polysaccharides, leaving the paper slightly ragged at the edges, which seems even faintly artistic to a laidback and affectionate reader like me. Despite their full riot of life, the old tomes still remain readable. They take just as much as they need, which is very little in amount and hence still leaves the book readable. They aren’t voracious eaters either. A silverfish can survive without food for more than a year. Little fasting critters they are. Silvery sages with their attendant aura of a vague strain that develops when one’s self becomes free of impulsive forebodings rummaging through the psychosomatic system. 

The bookworms are silvery shining, segmented soft bodied insects, less than 1 mm in length, having six tiny lobster legs on the front part, two antennas on the front and three hind antennas jutting out from their silvery butt. The book dweller is a sophisticated little insect with two compound eyes. A note of caution. They are very agile fish in the sea of words. So one has to be exceedingly engrossed to see their anatomy in the fleeting seconds you have when you suddenly open the book and the little privacy-seeker creeps away.

A silverfish can live up to three years and is capable of regenerating its antenna within a few weeks if it loses one in case you snap shut a book, egged by some misspent mirth, too forcefully injuring the book dweller. On a crucial note, be gentle in opening and closing a book. It avoids maiming some silverfish. If you happen to maim a pair of lovemaking silverfishes, it’s heartbreakingly sad. Being caring and considerate in handling your book is culturally appropriate for the community of readers. Personally I find the sight of a silverfish in my book a juicy glimpse, a good omen to the start of a reading session.

They are even more ancient than the dinosaurs. In pre-historic times they survived by eating plant matter under the bark of trees. But there was a danger of being eaten by earwigs and spiders there. Inside the books, the risks are from restless readers and overcautious library keepers throwing pest control pills into the racks. 

They have complicated mating rituals. Love is all radiant, exotically unfolding and ruddy in its procreative folds from microscopic maters to the mammoth ones. The female silverfish produces many whitish oval eggs out of which white babies emerge to play among words penned by famous writers sleeping in the closed books with the timeless and mammoth ease of a mountain.

As a bibliophile, who gorges on open books, I have a feeling of familiarity and softness for the silverfishes who feast on a closed book. I don’t snap a book too forcefully to avoid injuring some lazy silverfish swimming in a sea of words. After all, it’s the little critter’s home. And I let out a plum exclamation when I see one.

Sometimes when I happen to see a silverfish scampering away to safety, as I open the grand spellbinder of a book, I just muse over the world of these small silvery beings. Little questions emerge. Does the nature of the silverfishes vary in accordance with the genre of the books they reside in? Are those who stay in poetry volumes softer than those tasting the paper in crime thrillers? Are there critters who share and feel Shelley’s moth-desire for the sun? Or the ones mirthing with spellbinding master satirists? Or the ones who feel affinity with speculative, craggily backboned desires dotted with human fallacies, creeks and coves? What about the marriage between two silverfishes from different types of books? What happens when a silverfish crosses over from a work of poetry to hardcore philosophy? Or from a science book to arts? I amuse myself by imagining a lively multi-ethnicity of books worms in my library.

I accept their presence in my books that my father bought decades ago. Generations of them, from young striplings to old crippling, staying in our old books.

Something staying, living, playing, procreating and dying among words and pages of a book acquires an august status in the eyes of this rural bibliophile.   

The Cosmic Czar

 

Building a meaningful life is as good as creating a masterpiece. And where do we draw meaning from? Mostly we do it from our pain, while cruelty becomes the crafting tool.

Love is just the tree under which the crafter drops the tools at the lunch break to eat, rest, recuperate for a little time and then go into the old business with reinvigorated self. Even cruelty can’t survive without the little sips of temporary lovebites.

But despite all the apparent gloom, love in a single heart is enough to surpass malice in thousands of its darkened brethrens—just by being there. The former gives a natural right to the latter that they too can exist.

The enigmatic power of love! Was there anyone who could master the art of perfect love?

The power of love so absorbing and multilayered that even a battle-hardened cruel butcher has to feel the beautifully vivid, intricately evocative and gorgeously lush touch of humanity sometime or the other.

Edifying vividness of the game—miniscule of love with its dreamy air; the sea of cruelty with its realistic flair. The love point—the axis; the cosmic cruelty spinning around it in its infinite immensity.

The mystical combo—both revealing and concealing its scandalous affair forever, at each step of manifestation.

Love the sovereign, almighty potentate; cruelty his teeming army of slaves.  

The social lion

 

Keep your face hidden even though you use no mask, veil or take shelter in nightly darkness. Keep your face open, clear to view to everyone in broad daylight but still keep it hidden. How to do it?

Learn to hide your emotions. Master the art of masking every change in your face driven by any strong emotion. Then you present a blank look to the world.

Just give a tiniest flicker of smile when the rest of the world rolls in laughter over an episode.

Just allow some faintly traceable line of frown on your brow when the rest of the world would brawl, bellow and seethe with anger.

Keep your heart well sealed for it contains fickle wealth of emotions and sensitivities that always sabotage logic and go out and make a mayhem of your interests.

Just a barely audible whiff of breeze emanating from your end, while the world is caught in its funny hissing hailstorm.

Be a steady polestar in the calamitously crazy sky dotted with rack and ruin of piteously flickering lost stars.

Just by being so one seems a godly intercession and emerges a ruler—respected, feared, obeyed and followed by the masses.

He then forces them (the sheepish masses) to write crowning laurels spinning mythical webs about his august self. Theatrical arch-lights of idle gossips at nook and corners, following the wild palpitations of endless curiosity, take him on the hinge of history. Small-time incoherent desires clutter about the weighty stories about him, thus taking many in his patronizing loop even though they might never have the opportunity to see or meet him or get any benefit out of him.

Sharp and sprightly, soft and hard, sappy and dry, and firmly fadeless he is a succor to many an eye full of twiddling tears.   

