The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
We made an early start from Jispa, at 7 am, after a breakfast of hot, buttered alu parathas, toast, and tea. All signs of habitation disappeared by the time we reached Sarchu, where we crossed into Ladakh from Himachal Pradesh. Today, it is a Union Territory, but then, this was still part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Borders, I believe , are simply lines drawn by man, over land, and geographically, there are usually few differences on either side of any border. However, here, the difference was stark. While in Himachal, we could still see scattered habitations, within Ladakh, we went miles before seeing signs of any, and when we did, they were usually military, or small shacks built for the convenience of visitors. The nature of every such settlement was temporary – to be dismantled with the arrival of winter. Nature itself felt harsher, more primal, both in the landscape and in the weather. We drove through endless roads meandering through the mountains, the lands...