Monday 4 June 2012

Mr.Tsultim Dorjay


Mr.Tsultim Dorjay
                                 ( On His research   'Kinship and  Marriage system of Ladakh' )


Yes one reason for the Polyandry system of marriage in Ladakh was due to scarcity of cultivable land in Ladakh , but question that Mr.Tsultim raises to the audience is why we had less cultivable land despite having so much free land ... Lets here it from himself ..... 

Firstly, younger Ladakhis must have/note collection of such discussions/talks as it would benefit them(Speak Ladakh) in future when they can not only study on other different problems but also make critical analysis of the studies/researches already done. After all no theory is permanent/accurate and one can no doubt work on previous researches, literature, history, etc. Such discussions would be equally beneficial for SPEAK LADAKH also as SL knows their objectives very well and can compile discussions into some drafts and proceed with same objectives. I am thankful to fellow researchers for enlighting us with borders issues in Ladakh as I didn't know that social issues found on Indo-Pak borders in Punjab and Kashmir (excluding Ladakh) are existing in Ladakhi villages on Pakistani borders also; appreciate fellow researcher working on problems like depleting water table is also appreciable.

Secondly, I am working on Kinship and Marriage system of Ladakh and shall put light on the polyandry system on Ladakh as it has been an integral part of our marriage system. While collecting data for my research, I came across many households who still practice polyandry. It was something I did not expect as most in Ladakh are of the view that polyandry is nonexistent in Ladakh now. Polyandry no doubt has weakened and lost its ground a lot in Ladakh also but only because of both push and pull factors. Push factors like the local gossips, looking down upon the people practicing polyandry, health issues, etc. and pull factors like interaction with the modern world and enbracing modernization, acculturation with other social behaviours from other regions, education, etc. played very important role in weakening of polyandry in Ladakh. But polyandry should not be looked down upon as it has been a traditional marriage system of Ladakh for centuries. Although it can not be encouraged in today's world as there are legal, health and other concerns which states polyandry as not a health marriage system in today's world, one need not to be ashamed of polyandry being an integral part of traditional Ladakhi marriage system. One of my respondents who was posted in Srinagar told me that she gets taunted by her colleagues as saying "Tum Ladakhi to apne devar ke sath bhi rihsta banate ho" and "tumhare to do do teen teen pati hotein hain". Here she should have had told him that this system in Ladakh was not because of one's own choice but because of natural/geographical condition and available resources of Ladakh which accordingly became a tradition. Ladakhis according to some earlier researchers had scarcity of cultivable land (economic factor) and to prevent fragmentation of such land into number of siblings polyandry was a good measure. It kept the household's economy intact for centuries. And my observation says that scarcity of cultivable land in Ladakh was because of local limits and not geographical limit. For example, even barren lands of Taru Thang, Likir thang, etc. bloomed into spectacular flower fields when it rained for continuous three days in 2006 or 2008 (not confirmed of the year) which shows that we don't have shortage of cultivable land. It is only that we should cultivate. Water management problem and local administration seem to be hurdles in getting these barren lands in Ladakh irrigated. Our kings have built thousands of stupas, hundreds of monasteries and castles but they lacked in building water channels, canals, aqueduct systems, etc. as otherwise more land could have been irrigated and picture of Ladakh would have been greener and more prosperous. Indus, streams, etc. flows down without irrigating much. Kargil is god example of aqueduct system. Suru valley becomes lush in summers as there are aqueducts built on high cliffs also and barren lands got irrigated. Can't it be done in Leh? Singay Namgyal's reign in known as Golden era. I ask how, what did he do for the people of Ladakh? Should we really call it a golden period or press shift plus delete button from the chronicle of Ladakh? 

Thirdly, I would like to draw your attention towards the careless/derogatory remarks made my different authors/researchers on Ladakhis. One such author calls Ladakhis as the 'ugliest'. I believe that no one (researchers in particular) have right to judge anyone from his/her physical appearance. He/she can't call someone beautiful and other ugly as it is only the beauty contests that claims to be picking up beautiful people through some contests. No constitution/law gives liberty to refer somebody ugly. It is so depressing for many who reads that his people are painted in such a way to any reader. Other author regarding Ladakhi food writes that it is not nutritious/healthy. Whereas if I am to correct her, let me bring to her notice that according to a research, Japanese have the highest life expectancy and most credit goes to their healthy food behaviour. Their food is either boiled or steamed. And very interestingly, Ladakh's traditional menu are also either boiled or steamed. Frying, etc. were adapted from other regions of the country. My consciousness here is not to criticize anyone pertaining to food in particular but to request authors not to write something they do not know well or have no ground reality. I am going to publish my thesis and shall strictly criticize where and what I feel needed to be. Being researchers we can not express our views like the extremists do or in a  well organized way NGO's do but can do in a intellectual's way in the form of writings like books,papers or thesis, etc. This will also bring into notice the problems.

