The data in the phone-camera gives the time of the photograph as 8.42AM.

That was when on September 10, a wiry runner blew past the finish line of the 2023 Ladakh Marathon and won the race. A few steps past the finish, he lay down exhausted. Helped up by volunteers, he then picked his way to Leh’s NDS Stadium nearby, where the awards presentation was due.

A couple of days later, when this writer met him at a café in Leh, he still seemed a light, breezy presence on the planet. Soft spoken, mostly answering to the point and if a wind blew – likely to float off. Meet Nawang Tsering or as at 8.42AM on September 10 – two hours, 42 minutes and two seconds. And for this spectator from Mumbai, such timing at 11,500 feet elevation, where many of us find it difficult to jog!

Still when Nawang won the 2023 Ladakh Marathon, it wasn’t his best timing so far. He was marginally short of his own course record in Leh; 2:41:42, set in 2022. His personal best was 2:39:39, set at the 2022 New Delhi Marathon. At that time, it (2:39:39) appeared the best timing yet by a Ladakhi marathon runner (source: Administration of Union Territory of Ladakh, press statement dated March 29, 2022). However, it’s a long way off from the timings reported by top Indian marathon runners (for comparison: Shivnath Singh’s longstanding national record is 2:12:00 and Gopi T of the Indian Army who has since been the closest to that mark, clocked a personal best of 2:13:39 at the 2019 Seoul Marathon [source: World Athletics]). On the bright side, Nawang is 24 years old and only getting started. Besides, just as runners from the plains may be stretched doing a sub-three hour-marathon at altitude in Ladakh’s dry weather, a Ladakhi runner like Nawang, takes time to adjust to the heat and humidity of lower altitudes. All of which points to engaging discoveries and twists and turns ahead, in India’s marathon story.

Nawang hails from Lingshet, a village in the Sham region of Ladakh. It is a long way from Leh, to the south west. Although technically a part of Leh district, enquiries in Leh revealed that culturally, Lingshet used to be closer to Zanskar. For long, Lingshet was a remote place. There wasn’t a road leading right up to the village. Nawang’s father worked as a labourer. His mother died when he was in the third standard. He has two brothers and a sister. Nawang studied at Leh’s Lamdon Model Senior Secondary School. Even after he competed his twelfth standard some years ago, the school continues to be second home. He stays in the school hostel.

In his early childhood, Nawang recalled, it took three days to reach home from Leh. And in winter, passage to Lingshet entailed trekking on the frozen Zanskar River. Known as the Chadar Trek, it was until recently a much-coveted objective in adventure tourism with people paying a lot of money to experience walking on the frozen river in sub-zero temperatures. Global warming and consequent unreliability around the strength of the ice cover and problems associated with too many people arriving for the bragging rights of having walked the frozen river, have since taken the sheen off the trek. For Nawang though, the Chadar Trek was a winter reality. It was the only way he could go home during vacations (in Ladakh, the winter school break is longer than the summer one). As he grew up, the visits home appear to have dwindled. During the ninth and tenth standards, tuitions kept him in Leh. In the following years, it was running. Lingshet is now connected by road. But the boy, since become a man and devoted to a life in running, rarely goes home. Leh and Lamdon have become his address.

For much of his years in school, Nawang wasn’t into running. The bug bit in the eleventh standard. His inspiration was his friends – Tsering Stobgais and Jigmet Norbu – who had been to Mumbai (home of India’s biggest city marathon) and on their return begun to train. There was even a running club operated by his friends; they called it Cosmos. According to Stobgais, Cosmos was one among clubs of that sort, formed by the inmates of the school hostel to have informal tournaments. “ Back then, Leh did not have many sports tournaments. We had to devise our own,” Stobgais said, adding efforts are now afoot by former Cosmos members to recast the club into a body that spans both competitions at school and outside. At the time Nawang first saw his friends train, he didn’t have running shoes. His friends had visited Mumbai as part of the running team sponsored by Rimo Expeditions. The company provided team members new pairs of shoes. When his friends’ shoes became old, Nawang got to borrow a pair for his training runs. Then in 2014 or so, when the year’s edition of the Ladakh Marathon was due, Nawang bought his friend’s old running shoes – a pair of Kalenji from Decathlon. At the event in Leh, he participated in the half marathon and finished eighth. From 2015 onwards, he started getting podium finishes at the Ladakh Marathon; he opened his account with a second position in the half marathon in the open category. Archived results show his 2015 timing as 1:23:26.

