by Sanjani Shah
[box]Sanjani Shah visits Ladakh on a photography trip and ends up experiencing so much more than what was on offer. Text and pictures by Shah. [/box]It was the promise of rugged beauty, adventure, meeting new people and learning new photography skills that lured me to Ladakh. Organised by Varun Gupta, a young, up and coming Chennai-based photographer, I was sold by his passion and attitude, as demonstrated by the last item on his recommended packing list: “Most of all do not forget to leave all your work at home and come prepared to submit your body and soul to the beauty of the Himalayas.”
Beauty
Ladakh is a land that has it all. Towering mountains, changing their fashion at the turn of road, from the lush green of summer, to the rocky browns of autumn, to the snow-covered peaks of winter and finally the flowering valleys of spring. As we drove across her ‘curves’, eyes wide open and jaws dropped, Ladakh offered us emerald lakes, vast plains, sand dunes, waterfalls, melt-water springs, some of the highest drive-able roads and the highest salt lake in the world.
Whether you are playfully rolling down the sand dunes, visiting a monastery, crossing glacial streams on foot or plucking the most delicious apricots straight from the trees and stuffing your face, it is a real feast for the senses.
Adventure
Adventure was in abundance: mountain traffic jams, cars getting stuck in the thick mud, altitude and car sickness, oxygen tanks, freezing cold, searing heat … not to mention learning to doing number two’s in the wild!
We were prepared for immensely hot, dry days and cold nights. What we got instead, was a lot of rain. Our trip happened to coincide with the floods that hit the area and made headlines across India for days.
Our first real brush with water came in the form of a gushing stream with a missing bridge. Our cars couldn’t cross in the fading light, for fear of being washed away. As a result, we had to sleep in one of the roadside ‘dhabas’. Packed like sardines, 25 people per tent spent an uncomfortable night on hard mattresses placed on top of uneven bricks and egg crates.
This was just a little teaser for what was to come next. The day after we got to Leh, the city experienced a ‘cloudburst,’ with the deluge of rain causing widespread damage and deaths. Just a kilometer from where we were staying, floods and mudslides swept away buildings, smashed cars into flat pancakes and tore up roads and trees. It was an extremely sad and sobering event to say the least. With access in and out of Leh blocked, we were stuck there for several days. Time was spent by helping with the flood relief, talking to the locals and playing with the kids, exploring all the nooks and crannies of the town and getting to know each other better.
People
Ever-cheerful, the sun-ripened locals warmly welcomed us to their villages with shouts of “Djuley.” Happy with what little they had, they had boundless patience and tolerance, especially for tourists wanting to snap a picture of them.
As for the tour group itself, there were 25 of us (including organisers), coming from all walks of life: young twenty-somethings, burnt out corporate climbers looking for career changes, a happy-go-lucky hypnotherapist and a tightly-wound hedge-fund manager.
For me, it was logistics manager, Naresh (aka ‘Narumama’), who was the glue that brought us all together and really made the trip. With his wit, laughter, love for Coca–30 (homeopathic medicine for altitude sickness) and the shorts that he wore come rain, shine or glaciers, he entertained us, cheered us on and looked after us lovingly.
Photography
Varun was catering to all levels of photographers and kicked off with a workshop to re-enforce basic principles such as aperture, ISO and shutter speed as well as camera formats and equipment. His passion and thirst to share knowledge were clear. In the coming days we covered many more workshops ranging from portraiture, learning how to use natural light, shooting landscapes and printing and framing. The depth and breadth of what was covered was very impressive.
Understandably, after the floods, the focus of the trip shifted and photography became less of a priority. Nevertheless, as a group, we went out to put what we had learnt into practice, our favourite exercise being the capturing of sunbursts (creating a star-like effect from the sun). While there could have been more on-the-ground guidance and critique sessions, my photography skills definitely gained several notches.
The whole experience was extremely heady, hearty and humbling. The road trip was more arduous than all of us had imagined, but, no pain no gain – we were treated to some of the most mind-blowing scenery you could imagine. Getting slapped several times by the forces of nature really put things into perspective, serving us a reminder of who’s in control and what’s important in life.
We were asked to submit our body and soul to the beauty of the Himalayas – I for one came back totally smitten. Weeks after the trip, I still dream about it and can’t wait to go back.
If you’d like to know more about the trip, feel free to email me on sanjanis@hotmail.com
For more information on upcoming trips please contact:
Varun Gupta: varun.photo@gmail.com/ Naresh Sabharwal: bigfootadventures@gmail.com
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