Thankyou


Speak Ladakh thank Mr.Tsultim for sharing his views , we expect his comprehensive speech on the same issue in future as well .Mr.Tsultim is doing his research from JNU New Delhi can reach  him on tsultimsolpon@yahoo.co.in.


Sunday 3 June 2012

Ms.Rinchen Dolma


Ms.Rinchen Dolma on
( Why media is not in Leh and importance of media in Leh)


She strongly believe, the reason for not having media in Leh is because of lack of awareness which further leads back to lack of awareness in our society about our rights and many other informations. The current generation may have some advantages through medium like Facebook and other portal websites, but those who know about these medium use them just to advertise for areas like tourism or just to release some basic news. The older generation doesn’t have any access to these things and whatever medium they have is quite limited. They have no idea about what is happening around in a broader sense and they are unaware about their rights, so media is one of the best solution to let people know about what they ought to know because it is their right to know it. Media also provides a platform for the people to raise their voice against anything which is not going right, which we can term as injustice.
May be due to the dominion from some dominating class, it didn’t sprang up in Ladakh in these late years but we should not just lay back instead we should pull our socks and socialize ourselves and bring media in our Ladakh so that we can create awareness of many rights and information among our people.

Ms.Rinchen Dolma is pursuing M.A English Literature from Delhi  University ...can reach her on rinchen925@gmail.com. 

Speak Ladakh expects her comprehensive speech on the same issue in future.


Thursday 31 May 2012

Ms.Rigzin Chodon

 (On literature of Ladakh) 


Ms.Rigzin Chodon have a penchant for Books on Ladakh. No not on the flashy magazines on Ladakh to lure domestic and international tourist , but the one which she feels every Ladakhi must  read , to see how the literature of ladakh evolved , in a way how  we evolved ! 


There are books written in English, German, French, Urdu, Bodyig and many more languages. I am going to take a closer look at the literature of Ladakh. We all know that Ladakh had a background of the Silk Route Trade. Ladakh was the hotspot where traders would meet, exchange goods; rest and hire ponies, overseers and potters for their journey either towards Kashgar, Yarkhand or towards Mongolia, Tibet, and Afghanistan. So along the trade route while important trading transactions took place the route actually played a vital role in integrating the kind of people that we are today, reflecting our glorious past as a meeting ground for various people. We have historians who say that Ladakhis are a blend of the Mons, the Dards, the Aryans and the Tibetans. If you look properly at our background, we can actually see that the Ladakhis from Nubra are different; while people from Changthang are similar to Tibetans. Ladakhis from Sham and the Hanu-Pas have Aryan features. Our identity can be shaped from how distinct we are even when we all call ourselves ‘Ladakhis’. We are a confluence of many races.

The first written source that I came across was Alexander Cunningham’s book ‘Ladak’ written in 1854. It was written in English and covers almost all aspects on the region of Ladakh. We have many other authors who wrote on Ladakh from the beginning of the nineteenth century. What I’m pointing out is that we had the German Missionaries and the British officials who employed people to survey and write chronicles on Ladakh. Since they saw a different and a unique culture in our region many more eager and enthusiastic lot got drawn towards Ladakh and from the 19th century onwards we have actually got a very good collection of books on Ladakh.That is just the contribution from the European side, the kind of books that are written by the westerners, the explorers and the adventurers.

Apart from that when we look at the religious aspects, we can see that we have lots of books on Tibetan Buddhism, we also have books related to Islam but I have really not looked into either of them in detail so I won’t discuss it right now.

 Ladakh also has archeological evidences to prove our historic pedigree, even now if you look carefully in your villages I’m sure you will be able to find one or two instances where signs on the rocks somewhere or some petrogylphs can be seen which is actually a marker of our past. I saw shapes of stupas carved into two boulders near the main road towards my village. After talking to the elders of my village, I found out that there was a particular trader who used to come and trade in and around my village (Kairy, Changthang, 110 kilometers away from Leh). I got to know from my elders that he came from Kashagar side (present People’s Republic of China). In order to communicate while trading they made use of ‘pidgins’ which can be defined as, ‘artificial language used for trade between speakers of different languages.