Brotherly bonhomie in Ladakh

 Two brothers can make a very useful, helpful and convenient travelling pair. There are limits drawn which avoid things from taking an ugly shape. In addition, the assurance that they will be going to the same house again provides an openness and vast space for both the good and bad to unfold naturally. There are no protocols to follow, no rules of friendship to abide by to keep things going. You are at your natural self. You don’t have an image to keep that fits in the mold of friendship. No wonder, travelling becomes very enjoyable in such a scenario. To cash all the above benefits, me and my brother usually go out on trips a few times every year. He is younger to me and the Indian tradition of seniority and respect falling in the kitty of the elder brother makes it advantageous for me. This time we are bound for Ladakh.

We can say that earth is completely owned by the humans by now. The rest, everything from the animals, birds, reptiles, insects, trees, plants, stones and even plain dust seem to be the mere means to the question of how far the humans can stretch, elongate and further their desires. We have been plainly greedy; not ingenious in the least.

We are too crowded in mind, body and soul. When it becomes unbearable, and if we can afford it in terms of time and money, we set out to the hills to feel less loaded and burdened among open hill forests. Earth is covered with human-made concrete megaliths in the plains. However, the stamp of mankind shows a gradual dilution from the congested lanes of old Delhi to the hill forests. The hill forests in turn give the baton to alpine meadows and grasses. The alpine grasses then change to barren waste and cold desert adorned with snow-covered peaks.

Ladakh is a beautiful empty vessel where one can dive into the vast wilderness stretched from horizon to horizon. The bus from Delhi to Leh is making a big buzz on the social media. It starts from Delhi at noontime, reaches Keylong in the wee hours and after a few hours halt proceeds to Leh, plying on the toughest and highest motorable passes to reach Leh by nine at night if everything stays normal in terms of weather and roads.

There are enough challenging and exciting jolts on the road journey from Keylong to Leh, so we avoid this first phase of the journey by the HRTC bus from Delhi and board a luxury Volvo bus to reach Keylong. From there onwards one doesn’t have an option apart from the HRTC Delhi-Leh bus.

The plains are burning in the June heat as we board the Volvo bus to Manali. There is T20 cricket final between India and South Africa played in the Caribbean islands. A group of youngsters is watching live streaming of the match on some OTT platform. There are expert comments, gesticulations, guffaws of agony, ecstasy, hoos and haas. We Indians have lots of cricketing sense at least. All this overshadows Sidhu’s hyperbolic, rhetorical commentary in the stadium. The youngsters are engaged in such a dissecting analysis of each ball, each run, each moment that it feels like one is watching the match live. It was a very exciting match. The entire bus full of tension. When India won the match, one chap shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Bharat Mata ki jai!’ We had to rally behind his chorus in our varying capacities to shout.

We reach Manali in early morning and immediately walk to catch a bus to Keylong. Once you come out of the Atal tunnel (9 km long) cutting across the guts of a mammoth wall of mountain, thus avoiding the difficult Rohtang pass, you arrive in a new geological structure of mountains. The trees slowly vanish as you move along the torrential stream of Chenab river. Alpine meadows and wild flowers try to cover the hard, bare craggy base of the mountains. Rosa webbiana (Himalayan wild rose) is a beautiful sight by the road. It’s a lovely wild flower that blooms in the grassy meadows on craggy slopes. Yellow oriental hawk weed adorns the alpine grass trying to cover the stony nudity. From Keylong to Leh, mother nature slowly opens to stony nudity, innocence, purity and emptiness.

We reach Keylong at noon after the nightlong journey and decide to stay at the quaint peaceful town for a day and then catch the early morning bus that arrives from Delhi.

Little scenic Keylong is situated in the valley of Bhaga river that roars past to meet Chenab river down the stream. Beautiful snowy peaks overlook the small town. Two of these are quite popular: Lady of Keylong peak (6016 m) and the Saptarishi peaks. There are many myths and legends linked to these peaks.

Lady of Keylong peak was earlier called ‘Churail’ by the locals. The Europeans gave it a nicer name and now it’s a popular trekking point in the area. It is the bare face of a cliff that looks like a hill woman holding a scythe and a baby tied to her back against the background of pristine white ice sheet of the glacier around it. I’m glad that now she is called the Lady of Keylong, not Churail. She inspires many trekkers to take the challenge to go and look at her from close quarters.

The Saptarishi peaks at Keylong are a series of seven beautiful peaks on the top of a high ridge. The name Saptarishi connotes seven sages (Marichi, Atri, Angira, Pulaha, Kratu, Pulastya and Vasishtha) in Hindu cosmology.

The small budget hotel, Khandorling Guest House, gives a heartening view of pastures on the lower slopes and glaciers in the upper reaches. I can see a little monastery on the opposite hill. Fluffs of snow-white clouds hang languidly in the pristine blue sky. The wind plays with the prayer flags. The Buddhists believe that as the flags move in the wind, they spread the message of love and peace for the entire world. Bhaga river is audible with its rigorous sound in the valley below. From the terrace I can have the entire view of the lazily sprawled out bus station. I inhale big breaths of unruffled peace.

There are a few eateries. Lama dhaba is run by an old gracious Tibetan Buddhist lady. I mention HH Dalai Lama and tell her that I have been lucky to meet him and hold his hand and put it to my forehead. Immediately her eyes get filled with tears of reverence. I tell her that His hand feels boneless on touch, almost like a newborn’s soft contact, the touch of divinity. She listens to it like she is listening to hymns in a monastery. He is their God King. Her father came to India with Him and later settled in Nepal. Making the ends meet is very tough, she says. The monthly rent for the shop is 8,000 rupees per month.

Her neighboring outlets are named Kathmandu dhaba and Sherpa dhaba. Mostly women run these tiny food establishments. These little hotels and restaurants offer tea, coffee, omelets, maggi, noodles, cold drinks, cigarettes, namkeen, chips, rotis, rajma chawal. The family stays in a part of the same block. The eating points are mostly run by the Nepalese and the Tibetans. The hotels are owned by the locals. Most of them go to Manali during the snowbound months of winter and return in summer. The menfolk work as casual laborers, but mostly the women pull the domestic economic cart.

