Impressions: Ladakh Landscapes

Unlike most journeys that begin in one's head, Ladakh just stumbled into my path.A chance remark on a friend's upcoming trip and I impulsively decided to tag along.

This was my second trip to Ladakh.The earlier journey was by air with rapidly changing landscapes of dry, arid, snow clad ranges before a rapid descent into Leh. The entire trip had been breathtaking but short. I knew I would return again to this land of vast emptiness.

This journey to Ladakh took me on trains, buses,Jeeps, motorcycle and on foot-all at varying speeds and at ground level. Transitions unfolded slowly from the barren and bouldered countryside in the Deccan plateau, to the congested, bustling northern plains, into the green Kashmir valleys with alpine meadows, to an ever starker landscape of bleak craggy mountains with steep young valleys of gravel and stone. Palletes changed from the softer forested greens with gentle blue skies to slate green, deep maroons and mauves setoff against a lapis sky.

A land route into Ladakh imbued me with the spaciousness of the place. Vastness of earth-sky became one and the highest peaks were mere ripples in the grandeur of space time. Then, a quietness instilled into self with a slower breath, a softer beating of the heart and a more gentle coursing of life through veins.

Springtime had added dashes of color in the most unexpected places-bleak landscapes suddenly showed patches of gold or lavender which became a million flowers. Rose bushes littered gravelly slopes with a profusion of fragrant blossoms in pink,white and yellow. Streams gurgled, water dripped in crystal drops, life surged in this new awakening, a miraculous encounter with renewal, of nature, of self.Then Raag Basant swirled in my head and on my lips in Taranas that drummed to my heartbeat.

And to these layers of silence and songs were added the deep resonant chants from the buddhist gompas that dotted the landscape- miniscule jewels, perched on peaks, colorful, contained, mysterious, enchanting, treasure houses for the spirit, and repositories of faith. Colorful flags blew prayers to the wind, prayer wheels rolled to ones' devotion, and endless mani walls bore monuments to a people's faith "Om Mani Padme Hum".