That year he made his first trip to Mumbai as part of the team dispatched annually by Rimo Expeditions to participate in the Mumbai Marathon. Thereby, he got his first pair of new running shoes – a pair of Nike. In Mumbai, he trained under coach Savio D’Souza (Savio also visited Leh periodically to oversee his wards’ training). Contacted in mid-September 2023, after Nawang’s latest victory in Leh, the coach remembered the youngster he met in 2015 as a hardworking, good runner who was short on big race experience. Nawang’s first half marathon in Mumbai didn’t yield any podium finish. He found the heat and humidity challenging. But it was the beginning of a pattern in life – start the running season with the Ladakh Marathon in September and spend the winter months running the marathons of the plains with Rimo. In 2016, he successfully defended his second place in the half marathon in Leh and while he travelled with Rimo to Mumbai, Goa and Delhi and improved his timing, he could secure no podium finish anywhere outside of Ladakh.

Next year – 2017 – he became the winner (first place) of the half marathon in Leh with timing of 1:21:23 and followed that up with a second place in his age category at the Tata Steel 25K in Kolkata, his first podium finish outside Ladakh. However, his participation in the 2017 Airtel Delhi Half Marathon and the 2018 Mumbai Marathon yielded no podium finish, Nawang said. It was a spell of no encouraging results. Through the 2019 Tata Mumbai Marathon and the New Delhi Marathon, he continued to run the half marathon to no memorable finishes outside Ladakh. Barring exceptions, his timing in the half marathon was stuck in the range of 1:20 to 1:21. There were some near podium finishes but no real podium. His performance at home too, seemed unsteady. At the 2018 Ladakh Marathon, he completed the half marathon in 1:18:48 to secure first place. But in 2019, it was 1:22:34 and a third place on the podium. Then COVID-19 struck. The world slipped into pandemic and lockdown. Races were cancelled globally.

The intervening period till the resumption of races, was a period of reflection. Nawang had to figure out how to break free from entrapment in a plateauing half marathon performance and dearth of podium finishes. “ I was stuck in the 1:20 – 1:21 range,” Nawang said, portraying the frustration. It was from the consequent churn that the switch to the full marathon happened. Savio explained the logic and process. According to him, two angles counted. First, there were limitations in Ladakh to improving athletes’ speed because the required number of short distance races were not yet a major part of the region’s running ecosystem. Second, what runners like Nawang required was not merely speed but “ speed-endurance.’’ Or simply put, sustaining what speed they could whip up over a longer distance, which in turn helped them when running the the shorter distance races too. A kind of benign, synergic loop. “ For me, it was logical that Nawang should increase the distance of his long runs,’’ Savio said of the drift to full marathon. In his estimation (the whole thing viewed as developing speed-endurance), Nawang learning to be good at the marathon would have beneficial impact on his performance in the half marathon as well.

In Leh, Nawang did some of his training runs for the full marathon with Ladakh’s leading woman marathon runner, Jigmet Dolma (another of Savio’s Ladakhi students), and also with her fellow marathon runners, Tsetan Dolkar and Disket Dolma (they were all part of Rimo’s team). “ He did some of the easier runs with us. Beyond a point, our respective pace is different,’’ Jigmet said. In training, Nawang’s long runs typically touched 35 to 38 kilometres. “ In 2021, there was a marathon in Delhi. That is where I competed in the full marathon for the first time. I had timing of two hours, 42 minutes,’’ he said (the reference here is most likely to the 2021 New Delhi Marathon, where Nawang timed 2:42:49 to place sixth among men in the open category). The next event he recalled, was the 2022 New Delhi Marathon, where he got his personal best of 2:39:39. In September that year came his course record at the Ladakh Marathon.

Then the impact of the switch to full marathon, on the half, also manifested. At the 2022 Vedanta Half Marathon in Delhi, Nawang narrowly missed a podium position in his age category (in the half marathon) but gained a personal best of 1:14:45. In December 2022, he ran the Tata Steel 25K in Kolkata and placed third in the 18-24 years age group with timing of 1:31:28. Roughly a month later, at the 2023 Tata Mumbai Marathon, he placed fourth in the men’s 18-24 years age category of the full marathon with timing of two hours, 39 minutes, 49 seconds. What effect, better circumstances of training and being with runners of matching and superior ability can have on Nawang, is anyone’s guess.  

