Looking at an old image of Buddha at the Kagyupa temple in Chitkul feels peaceful and sparse. Chitkul, known as India’s last village, is home to about 800 people. But when you are here it probably feels much less.
Pico Iyer said about home ‘For more and more of us, the home has really less to do with a piece of soil than, you could say, with a piece of soul.’
Walking around Chitkul, The Kayal Mag asked a few people, living on this piece of soil, what home means to them.
Pema is 14 and lives with her parents and two brothers. When we try to speak to her, she only smiles. When she speaks, her voice trails off after a few words into a bout of giggling. She is shy enough to speak not more than a couple of sentences.
To Pema, who is still a child, home is her childhood. It is a memory of conversations with her mother and her father. It is laughter and happiness. Home to her is this collection of things that are not exactly things. It is people and moments and feelings. That is home.
Mitar Bindra resonates peace. She has spent all 56 years of her life in Chitkul. She looks gentle yet formidable, like the mountains behind her. She stands tall and happy, like the pine tree in her yard.
Mitar believes that home is peace. It is a place of divinity. She feels that to live among these mountains is to experience something holy. She has lived across generations and all of them have lived in harmony and joy. That is home to her.
Sushil is excited to talk to us. He may be hiding half of his face behind a muffler but he shows no shyness when he speaks. Sushil is proud to be a Himachali and his idea of home begins with Himachal. We met him at dusk. As the wind picked up and snow began to fall, the place looked heavenly. When Sushil says home is Jannat, he is not wrong.
There is mischief in Sushil’s voice when he talks about his mother’s love and his father’s scolding. His home is both these things and everything in between. Against the noise of the outside world, Sushil feels home is Sukoon.
We are at Kamru Fort. This tower-like structure stands tall over the village. At the centre of the fort is the temple of Kamakshi Devi. Only Himachali people are allowed entry inside the temple.
Pawakrekha, who is working in the temple complex, looks at us and smiles. Her face, with its lines and creases and deep-set eyes, communicates kindness. She takes us inside the temple. She shows us around the temple like it is her home.
When we ask her what home means to her, she looks around at the fort and the temple and says, Ghar ek mandir hai.
Susahma lives in a big family. She is a mother of three - two daughters and a son. Her in-laws, her brother-in-law, his wife and their kids also live with her. There are a lot of people in a small house but Susahma doesn’t complain.
To Susahma, home has always been people. A lot of people. She grew up with her four siblings, her parents and her grandparents. She has always been around a lot of people. It doesn’t matter how big the house is, and what shape and size it is made of, Susahma wants her people.
Pico Iyer was right. But only partly.
In Chitkul, home is soil and soul.
Chhitkul is a village in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. Located on the right bank of the Baspa River, it is the last village of the Baspa Valley and the last village on the old Hindustan-Tibet trade route, also the last point in India one can travel to without a permit. During winters, the place mostly remains covered with snow and the inhabitants move to the lower regions of Himachal.
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