As I have mentioned, there is just one bus from Keylong to Leh, the Delhi-Leh Himachal roadways bus that has an early morning halt here before moving onto the final destination in the land of mountain passes. Most of it is full with tourists from Delhi itself. At Keylong the bus depot changes and a smaller bus takes over for the further journey on treacherous roads cutting across high Himalayas. At Keylong about two dozen tourists have to fight for three-four odd seats available at this point. If the seats aren’t available, many still decide to board the bus and travel standing in the aisle. We talk to the driver who has driven the bus from Leh. He is a decent chap and proves a nice Himachali host to we plainsmen. We compliment him on his good nature. Then we share our problem with him. He gives his word that he will try his level best to get us seats the next day. Pay some sincere compliments to someone and he or she will always reciprocate. We have a chance to get seats in the early morning bus next day. Till then Keylong has enough peace to cordially shower upon us.

We go to the old Buddhist woman’s small eatery for dinner and not feeling hungry ask for maggi. She makes a face. ‘Maggi for dinner! That’s not healthy,’ she says. If you talk nicely and give respect to people, you create a human touch. She is concerned about the quality of our food. So Mrs. Lama convinces us to eat a proper dinner and lovingly makes rotis and sabzi like a mother. If food is served with joy, it feels very fulfilling. The appetite returns and we eat to our full without even realizing it.

After the nice dinner as we lie down to sleep, Bhaga river’s gurgling murmurs sing a lullaby to get us into the folds of a restful sleep. Early next morning, the driver we talked to yesterday remembers us and gets us seats among the rush of many claimants for the few odd seats. The bus moves with an excited load of the plainsmen looking forward to enjoy the road trip across the highest motorable mountain passes, glacial lakes, deep valleys and scores of snowy dazzlement. There are mesmerizing landscapes of Jispa and Sarchu leading to Nakka La.

The most adventurous and tough stretch is called Gata loops at 16,800 feet. There are creepy, spooky stories about the treacherous series of these hairpin bends going one after the other. Gata loops stretch for about 10 km, involving 21 hairpin bends leading to Nakka La. A myth says that the dangerously loopy stretch is haunted by a spirit. They say a man in shawl appears suddenly asking for cigarettes or water thus scaring the drivers. So the people pay a respectful tribute to the spirit to pass safely to the other side by offering bottles of mineral water and cigarette packets. You have this big pile of offerings to the spirit on the nineteenth bend. There is a small stone structure built here and it contains a human skull in it.

The story of the spirit of Gata loops is based on an event happening a few decades back. Those were the days when there was no Atal Tunnel to provide year-around passage for traffic to this side of Rohtang La pass. The narrow, rugged road had to take Rohtang La pass, which was snowbound for many months in a year. A truck driver and his helper started from Manali almost on the date when the road was being closed for the winter months. So probably they were the only vehicle on the road from Manali to Leh. The snow was already making it difficult at many stretches. Their truck gave in at Gata loops. There was no help and no mobile phones to contact anyone during those days. In order to seek help, the driver walked back, leaving the helper with the truck. He reached a human habitation about 40-50 km down the road. But before he could start back on the journey with men and material for help, there were more landslides and snowfall preventing them from moving ahead. The poor helper died after two or three days. So the people say his spirit sometimes appears by the side of a vehicle asking for beedis or water.  

The bus ride is adventurous at many levels: leading to lovely rich barrenness with its sandy hills, splendid golden plains, yaks, sheep, goats and some rare nomadic tent that one may come across. The fabulous, aloof, unadorned, beautiful face of mother nature. Travelling on the rugged road you feel like a child running into the open arms of freely playing childhood. As the bus struggled on the top of mountains, slowly chugging ahead, some passengers faced breathing problems born of mountain sickness. But thankfully all the plainsmen reached to the other side with reasonable safety.

As the bus moves to Leh, at full speed through the plains leading to the capital, one feels freedom and openness in the sandy plains spread on both sides of the road. It feels like there are no boundaries. One feels like flying. It seems like an earthly version of cosmic freedom. These are Moore plains, a plateau spread out in brown majesty along the last phase of the Manali-Leh highway. In Tibetan it means a plain where the wild ass doesn’t find water. It covers an amazing 40 km stretch between Pang and Leh. Nomadic population has shrunk dramatically. But still you can spot some nomadic settlement with their tents, sheep, goats and yaks in enclosures. The yaks are becoming fewer and fewer. Almost all individual nomadic families have a pick-up truck parked by their tent-side. I could spot just one yak during the journey. Ladakh without the yaks doesn’t sound fitting. But the camps by the smooth road, even with their pick-up trucks, still carry enough touristy charisma for the visitors. To provide some more lease to my hopes of the survival of the wildlife, I was lucky to see some herds of wild ass and bhralls on the craggy slopes by the road.

The average elevation of the Moore plains is about 4800 m. Some portions along Lungpa river create stunning sand and rock formations. After the challenges of the previous mountain pass (Tanglang pass), the bikers love this stretch as they speed at a high speed towards Leh. If you are lucky you can see a little sand tornado travelling across the road or along the sides. It’s arid, rocky, scenic. The road is smooth here and it feels like your back is getting a massage after the jolts of unpaved, uneven roads over the mountain passes.

Leh feels congested and very hot. The effects of tourists and climate change obviously. A ribbon of ancient culture tightly squeezed by the commercial forces trying to encash the old; to mint new gold. Bare, craggy hills surrounding the small houses sprawled with a strange mixture of the old and the new, but still somehow feeling on the ancient side. The Indus river gives a small chance to plant life in the valley. Poplars and willows stand out like green brushstrokes on the brown, barren canvas. The ornate, artistic Buddhist architecture is like a soft whisper, a prayer, an artistic muse. The sound and sights of Buddhist rituals, mystique of murals, monastic gateways, intriguing carvings, rich forte of ritualistic practices in monasteries, souvenir shops, prayer wheels, prayer flags—all fluttering for life among barren stones.

Enter a monastery and you are enveloped in a world infused with an intermixing of spirituality and artistry. You feel like stones have as vibrant a heart as the lush green trees. Prayer flags fluttering in the evening breeze and the message of love and peace floating up, rising in the air and kiss the golden yellow on the tops of brown hills. Small white lime-washed houses having multi-paneled glass windows look at you with unhurried demeanor. Clouds hung lazily in the azure blue. Touristy hustle and bustle in the bazaars. Leh is the base camp for the wanderlust tourists seeking the higher meaning of life among the unparalleled landscapes of Ladakh. There is no destination, you move and make a fresh path; a lively destination, the journey itself.

