To Ladakh.....With Love

 Dear Ladakh,

Every time I come to you, 

you take something away from me!

You took away my fears!

Every time I fall in love with you,

You give me something to hold on to,

You gave me the courage to dream again!

Every time I sought to connect my soul with you,

You opened me up to a part of me I never knew existed!

 

 

 

 

Thank you!

For your lessons!

For your kindness!

For your beauty!

For your innocence!

With Love

Janaki

 

 

 

All these days, I have been desperately searching for words to write about the Chadar Trek! I can not claim I have found them....but through this search of finding words to describe my experience, I found lost strings to my own heart! 

There is something mystical about that land....the first time I went there with my friends, one friend came back and resigned from his regular job and took a  decision that changed him and his life!

This second time I went there, another friend came back and resigned!

And about me?

I am still working, but I know that something deep down has changed....

The last few years I have been living my life on an emergency mode! I didn't want to think about the future, just live for today. Though this attitude is great in the short term, it doesn't help much in the long run!

When I was on the train , coming back from Delhi, I realized that my emergency is finally over!

Those walls I built around me have gone! My heart is open, those fears have left me, I can live again!

What can I say about my experience in ladakh this winter?

That my mom said when I was leaving, "Don't go blind this time!"....yes! The first time I went to Ladakh, I overdosed myself on Diamox, the altitude sickness tablet and went blind for 36 hours! One of the worst time of my life!

The whole excitement of what -30 degrees Celsius is!! 

How cold is -30 degrees really? 

What is it like to walk on a frozen river?

What is it like when the frozen layer starts to crack?

That un-named feeling of seeing a youthful heavy river flowing underneath a glassy layer of ice!

 

That cracking sound of ice when you step on to it, like you are breaking a million glasses in one moment!

 

That peaceful snow covered narrow gorge one day, and a complete war zone look the next day when the frozen layer breaks and the river aggressively starts making its way out, like the breaking of a bird's egg, with the newborn desperate to take its first breath, to see the life outside!

Million feelings, several experiences!

If you ask me to talk about my experiences, it's like asking me too much!

Because Ladakh this time wasn't just some trip, it wasn't just some trek, it was a very private experience! And at every point of me writing about my experience, many of my feelings will flow in....I am worried I might say too much, if I do....all I can say is it's all true! I felt it and I lived it!

This will be a short 4 post series of Ladakh in winters!

This one is the 1st!

So are you ready to take this journey again with me?

 

 

Special Thanks to all my friends without whom this journey, this experience and this post wouldn't have happened!

For Photographs: Thanks to: Sharvani Pinge, Amar Kolmule, Bharat Naik, Caslino Pereira and Leena Patil!