So I would like to request each and every individual to make it a point to get a copy of any books on Ladakh and read it and encourage others to read a book on Ladakh and see it for yourselves how we are depicted in those books. The kind of literature that is evolving on Ladakh is in its nascent stage, but I can see that we can contribute in our own special ways through magazines, novels, poems, articles etc. and develop a genre of literature in the English language, using English language as a medium to put across what some of us have not been able to do in our regional language i.e. Ladakhi/Bodyig.

Thank You.

Ms.Rigzin Chodon is doing her Mphil (Centre for English studies)  from JNU Delhi can reach her on rigzone316@gmail.com and for more information join her facebook group page with the name ‘Books on Ladakh and More’ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/180162595427470/)









Wednesday 30 May 2012

Ms.Chemet Ladol

 (Chemet Ladol on Feminism in Ladakh.)
  
Chemet spoke meekly on the issue of feminism in Ladakh. She objects that in Ladakh women has equal status as we generally perceive. After joining JNU she had totally different view on this issue, and when she went back to Ladakh she could easily see where and how patriarchal things are working.
She cited specific instance of Tangtse Village where they were constructing a Gompa and women were doing all the manual work and man just instruct the work to women. The crowd cheered for her brave speech...
Her small speech gave much sense to our slogan yes “We dare Speak

Ms.Sonam Angmo

(Speaking on the impact on Environment of Ladakh through blind influx of tourism)
 
Nature made cycle for every resources and also runs this cycle beautifully (water cycle)  , but somehow human disturb this cycle for his own greed . we do not follow the nature's rule of cycling things for sustainable growth .We need to reuse the water we extract from underground. The water we use excessively should get back to underground so that the water gets recharge.

We are extracting gallons of water for flushing system in toilets used by tourists lowering  the underground water table extensively without doing anything back to it for recharging the water table.despite receiving as low as 50mm annual precipitation.
I think we are ignoring the fact that why a tourist visit a place ?....they visit to see how we live without causing any harm to nature, so if so they visit us they should have to accept us the way we have been living and the way we are living not the way they want to.

We expect her complete researched speech soon on this issue on our speak Ladakh platform.
Ms.Sonam is doing her research from JNU Delhi , can reach her on sonamwangmojnu@gmail.com

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Mr.Muzaffar Hussain Tangrhong





Speak Ladakh" conveys two ideas, idea of speaking and idea of Ladakh. Idea of Ladakh tells how we imagine ourselves as Ladakhi and what exactly means to be belonging to Ladakh particularly in modern world and here I feel there’s a break--there’s an evolution in terms of "the society" we were from our past. The important aspect we need to understand is that, the world we live is compressed, in terms of space ,in terms of time. So we are very much part of the global village.Though we have been part of  the trans-Asian trade route but now the impact is very much more. We need to see the connection with whatever
happening across the world. Because we are living in a world where any kind of incidence, any kind of issue have implications for us. Say for example, the problem of tourism in Leh. Here we need to see how can we
build local and global initiatives and how we can join these initiatives to create an alternate model of tourism or some model which is very much sensitive to Ladakh. We tend to oversimplify things and see things in isolation--these problem is in Ladakh so we have to deal within Ladakh. While we are living in a world where the actual cause can be located somewhere in Europe, somewhere in New Delhi. Here I feel like whenever we say about "speaking", the challenge is we should not narrow down ourselves or limit ourselves to the barriers of Ladakh, we need transcend those imagination and see the actual cause of that (beyond in the inter-connected world). Second thing is about speaking, as Chorol has spoken about. This century where we have all kinds’ conflicts, and here we need to see, what is the role of "dialogue" and "speaking". Human civilization is in process and the first thing which separated us from the animals in cultural term was language. What is important thing about language, speaking generate ideas, ideas as EMERSON quoted “Ideas rules the world” and here we need to see how we convey our ideas among ourselves and how we actually resolve issues or how we try to find solutions to issues in terms of dialogue and I think since the time is very much limited, probably I would like to speak in depth in some of the other discussion.... probably following up.
Thank you

Muzaffar is pursuing his phd in International Relations from JNU Delhi 
Can reach him on  muza.ladakh@gmail.com

Mr.Konchok Paldan

Mr. Konchok Paldan
( On his research on four Border areas in North-West of Ladakh )


From very long time we heard and we still hear the grievances of Partition between India and Pakistan from Punjab to Kashmir.
But here Mr.Konchok Paldan reveals the grievances of partition, no not the partition of 1947 but lesser known to common people the partition of 1971.The region of Pakistan that came under India in 1971 war.