Before you take more arduous journeys across the length and breadth of this amazing landmass, it’s advisable to stay at Leh and enjoy the local places for at least a couple of days. We do the same and visit the nearby places in Leh.

The shanti stupa is a white-domed, two-level stupa on a hilltop. Built by a Japanese, Bhikshu Gyomyo Nakamura, in 1991, it holds the Buddha’s relics, serving as the foundations of the spiritual heritage of Buddhism, at its base which were enshrined by HH Dalai Lama. The place is adorned with panoramic surroundings. Ladakhi Buddhists offered voluntary labor and the Japanese Buddhists provided money and technical knowhow to build this monument of peace. Like most of the Buddhist monuments, it’s built to promote world peace and harmony. Beautiful golden Buddha image stands as a spiritual patron. Around the dome you have relief pictures of auspicious symbols, dharmachakra (turning the wheel of dharma), Buddha’s birth and death events, Buddha defeating the devils and many meditating Buddha mudras.

Leh palace is a lovely legacy set in mud, stone and poplar and willow wood. The palace overlooks Leh from the top of the Namgyal hill. It was built by Sengge Namgyal around 1600 AD. It has nine floors. The upper floors housed the royal family and the lower floors served for the soldiers apart from providing space for stables and stores. There are beautiful Tibetan thanka paintings and colorful murals made of crushed gems and stones. The murals depict sacred Buddhist themes, symbols and mythical deities. One has to have patience to get a real sense of the marvelously intricate details of these paintings. The palace is a splendid piece of heritage constructed on the lines of Potala Palace. It was deserted after Dogra commander Zorawar Singh captured Ladakh. The royal family was shifted to Shyok palace. It’s a nice specimen of the medieval Tibetan architecture involving massive mud-stone walls, wooden balconies, mural paintings, poplar rafters and wooden flooring.

Gurdwara Shri Pathar Sahib is situated about 25 km from Leh. When Guru Nanak Dev ji Maharaj were returning after visiting Tibet around 1515, they rested here for some time and meditated. Indian soldiers do langar seva and eat food with the tourists. The visitors have to cover their head under a yellow scarf bearing the akal takht symbol. All become one here. It’s a message of unity. Tourists from across India and soldiers from different states, regions, castes and classes all sit together on the ground and eat like innocent children. It seems it’s managed by the army itself because they take care of all the affairs here. Eating prasad here is a very fulfilling experience.

The other place that we visited is Sangam, the confluence of Indus and Zanskar rivers. The Zanskar river carries lots of coquettish energy like shakti and the Indus river allows her to have her flirtatious ways and show-off by almost stopping its own flow like Shiva, the stable self. The Indus allowing Zanskar to go rippling across its more stable waters. In fact the Indus waters seem to take a back step to enable the feminine force of Zanskar to surge ahead. Meanwhile massive stony mountains look down at the majestic scene with amusement. Standing at the confluence one can clearly see the green water of the Indus to the left and the brown waters of the Zanskar to the right.

There are buses plying to remote parts of Ladakh from Leh. But one has to be careful about their timing because most of these aren’t daily services and operate just two or three days a week. Nowhere else I found the time table painted on a wall at a bus station more useful than here. One can save a lot of money by taking these buses. Bikes are for the young blood. Personal SUVs are for the super-rich. Rented taxis are for the rich. And for the middle class budget travelers the public transport is the safest bet. Moreover, travelling with local Ladakhi people is an added incentive for free if you take a bus. Public transport is a very practical and economic way of exposing one to the local culture. You get a deeper feel of the ground realities.

We take a bus to the Nubra valley. It’s a private bus run by an interesting chap named Dorjee. He operates it under a license issued by the government authority. The bus runs twice weekly between Leh and Nubra valley, reaching till a place about 20 km further from Hunder. The jangling, smoke-exhaling vehicle leaves at eight in the morning and reaches the destination in the evening. The return journey is on the next day. A short, strong, agile, athletic man, Dorjee is a multi-tasker serving as the owner, driver, helper, conductor, fuel man, porter, everything.

An amazing man as we watch him closely during the journey. He is very helpful. He even stops his bus by a little hamlet on the way to inform the passengers who are inside their houses, feeling assured that he won’t miss them. I’m sure that he would even wake up some still sleeping person who has asked him to remind that the bus has arrived.

Many local people boarded the bus in Leh for short journeys within the city and easily got down without caring to pay. He doesn’t mind such minor issues. He is particularly popular among the lady workers busy in the road-keeping operations on the path. They wave cheerfully at him as they see his rattling, old bus laden with people inside and the roof piled high with luggage and other wares, a bed and sofa set this time that have been firmly tied by his own expert hands.

The road to Nubra valley passes through Khardungla pass about 40 km from Leh. It’s the highest motorable road in the world. The construction workers from Bihar, baked by the high altitude sun, are busy almost all along the way. A woman is working with her child tied to her back. They look eagerly at the upcoming bus. They have set up temporary tents along the road, so there is hardly any facility here. To give you a clue to how things are managed in this tough, remote terrain, one worker is cutting another’s hair.

It’s a busy, noisy, dusty serpentine line across the barren mountains, beaten by a merciless sun and stung by rough winds: the earthmovers and cutters shrieking with effort to gnaw at the stony innards of the lofty mountains; the workers plodding, hacking into the stony sides to leave an imprint of the indomitable spirit of the mankind to reach all points on the earth. But the mountains look too powerful in their barrenness to be daunted by the mankind and their machinery.   

Khardungla is the gateway to Nubra and Shyok valleys. After Khardungla pass the road descends to a scenic view. The barren rocks get a slight tinge of green alpine grasses. Nubra river originates from Siachin glacier. (The government plans to start Siachin base camp tourist adventure.) It gurgles like an oasis in the mountainous cold desert. Stunted poplars, willows, bushes and shrubs surround Khardungla village, which is a big hamlet from Ladakhi standards.

