Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The Skeleton Dancer of Enchey

 Today's Kolkata newspapers showed photographs of a young lama looking at his devastated home in Enchey monastery Gangtok. We hope that no major damage has been caused to the monastery. I photographed in Enchey on a number of occasions and the newspaper reports brought back memories of an event there many years ago.
Enchey monastery is located on a hilltop above the capital of Sikkim, Gangtok. I was standing on the first floor balcony of the monastery looking down at the courtyard. There was an interlude between the dances. A lama wearing a clown mask was trying his best to terrorize the children in the front rows who ran away from him at full speed screaming with merriment! In the field behind the courtyard, momos were being sold and eaten with rapid speed by the local population! Two stag dancers went around trying their best to collect a monastery donation from the crowd. It was late afternoon and the festivities were almost at a close. On the opposite hill the sun glinted off the roof of Rumtek, the premier monastery of the Kagyupa sect of Buddhism and home of the Karmapa. Suddenly, I spotted a skeleton dancer entering the arena with tremendous speed. He ran, galloped, and jumped with amazing dexterity. The crowd stared with amazement as he pirouetted around the  courtyard a number of times.  Jolted out of my reverie, I shot  a few photographs before he vanished as suddenly as he had come into the monastery!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Pang Lhabsol

Today is Pang Lhabsol: one of the important festivals in Sikkim. I was fortunate to experience the festival at Tsulakhang, the Palace Monastery in Gangtok many years ago. These are some of the photographs of the festival. 












Sunday, September 4, 2011

Sankar Sridhar: Journey with the Gaddi


Delhi based mountain photographer Sankar Sridhar's essay : "Journey with the Gaddi" has won the Special Mention at the Banff Mountain Photography Competition 2011. For a look at these outstanding photographs please do visit:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainfestival/competitions/photo/2011/#panel-8
You can see more of Sridhar's work at www.sankarsridhar.com

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