I MOVED MOUNTAINS

And the mountains moved me.

Written by Misha Paul, marketing professional, founder of sustainable fashion label Love Again and sustainability advocate. She loves stories- the more vintage or rooted, the better- and always looks for them in her mother's old saris, while reading or even while travelling.

Photo credit: Florian Wenke

You know that restless night when you are jolted up at an ungodly hour with a weird sensation in your body, and can simply not will yourself back to sleep? That nocturnal panic attack packed with the futile tossing and turning in bed that finally convinces you that your anxiety has caught up? In such a moment, if you can make peace with your realisation, you know in an instant that your body needs a vacation. But if things unravel slightly out of hand, you are triggered to denounce everything you’ve done so far and move to the mountains. Whatever the extent of the unrest, all roads invariably lead to the mountains. 

At least they did for me.

Probably Relevant Side-Note: a person who loves mountains is called an Orophile

Once Upon a May, 2022, 4 Am. 

I’m an out-and-out city girl with motion sickness, in a passionate relationship with comfort. The city cacophony is my white noise. Yet, once upon a May, at an ungodly hour, I craved a quick affair with solitude. The lure of a smog-free land far enough from the muscle memory of city life took over all my senses. 

I once had a lackadaisical outlook towards repose. I loved the rush of hustling. I still do. But in 2018 I suddenly became much too aware of my need to find meaning in what I did, instead of mindless hustling. My obeisance to consumerism as a by-product of the ‘I work so hard, I deserve to buy this’ philosophy started gnawing at me. 

I was always an environmentally conscious person in love with impulse shopping. I see it today. But before April 24, 2018, the irony of the above line was quite lost on me. But on that ordinary Tuesday, while on my way to work, a story about the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse popped up on my feed, changing my life for good. 

Probably Relevant Side-Note: The Rana Plaza disaster, struck on 24 April 2013, when the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which housed five garment factories, killed at least 1,132 people and injured more than 2,500 people. This disaster, followed by similar ones in the subsequent months, is among the worst industrial accidents on record. It was a wake-up call for the world to acknowledge the poor labour conditions faced by workers in the ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh- most factories that make our favourite fast fashion brands like Zara and HnM. 

The same fashion that usually felt liberating started feeling claustrophobic. I felt sick to my stomach and my inaction started making me feel restless. So, while on my way to work, I decided to quit fast fashion- cold turkey. Being an ardent shopaholic and given the lack of awareness around fast-fashion alternatives, I thought following through with the decision would be tough. But, nearly 6 years later I can say that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Cut to May 20, 2019, a year and a month after that decision. I came across an opportunity for a Sustainability Summer School with UNESCO in Paris. I only found out about the School on the last day of application submission while I was still at work. I panicked, but I knew I had to crack it. 

Well, I did crack it and within a month I was in Paris. Action begets action as they say. I returned a more aware person. To keep the momentum going, I launched my own sustainable fashion label- Love Again. From Dec 2019 to March 2020, I launched 2 capsule collections upcycled from my mom’s saris and sold everything fast fashion in my wardrobe to make people aware of the world of thrifting. The high was so rewarding I knew I’d finally found my calling. 

And then the pandemic hit.

The world was forced to come to a sudden halt and I was amongst those whose mental health took a major hit. Amongst other things, my circumstances forced me to move from one house to another. It was then that I became all the more aware of my ‘excess baggage’- in the form of material goods and my compulsive buying habits. The sudden slowing down from a life of hustle also forced me to introspect- an extremely uncomfortable feeling when you are so used to racing. 

So 5 years after I made a conscious ‘sustainable’ shift- in my wardrobe and my lifestyle, lying listlessly on my bed when I saw myself craving a mountain escape, I was sure my baptism of slow living was moving towards completion.

The Journey to the Top Of The World

"Mountains terrify me - they just sit about; they are so proud."

- Sylvia Plath

Over centuries, poets, travellers and romantics have woven praises of the lure of the remote mountains. Of course, I was no exception. I was convinced my catharsis lay on top of the ragged mountains. So my aforementioned midnight crisis led me to the one destination that I knew would be far, beautiful, cathartic, slow and definitely magical - Ladakh. 

Nestled in North India and wedged between Pakistan, Tibet and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the magnificent Ladakh remained an unexplored wonderland of the Himalayas for the better part of the past. Its geographic isolation helped preserve its culture and traditions. But in 1960 when the Indian government built a road from the Kashmir valley into Ladakh to defend its borders with China and Pakistan, Ladakh opened up, engulfing travellers looking for spiritual conquests and adventurous quests. Ladakh is a cold desert, but the mysticism around it renders it warm and luminous, especially to city-slickers like me. 

Probably Relevant Side-Note: Ladakh was an independent country since the middle of the 10th century. Since 1974, the Government of India has successfully encouraged tourism in Ladakh. But the result of that and the construction of the nine-kilometre-long Atal Tunnel is that the erstwhile Buddhist kingdom saw 7.62 lakh pass through it only in the eight months between January 1 and August 19. Film shoots of movies like Lakshya, Jab Tak Hai Jaan and 3 Idiots furthered the awareness and hence the repercussions of increasing tourist footfall in Ladakh. While more infrastructure develops to support tourists, environmentalists are concerned that rapidly growing tourism will start compromising the sustainable way of living in Leh.