Going ahead, Nawang wishes to alternate between the full and half marathon. He plans to improve his timing. Many Ladakhi runners concede that while they have faith in their endurance, they find themselves challenged for speed in the races of India’s plains. Nawang trains as his coach, Savio, tells him to. He does his training runs, does free hand exercises and has generally avoided gyms. “ I have only one weight in my hostel room. Four kilos, that’s all,’’ Nawang said laughing. The bulk of his training is a composite of warm-up, running and stretching. Asked what he thought were essential to get closer to the timings reported at marathons elsewhere, he thought for a while and said: an improved diet, coach close by and perhaps access to some strength training. But what sets Nawang apart from the regular crop of Ladakhi runners is how he has imagined his life’s work.

Nawang currently holds a temporary job with the Ladakh Police. He also helps out at Rimo. Most male runners in Ladakh, once they become proficient in the sport, join the Ladakh Scouts or get picked up by this regiment of the Indian Army (the Scouts are known to treat their podium finishes at races in Ladakh as a regimental honour). According to Nawang, he was approached. But he held back for two important reasons. First, he is clear that whatever job he does should provide him room to train and grow further in running. It cannot be job above running; it should be a job that enables his future in running. To that extent, within the gamut of government jobs (including jobs in the military and paramilitary), he prefers establishments with a clear-cut sports quota and equally clear provisions for sportsperson to train. Second, he would like to contribute to running’s growth in Ladakh. “ I want to popularize running amongst my people,’’ he said. Outside the café, there was a quiet calm descended on Leh’s main market, also its much loved meeting spot; with the annual marathon over, the last flush of tourists to town had departed. Conversation completed, Nawang left for Lamdon.

“ Nawang Tsering is a star of Lamdon School. In fact, he is a Ladakh-star. He belongs to a very humble family. At an early stage itself, we saw his potential in long distance running. He has stayed on in the school hostel even after passing out. For Lamdon’s boarding school students, he is like an elder brother. He coaches and mentors students,” Dr Stanzin Dawa, principal, Lamdon Model Senior Secondary School, said when contacted. According to him, the Leh-based institution has its own imprint on the annual marathon with many who finish in the top ranks of the Ladakh Marathon’s various races, belonging to the school or its alumni.

The weekend after this writer met Nawang, it was the Sunday of the 6th Kargil International Marathon 2023. Nawang was due to run there. He did and secured the first place, covering the 42 kilometre-distance in a new personal best of 2:38:47 on September 17, 2023. That 2:39:39 from 2022, had become history. The union territory’s administration may need to put out a new press statement.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)           

Going into the annual Ladakh Marathon, Chewang Motup’s big worry had been the impact high altitude may have on those who arrived for the event’s races.

He kept reminding participants of the need to respect acclimatization protocols. As race director, he experiences the tension that nearly 6000 people congregating for the four day-event and the potential of non-Ladakhis in the fray acquiring altitude related illness, bring. The event’s races happen across altitudes spanning Leh’s 11,500 feet to the 17,618 feet of Khardung La, among the world’s highest motorable passes. As altitude rises, oxygen level in the atmosphere reduces making athletic performance tougher. In this context, the problems organizers face (as mentioned in an earlier article on this blog) are several. There are participants who don’t disclose pre-existing medical conditions, which could worsen at altitude. To get used to functioning at altitude, some days dedicated to the purpose, including rest therein, is essential. But there are those who think that protocols for acclimatization are unimportant and treat it lightly. As this writer noticed, runners arrive late and insist on getting bibs. Friends reached early try collecting bibs for those unable to reach Leh on time. It provokes arguments, for collection of bibs in person and on time are the primary means by which organizers stay convinced (to the extent possible) that protocols are being followed.

Making matters worse, there is no hesitation on the part of some runners in throwing their weight around. Position, status, importance of self – all these come into play even as organizers emphasize that the acclimatization protocols are in place to protect participants. Holding one’s ground against such negotiators is tough. Thanks to the safety measures the organizers must take and the lengthier duration of stay demanded (due to acclimatization protocols), the Ladakh Marathon is an expensive affair. Those who paid money and registered, try to ensure money’s worth. It reminds of an Everest expedition (albeit on a much smaller scale), where the hunger for achievement risks trumping reality. It will be so unless there is awareness and ownership among runners of what they are getting into. In other words, a race at high altitude is very dissimilar to a race in the plains.

