Ibex Trail - Ladakh (Day 16)

Tso Moriri is unbearably cold at night, and even worse in the morning. Even so, I wake up early, find the brand manager and tell him I'm not going to be able to cut those Insta stories he needs so urgently. 

The day's highlight is our visit to the Puga Nomadic school where Jawa presented the kids with stationery and study material, and as a thank you gesture the kids sang and danced for us. Some of these kids are sons and daughters of nomads left behind by their parents, and some others orphans with no one outside of the four perimeter walls of the school compound.

And even so, all of those 94 kids are cut off from the outside world because there's no cell network or Internet connection anywhere near that place. Even the headmaster goes to Leh once a week for paperwork and other administrative work. 

We leave the school around 3 pm and come back straight to Leh, driving through the harsh desert past Tso Kar. We reach Leh around 7 pm and go to the city to shop for apricot jam, dry fruits and other things to carry back home. 

At 9 pm we leave to go to Guza for dinner, finish off some more interview bytes and talking heads and go to Chulli Baug for the night. Dolma - one of the locals who came with us on the ride - uncovers a very interesting perspective on the Pashmina trade. 

She says Kashmiri artisans have been working on their skill of making the shawl for over 200 years now, which renders a huge majority of them blind because of the precision and exactitude the craft demands.

And that's a skill indigenous to the people of Kashmir, which Ladakhi secessionists are strongly opposed to. She's got more of an inclusivist viewpoint in that she believes if we start to consider all the world as one, no one should really care about where the Pashmina is sourced and where it's made. 

She also says that the shawl makers do not get paid as much as the Goba/ Korzok village folk claim they do. Seems to me like quite a convincing counter argument until the local LP and AP allege that Dolma's got some stake in a manufacturing unit in Kashmir. And it works in her favour to keep operating costs as low as possible by paying her labourers as little as she can. 

Anyway - the bottomline is that we got a journalistically well-rounded narrative by shooting as many perspectives as we possibly could, that all made sense. 

I wake up in Chulli Baug at 4 am to the LP's screams that we would get late if we didn't leave immediately. Quickly I pack and the Mumbai AP and I set off with the LP in a van. 

I want to think of something that's going to lend fairytale closure to this epic journey - sum it all up beautifully - but nothing great comes to mind. 

I'm just extremely thankful and grateful to have been given this opportunity. Would like to shoot a lot more in the auto/ travel/ factual space. Hope the opportunities come my way, and I'm able to do justice to the ones that do. 

Hope I don't tire out, like I often do. 

Will post the series when it's out.