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A photographer’s quest to document Ladakh’s petroglyphs
Summary
Ahtushi Deshpande’s images bring to life the ancient stories embedded in the rocks and mountains of Ladakh
As a young girl, Ahtushi Deshpande could often be found by her father’s side in his makeshift darkroom at their Delhi home. She watched him intently as the hobby photographer developed his precious negatives. The smell of chemicals fascinated her as did the sight of an image coming to life.
At 17, she followed in his footsteps and saved up her pocket money to buy her first camera. Then, on her first Himalayan trek a few years later, she soaked in the magic of the mountains and discovered the joy of wandering at those heady heights.
The two passions led the writer and self-taught photographer to her first petroglyph site in Ladakh in 2011. Amid a boulder field by the Indus River, she found a rock with intricate hand impressions engraved on it. The sight left her in awe of the unknown artist and their creation that lay in the midst of nowhere. Over the next eight years, she documented more such rock art that culminated in her first book and an accompanying exhibition in Mumbai, Speaking Stones: Rock Art of Ladakh, which will travel to Paris in November. The book also a finalist for the Banff Mountain Book Competition this year.
“Petroglyphs give you a glimpse of what existed prior to historical records, and the kind of people who roamed these landlocked, inhospitable regions, crossing high passes at a time when there were no roads. These were hunter-gatherers yet they had this instinct and ability to create such wonderful works of art on the most unforgiving surface, that is rock," Deshpande, 55, says.
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She graduated with an economics degree from the University of Delhi, but it took her little time to realise that she wasn’t cut out for it and she made the switch to mass media. It was only when she took up freelance writing assignments that she could spend extended periods of time in the mountains.
“I started trekking at a later age, but discovered the joy of going solo pretty soon because as a photographer, that’s the only way to do it," she says.
After her first opportunity to travel to Ladakh in 2005, she made multiple visits over the next few years, travelling across the region while relishing all kinds of adventures. When she heard of the petroglyphs from an anthropologist friend, she knew she had to take a look.
She was soon travelling to other such sites to document the art, and alongside, sifting through piles of academic papers and other records to learn more.
Besides Australia and South Africa, India has the largest number of rock art sites in the world. Some of the prominent ones are the pigment-based pictographs found in rock shelters in Central India and geoglyphs on laterite plateaus along the Konkan coast.
In contrast, the petroglyphs of Ladakh are chiselled, pecked and engraved on scattered boulders and rock faces. They were first documented by explorers towards the end of the 19th century and have subsequently been studied by archaeologists and historians.
Since there has been no comprehensive dating attempt made to determine their age, most researchers have relied on comparative studies of similar rock art that has been discovered in the surrounding areas of Tibet, Central Asia and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Based on the styles and motifs observed in these regions, Deshpande writes that most of the petroglyphs found in Ladakh date back to the protohistoric period corresponding to the Metal Age in Central Asia (3rd millennium BCE to 1st millennium CE), spanning nearly 4,000 years.
Deshpande’s intention was to go beyond the scope of academia and present the petroglyphs to a general audience, who could appreciate one of the foremost signs of human existence. She visited remote locations across the Nubra Valley, Zanskar, Purig, the Lower Indus region, Changthang and around Leh to meticulously document these sites. At times she enjoyed the hospitality of the locals; in uninhabited locations, she revelled in the delight of camping under the stars.
“The travel was during the colder months when it’s more economical because most of these were self-funded trips. When you spend time in a tent during the winter, you get an idea of the spirit and resilience of these people who moved about in these places in harsh conditions," she says.
While a lot of these sites have been recorded in the past, there was nothing in terms of GPS coordinates that Deshpande could follow. There were times she sauntered along a river, gazing intently at a maze of boulders, while on other occasions, she had to climb steep slopes to access windswept plateaus. The artwork she documented featured a mix of local fauna, motifs and hunting and ceremonial scenes. Over time, she realised that the style and distribution of the rock art varied from region to region. For instance, she found that the anthropomorphic depictions typical of the Bronze Age in Central Asia were also seen in the petroglyphs of Nubra and Changthang.
Ibex were more commonly observed on the rocks around Leh, while Changthang in eastern Ladakh featured yaks which are usually spotted in this area. On a smooth cliff above the Zanskar River in Central Ladakh, she located a family of snow leopards, while in Tilichang in the Sham Valley in the Lower Indus region, there were plenty of markhors on the rocks. Some held cryptic messages as well—in Bragsna Brag in Kargil, Deshpande located a human form with an inverted foetus near the abdomen and a giant phallus between the legs, which, she says, signifies the union of female and male energies.
“These petroglyphs have their own charm since they are essentially open air galleries. The idea of the space where they are located is as important as the artwork itself," she says.
In 2015, her work was interrupted when she was diagnosed with cancer. Even as it threatened to bring her project to a grinding halt, Deshpande got on with the necessary medical procedure and returned to Ladakh when the next opportunity arose. She’s been vocal about the disease ever since, gaining strength and resilience from her time spent in nature.
“If you cling on to something, you’re not even living. There is so much joy to experience rather than let that one blip in your life become everything. That’s the reason I speak up about this disease," she says.
Through her work, Deshpande wants to highlight the need to conserve this art. Over the years, she’s seen some of the sites make way for development projects. At the same time, she’s come across individuals such as Sonam Stanzin from the hamlet of Thang-juk, who has transformed the area around his home into the Domkhar Rock Art Sanctuary and doubles up as its guardian. But most of it continues to lie vulnerable to the elements and human presence.
“I’m glad people have taken note of these petroglyphs through my work. Because once they’re gone, they’re simply gone," she says.
Shail Desai is a Mumbai-based freelance writer.
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