Adventures in India

This is immersion in a Buddhist way of life where a fifth of the population seems to be monks. Every village has at least o­ne monastery and each family sends at least o­ne son to become a monk. This is also a desert, but being at a lower altitude than the barren Changthang, potatoes and peas can also be grown here. A simple life through even simpler resources, Spiti and the echoes of "Om Mnae Padme Hum" remain in the mind long after the body leaves the valley.

What do I write about Spiti – its home. A cozy region full of welcoming souls. The religion practiced here is predominantly Buddhism and every generation of almost every family boasts of a lama (Buddhist priest).

A hidden world, cut off from Lahaul and Manali through the Kunzum and Rohtang Passes, Changthang through the mighty Parang la and Kinnaur through a long and landslide prone route, Spiti is open to travelers o­nly in the summer months, when the snow melts and the passes are passable.

Spiti is a barren land, but this land is what dictates the lives of this land – in both a social and economic sense. If you see green, you’re near a village. Even the high pastures with its sparse, but rich grass look a vague blue green rather than an outright green of a pasture. Still, it is excellent fodder, and livestock owners of this and nearing regions swear by the nourishing quality of the grass that grows in this region. Locals call it “Neeru”.

Chief animals to be found here are pashmina goats, yaks and the famed Chumurti ponies, particularly from the Pin Valley. Few crops grow here, so the diet is chiefly meat and milk products, with a sprinkling of barley, “shenma” which is a kind of dried black pea, potatoes and very few other crops. Of course, in the summer months, the markets have vegetables brought in from Manali. Green peas from here are out of this world. I have often spent many a successful afternoon by myself, or even with clients picking and eating raw peas. The taste is out of this world. My mouth waters as I write.

The people of this place are called sPitibas. They are like their land and food – simple, but with a natural richness of their own. Their lives revolve around survival. Summer months are busy with new births, sowing fields, traveling for trade or other necessity, and stocking up for the long winter. We sometimes joke among ourselves that sPitibas spend their summers gathering dung for fuel, and their winters burning it. While its an over-simplification, its not very far from the truth either. Summers are about building stocks and winters are for enduring, when temperatures rarely rise above freezing, and resources become scarce.