A Few Handpicked Letters #15
Finding Myself in A Dream that I Wasn't Ready For; Ladakh
Dear Reader,
It has been a long time dream for me to travel on my birthday. Also Kashmir has been long time dream as well. So, as August descended upon us, I started looking at the possibility of bringing my dreams together. Only, my research and traveler friends advised against traveling in Kashmir now. Due to floods in many other places, every finger pointed me to Ladakh. I wasn’t very keen initially because Ladakh did not interest me as much and my research revealed that it wasn’t going to be easy.
But I HAD to travel for my birthday. Somewhere I haven’t been to before. So I found myself booking my tickets almost on an impulse, to Ladakh!
I booked my tickets and panic ensued. It is the natural order of things in my life. I take a leap of faith, and then abandon the faith and panic :D. I was worried that I would fall sick due to the high altitude, and that there would be no one to take care of me, so far from home. Since the public transportation in Ladakh is shoddy, I was worried that I wouldn’t find share taxis, and end up either paying a bomb, or not exploring Ladakh at all.
This soon translated to, perhaps, if I had been married, these things wouldn’t have been so difficult. A thought that has been trickling into my mind during recent years. I have resisted marriage as long as I can remember because the society’s reason to get married didn’t seem valid to me. But somewhere along the years, the society’s reasons seeped into my system and they have been messing with my otherwise beautiful life. I have been struggling with these thought patterns, trying to find myself. Perhaps, I will write to you what I think of this, in another letter.
Whenever I have fears such as these, my sister tells me not to die twice; in fear and when they happen, if they do. It has started making sense to me. I fear so many things in anticipation, but in most of the cases, these scenarios are huge, ugly and scary in my head, while they are mostly pleasant when the time comes.
So with a huge bundle of my luggage and a huge battle in my head, I reached Leh. I found a beautiful hostel with a lot of common area, books, vibrant blue skies and mountains all around.
It wasn’t easy, but I eventually found some people who wanted to visit my first circuit of choice; Nubra valley and Pangong Tso lake.
I saw trees brimming with orange apricots, and ate fresh, juicy apricots for the first time in my life. I walked through the Turtuk village which looked like it was straight out of a children’s story book, with green and yellow fields, flowers of various colors, and towering mountains in the background, touching freshly painted blue skies.
I saw the bluest of waters that changed shades; bright copper sulphate blue, to sea green, to bluish grey, to orange, to blue again that turned into a sheen of glass. When I saw these lakes on Instagram, I used to think that they were color graded. When I showed the lake to someone, they asked me if I had color graded them, and I felt happy. It was a full circle.
I walked through the brown stone house village of Tso moriri, watching the village end its day, as the villagers herded their goats and calves back home. The waters from the glaciers gushed into the still blue lake in hundreds of different tiny streams that silently formed over the rolling meadows. A huge other stream added that extra effect to the village, with its lilting music as it washed over the rocks. If Turtuk village was straight out of a story book, Tso Moriri was out of a fairy tale.
It was hot during the day as the sun mercilessly beat down on our skin and it was cold during the nights. The dry winds and the altitude messed with my sinuses. I found blood coming from my nose, but apparently that is alright. I would have never known this had I not travelled. I met people from different countries who came to Ladakh to hike its mountains of over 17000 feet, others who came to cycle all the way from Leh to Tso moriri for 5 days. Oh! The things people did!
People who did such beautiful, daring and great deeds were appreciating me for traveling all by myself. It was the moment when I realised that I don’t appreciate it enough, but also I was in awe, wondering how humble one should be to do such magnificent feats and then to turn around and appreciate someone who is at the beginning.
But what baffled me the most was, I did a daring thing. Something I wouldn’t even have thought of doing a year ago. I jumped into a raging river. All by myself. Nobody asked me if I wanted to do it. No one urged me. I said I wanted to jump, and I did. Let me back up a little.
The people I met for the trip to Pangong were planning to go for white water rafting and since I did not get a share taxi to my next destination that day, I decided to join them. They chose the longest stretch of 28 Kms which meant rafting for about 3 hours. By the time they finished their briefing, I was doubting if I should have signed up. Nevertheless, I hopped in. I panicked during the first 30 minutes, but gradually reality caught up with me and I realised that the safety jacket would hold me up from drowning if I fell and that unlike before, I knew how to swim. I could at the very least try and stay afloat. Towards the last 6 Kms, they said that the rapids were over and that we could jump into the river if we wanted to.
I did not let the rational side or the irrational side of my brain speak. The only thought I had in my mind is, ‘I want to jump. This guy knows what he is doing. I can swim. I have safety gear.’ So I smiled, and jumped into the freezing cold waters and stayed there for sometime. I jumped into a river! I jumped into the middle of Zanskar! It is as though someone had taken the fear out of me. It still feels like it.
Dear Reader, I have been going through some huge life changes during the last one year and in the process I have been evolving. It is when I challenge myself that I realize that I have changed. I am not used to this new person that I am becoming and I need to reacquaint with myself. It is a tricky place to be. To have known yourself with certainty and to suddenly not recognize yourself. And while I was reeling from not realizing what was happening to me during all these months, I am settling into this new feeling of uncertainty and discomfort. I am learning, with difficulty, to trust the Universe.
I am going on another adventure tomorrow. I am taking Amma to Chardham (Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath). She has been wanting to go there for so long and we had booked this a long time ago. I am not feeling very well, but I need to do this. And before that, I wanted to send out this letter to you. Because Ladakh was a dream that I never dreamt before. I grew there. And I wanted to share it with you all.
Love and hugs,
Ranjini S