Insight

My first visit to Ladakh was in 1993. I stayed at one recommended guesthouse. I came again in 1995, 1996. Always same guesthouse. The family was very kind and hospitable, so I felt very good, coming again and again. But still I felt they might think, I'd stop coming as so many other foreigners. In 1996 the guesthouse-mother felt sick and had to go to hospital. It was very serious, her husband spent most of the time with her and only grandma was at home, caring for the guests and crying in the evenings. I tried to hold her hand sometimes. With a friend, we bought a big bag full of gifts for the mother. We had to depart before seeing her coming back from hospital. I returned in 1997. It was different. It wasn't any more like the "usual hospitality", it was like I started belonging to this guesthouse and Ladakh. I'm very happy it turned out like this.

We grew older with the years, hair turning grey, wrinkles getting deeper, daughter returning from college, introducing her boyfriend to the family, marrying him, getting first daughter, then grandma was dying and everyone so sad as she was the heart of the guesthouse with the most infecting giggle I've ever heard, next daughter was born, a very precious one with a double-thumb and a sunny smile.

I'm very thankful to all Ladakhis, who let me feel in Ladakh like a second home. This essay is about homes.

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