In his own words :

During partition in 1947, the entire Baltistan including Turtuk areas of Khapulu district then was in Pakistan until the split occurred in the aftermath of 1971 war, followed by cease-fire which came into force with effect from 1700 hours on December 17. The focus in the 1971 Indo-Pak War was on East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, although the war was also fought along the Cease Fire Line (CFL) in Turtuk area on Ladakh’s north-western border with Pakistan. Chalungka was until then (1971) the last border village of Pakistan. In 1971 Major Chewang Rinchen of the Ladakh Scouts and his troops captured four out of the 14 villages in Baltistan, with a total area of 804 sq km, before the ceasefire was declared on December 17. Those four villages are Thang, Tyakshi, Turtuk and Chulungkha. There are voluminous literature on partition of India as a unique event and the collapse of the state of Pakistan creating Bangladesh in 1971. However, scholars and specially partition's have shown laxity in bringing the partition event of 1971 in Ladakh within the realm of intellectual and academic discourse. When the border was drawn it was drawn all of sudden resulting division of hundreds of families. Its been more than four decades people are longing to meet their relatives stranded across the border, yet no arrangement has been made by both the states (India and Pakistan).

We Request Mr.Konchok Paldan to prepare a concrete speech on this whole issue.Konchok Paldan is doing his PhD from JNU New Delhi and can reach him on aldanjnu2012@gmail.com





Ms. Tsering Chorol

Tsering Chorol 
On why speaking is Important



Why is it important to speak out.To have great thoughts is one thing but to put them in action is a completely different thing. no matter how high we think, until and unless we give our thoughts shape in the form of words, our thoughts will serve no real purpose. Its time people stand up and speak out what they think in their heads to bring about real changes around them..

Her speech was mixed with impeccable Hindi which was giving more intense to her speech and comprehensible for audience.A moving and mind boggling speech from Ms.Tsering Chorol.

We expect her complete speech in future as well.
She is doing her M.Phil (hindi translation) from JNU New Delhi can reach her on tseringladakh2@gmail.com

Monday 28 May 2012

Speech of Sunday on Saturday !  
Date: 26-May-2012
Venue : JNU New Delhi 




Thursday 3 May 2012

Preparation of speech



Does the preparation means getting together of some faultless phrases written down or memorized ? No Does it mean the assembling of few casual thoughts that really convey very little to you personally? Not at all. It means the assembling of your thoughts , your ideas , your urges. And you have such thoughts , such urges .You have them every day of your waking life . They even swarm through your dreams.Your whole existence has been filled with feeling and experiences. These things are lying deep in your subconscious mind as thick as pebbles on sea shore.Preparation means thinking , brooding , recalling , selecting the ones that appeal to you most.
While preparing , study your audience first. Think of their wants and wishes - that is sometimes half the battle.

Friday 27 April 2012



Welcome speech from Tsering Angchok Mayur at speak !                                              20-April-2012


There are two things that I feel I should share :

First ..We see only few people have gathered to learn or improve their public speaking that may not seem very conducive for a public speaking platform. But I see it as a great opportunity to learn for a beginner. I see it as a great platform to learn from our mistakes in a small group of people. To make you all little more clear of how large this audience is ..I request you all to do an exercise at your home , give a short speech infront of you room mate or brother or sister while standing and you feel the nervousness even infront of one person. I felt that way from  my own personal experience. So this audience , I think is quite enough to learn or improve our public speaking.

Secondly …….It is extremely important for all of us to understand that we all have different levels of confidence. When we speak of ‘public speaking’ and there are many reasons, lack of practice or experience is one of it .Some can stand and speak with less fear or no fear. Some gets so feared that they barely can stand and give an introduction of themselves and I consider myself in this section of people.
Friends ….
We are not here to show how intelligent we are because I feel nobody is perfectly and absolutely intelligent and nobody is absolutely dumb. A great scientist may be, considered as an intelligent person in a modern world but he/she may be poor or know nothing about cooking or for that matter farming. It is because we play this intellectual game with each other we still fear to speak in public even when we are supposedly educated.
We are here, just to share what we believe, what we know, what others you feel should know
We are here to create a culture where we selflessly encourage each other to stand and speak.
Friends lets speak our heart … If it matters to you what more reason you need to stand by your believes and your convictions.
I welcome you all to speak!

Thank you


Thursday 26 April 2012

Ms.Elizabeth Williams Oerberg


Elizabeth Williams Oerberg



Excerpt from Ms.Elizabeth Williams Oerberg introduction.... Dated : 22-April-2012
The reason why speaking is important because in an academics , if you want to be an academics . You not only have to write you also have to speak , you have to give conferences and presentations. And most often when you trained(study) Bachelor , MA ,Mphil level then it mostly written but when you reach to PhD all of sudden you have to give papers to large audience and that can be quite intimidating , so being able to speak about your research is very important.