Unlike events at low altitude, where laxity may be accommodated without any grave consequences to one’s health, at high altitude, poor acclimatization and subsequent ailments can result in death if medical intervention is not quick. There is thus a greater degree of responsibility expected on the part of participants, as regards events at high altitude. On the last day of the marathon expo (it is where racers collect their bibs), Motup was heard telling a participant pleading for relaxation of rules around bib collection, “ I am sorry, we are now very close to the race. I can’t give the bib to someone else and without seeing you in person. Don’t tell me how supremely fit you are or what your past record at races is. I have people working for me who climbed Everest multiple times. And yet, each of them has no option but to follow protocols when freshly coming to high altitude.’’ Besides being race director of Ladakh Marathon, Motup also owns Rimo Expeditions, one of the biggest adventure travel companies in India.

To complicate things, health problems experienced at high altitude are still a subject of study in medicine. Not only does each person seem to take differently to altitude but the same person needn’t have the same response to altitude, always. Even if protocols are met, things may go wrong depending on variables ranging from conditions on race day to the physical and mental state of a participant at that instance. While this can easily strengthen the lobby trivializing acclimatization protocols, fact is – all the precautions taken and safety measures met, matter in the analysis of a mishap. Documented evidence is vital. This is among reasons why race organizers insist on protocols being followed. This is why they feel beleaguered when runners argue on critical topics like protocols around acclimatization. “ My conclusion is that runners are taking altitude lightly,’’ Motup said.

Two days after the 2023 edition of the Ladakh Marathon had concluded, this writer met Motup for a post-race chat. The stress he had accumulated dealing with the event and its participants, was still only working its way off. As with previous editions (the event is now a decade old), the 2023 race witnessed no fatal incident on its course. In the run-up to the event, a lady who had come to run the half marathon collapsed at dinner and died, in Leh (11,500 feet elevation). In another incident, a runner who completed the half marathon in Leh, passed away after reaching home in Mumbai. Whether high altitude had any role to play in these unfortunate demises, we may never know. Ahead of the Silk Route Ultra-runners setting off for Kyagar (start line of the race), there was a session by a high-altitude medicine specialist, on the challenges of performing in such rarefied atmosphere. Including what distress calls from the body to stay alert for and when to call it quits. The session concluded with a moment of silence to pay respects to one of the departed. On race day, the two ultramarathons within the Ladakh Marathon fold (Silk Route Ultra and Khardung La Challenge, both of which touch heights exceeding 17,500 feet), witnessed a few worrisome incidents. Luckily, none were fatal. Ambulances were nearby and people could be evacuated in time. Besides ambulances on the ready, the Ladakh Marathon also keeps a helicopter on stand by for speedy medical intervention.

With roots in mountaineering, Motup looks at high altitude and performance at high altitude through eyes forged in that sport. He has been involved with numerous climbing expeditions (some of them research expeditions as well) and is currently the president of the prestigious Himalayan Club. Rimo Expeditions have been guides and providers of support for many high-altitude mountaineering expeditions, all along the Indian and Nepal Himalaya and that part of the Karakoram ranges which fall in India. Motup speaks from experience. For the 2024 edition of the Ladakh Marathon, he said that he would like to see runners showing greater respect for acclimatization protocols. There will be reduced room for any special considerations. Bibs may have to be collected in person, on time. On the race front, a degree of self-support – mainly the use of hydration packs – may be made compulsory in the two ultramarathons. Since the hosts must set an example themselves, Ladakhi ultrarunners, who have so far run the ultramarathons like an extended marathon, counting on aid stations for water and nutrition, may be told to start getting acquainted with hydration packs. The organizers may look to acquire chip-based tracking devices that allow them to monitor runners’ progress and act quickly if anyone is suspected to be in trouble. And in 2024, the tiered start of the Silk Route Ultra seen so far (in 2023, the elites commenced their run one and a half hours after the rest of the field had started) may be replaced by a single, consolidated start.