A Rocky Start

Even though I feel ridiculous making this confession, I feel it’s time I bared myself. I’m one of those angsty corporate people who suffer from the Guilt Vacation Syndrome. I find it hard to use my designated leaves. And even when I do so, I find it harder to switch off before a holiday. So this time, when I booked my tickets in my earning morning daze, I decided to embrace abandonment completely. A friend took charge of all bookings and reservations to help me embark on the path of the joy of the journey and not the destination. Hence, other than my air tickets, I jumped into my escapades blissfully unaware and ready for the mountains to lead me. 

I live in Bangalore. To reach Ladakh- from Bangalore to Leh, via New Delhi- I had a multi-ticket itinerary involving 6 hours, 2 flights and a gate change I was unaware of until the last moment. It was June 16th 2022. My day started at 4.30 am. Everything was going as planned until the moment I was about to land at my stop-over- Delhi, at 10 am. In a sudden moment of panic, I realised that my flight to Leh at 11.45 am was not just with a different airline, but on a different Terminal. I’m a pioneer of panic travelling and hence I prefer to travel with significant time buffers. So this last-moment realisation broke me into the same 4 am sweat that had first made me book my tickets. 

A Deja Vu I’d not signed up for. 

I remember I was running between terminals after collecting my luggage when I suddenly got a work call. I took it because my corporate brain is trained to never miss calls or let personal emotions seep into work. Well, I’m embarrassed to accept that at that moment I reached a new personal low (and a professional high) when irrespective of my tizzy, I started cracking a brief, in my run-in between Terminals. I made it just in time for my final flight from Delhi to Leh. But until the air hostess forbade me from using my phone with a stern look, I kept working vehemently. My flight ended up being rocky in more ways than one. I spent it guilt-ridden because in mid-air, without a phone signal, instead of getting excited about my holiday, all I could think about was landing and ‘closing the loop’. 

As we started preparing to land at Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport, Leh, I started feeling better. I’d turned on my data even before the ‘seat belt signal was turned off’. But as soon as we landed I realised that the phone signal had left me for good. To date, I can feel the anxiety that hit me at that moment with the same intensity of being blindsided by a ‘we need to talk’ conversation. Like a lost vagrant- messy-haired and wild-eyed, I started pacing across the airport to find some semblance of a phone signal. I had to take one final work call, I kept telling myself. But the sweat beads on my forehead and the manic increase in my heart rate were already threatening a terrible holiday.  

It was much later when I realised that I had landed in Ladakh on a well-deserved holiday after 8 long hours, and yet a part of me was still stuck in the cubicle. 

And Then It Happened.

I had just stepped out of the airport with my eyes glued to my phone when the cold wind hit my face. That was the moment I looked up from my phone for the first time after landing. All noise died down in an instant. The world came to a sudden halt and it seemed like the sky had suddenly opened up. I felt like I was suspended in the same spot for uncountable moments just staring at the dramatic and ragged hills that surrounded the airport. 

I was so beguiled, I don’t even remember getting into the taxi. It was only when we started for my first destination- Stok Palace Heritage Hotel on the outskirts of the city, that some sensation returned to my body. For 20, maybe 30 minutes, I sat in the car meditatively taking in the remoteness of the valley. My worries suddenly seemed too small and inconsequential. It was like the wind was carrying me to my destination, and I had no choice but to fly along. 

And then we reached Stok Palace.

Built entirely by Ladakhi craftspeople in 1820, the magnificent Palace towers over a hill in the middle of emptiness. Overlooking the valley of Singey Sangpo, the Palace is breathtaking and stupefying. Once the seat of power for the erstwhile Ladakh Royal Family, it opened to the public in 1980 with the blessings of the Dalai Lama and continues to be the abode for the Namgyal dynasty. This was to be my home for the next 4 days. 
I was enchanted. As I walked through the entrance porch and the courtyard towards my room, the finesse of Ladakhi craftspersonship on walls, came alive. As the starched afternoon sun reflected on the walls, the Palace seemed to wake up from a slow and peaceful afternoon siesta only to welcome me with the tales of the rich Ladakhi history.

The carefully curated heritage artefacts, the wooden floors, the rich murals on the walls, and the regal upholstery, paired with the warm hospitality of the humble Ladakhis, amidst the quietness of it all, rendered a kind of mythical richness to the Palace I can never forget. The beauty of Stok Palace makes you surrender to its aura. As I threw myself on the bed in my palatial room, all the city noise remarkably dissolved into an incomprehensible quietness.

But with Beauty Comes the Beast. 

The beast of loneliness. 

On the first night itself, I realised how unnerving tranquillity can be. Answers to questions like What have I been doing all my life? aren’t always easy. The rhythm of the quietness heightened my anxiety triggering the very emotions I’d tried to escape. There I was prepared with uncountable medicines to deal with mountain and motion sickness. But no one prepared me for a different battle- the battle of tackling my inner beasts without the distractions of a ringing phone, the rowdy traffic or a set to-do list.

