As the Maruti car cruised along slowly, our driver and guide Amin fretted about how people often don’t consider Kargil district a part of Ladakh; for most, Leh is all there is to it.
I could understand his exasperation, given that the arid landscape before us was reminiscent of Leh, minus the fluttering Buddhist flags. Instead, we could hear the azaan from a nearby mosque as we left Kargil behind.
We drove on the narrow serpentine roads towards Batalik. Driving along the deep gorges of the Indus, we were hoping to arrive before sunset. There are boulders in every size and shape across the landscape, and there is no hint of green. In the midst of huge boulders, a lone tree caught my eye — the sacred juniper, dhup in Hindi.
After a tedious journey of three hours, we reached the Buddhist village Garkon, home to the Dard-Shina people of the Dropka tribe.
Amid discussions about the tribe’s history, which dates back to the time of Alexander the Great, according to the locals, we almost forgot our great finding of the day — the juniper; until we were reminded of it by a small ritual. Before stepping into a local museum, a strand of juniper was burnt as a purification ritual. Confused, I looked at Amin, who explained that what is now the museum was actually a 100-year-old ancestral house, and the house rules were still followed.
Amin pointed to a bunch of juniper branches carefully placed in the underground shrine at the museum. He explained how the juniper was connected to Bonism, the pre-Buddhist religion of 11th century. Even the Shamans, who follow pure Bonism, inhale its scent before entering into a trance-like state. Bonism descended from the Tibetan plateau, but once the trade routes flourished, Buddhism and, later, Islam were preached and practised in this region. The isolation of Kargil is probably the reason one still finds families that follow Bonism rituals.
Bonism involves the worship of the sun, moon, trees and other natural elements. Its followers believe that they are connected to their ancestors through the mythological figure of Sadek, said to be present in natural elements. On our way back from Garkon, we found stone walls on the outskirts of the village where the ashes of ancestors are buried. I could see the offering of pink flowers, and juniper strands, inserted in the gap between the stones. I took a branch of juniper on my way back as a memento of this mystical land.
Deepti Asthana is a Mumbai-based photographer