Motup also explained why he doesn’t support the oft heard demand for relaxed stage cut-off in the Silk Route Ultra. At 122 km, plenty of uphill, the Khardung La pass to cross and stage cut-offs that continue to challenge despite being eased a bit in 2023, the Silk Route Ultra is a pretty difficult undertaking for any runner. As Motup pointed out, a longer stage cut off simply keeps a participant at high altitude for a longer period of time. Being at high altitude and straining there anyway damages the human body. At the same time, high altitude with its accompaniment of reduced oxygen level, is not apt ambiance for the body to heal. So, longer exposure to high altitude is simply an invitation to worsen matters. This is why it’s so much better to prepare well for the race at more hospitable altitudes, follow acclimatization protocols in Ladakh, take a reasonable shot at performing in the high-altitude race and not stay around for too long in the risky heights of the course. At this point, as a matter of fairness, it should be mentioned that race arrangements must also stay sensitive to the need for runners avoiding long stays in truly high portions of the course. In 2023, for instance, some runners told this blog of a lack of order and retrievability in how drop bags were stored at one of the really high aid stations. It caused a delay in locating bags. They wanted such details improved.

Motup said that in his estimation, the presence of high altitude as its distinguishing feature, rendered the Ladakh Marathon an event with limited comparable brethren to consider for benchmark, when it came to deciding eligibility for participation. Elevation may be piled on by doing gradients at lower altitude but Ladakh’s high altitude (and its dry weather) or the altitude of Khardung La cannot be easily replicated. Finding exactly similar races to qualify for the races at Ladakh Marathon, is difficult. He said that over time, he may look to eligibility being decided by races within the Ladakh Marathon fold. Thus, performance at the Ladakh Marathon (42 km) may be used to decide eligibility for the Khardung La Challenge (72 km), which in turn may be treated as eligibility for the Silk Route Ultra (122 km). Motup found this reliable and safe to decide eligibility as these races are happening in the same overall high-altitude ecosystem and near similar sub-ecosystems.  “ I think someone doing the Khardung La Challenge in under 11 hours could be considered for the Silk Route Ultra. Someone completing KC in under 10 hours, even more so ‘’ he said. However, asked about trail races, Motup said that while he would love to see Ladakhi runners take on trail based-events elsewhere, hosting a trail race in Ladakh would be quite challenging as off-road medical and search and rescue capabilities in Ladakh are not as evolved as they are, overseas. For now, sticking to the road made sense.       

The evening of September 13, a day after the post-race chat with Motup, this writer beheld a large yard (owned by Rimo) in Shey village, where the Ladakh Marathon had come to hibernate till 2024. Hundreds of road dividers fabricated from metal arranged in rows, stacks of traffic cones, the metal framework of tables and arches and plenty of signages bore testimony to the groundwork the organizers had put in for over ten years. All, the physical infrastructure of a marathon; they basked in Ladakh’s evening sunshine, counting the days to another edition of India’s premier running festival at high altitude.         

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)

On the first day of the 2023 Ladakh Marathon expo, as one walked down the road leading to the NDS Stadium, a series of sculptures by the side of the road leading to Choglamsar, fascinated.

Made of metal parts, the idiom at work seemed to communicate a mix of form, anatomy and innards, and at least in the case of a sculpture or two, felt quite kinetic; like energy unleashed. Ladakh’s barren cold desert landscape, against which one perceived the art forms, added to the bare bones, skeletal broodiness of scrap metal. Neither an artist in the real sense of the word nor a trained art critic, I nevertheless felt sufficiently impressed to try finding out who created these works of art. As chance would have it, freelance journalist’s habit of seeking out affordable eateries landed him at a café opposite the sculpture of two black-necked cranes and a restaurant named after the birds, near Leh’s post office. The materials used to make the birds appeared similar to what I had seen near the stadium. Could there be a connection? A case of same or similar hands at work perhaps? The best place to ask seemed the Black-Necked Crane Restaurant. It’s manager, Tundup promised to help. He got back with the name and phone number of Chemat Dorjey. By then, I had also found an old interview with Chemat published by Reach Ladakh. The next day, we met.

Hailing from Sakti village and talented at painting, Chemat decided to study art. He did his Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Jammu and later, his MFA from Varanasi. Initially given to painting, he specialized in sculpture after being inspired by the work of one of his teachers. At Leh’s Onpo House, a heritage building (it was once the seat of royal astrologers) now restored and used as an art gallery and venue for discussions on art, Chemat explained the local art scene. Ladakh may be small. But its imagination is colourful. Thanks to its traditional art forms like thangka, Ladakhi society has curiosity and appreciation for art. That nature (empathy for creative work) is the foundation on which, later styles of art have got layered. Although contemporary art struggles to find acceptance, people turn up to see exhibitions of such work all the same. Indeed, when asked if choosing art for a career had been a problem (an unpopular decision) in Ladakh, Chemat said that hadn’t been the case. At the same time, studying art outside had taught him to look differently – in more perspectives than just the traditional – at subjects that engaged his interest. 