As the bus stops for refreshment breaks near little hamlets having a shop or two, I see that even the birds are relaxed like the local people. As I sip tea looking lost in the relaxing wilderness, a black and white Ladakh magpie sits on the branch of a low willow tree by the road, just near the eating point swarmed with the passengers. Unbothered about human intervention, it just sat there for almost ten minutes. It’s a lovely sight to see a wild bird sitting so near to you.  

Nubra river joins Shyok river, which later on merges with the Indus. As we move on after the break, it becomes even more challenging passage along the mighty and majestic Shyok river. It first follows southeasterly direction through Pangong range; then takes a northwestern turn, almost going parallel to the previous path in reverse direction. In Tibetan its name means ‘gravel spreader’ which is amply testified by vast stretches of sandy gravel on its broad, intimidating floodplains glistening white like snow under scorching midday sun on the right of the road. It’s also mentioned as the river of death due to the havoc caused by it on the silk route trading caravans in ancient times.

We get down at Hunder in the evening. It’s famous for the majestic sand dunes running in a broad valley flanked by lofty walls of completely barren dark-brown rocky heights. Here the tourists enjoy rides on double-humped camels walking in a row in the Shyok valley, imitating the famous silk route caravans of the ancient times.

At Hunder we stayed at an ex-soldier’s guest house. He had scaled Mount Everest during his army days and now carried the same indomitable spirit in setting up a lovely guest house. The first floor is beautifully done and ready for check-ins. The upper story is still under construction. The mess with classy wooden furniture is as impressive as the officers’ mess at an army cantonment. His family assists the cook in making food. The food is delicious. The bedding is clean. It’s a nice room. It’s like a little oasis among the sand dunes.

The evening breeze is freshened by the swaying branches of poplars, willows, bushes and shrubs. The camels, after a tiring day of ferrying the tourists across the sand dunes, rush to the bushes after their duty is over as the night falls. A lovely clean-watered stream flows through the sparse high-altitude scrub forest nearby.

I have done my research on Ladakh flowers, plants, shrubs and trees. So I’m able to read the traces of life written on stones in the shape of little wild flowers. From May to September, up to an elevation of 3800 m in valleys like Nubra beautiful little flowers welcome you. Purple colored acomite is pretty common. Little yellow blooms of a alpine herb named phulumentok are the indomitable signs of life among craggy rocks. Then there are flowering shrubs like khardung (yellow), Himalaya may apple (white or pink), chagna (bright mauve) and a few more.

As I walk along the dwarf scrub growths along the little stream passing near the sand dunes of Hunder, I can spot common juniper (shukpa), a shrub with crowned needle-like leaves. How can I forget that fragrant smell that I inhaled in a monastery back at Leh? Shukpa has fragrant leaves and bark, which are used by the Buddhists as incense. There are clumps of sea buckthorn as well. It’s a dwarf thorny shrub with a woody stem. It’s a storehouse of vitamins and medicinal properties. I have ordered online a few packets of Ladakh sea buckthorn tea a few times. It’s a strangely elating feeling to stand next to this remote tree in a distant part of India.

On the moist slopes you have tiktas, a grass like shrub. On dry rocks and stony slopes there are kabra shrubs. All these shrubs are highly medicinal in nature. In the traditional Tibetan system of medicine, these rare hardy plants, flowers and shrubs are used in profusion with great effect. Something that grows in such adverse climatic conditions must be having a very high potential and vitality for life. No wonder they make highly effective medicines.

I met a German woman near Turtuk. She is on a quest to be away from the hassles of professional life back home. There are so many foreigners who have lost their path in the maze of Himalayan spirituality. I feel she is an easy catch to be lost in the exotic Eastern chaos. So I load her with lots of unsolicited advice. I tell her to keep the goal limited, in sight: just aiming to recharge her sagging batteries, go back home and start a new job with new vigor. She was uncomfortable to this truth to begin with. But later she digested the essence of my point.

The Himalaya is a great seducer. It pulls with irresistible charm. It’s a great charging port of high frequency energy, no doubt about it. But it’s suitable to be there as travelers now and then. Charge your battery, explore yourself and make the most of your potential at a place where you need to be for your own self and your loved ones. I know I have to run away from my old self. But I also know that I have to stop as well. And Ladakh is an endless path. You can tire yourself out, but it won’t come to an end. You think you have covered hundreds of miles, but that’s nothing on the scale of this limitless playground.  

We return to Leh when Dorjee the great comes back for his second weekly trip to Hunder. In the intervening time it was an amazing experience there.

We then plan to go to the Pangong lake. The bus on that route is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. The day in between offers a great opportunity to enjoy HH Dalai Lama birthday celebrations at Choglamsar about 8 km from Leh city center. It’s a Tibetan Buddhist settlement and no wonder it gives a faint smell of how Lhasa must be. There are artisans here who are keeping alive the age-old tradition of handcrafted souvenirs and painted wooden furniture. The place is a heartbeat of Ladakhi and Tibetan traditions.

The great man’s birthday celebrations offer a top end, full day festivity for the Buddhists. Family and friends form groups and set up tents in a sprawling ground. You can see people enjoying food and tea on the low tables adorned with Tibetan wood painting involving ornate carvings and spiritual iconography. Everyone is dressed in traditional dresses. They play lovely Tibetan and Ladakhi songs and perform mesmerizing group dancing. The dancers move elegantly in concentric circles. It’s a slow movement with poise and grace, gently tapping feet and peacefully waving of limbs. Almost slow poetic movements. Throughout the day they have been enjoying food and tea in their tents with their near and dear ones. An entire day full of being dressed in the best traditional costumes, eating, chatting, dancing and praying. A lovely funfair full of colorful symbolism of spirituality.

Then in the evening there is a lottery ticket result announcement. A woman wins and she can’t believe she has won the top prize. She is very shy when she goes to receive the prize. The people shout, laugh and applaud. At a nearby monastery, the boy lamas have toy guns and bows and arrows to play in celebration of the grand occasion. HH Dalai Lama turns 89 this day. Long live the great man because He is almost a lifeline for Tibetan Buddhism.

