The Princess Is In This Castle

"We're in Aghanistan!" Sandeep shouted.
"Well, I wouldn't go that far..."
"No! It is just like that movie...Body Of Lies! Have you seen Afghanistan in that? It is exactly like here!"

He kind of had a point. From where we were standing, the city of Leh did have a certain Afghan appearance, save for the fact that the large painted Buddha on the hillside was not obscured by a thick cloud of dust and a crowd of black-turbaned Taliban snickering next to a TNT detonator like Wile E "the Mad Mullah" Coyote.

The people of Ladakh - the Ladakhis - are quite similar to Tibetans but not exactly. They have their own language, costumes, and a slightly different majority sect of Buddhism. It all gets a little confusing though with the number of Tibetan refugees that live around Leh as well, but there is one thing that is clear: they aren't "Indian". As I've mentioned before, they are proud to consider themselves the southeastern fringe of Central Asia, a claim that has some merit given that they are on the other side of the Himalayas from the rest of India, and there isn't a Hindu in sight except on the massive army bases. Most of all, the appearance of the land itself is Central Asian, a huge expanse of arid, craggy mountains capped with snow and dotted with isolated monasteries and the odd minaret. In fact, I was told that a number of movies set in Afghanistan have been shot here (on the other hand, the Times Of India reports that Richard Gere is shooting a film about Tibet here soon, God help the people of Ladakh).

There isn't much debate about what constitutes Leh's most striking feature; it's the palace. Right in the middle of town is a large, steep ridge with a ten-story palace on the tip. Supposedly, it's a miniature copy of the palace in Lhasa, Tibet, but since it has been completely denuded of paint it is now a hulking pile of bricks the exact color of every rocky crag for miles around, and makes it look more like a tyrant's mountain hall than a pleasure palace. Ladakh used to be its own semi-important kingdom, but thanks to a series of foolish wars that coincided with the underhanded advance of British control in the Himalayas, the royals got deposed, sent to their summer estate, and their kingdom handed over rather incongruously to the puppet rulers of Jammu and Kashmir, a bizarre political union that continues in republican form to this day. Long story short, the palace looks completely awesome looming over the city, but thanks to history now possess one of India's all-time boring interiors. There's no trace of the royalty, of art, or of anything other than plaster and bricks inside (other than one small temple chamber), for which the Archaeological Survey of India has the gall to charge a hundred rupees admission. The Leh palace is like a Bulgarian stripper: pleasing to the eye but best admired without paying to enter.

Sandeep and I ended up staying for the long term in a Ladakhi guesthouse in the old town, with fantastic views, a puzzling absence of tourists, and immediate proximity to the town football pitch, which revealed one of the great gulfs of opinion between Ladakhis and lowland Indians: Ladakhis, and especially Tibetans, love the vague patriotism of the World Cup sing-along "Waving Flag", and are even more enamored of the song which is surely to become the ultimate relic of 2010, "Waka Waka". Investigating this phenomenon further, I found that this song is less popular among mainstream Indians because "Shakira sings like a man." Well, I suppose you might hold this opinion if your male pop singers sound like women and the main qualification for female pop music in your society is the ability to murder a kitten at 2,000 yards.

Over the next several days Sandeep and I embarked on an extensive tour of Ladakh's numerous Buddhist monasteries. At the end of one such day we pulled up to the palace of Stok, which Sandeep swore up and down was actually supposed to be a monastery (though to be fair, Sandeep also swore up and down that the entire Tibetan Buddhist faith, and indeed every religion, is plagiarized from the Rig Veda). Not allowing this disagreement to deter him, he wandered around the "monastery" enjoying the palace-museum's exhibits with great interest, periodically coming over to me to ask in whispered tones "Why are there so many females allowed in this one?" Because I was busy I refrained from informing him that the females in question were members of the deposed Ladakhi royal family, who have taken it upon themselves to preserve the summer palace and the royal heirlooms as pieces of cultural heritage for the public. I must say, of my various encounters with deposed Indian royalty (that this has happened to me more than once is itself slightly remarkable), I must say that this was by far the most enjoyable, not least because one of the Princesses of Ladakh is quite the cutie.

Given this and my self-appointed mission of dashing adventure in India, I undertook as a matter of principle, and for your sake, my dear readers, to flirt with the Princess. Sandeep was still shuffling about, apparently engrossed by a display of semi-precious jewelry and wondering what possible use the monks could have for golden bangles, while I set myself the modest goal of hitting on the Princess until she laughed. It was to prove something of a challenge, as much of my charm comes at the expense of dignity, which I felt I had to preserve at all costs. Howevwe, comrades, I accomplished my goal fully, swiftly, and without a single reference to the excretory habits of cattle, finding myself soon engaged in a surprisingly vibrant conversation with a much-delighted and highly eligible royal. In fact, I seem to have been at least passingly amusing enough that I was told that if I wanted to converse more extensively (and observing full regal decorum), that I was welcome to ask permission for a chaperoned rooftop rendezvous from the Princess's mother. At this point however I had to politely decline, partly because Sandeep was finished talking to the palace's sole actual monk and was eager to leave, but mostly because if I actually had a flirtatious meeting on a royal balcony with an actual princess, regardless of how innocent the circumstances, Girlface Buddha would never let me live it down and I would be forced to spend untold amounts of time uttering trite apologies like "But you're my real princess..."

In any case, this is my triumphant story of how I captured just a sliver of the heart of a mountain princess. It helps, when flirting with royalty, that Ghostface Buddha is the King of Pimps. Kiss the ring.