Prabir C Purkayastha’s portraits of time

The first time I journeyed into Ladakh, I thought I was going to die! The brutal barrenness and the unending wilderness scared the living daylights out of me! It’s like nothing you have seen on this planet. No trees. No flowers. No grass. No habitation. No people. Nothing! Staying alive was the only objective! I wanted to leave and never return.

But, I did. Time and time again. And, as I journeyed across this magical land, I found that here, where the stinging sands of the Changthang plateau blow night and day, where Drass’ winter cloak wraps everything in her chilling embrace and where the Zanskar midday sun sears your deepest thoughts, breathes a way of life as old as time.

An ancient paradise, sheltered and secreted, I find this mystical Zendo sculpted and living… across sandy plateaus and in primitive villages, over freezing passes and between towering ranges, in icy streams and across blistering rocks, in the glowing dimness of an age-old monastery and soaked in the primordial stillness of the Maitreya. My Ladakh images are created within the expressive texture of natural elements — snow, sunshine, water, ice, wind.

Travelling through this mystical wilderness is like finding yourself lost within the very bleached bones of mother earth… an unending ocean of barrenness lashed by snow and sand… night and day. For me, wandering through this wilderness is an act of spiritual rebirth. Ladakh gifts me her hidden stories… stories which deeply mark my images with emotions and stillness. These visual narratives are my portraits of time.

— Gurugram-based Purkayastha has been photographing for the past 28 years

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