The magnificent blue lake.

Pangong lake, September 2021.

Pangong Tso, Ladakh, India. Taken with my Fujifilm on September 10, 2021 at 10:10, this is one of the 54 photographs I took of this very view, my last glimpse of the lake.

Look how still are its stunning blue waters, how unaware to the conflict between two neighbouring countries that has divided it, how unconcerned about the armies deployed all around it. A soldier or a gun was the last thing I wanted to see in a place as heavenly as this, but this is the “real” world, which we think is ours and can do to it whatever we like but as Frank Herbert put it so wonderfully in his novel Dune:

Do we own this planet or does it own us?

There are consequences — from the planet, you know, the mighty Nature with a capital fucking N — for anything we do against her, even if it’s just drawing invisible borders on one of its most beautiful lakes. There always are.

When I think of this lake, its waters don’t stop flowing at the India-China border, which is actually the India-Tibet border and the other share of the lake belongs to Tibet, not China, just as Tibet is Tibet, not China. So in my mind, just as in reality, it is one whole lake. I think and dream of it wholly, the whole blue lake.

I spent two incredible days living next to it. It was wonderful to see how its colours changed depending on light, sunlight, and time. The many moods of Pangong.

Date

November 7, 2021

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