The Jammu and Kashmir transport bus starts for Pangong lake at four in the morning. Another exciting journey starts. The road ascends to Chang La. It’s a lovely weather with slight precipitation on the lower reaches. There are sparse coverings of blue lettuce and peppergrass bushes on the side slopes. White dragonhead enjoy their high altitude seat on the stony slopes. Then the high mountain pass welcomes us with its fluffy spray: snowfall.

Snowfall is a big wonder for the people from the plains. The vehicles halt and the tourists start dancing in the snowfall. And once you start descending from the high mountain pass, beautiful valleys open up with their alpine grasses and wild flowers.

The Ladakhi ecosystem is very relaxed. A tiny chit of black puppy is relaxing in the middle of the road near Durbuk in Tangtse valley. A huge military truck has to halt and honk horn so that the lazy guy clears the road. It doesn’t. A smiling havaldar with big handlebar moustache gets down, picks up the prince and puts him at a safe distance. Only then the army truck starts on its journey.

The Leh-Pangong road has all the charms to satisfy all of your wanderlust desires. Occasional wild roses smile at you from among the rocks. Tiny yellow dandelions and sea buckthorn (Leh barley) give you an idea that even stones have a heart and they show it through these seasonal blooms. A few stunted willows, poplars, violet-colored Himalayan crane’s bill and pink fireweed watch you with curiosity from the side of streams. Purple and white colored spotted heart orchid beautifies the open meadows, moist places and open slopes. There is tiny Himalayan winterfat, a sparse pale grassy shrub by the little streambeds near Durbuk. The stony wastelands also show a softer side as they welcome you with cow’s lungwort (desi tobacco). Stunted juniper (shukpa) is the state tree. Its fragrant leaves and bark provide beautiful moments of perfumed bonhomie at social gatherings and religious ceremonies.

The land of passes has a few offerings in terms of tress: poplars, willows, apricots, walnuts. High altitude meadows with summer blooms of edelweiss and wild roses. The rest is simply imposing barren stone walls, snow-capped peaks, glaciers shining under the sun. And the mankind’s eternal quest to reach higher and higher; making roads, repair works, a never-ending job in this tough environment. One can’t help marveling at the small, robust Ladakhi women working at the construction sites.

And there we stand on the banks of the multi-colored marvel, a little puddle in the navel of the mighty Himalayas: Pangong lake. It’s a work of fluid art by the eternally musing artist. The lake is an open canvas. The surrounding hills are the frame. The brush is made of the sun, the clouds and the sky. The shifting angle of the sun is the hand moving the brush. The swabs of white, grey and dark clouds and the pristine blue lurking through them create a wonderful art of lovely colors on the canvas of the lake waters. Colors mix, flow, merge along the waves. Sit on the bank and you see the colors moving—blue, green, moss green, indigo, grey, purple. A beautiful watery canvas where multiple colors play with the sun, wind, clouds, sky.

We check in at a homestay by the road overlooking the wavy, colorful, heaving bosom of the lake. Just a little row of homestays and the rest comprising mother earth’s sunlit yard high in the mountains. It’s run by three women: grandmother, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. It’s very reasonably priced, just 1500 rupees/night including food. They have a nice little mess hall with carpeted floor, low tables, cushions, chests and little prayer wheels by the seats. You can feel the strong effect of the monastic culture even in the mess room here. Sacred symbols and auspicious motifs have almost as dense existence at homes as they do at monasteries. While we eat, the old woman rolls the prayer wheel and says prayers. ‘This is for you guys. She is praying for you so that the food you take is good for you,’ her granddaughter tells us while serving the food. That’s Buddhism for you, the religion of compassion.

They handle the tourists of all types and inclinations with lots of grace and elegance. After a two-night stay, at the time of leaving I thank them for the nice hospitality. The pretty, young Ladakhi girl softly and shyly says, ‘Please come again!’ And I say, ‘Yes, we will.’ One ought to keep one’s promises.  

It is an otherworldly experience by the lake. Just to be with the lake is a meditative experience. I simply open myself to the icy cold wind and the noisily swashing lake waters. The lake almost a big blue, heaving, rippling temple having a goddess of universal well-being somewhere in its depths. And the moment you accept this fact in totality, a thing or phenomenon will touch you with its essence of divinity. The untamed harmony and solitude percolate deep into my cells. It is a feeling belonging to a new dimension. After a long spell of meditation on the lake shore, with half closed eyes I see my torso as a flaming ball of indigo. A great experience.

I enjoyed lovely walks along the shore. Studied the rare sprouts of vegetation among the alkaline stony barrenness on the stretch between the road and the lake shore for a few kilometers towards the line of actual control (LAC). I could spot a kind of knotweed and cream-colored sprouts, a kind of purslane. If you are an open-hearted wanderlust person, just be there to witness the show, mother nature will surely won’t disappoint you. I spot a Himalayan hare among the stones. There is a little colony of brown agile birds that nests in holes dug under small stones. The ground nest is actually a passage under a stone with both ends open. I can see one odd big Himalayan raven and a pair of in-love gulls that leisurely flow over the water. It’s very windy most of the time and the waves strike the banks like a mini sea. It’s an amazing tapestry of water stretched among high mountains.

The waves crash, the colors change, the wind buffets. The long line of sand and gravel along the shore offers a broad avenue to walk in solitude and find your real footing away from the hustle and bustle of life in the congested plains. During these walks I sit down and meditate now and then. The moment I close my eyes, I can feel that it’s a very high energy place. The level of self-peek is totally different.

The lake has its colorful canvas and music that varies through the day. Sometimes I go knee deep in the water, taking a symbolic bath by sprinkling some ice cold drops over my head, bow and pray and taste the salty water as prasad.

Some of the tourists who have travelled in the bus with us are staying at the same homestay, the others at the neighboring lodges. One is a very tall Spanish-looking guy from Pune. But good for him that he was balanced by a lack of macho spirit. That makes one more realistic in life. A macho body with macho spirit creates chances of crash landing in pits. There is this girl, a researcher from the JNU, who is travelling solo but has the restlessness and readiness to change her solo status to a partnered travel. The girl is ordinary looking but very high in flirting spirits. She waits for the guys to approach. But they have the alluring Pangong to attend to, so nobody dances around her. The moments here are very precious.