We often undermine the power of mental strength. But when you are up in the mountains and away from the terrain you are used to, it’s your mind that pushes you to go up the uncharted routes- physically and mentally. The ethereal loneliness of the mountains can be isolating. It demands you to surrender. It’s easy to sit in a cramped up living room in the city surrounded by clamouring friends and a blaring TV in the background, talking about wanting to embrace the mountain life. But it took me at least 48 hours to get comfortable with myself and my own thoughts and savour the mesmerising colours, the quiet meals, the star-studded sky and the haunting moonlight. It’s true when they say that the hardest mountain to climb is the one within. 

Ladakh and the Innumerable Lessons 

Photo credit: Florian Wenke

When Ladakh first opened for tourism in 1974, as per the government records, there were only 527 tourists. The number of tourists has grown to a record-breaking 4.5 lakh this year- in eight months from January 1 to August 31 2022. ​​Mountains are important tourism destinations worldwide because of the lure of their wilderness, the breathtaking peace in their quietness, the warmth in their cold aridness, and the meditative escape they promise from the hustle-bustle of the city. But beyond conquering internal battles, Ladakh taught me numerous other lessons as well.

Tourism represents big economic opportunities for remote rural mountain communities. However, an estimated 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to tourism, and that’s predicted to double by 2050. Tourism is associated with potentially negative impacts on ecosystems, especially in a place like Ladakh that is so vulnerable to climate change. For example, to cater to the immense footfall of tourists, camps and hotels spring up near peaceful lakes. Empty streets near ‘must-watch destinations’ get clogged with honking vehicles. When we drop locations of hidden gems on social media, they don’t remain hidden anymore. Add to that the contamination of water and immense plastic pollution we, as tourists, leave behind, and we have at hand tragedy waiting to strike. But the biggest toll over-tourism takes is on local culture and tradition.

A Sustainable Approach to Mountain Tourism

Both the places I chose to stay in- Stok Palace and Ladakh Eco Resort- are designed keeping traditions in mind and sustainably use materials such as wood, mud and rammed earth. They use solar energy, avoid single-use plastic and respect local traditions. It was beautiful to see them keep up with the demands of tourism while trying their best to preserve local traditions and the integrity of the planet. But during my stay, I also realised how less we, as tourists, do in return to help them. One of the areas where I saw the biggest impact of our thoughtless bias was food. More restaurants were serving food that wasn’t authentic to Ladakh, over local cuisine. 

Probably Relevant Side-Note: 

Ladakhi cuisine: Chhutagi, Thukpa, Tingmo, Khambir. Photo credit: Ju-Leh Adventure

Norboo Wangchuk, the owner of Ladakh Eco Resort introduced us to Ladakh’s favourite breakfast Kholak- made out of mixing local butter tea and roasted barley flour. It’s simple and quite heavy but it was so much fun making it with him. He also introduced us to Chaang, a popular alcoholic beverage in Ladakh. We started each day and ended it with a pot of seabuckthorn tea- a wonder plant growing in Ladakh. In addition to consuming innumerable momos and thukpa, we also had Skyu- another traditional soup-based dish of Ladakh cooked with vegetables and pasta-like things in it. 

On asking restaurant owners the reason behind it they said it was to fulfil the demand of the tourists who preferred their comfort food to the local cuisine. What we tend to ignore when we demand for rajma chawal in Ladakh is the fact that consuming food that needs to travel long distances contributes to our carbon footprint. Local food benefits the economy by supporting local farmers, business owners and other producers. 

I became so much more aware of my choices and their consequences during the trip - from the food we ate to the items we shopped for; the places we stayed at to the destinations we visited. By living in tandem with their culture, I realised I could do my small bit in helping their heritage thrive without causing wasteful disruption. 

The Mountains Need Us

Photo credit: Florian Wenke

Ladakh is a soliloquy. Here the unmanicured terrain lives in harmony and humility with the rich traditions of Ladakhis. It is an exceptional piece of art. Being so close to the sky is a grounding experience because it makes us wonder if our selfish need for catharsis, which sometimes is aggravated by FOMO induced by travel influencers, destroys the fragile mountain ecosystem and the native population. 

We fetishise the quiet mountain lifestyle. But what gives us city-dwellers the right to infiltrate their space with our selfish needs for loud music or comfort food, threaten it in the wake of our “awakening” and return to our urban comforts when done? If we want the mountains to survive, to provide the same haven for catharsis for future generations, as travellers we have to develop a cultural conscience and maintain a balance between economic and ecological needs. Mountains are more than the muse for our insta grids. It's time we started respecting them. 

From being the corporate slave sweating the small stuff to a conscious individual today, I have come quite far. The trip made me realise how much we take our mountains (and our inner strength) for granted. I’m still a corporate girl, but I believe confronting my vulnerabilities in the peace of the mountains has made me stronger and more empathetic. Right before the pandemic, I embarked on my journey towards a sustainable lifestyle. Ladakh completed my baptism and I know I’ll be foolish if I returned to my old ways. 

There’s still a long way to go. But I moved mountains to reach where I am today. And the mountains moved me in return.