The Ladakhi crafts tradition had a narrow base as it was confined to the needs of a self-sufficient agrarian economy, dependent on its own pool of artisans. Essential goods such as grain and raw wool were traditionally exchanged for salt and tea, while luxury items came through the Leh trading centre. Much of Ladakh's culture even today reflects the need to keep the 'kali/a' — life-line — going. With the intervention of the cash economy, this village-based tradition was not strong enough to extend its skills. Today, mass-produced goods dominate the local markets.
In Chiling, the centre for metal workers, families make tea-urns, mostly of copper or brass. Gold ornaments that were the specialty of four Nepalese families are rare today, but silver work has survived. The best of this craft can be seen in the gompa treasures or in the homes of rich Ladakhis who have inherited jewellery and ceremonial dishes from their mother. For most, seeing a Ladakhi woman in festival finery is often the only way of glimpsing some rare silver ornaments today.
Decorative gur-gur tea churns, and the chogtse, a typical Ladakhi table, low and ornamented, can be found at the crafts centre at Leh. But these are no longer as fine as those of old, when the craftsman was an artisan and not a souvenir producer Ladakh did not need to develop a craft culture by virtue of its location on the Silk Route. Every luxury item was brought from somewhere else so that though every village had a weaver, an artisan and a blacksmith, they didn't necessarily refine their skills. But, with the curtailment of trade with Sinking and the closure of the Chang Thang trail, Ladakh has begun to develop a carpet-weaving industry using Tibetan motifs. This craft is still in its infancy. Pashmina is also woven as a result of the handicraft fever that has gripped India, but there is no effort to capture the cashmere's smoothness; rather, the emphasis is on the natural and hardy look.
Winter is the time to work the loom or to weave a carpet. As the weaver's spindle turns, and the hands fly over the emerging pattern of the Tibetan dragon in search of eternal peace, the sunlight becomes warmer- and the sky less magnificently blue; the bones seem to rest easier and the sinews quicken with the desire to break free of the constraint of winter's labour Summer, short but sweet, beckons with its own demands. Also Visit – Kashmir holiday packages
At the crossing of the pilgrim and shepherd routes there is plenty of life — thousands of sheep, pashmina goats and yaks tended by shepherds who have perhaps never heard of Delhi. Many names they are familiar with are not on the trekking map, and marked by nothing other than a heap of flat stones or a tattered prayer flag. At the high-altitude pastures of Chang Thang, shepherds pitch their goatskin tents, like so many black umbrellas, around which the herds graze peacefully in summer. These high-altitude meadows are the home of the kiang, the wild ass, glimpsed so indistinctly by the traveller. Its reddish brown body and flying black mane are the only spots of colour against the still, silent world of bleak, bare rock. The herd thunders past and a single horse stops to paw the earth. Suddenly it tosses its head, gazes around, neighs shrilly and vanishes. The kiang is always in rapid flight.
The nomads are denied the joy of seeing miles of barley waving under sunlit skies. Nor do they share in the pride of husbanding a fine crop. Their existence revolves around the urgency of finding pastures. Their cash flow depends on the pashmina, but their flock includes yaks and the huniya sheep. The yak is the mainstay of the nomad's life, providing milk, butter and meat, and material for the tent-like canopies woven from its hair the sheep is a source of coarse wool. Only when an animal becomes a burden on the shepherd's scarce resources, is it slaughtered. Culling from the flock occurs only at the start of winter, a schedule that is evidence of unerring Ladakhi logic: Conserving scarce fodder and at the same time using winter's natural refrigeration.
Most people find chang more appetizing than gur-gur, the buttered tea which tastes like weak broth, or sheer-chaff, the salted tea with its lurid pink colour and acquired taste. Everyone takes a few turns at the tea-urn that churns out the buttered tea, drunk copiously in the dry climate. The wood stove that burns day and night in the kitchen reflects both time past and present. For the outsider, the landscape of Ladakh is so imposing, the air so pure, nothing seems to be as we have earlier known or perceived it. To be present when dawn awakens the rising mountain from the mist is the moment when we acknowledge that, and submit to the indomitability of nature. The mind is free to roam far beyond what the eye can see; to delight in the spread of nature's bounty under a benign sky; to share in the struggle against adversity; to be completely alone in uninhabited space, forcefully aware of individual boundaries, yet finding solace in the community.
As if to contemplate this, modern Ladakhi homes have a shel-khang or glass room. It evolved from the rup-sel, an open balcony, which when glazed makes passive use of solar energy, creating a hot-house effect, besides keeping the wind out. Usually the glass room is spacious, low ceilinged and with little furniture. The view it offers is its only embellishment — the only one it needs. There is nothing more relaxing than to sit by the window, a part of this grand canvas, the impor Lance or one's existence reduced to its proper scale.
For the young Ladakhis, sleeping under the stars which shine like lanterns in the midnight blue sky, summer passes like a dream, all too soon. It is a kind season for an ebullient and joyous people who always find something to smile at. Particularly when the sun is bright and the scurin-ba festivities get under way, chang vessels are brought out from the cellar and briskly consumed by the all-male crowd. There is an abundance of smoke, noise and good-humoured clowning. As the drums begin, there is dancing. The feet move in a slow and shuffling motion, but the arms wave in all directions, the hands holding a white khat-tok, a loosely woven scarf, in lieu of a garland of flowers. In the afternoon, everyone returns home to change into ceremonial dress and the men to collect bows and arrows for the archery contest.
The menu is an eloquent reminder of the gastronomic and cultural streams that make up Ladakh. The diet is poor in variety and quality because it's dependent on the seasons and 110the scarce availability of ingredients. But it is well suited to the climate for each dish contains ingredients vital to compensate for the dryness and cold. Tsampa (parched barley flour mixed into a gruel) is eaten with buttered tea or chang to combat the rigours of the climate.Well-to-do Ladakhis vary their diet with thug-kpos (soup of meat, vegetables and small flat noodles), or pa-ba (mixed flour of roasted 'naked' barley and kerzey gram) added to soup, chang or tea. Another popular dish is sky fried wheat-flour dumplings mixed with meat, potatoes and turnips. Most dishes are steamed, although today the richer households will add tarka (seasoned butter or oil) to a dish. Most visitors relish mok-mok, steam-cooked meat dumplings or gya-tuk, Chinese-style egg noodles.
Ladakhi tagi or bread is a delicious accompaniment to soup, or with butter and lass/ (buttermilk) or dab! (curd) often seasoned with herbs, Choo-tagi is easy to digest and similar in taste to flour dumplings; shab-motagi is made from wheat flour, much like the Mughal rumali roti, and kham-bir tagi is made from flour which is slightly fermented before cooking. Thai-tag tagi is about two cm in diameter-, and cooked like a Spanish omelette. Kho-tak is both a sweet and savoury sattu halwa, similar to pa-ba. Children like having it with sugar and butter; adults with salted tea.
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