Ladakh: The Land of Enlightenment

A land is as good as the people who live there. Whenever we travel to a tourist place, the people we come across remain as a flavor to our memory of that place. One such guy who carved an image of his own and his land in my memory is Jigmeth (seen in the picture above). He is a driver by profession, lives in Leh and belongs to a small village called Upshi in Ladakh District. It was the last week of September in 2014 when we met Jigmeth on the Fort Road, Leh Town. He had got his new taxi - Tata Aria the previous evening from Jammu. We hired his services for the trip ahead.

Jigmeth seemed to be a religious and spiritual man. While traveling around in Ladakh, we used to pass by numerous small symbolic representation of Monasteries called Stupa. Jigmeth used to go a complete circle around each Stupa and then proceed on the road. When asked for the reason, he told us that these small Stupas are build by people as a prayer for some wish to be fulfilled. Owing to the inhabitable conditions of Ladakh, the infant mortality in the region is a staggering 19%. People build Stupas to pray for good health, habitable weather, adequate food supply, etc. which are all basic needs. In Buddhism, it is believed that if you go in a circular path around a Stupa, it adds to the prayer of the people who built the Stupa. The more people go around the Stupa on the way, the more the chances of the wish getting fulfilled. So our guy was circling each Stupa on the way just to help others' wishes to be fulfilled. I would have dismissed this idea as a superstition, but something made me feel good about him continuing to circle those Stupas. It was his intent to help others fulfill their wishes without having a slightest of self benefit out of the act.

In the numerous chats with Jigmeth on our way, he told us how tourism has increased in the region post the release of 3 Idiots, and he was right. To be frank, we all hardly knew about the beauty of Ladakh before the film and it was never on our To Go list. Jigmeth however was annoyed by the increased popularity, which was a strange paradox since his earning was through tourism. He explained about the time when he was young and very few tourists would come to Ladakh, life was much easy then. As the region gained popularity, there arose a competition between the locals to capture the market. People became greedy - 'Logo mein Laluch aa gaya' were his exact words. He also predicted that with more business, the people in the region will turn into thugs like many other destinations across India. End of September is the close of season in Ladakh as the harsh winter approaches. We asked him what he plans to do the rest of the year till the region opens for tourism again in June. He simply said that he will spend the entire time with his family which included his elder brother, his parents, his wife and his newly born daughter. We also crossed his village Upshi on our way back and halted there for a quick snack. Quite a few folks came there to meet Jigmeth including his childhood friends and his elder brother.

We learned a lot from Jigmeth in the trip and were all in awe of his philosophy about life. One of us even put a profile picture which read 'Sab Moh Maya Hai' immediately after the trip. All of us were running the rat races in our professions, and here is a guy from a remote part of our country who is still sticking just to the basic needs of life and seems very much satisfied with it. We had heard that at such isolated places, a person gets enlightenment. A quick realization happened that the God of believers is actually in the people around and not in isolation. So if enlightenment is defined as knowledge of God, to achieve it we need to know and understand people. Well, we achieved it through this guy Jigmeth. And not only Jigmeth, but scores of other locals in Ladakh were helpful to us. To name a few - the owner of our home stay who was ready to waive off the breakfast charges due to some confusion during booking, the didi who helped us with hot omelet in the freezing cold of Tsomoriri, the doctor who came running late night when one of us was unwell on the very first day due to low oxygen, the aunty at the restaurant in Leh who used to order thukpa, a Tibetian cuisine for us as soon as she saw us entering the restaurant. Jigmeth and all those good people from Ladakh will keep representing our fond memories of that trip.