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Filming Lahaul at IALS

March 20, 2018 by 0 Comments

Filming Lahaul presented its “work in progress” at the 18th Conference of the International Association of Ladakh Studies, held from 2nd to 6th May 2017 in Pozan, Poland. The conference was jointly organised by the Polish Academy of Sciences, Humboldt University, Berlin and the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland.

The conference brought together sixty researchers from Europe and South Asia working in different regions of the Western Himalayas. We were delighted to share our visual research on Lahaul and received many thought provoking inputs. A big thanks to IALS, especially for the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with young scholars from Ladakh and Kargil, India.

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Filming Lahaul in LSR

March 13, 2017 by 0 Comments

Filming Lahaul team recently conducted a two day (3rd-4th March, 2017) hands on workshop on filmmaking with second year Sociology students at Lady Shri Ram college for Women, Delhi University. Two inspiring days of teaching/sharing techniques of ethnographic filmmaking with young minds brimming with critical ideas.

We were happy to share some clips from Filming Lahaul project with the students and faculty to facilitate conversations on fundamental aspects such as frame as a point of encounter between the filmmaker, subject and the audience.

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Why Jispa?

January 22, 2017 by 0 Comments

The sangam (confluence) of Chandra and Bhaga river at Tandi village in Lahaul valley is an auspicious mark “on the map of Buddhist and Hindu sacred geography”.i For the Himalayan yogis of the past, this sangam signified the “sacred triangle of the Mother of all Buddhas, from which all the phenomena originate”ii; whereas the economic logic of our times have reduced this living entity “into hydrologic data, cash flow statements, political will and truckloads of concrete.” iii Cast in this dominant vision is the state of Himachal Pradesh that wants to lead the hydropower race in the Himalayas- as a laboratory of renewable energy production. The hydropower extraction frontier here is expanding into the remote territories of the state, rather aggressively. The 130 kms of relatively undammed Chandrabhaga or Chenab river meandering through the districts of Lahaul-Spiti and Chamba of Himachal is a crucial coordinate on the energy map of this “hydropower state of the country” where close to fifty hydropower projects are proposed in a cascade, with majority allotted in Lahaul valley.iv But how are these grand visions of a hydropower future coming to life, as they “proliferate across different physical and human geographies” of Himachal? v

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Shakspa in Shashur

December 17, 2016 by 0 Comments

 

In 1991, anthropologist Elisabeth Anne Stutchbury completed her Phd thesis titled “Rediscovering Western Tibet: Gonpa, Chorten and the continuity of practice with a Tibetan Buddhist community in the Indian Himalaya.” i The community she carried out her research with happens to be the Lahaulas of Kardang village. The Lahaul of early 1980s was the focus of her study. In specific, she studied the continuity and revitalisation of Tibetan Buddhism of the Drukpa Kargyu tradition by understanding the interconnections between religious life at Kardang gompa (monastery) and the village “against a dynamic social and cultural change” in the 1980s.

Given the paucity of in depth anthropological research on post-Independence societal transformations in Lahaul, Stutchbury’s work is a valuable resource. This critical work on religious and socio cultural transformation and continuity in the region argues that post independence social analysis is mostly limited to a superficial administrative documentation of religion, society and culture. Such a linear, homogeneous and statistical account of religion, society and culture, for instance overlooks the diverse ways in which religion is lived and experienced differently by people inhabiting a same geographical space. ii In fact, the absence of critical academic knowledge on Lahaul is a recurring concern in Stutchbury’s thesis as she then hoped that educational access would inspire younger generation of Lahaulas to further research on the area like Mr. Tobdan, a local scholar from Tod valley who in the 80s offered her crucial insights into the religious history of the area.

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Sacred Water

November 29, 2016 by 0 Comments

To visually document the Border Road Organisation (BRO) employees celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi in Tandi was a matter of chance. Last year in August as we waited for the taxi in Stingri, we heard a screeching loudspeaker not very far from where we stood. We asked Tashi, the dhaba owner if he knew what the noise was all about, and of course he did. The echoing bhajans (religious songs) were from the pandaal (makeshift shrine) set up at the BRO station in Stingri. The employees of BRO from Maharashtra were the organisers and like every year, locals were invited over for lunch. As we reached the venue, the women from Stingri had just finished eating. They were easily up for some post lunch chit chatting as they got themselves comfortable on the neatly aligned chairs and pulled out their knitting bags. It’s highly unlikely that Lahaula women will abandon their knitting pouches at home. A mobile phone and a knitting bag are two essentials. (Lahauli women and knitting deserves a special post)

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Here we start

October 26, 2016 by 1 Comment

Introducing a reality such as Lahaul is not an easy task but here is Lama Yangjor narrating one dimension of it with much ease. Lama Yangjor is the head monk of Maning Gompa (Monastery) in Gondhla village of Tinan Valley in Lahaul. We are grateful to him for that early morning walk to Sila gompa and the cave. It was a delightful exchange of many interesting conversations and perspectives spanning from religious and spiritual status of Lahaul to the ongoing socio economic and cultural processes of change unfolding in the valley. He had many critical perspectives on the issue and in fact sees them as closely interlinked. Now when we reflect on our conversations, perhaps the ideas we exchanged were foundational to our interest in the idea of a sacred landscape and understanding this unique interplay of religion and environment in a geography like Lahaul. Maybe it helps us better in contextually situating the changing times.

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