Life
Korzok, District Ladakh, J & K, July, 2000. 15000 Ft.
Korzok, District Ladakh, J & K, July, 2000. 15000 Ft.
A lama, with all his inquisitiveness and longing looks out of a window at strangers with strange toys. He knows a few games, but years from now, when he grows up to be a man, free in Korzok, he’ll learn another game, living in cave holes on cliffs for months. A game of tolerance, compassion, perseverance and commitment.
Tabo Village, Spiti, District Lahaul &Spiti, H.P. May, 2000-Monastery
Tabo Village, Spiti, District Lahaul &Spiti, H.P. May, 2000
The influx of foreign tourists has ushered in enterprise for the lamas of the thousand year old Tabo Monastery. Converted to a fast-food joint, an annexe of the monastery serves a few moments of earthly atmosphere amidst endless heavenly landscapes.
Village Pangmo Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. August, 2000
Village Pangmo Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. August, 2000
Buying local dried black peas in a house in this surreal village, Dolma, after some silent deliberations, asked me to take her picture. She posed by this beautiful doorframe, eye on eye.
…and then she looked away at some nondescript point on the floor.
We see the beauty of the moment and aglow in it simple desires…longings of the Spiti girl, many of whom are ordained to become Buddhist nuns at age five.
Lalung Village, Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. August, 2000
Lalung Village, Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. August, 2000
A dog-eared Hindi textbook hides the face of education standard available to tribal children. Thousands like 1st grader Wangchuk of Lalung Village will never know that strewn for years across annals of bureaucracy in some distant metropolis, reside several files promising better standards.
…they too are dog-eared.
Chichum Village, Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. August, 2000-Freedom
Chichum Village, Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. August, 2000
Locked out, a small boy waits for mother to get back from the fields. Learning freedom young is a gift born out of necessity
Chichum village, Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. August, 2000-Spitian Girl
Chichum village, Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. August, 2000
Twelve years of the Spiti sun beats gold into the skin…beauty of the Spitian girl can perhaps only be matched by her will to begin hard work at a much younger age.
Norbu Sumdo, District Ladakh, J & K, July, 2000
Norbu Sumdo, District Ladakh, J & K, July, 2000
Our muleteer turned out to be an old acquaintance of this Changma couple of Norbu Sumdo. It was near his village in Spiti a brother of this Changma died while crossing a river. As the narration rambles in a strange language, memories cloud the atmosphere inside the soot-plastered tent.
Chichum Village, Spiti, District Lahaul & Spiti, H.P. May, 2000
Chichum Village, Spiti, District Lahaul &Spiti, H.P. May, 2000
The best of friends, a bunch of classmates take on the camera with contrasting moods. Their life, however, as they grow to become sturdy young women would not be so contrasting. They will marry, raise children and tend their land to grow grain for their men and themselves…it’s a story they have lived for a thousand years.
Village Tokto, District Kinnaur, H.P.
Village Tokto, District Kinnaur, H.P.
For those living in remote villages (like Toktu) that have been only recently connected by a kutcha (unmettaled) road, it’s the beginning of a transition period.
As long as the village had no link with the outside world, it was a target. Target achieved, village gets lost in a milieu and is forgotten.
Whether the transition will be from dark to light or vice-versa is a paradox man was born with. Rattan Negi of Toktu and his sister Asha are looking at new images today.
Hopefully, at images that are better.
Chumuik Shiiaete, District Ladakh, J &K July, 2000
Chumuik Shiiaete, District Ladakh, J &K July, 2000
For the gypsy girls of a place in the middle of nowhere called Chumuik Shiiaete, boundaries are meaningless. Buried somewhere under the stones strewn not twenty meters from their tent is an invisible line separating Himachal from J & K. Culture and kinship transcend here. In such a desolate place, the only boundary they know is the one that secures families in friendship and togetherness. It’s a different light they see the world with.