Under western stars

But for people who don’t intend to stay long in this cold desert, the good doctor’s prescription can be a frustrating experience. There’s no question of taking the morning flight in and the evening flightout.

Cheap thrills: There is, of course, a particular class of visitors to the area who appear to have all the time in the world. These are the foreign tourists in ill-fitting clothes who clog the small bazaar and the innumerable guest houses and hotels. Here, almost every lane has a signboard offering boarding and lodging. Most of these tourists are trekkers, and there are tour operators by the dozen who supply equipment and guides. These wanderers find the area eminently suitable for an out of this world experience. Back home, they can make enough money in less than a year to pay for a two to three-month sojourn in any third world country. In Leh, they can find boarding and lodging for anything between Rs 200 to Rs 2,000 per day. And get to sip jasmine tea at the kiosks besides.

Foreign hand: Thanks to the influx of tourists, this ancient region is fast catching up with the rest of the world. Dish antennas are mushrooming and shops proudly display signboards announcing the arrival of the latest CDs.Rentals are on the higher side, but it’s a seller’s market. Together with scores of shops selling antiques and artifacts are stores brimming with life-size posters of Hollywood and Bollywood stars. Then there are shops that stock foreign goods: emergency lights, toys, cameras and cigarettes, probably skimmed off needy foreign tourists. There are a couple of Tibetan markets which sell allegedly Chinese goods. You can also find candies with Middle East labels which specify that the contents are not sullied by pork. Vying for shelf space are sex creams and vitality capsules. A large-scale exposure to the western way of life is causing immense damage to the local youth, says a political activist, but most residents appear to have reconciled themselves to the changing trends.

Political vacuum: Visitors to this high-altitude desert also have to reconcile themselves to some hard facts of life. These include uncertainty over flights due to weather conditions and heavy bookings; uncertainty over getting a telephonecall through for hours together; frequent power breakdowns; long absence of officials if they are on tour; the exorbitant rates of cabbies (Rs 500 for a 30 km trip) and their refusal to give a receipt for the taxman back in the plains. But one hard fact which I did not expect to encounter was the absence of the ruling National Conference candidate, who is considered the likely winner. He had not visited this area, which constitutes half of the Leh-Ladakh constituency, for fear of sparking off communal tension. He is a Muslim and the Ladakh region is dominated by Buddhists. Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and his band of supporters are running a proxy campaign on his behalf. The candidate’s photograph is not to be found anywhere in the town. Even the party’s election office doesn’t have it.