Parvez Dewan can send you to sleep about Ladakh-Gilgit-Baltistan. If anyone has the Ultimate Dossier on this region, it is he, after years of running about India's northernmost state, administering and adventuring his way around its valleys, peaks and rivers.
In his very first week in Ladakh, a snowstorm forced Parvez to stay in a hut near the cave monastery shown on the front cover. He used those five days to learn Ladakh's Bodhi script and, gradually, the language. Parvez then translated the region's second most popular epic Norbu, the Prince, and It Thoq, the Angel into English.
In 1993, Parvez started the autumn Ladakh Festival and, a few years later, a similar festival in Kargil.
In this first-of-its-kind three-volume set on Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, one on each region, Parvez Dewan has tried to bring alive the past of the fabled land that has been the arena of his adult life: an up-to-date yet timeless history of the magical trinity of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh that crowns the sub-continent of India. |