Her speech on her research “Ladakh Students in Delhi and the Role of religion plays in their lives"

What I like to talk about is findings of my research ..
What i expected before I came here that there were may be around forty-Fifty Ladakhi in Delhi and those students in Delhi and those student in Delhi they would be very much interested in cosmopolitan , global modern life style in Delhi and not very interested in Buddhism because I thought that Buddhism might be connect to more traditional as in not modern life style for the tradition back home. 
But when I came to Delhi there is more than fifty students the figures people say is 500-700 students here not the moreover I have met here , but I would say that the students that I have met they are very interested in Buddhism at this troubled me made me confused actually why are they so interested in Buddhism it didn't make sense to me and after thinking about it for a while I realized , because students are away from home , because students are in this big city Delhi amongst other students they meet student who ask them their classmates " they say are you Buddhist ? " and Ladakhi students who are Buddhist' there's Muslims students ofcourse but one who are Buddhist they say "yes i am Buddhist " then their classmates ask them what is Buddhism ?

And then only !! then our students first forced to stop and think actually think ! What is Buddhism , and then this kind of questioning and this idea 'yes i am Buddhist' but what does that mean drive students to learn more about Buddhism, to become more curious about once own religious background or culture or traditional background. So students want to learn more about Buddhism but the problem arises when being away from home being away from more traditional ways of learning about Buddhism such as watching your parents engaged in rituals or visiting the monasteries or going to listen to a Rinpoche so students have to find new way to learn about Buddhism while here in Delhi and in this way I think its very interesting because students than rely on new media , new technologies for learning about Buddhism they are reading books in English ,they are watching you-tube videos by HH Dalai Lama and they are attending different functions throughout Delhi some are help by Rinpoche's and lamas and some are help by other people , lay people, monastic people from different traditions in Buddhism as well. 
So it is interesting to see how students are very creative and inventive in finding ways to learn about Buddhism while being away form home being away from the traditional channels of learning about Buddhism. But not only because students are asking them are you Buddhist? , but Buddhism seems to act as a bridge between Ladakh and Delhi, So while being away from home being away from your parents .Buddhism is that bridge , not only it connects back home but its also a bridge which connects to global world

In Ladakh itself you can witness people from all over world becoming interested in buddhism travelling to Ladakh, lots to Mahabodhi Centre to learn about mediation or to engage in visiting monasteries ,actually it is not just my local culture tradition its a global phenomenon that growing and more and more people are interested in it. So students especially those who leave Ladakh actually i find they are most engaged in learning about Buddhism about fully understanding the Buddhism including Buddhist philosophy. 
This is interesting because learning about Buddhist philosophy is not a traditional practice usually the Buddhist philosophy is learned by monks , but students they are reading books by chandrakriti , chdrakashrita and all of these very very learned Buddhist philosopher , this is because of English language is becoming more accessible to read those books about philosophy.

And students when returning home sharing their knowledge with parents so rather than this traditional way of learning about Buddhism from one generation to next generation was happening how to do the rituals how to visit a monastery but than the other generation is going home and telling their parents about what the HH Dalai lama said in their teaching in Bodh Gaya or at the talk in Delhi University even sharing about their news and knowledge about the Buddhist philosophy. Like this platform here they are concerned! What about the future of Ladakh ? what about the future of our culture and traditions ? we must do something and I say this again and again to students who leave Ladakh they should do something for Ladakh !. So what I hear older generation talk about the students who live in Delhi they very concerned, very upset, quite worried about this younger generation . I like to say to them they shouldn't be worried because this generation is actually quite phenomenal in way they are spreading Buddhism or learning about Buddhism. Actively learning about Buddhism actively practising and trying to understand about Buddhism, Not only about Buddhism but Ladakh also!





Do not sit down and try to manufacture a speech in say in thirty minutes ,  A speech can't be cooked to order like a steak.A speech must grow , select your topic well in advance of speaking date , think over it during odd moments , brood over it , sleep over it , dream over it. Discuss with friends. make it topic of conversation.ask yourself all possible questions concerning it. put down on pieces of paper all thoughts and illustrations that come to you and keep reaching out for more. Ideas , Suggestions, Illustrations will come drifting to you at sundry times - when you are bathing , when you are driving down town , when you are cooking dinner. It has been method of almost all successful speakers.

~  From Dale Carnegie