There is a community of around 20-30 artists scattered in and around Leh, Chemat said. Most of them have no other avenue of livelihood. They survive on original work and commissioned pieces. The rise of local businesses, particularly hotels, has helped in securing commissions. In some cases, art projects have come from monasteries. However, in the context of steadying their ship destined to sail the choppy waters of creativity, the artistic community wishes for more support from government. Besides art projects the government could give, a simple change that could help stabilize the fluctuating economic fortunes most artists are subjected to, would be to have positions for artists in schools, colleges and other such institutions. It would provide employment. That is awaited, Chemat said.

In the meantime, private patrons in Ladakh commissioned art work or as happened in the case of those black-necked cranes near the post office, the sculptor pitched an idea to government and the government decided to back it. Migratory and vulnerable, black-necked cranes have visited Ladakh for long. It’s the union territory’s ` state bird’ (previously it used to be the state bird of the erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state). They would be found in the Changthang region of Ladakh. It is believed that a pair of black-necked cranes bond for life. Over the years, the number of visiting pairs have reduced and people from Hanle (which falls in the area where the birds arrive) told Chemat that the growing noise of vehicles, including motorcycles, had contributed to the problem. That was how the sculptor conceived the idea of a pair of black-necked cranes made from scrap metal (vehicle parts). The main inspiration for the art work is drawn from the courtship dance / display of the birds. According to Chemat the sculpture was unveiled in 2019. In a related note, Chemat observed: “ In a way this sculpture is an embodiment of the artist’s vision towards awareness of the threats that rare and migratory birds like the black-necked crane face in their natural habitat among others. Beyond the inspiration of beauty and aesthetics, this sculpture is also a criticism of the change in the ecology of the region.’’

While the sculpture of two birds made of scrap metal sourced from vehicle parts bridged the two main elements of the work (vulnerable birds and the problem of traffic), Chemut provided the sculpture more local roots by bringing in the spindle as the sculpture’s base. Central to local textiles and dresses like the Ladakhi koncha which keep people warm, the spindle, as an emblem of how humans survive in Ladakh, is a recurrent motif in Chemat’s work. It is the heart of one of Chemat’s installations too, now on view at Onpo House.

In April 2023, Ladakh hosted the Youth-20 (Y-20) summit under the auspices of G-20, of which India had become president. In the run up to the Y-20 meeting, there was a flurry of beautification projects in Leh. According to Chemat, about a month before the Y-20 meeting he was sounded out by the local administration about a proposed art project. That was the genesis of the sculptures that came up just outside the NDS Stadium, which in September 2023 served as venue for the Ladakh Marathon expo. Realizing that the time provided was very limited, he recommended a symposium attended by invited artists – five from Ladakh and ten from elsewhere in India. Based yet again on scrap art, the symposium was called: 1st Ladakh National Scrap Art Symposium. It was anchored by the union territory’s administration and its housing and urban development department. The local administration leased space near Shanti Stupa in Leh for the artists to fashion scrap metal into creative art forms. The finished sculptures were set up adjacent to the NDS Stadium. Months later freelance journalist headed to a marathon expo would be sufficiently intrigued by the sculptures to find out who made it. But therein lay another tale.

While the sculptures were installed and the Y-20 meeting was held, a proper explanation of the works of art along with credit to its creators, was still pending as of early September 2023. Standing before the sculptures, one couldn’t know the names of the artists involved because their names hadn’t been displayed. The underlying theme (what the sculptures signified) also stayed silent pending articulation and display. “ The formal unveiling is yet to happen,’’ Chemat said. He sent me a digital presentation on the earlier mentioned symposium, which contained the names of the participating artists. They were, besides Chemat; Parmar R. Kumar, Lodoe Gyaltsen, Madhab Das, Saurab Singh, Vinit Kumar, Vivek Das, Arun Bhandari, Dheeraj Kumar, Anupam Patel, Virender Singh, Tsering Gurmet, Stanzin Tsepel, Stanzin Samphel and Urgain Zawa. They made that row of intriguing metal sculptures. Unfortunately, even as anyone going to the NDS Stadium would have noticed the art work, it didn’t grace the actual course of the Ladakh Marathon. The course was towards Choglamsar while the sculptures were towards the side of Leh town.