At night most of the tourists are having drinks outside the homestay looking into the wind coming from the lake. She is tipsy and almost falls in the laps of the men around. My brother doesn’t drink. A sober guy. I’m a light drinker on very-very special occasions. He proposes a walk in the night on the road circuiting by the side of the lake. All the guys, fifteen to twenty in number, get ready for a walk. The lake is silent. The milky way perfectly clear. The stars so clear and near that you feel like raising your hand and pluck them. But the short, fat, bespectacled man doesn’t get up. He is busy with his beer bottle. Slightly cross-eyed, I had observed during the day. ‘You guys are from Haryana. Now you are saying that it’s just a stroll on the road. Further on you will say let’s jump into the lake and try to cross over to the other side. I won’t go,’ he declares.

The rest of us start. It’s pitch dark. There is no running electricity here, just some diesel-set generated power available for a few hours. The nights are pitch dark. Beautiful. We have walked just a couple of hundred meters and it feels like we are in the remotest uninhabited part of the world. No sound, no sight. Just the sky and the stars. My brother then tells them that there is no risk here; no reptiles slithering around. Just this snow leopard sometimes makes it exciting. He is very mischievous at such moments. The word ‘snow leopard’ drops like a bomb. As we move on and must have walked for another hundred meters or so, we find the group severely depleted in number. Now it’s just me, my brother and the two Bangladeshi tourists. The rest have dropped off the walk stealthily, beating any snow leopard in the art, and gone back to the safety of their rooms.

Iftikar is from Bangladesh. He is travelling with his friend. He is in mid fifties. The man is enjoying the trip like a bird set free from the cage. His wife suffered from a rare ailment for almost a quarter century. As her partner he was right there bearing his share of pain and suffering with loving kindness. He gave her the best possible treatment. Then she died. After overcoming the critical phase of mourning the loss, now he is flying freely in Ladakh. I can feel he is a very nice human being who deserves this open joy after a tough personal phase. Joyful, all smiles, making friends, creating group bonhomie, clicking pictures, insisting on sitting on the front seat in the bus—that’s Iftikar. On the way up, he had danced with childish joy in the snowfall on the Baralacha pass. Now, in the sympathizing pools of darkness by the lake, it’s a gentle talk with the stranger who feels so familiar with his grief and pursuit of happiness after the storm has passed.

We come back to our place after one and a half hours later. All the tourists have gone into their rooms. Only Jishnu is morosely sitting outside on a chair. He had met the Spanish-looking Pune guy on the bus and to save money they had taken a shared room. The Pune guy hasn’t returned. Jishnu is very tight on budget and is scared that his room partner will stay with the girl and won’t pay half the money he owes for the room charges.

He is a small Keralite; a charmingly dark boy with a flawless white-teethed smile. Well the girl has probably succeeded in changing the solo status of her journey. Girls have an advantage in this manner. In a way, the Pune guy has dumped Jishnu. We have words of consolation with him. He feels that we are friendly guys and breaks his shyness to talk in his broken English and still more devastated Hindi. He stays at his friend’s place at Kasol and does some graphic designing for him in return. Presently, he seems to be running around Ladakh like a clueless tiny mouse; understandable because he is around only 25 years in age. On our return to Leh, to help him on his shoe-strung budget, we offer him to stay in our room on a mattress at the rate of 250 rupees/night because this is what he usually pays in a dormitory for a bunk. It makes him very happy.

Back in Leh, Jishnu introduces us to a small eatery in one corner of the bus station compound at the end of a small row of shops. An old Ladakhi lady operates the little tin-shed tea shop. She treats him like her own child. Her tea is fabulous—a big glass, full. The graceful woman looks very happy to serve us Tibetan bread, omelet, noodles or maggi. Her daughter works as a bank clerk in Amritsar. The husband drives a bus on contract for the army. Very soon we also join the league of her sons like Jishnu.

She is our aunty now and we become her regular customers. Aunty is graced with a natural, loving smile. She serves us tea like a mother. There is an affectionate touch; not a strictly professional approach to the task. The charges for her servings are cheaper than anywhere else we have seen in Leh.

Jishnu is a quite boy, hardly speaks Hindi. She doesn’t understand English. But both of them have developed a mother-son bond with the language of silence. Her glass of tea contains almost double of what others serve in tiny paper cups. Smile and kindness are showered for free. She has visited Delhi and stayed with her daughter in Amritsar for some time. As a tourist, just like any other native of the land, most of whom are saturated with silence and emptiness, she loves crowds and the hustle-bustle of shoulder-rubbing humanity. She also likes lush green trees in the lesser Himalayas and in the plains below. I think they are saturated with the barren emptiness here, which attracts us so forcefully because we are burdened with the crowded strife and chaos at our places in the plains. So it’s natural that the crowds of plains seem very interesting to them; and we enjoy the Ladakhi peace and silence.

We enjoy the summertime charms of Leh by visiting more places nearby like Thiksey monastery and Shey palace. We have enough time to feel relaxed, loiter around and experience the deeper layers of Ladakhi culture. So there is no time constraint forcing us to rent a car and go rushing like people usually do while on a short trip. We take a small city bus to Choglamsar and from there the locals tell us that we can get shared vans or jeeps to the monastery and the palace.

We have been waiting for an hour but there is no shared van or jeep today. Finally, a kind gentleman gives us a free lift in his junked van with a luxurious welcome. There are no autos in Leh. Had there been autos, it would have been more congested. But the taxis charge too much for budget travelers. A taxi to and fro from the palace and the monastery charges more than a day’s boarding and food costs in Leh.

The gentleman, who has given us a ride, is rich in heart and sits like a king in his junked Maruti van. One sliding door is jammed. One seat at the back is removed and in its place you have jacks, tools and a spare tyre lying on the dusty carpetless floor. We clamber in. The seat is dusty as if sandbags have been ferried on it. A local woman also sneaks in.

The driver is evidently a very kind man. He has to attend a very urgent task at a construction site about one kilometer from Shey palace, so feeling a bit sorry he drops us at this point. When we offer him fare, he says a very firm no and smilingly gives us instructions about the path to the palace from the place where he has dropped us.

