I’m late for work, traffic is terrible, and the weather is turning to... yak dung. A single strip of potholed, shoulder-less asphalt stretches out through barren emptiness towards giant icy peaks ahead of me. It’s a moonscape at 12,000 feet.
It’s one of the highest, coldest places on earth people live at. It’s virtually uninhabited, but today, everyone in a hundred square miles is on this road, headed to the festival, where I should have been two hours ago. I’m producing and directing a film; my crew arrived on location a day ahead of me and is already in position and awaiting my instructions. I really feel I should hurry up; and yet, I’ve been in Ladakh for almost two months now, working with Buddhist monks and watching sacred rituals, and I kind of feel like hurrying up is somehow missing the point. Finally the monastery – called a gompa – rises on a ridge high above. But traffic has become a gridlock. I ditch the vehicle and head out on foot, leaving my driver to fend for himself. It’s freezing out. A trail leads up the mountain, flooded by people; I dive in. |
As I climb I look around, wowed by the peaks rising around me, the Indus River Valley spreading out below me. I want to stop, just sit, and take it in, but I am late, so I push on.
The twenty-minute climb takes away my breath, but at least it warms me up. Around the monastery hawkers have spread out wares – textiles, trinkets, toys (plastic guns), dried apricots... the crowd is intense. A whole section of vendors stirs steaming pots. I struggle through the throng towards the upper courtyard, where the performance is being held.
On the stairs I meet a monk I know from the days I spent filming the dance practice. The gompa was deserted then, except the monks, and my team. I ask him if the festival is about to start. He says yes. I want to hurry up the stairs but he walks slowly and I keep his pace. We chat. I tell him what a rush I'm in. He smiles. |
A bitter wind blows. It’s freezing out. We enter the gompa and head for the courtyard.
But instead, the monk steers me down a back hall to the kitchen, where it’s warm, and thick with smoke and steam and rich odors. The cook plunges a pole into a huge cylinder filled with hot water and butter. He invites me to sit. Outside the open window snow swirls as the storm builds. In the courtyard somewhere beyond the walls a huge crowd has gathered. The festival is about to start. “I need to find my crew,” I say. “I need to get set up, to be ready to shoot.” “I know,” the monk says, and he smiles. “It’s cold out. Have a cup of tea first.” |
photos by Nathan Whitmont