Village Chitkul, Sangla Valley, District Kinnaur, H.P.

In the Sangla valley, monks can get married. At eighty-five, Tashi still spends eight hours everyday reading the holy scriptures, and like she has done for sixty-five years, his wife remains in the background, serving him salted tea every two hours.

The regimen has endured the vagaries of bone chilling eighty-five winters at 11,000 ft.