Meanwhile, artists in Ladakh have become more versatile. Ladakh has distinct seasons with palpable impact on landscape and human existence and that has begun influencing artistic expression. Of late in winter, Ladakhi artists have worked with ice and snow. Within this approach, artists in Leh use ice, of which they have plenty in winter. In Kargil, the play is with snow; there is strong snowfall that side. Besides this, Ladakhi artists have also begun using the vast space and landscape of Ladakh as inspiration for outdoor installations.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)         

The owner of a small furniture shop in Aluva has been making a unique contribution to life in Kerala.

A land of backwaters, rivers and seacoast, accidents involving boats have been several in the state. In May 2023, 27 people died when their boat capsized in Tanur. That was merely the latest at the time of writing. What set Saji Valasseril thinking was an incident 21 years ago, when 29 people lost their lives after their boat traveling from Muhamma to Kumarakom, capsized in the Vembanad Lake. “ There were other mishaps too that made me want to do something,’’ Saji, a resident of Aluva, said. In 2007, 15 students, two teachers and an employee were killed when their boat sank in Thattekkad. In 2009, there was the Thekkady boat tragedy when 45 people died after their boat sank in the Periyar National Park. For Saji, it just didn’t make sense that people should die so. He felt that if people knew how to swim; at the very least if they could stay calm and afloat till rescuers arrived, lives could be saved. Saji had a background relevant to imagine so. His late father, V. Thomas Mani, had been a champion swimmer during his days in the army’s Madras Regiment. He taught Saji to swim in the river Periyar.

In March 2010, Saji decided to address the subject of drownings in Kerala, starting with his own family. His two children – Merin and Jerin – and the children of a friend, commenced learning to swim under his tutelage in the Periyar. On the map, Aluva, located on the banks of the Periyar, is a little before the river splinters into a complex estuarine geography ahead of its rendezvous with the backwaters and the Arabian Sea. The Periyar is Kerala’s biggest river in terms of volume of water carried. Because he was imagining back from all those boat accidents and survival in such contexts, Saji oriented his swimming lessons towards an eventual river-crossing. Merin did just that on the 39th day of her training; aged 13, she swam across the Periyar. The younger Jerin followed suit; he took two to two and a half months of training.

Around 2012, Saji named his endeavour, ` Valasseril River Swimming Club.’ By 2013, the number of people crossing, rose to 38. “ About one third to a quarter of a batch reach the competence level where they become eligible to try a crossing. The rest, learn swimming and go,’’ Saji said, adding against the backdrop of his syllabus that he estimates a trainee to acquire basic skills in 16 days. In 2014, 76 people swam across the Periyar. In 2017 the number touched 87 and in 2019 it rose further to 91. After a spike in response during the COVID phase, when almost 240 people crossed each year in 2020 and in 2021; in 2023, 1620 people trained, of who, 140 crossed. “ In all, I estimate, about 8000 people have by now learnt swimming from us,’’ Saji said leafing through files of entry forms submitted over the years. He has since become a regular subject of interest for the local media. According to Saji, the current length of the club’s crossing is approximately 750 metres as the route is to and fro. Maximum depth should be 30-40 feet.

Saji’s swimming sessions also attracted a clutch of differently abled individuals and senior citizens. Media reports cited a double amputee, a boy born without hands, a girl who underwent neurosurgery and was weak in one leg and a septuagenarian lady – Arifa – who swam with her hands tied, among those who crossed the Periyar. On August 14, 2023, Arifa spoke to this blog. In 2018, Aluva, where she resides, was among places affected by the heavy rain and floods that hit Kerala. She was not in town when calamity struck but her children told her of what happened including the tales of rescue. Arifa didn’t know how to swim. But she quickly realized that to be useful in times of flood and be part of relief work, swimming was an essential skill. That’s how at 68 years of age, she connected with Saji. Having grown up near a river, Arifa wasn’t an utter stranger to water. But that was 55 years earlier in her childhood. The year she attended Saji’s training session and learnt to swim, she couldn’t cross the Periyar because the day for swimming across coincided with her period of fasting. Then the lockdown induced by COVID-19 intervened. Eventually, she swam across the Periyar in 2022. Two months later with a week of training devoted to the new challenge assigned her, she swam across with her hands tied. “ The message I’d like to share from this attempt is that all should learn how to swim,” she was quoted as saying in the New Indian Express. In its early days, Saji’s program was focused on children. In 2016, very unexpectedly, a parent swam along in the crossing. He died of a heart attack. Following this, an ambulance became a constant presence at the program site and on the day of crossing, a safety-boat was engaged. More importantly, Saji began training adults as well. Nowadays, no adult gets to the crossing stage without the trainers being convinced that they are up to it, Saji said. Aside from his commitment to the journey he has embarked on, what engages about Saji’s project is the manner in which he built up scale.