Shey palace stands on a hill overlooking the road. It bears toned down ancient Ladakhi luxury embellished with Tibetan architecture. The roofs are made of poplar and willow wood. Starting from one corner of the palace, a craggy ridge reaches to the pointed peak of the neighboring hill. From the sunlit terraces of the palace, one can see the ruins of stonework done in gravel and mud on this peak. The ruined tower somehow still holding its head high. It’s an interesting rock-climbing experience to clamber up over the stony ridge to reach the top of the hill bearing the decaying, time-ruined stonework. Long strings of prayer flags are drawn along the way. Most probably it was a religious site used by the royals during their heydays. The cautious climb becomes a pilgrimage. Once you reach the top and enter the roofless tower chamber, you get a feeling of achieving a milestone in your journey.

Coming out of the palace, we take a shortcut along the tiny agricultural fields and poplar and willow groves along the Indus river to reach Thiksey monastery situated on the top of another hill. The place is about 20 km from Leh. It’s a tiny replica of Potala palace. There is a separate block, an attached nunnery, for the female renunciates in the 12-storey complex adorned with Buddhist art, little stupas, impressive statues, thankas and mural paintings. The colorful murals painted with meditative muse; gently painted, weaving majestic tales of symbolism recounting the Buddhist aspect of truth. Done in natural pigments, these much-detailed works open a teasing world of elaborate Buddhist rituals, beliefs and practices. A world of yellow, red, green, blue and gold. A vast ceremonial offering to the ultimate by the human spirit.

The highlight is the 15-meter high statue of Maitreya made of clay and copper. It’s gold-painted to give it a shiny perfection. In little shrines and alcoves one can see a mesmerizing complexity of murals depicting Tibetan calendars, the wheel of life, thousand armed Avalokitesvara, female deities and many other religious symbols. There is a separate temple for an important female deity, Tara. The temple also contains dozens of tiny, alcove-sized shrines for various smaller female deities.

There is an ascending order of floors, the top floors for the high pontiff and the abbots. You feel like rising to a higher dimension as you take the impressive flight of steps from the terraced fronts taking you to the upper floors having marvelous rooms and shrines painted in white, red and ochre. It is clearly visible that it was built as a fort monastery. Standing on the terraced ramparts one can have a beautiful view of the Indus valley below with its semi-sparse green brushstroke among the barren brown of hills.

Ladakh has a unique charm. It’s made for purposeless wandering in the open-ended stony charms of mother existence. There is unparalleled solitude and peace. The barren stones more peaceful than lush green forests. Forests are the manifestations of the creative potential in the stony womb. So maybe being in the barren stony embrace of nature makes you feel closer to the source, the emptiness. The source of creation. The stones present a huge truth in their naked, imposing avatar. It’s a lovely experience to share this barren serenity and solitude. The people are so warm and gentle, a unique product of this exceptional landscape.

 I’m peeling layers after layers of my worldly self in this welcoming wilderness. Ladakh is a travel, a journey, an endless destination for exploring. It’s a living entity. As I discover more about it, I discover myself as a sweet byproduct.  

Since Leh is our base camp for forays into Ladakhi hinterland, we have built a little circle of acquaintances around the place where we stay. The hotel is located a couple of minutes walk from the bus station. That gives us the choice to loiter around the bus station, enquiring about the buses plying on various routes, whenever we have time. We also go there after our dinner for a digestive stroll. The bus from Delhi arrives around nine at night. And it’s a nice sight to see the excited passengers disembarking to feast on these lovely landscapes. We have also made friendly acquaintances with five or six HRTC drivers and conductors who run the buses on this tough route on a rotational basis.

The Muslim guard keeps a vigil inside the compound at night. He has a thin Buddhist friend. Once he pulls the long, low iron-gate on its tiny bearing wheels, it’s his kingdom inside the bus station. The guard is lame and keeps a long stick to support his polio-afflicted leg. His Buddhist friend is a wiry man in soiled yellow robes. He is a convert from a poor, low-caste Hindu family. Life is easy for both of them after ten at night once the hustle and bustle stops. They get drunk to a nice degree. During the busy tourist season they make some extra money as well. Tourists ask them to reserve their tickets on the Delhi-Leh and other routes to the tourist destinations in Ladakh. The frequency of buses is very less and there is always a fight for tickets. Since they stay at the station compound itself, they can get a few seats reserved and charge a commission on the tickets. A little enterprise which can be pardoned given the fact that it gives them some scope to get a little high at the end of the day.

There is a Rajasthani family, headed by a big-turbaned mustached old man, selling aphrodisiacs. The old man arrives with his family during the summers. At night, we usually find them sprawled on the open floor of the empty high-roofed, open-sided waiting shed. His young daughter-in-law has an infant. She has more privacy. She and her husband need privacy even more, given the product they deal in and must be experimenting on themselves as well. So they have a tiny sleeping tent for the young couple.

The old man has smartly memorized the bus timings to various destinations. If you happen to be lost in semi-darkness looking for the ways and means of increasing your chances of getting a bus tomorrow, he will hark your attention and tell you the timings and the smarter ways of getting an advance ticket. These are very valuable inputs. Of course he would always expect you to reciprocate by buying his vitality-enhancing herbal medicines to make yourself a superhero in the bed.

In these two weeks, we are able to get friendly with a nice group of bus drivers and conductors. These are old-style sturdy buses, lumbering like tanks on high mountain passes. How do they manage to scream and rattle ahead on the world’s highest motorable passes? It’s wonderful. The drivers are meditative, alert, smoking lots of cigarettes on the way. They know that they have dozens of lives under their care. The slightest mistake and all are gone.

The driver and his conductor have a day off after their arrival from Keylong. Here they drink, eat and take full rest, mustering up strength for the arduous return journey. Early in the morning, they sit in the bus and take advance bookings for the upcoming journey. Sometimes they are mischievous and tell a white tourist that the bus is full, even while there are vacant seats in the bus. They say it’s for a reason. In the case of foreigners, it’s their duty to get down at a few check-posts and escort the foreigners, holding their passport in their hands, to be verified by the security personnel. They find it an unnecessary hassle which takes much time.