A state, where many houses once sported private ponds, the declining engagement of the average Malayali with swimming, is a product of altered lifestyle. Greater construction has meant the old ponds levelled and built over. Overwhelming emphasis on academics meant the school and college-going became distanced from swimming or they learnt it as a skill paid for and acquired at any of the state’s modern but expensive swimming pools. Simply put, the numbers of those in newer generations who were acquainted with water, shrank. As these shifts happened, the Periyar’s kadavu or bathing ghats grew neglected and with it, familiar places on the river with gradual progression in depth and ideal to teach swimming, dwindled. Compounding the issue has been the problem of sand mining (it plagues many rivers in Kerala), which creates places with sudden variation in depth.

A May 2022 report in Mathrubhumi said, “ As per the records of the Fire and Rescue Department, on an average, three people drown in the state per day. ‘’ According to it, in 2021 alone there were 1102 reported cases of drowning, up from less than 1000 the year before. Many people drowned in rivers and ponds when visiting such places in groups. Even if one knew swimming, being able to tackle natural water bodies with currents in them, was an issue contributing to the fatalities, the news report said. When this writer contacted M Naushad, Director (Technical) of Kerala Fire and Rescue Services, he said that while knowing how to swim is always a good thing, people not heeding instructions to desist from swimming when and where conditions are not ideal, was a worry.   

Saji, who is clear that his job is not to create champion swimmers but impart a survival skill, hosts his training at Manappuram in Aluva, a place by the Periyar famed for a Shiva temple and which has a gradually sloping approach into the waters. Here, Saji came up with an ingenious device (his fabrication skills came of use); a removable, collapsible structure of GI pipes, 70 feet by 40 feet in dimension. He currently uses four such structures. Each of them, anchored and kept afloat by an array of inflatable rubber tubes, separates the area within used for training, into seven lanes of varying water-depth. The trainees work their way from the shallows to the deep lane. This graduation takes weeks. It is only after such progression entailing 50 days, that the best of the lot, get a shot at the crossing monitored by expert swimmers with a kayak in tow. For Saji, this method has worked well so far. More importantly, since his mission commenced in the need to teach a state how to save itself in water, he considers the model replicable for use at other locations. “ If you look at where all people are drowning these days, you will be amazed. There is the case of a large temple pond, which was cleaned and beautifully redone only to have people drown in it later. My device can be built to required scale and all it needs is the shallows of these ponds. If people are trained using the device in such ponds and they venture to the deep only after they are properly skilled, fatalities can be minimised,’’ Saji said.

Thanks to the four structures in the water, Saji said, the club can train close to 1000 people at a time. As a concept, scaling up won’t be appreciated by discerning trainers because of the inbuilt danger in something going wrong. For instance, trainers’ attention risks being spread thin as the number of trainees rise. Health issues is another. But against the backdrop of Kerala’s emergent equation with water (there is the newfound reality of floods to cope with during rains plus those recurrent boat tragedies) Saji merits a hearing. According to him, municipal authorities and elected representatives have supported him in the ongoing project in Aluva. To aid scale and reduce risk related to the natural variabilities of a river, he wishes for a large tank with powerful pumps, built at Manappuram, which mimics the water depth of the Periyar’s banks and its flow. It will cost money; sponsors will be needed. But if by now, you are thinking that training plus scale should be fetching this man good money; hang on. According to Saji, he charges nothing except for expenses around safety. His main income remains the small shop: Valasseril Furniture.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. This is the slightly extended version of an article written by the author and published in The Telegraph on July 10, 2023.)