A FLOWER FROM MEMORY LANE
What is more blue, the Indus or the Ladakh sky? Neither, if you have a glad eye for Himalayan flowers! Then, it is the dreamy blue of the Himalayan Blue poppy, deeper than the oceans glimpsed from eyes in the high skies. Last year in July, tourists and travellers were soaking in the awesome spectacles of Ladakh, wondering, and wandering to a blue horizon. No one could have imagined then that a year hence, that ethereal horizon would be lost.
A brutal Covid lockdown and LAC tensions turned the paradise into a no-go zone. So, what do we have left but memories. A gorgeous picture of poppies. That juxtaposed the fragility of the flower with the gaunt grandeur of rugged ridges. In turn, they were streaked with a sigh, of ebbing snows.
It was a traveller from far away New Zealand and an accomplished photographer, Peter Sheppard, who had chanced upon poppies in July 2019. In his words then, the magical moments.
“From New Zealand, late last July, I was heading for Zanskar in the remote Himalayas with Lynne Welch and Tenzin Wangjor. I was interested in seeing the high Himalayan Blue poppy. We were driving towards Zanskar from the wonderfully-isolated setting of Rangdum, which sports a wonderfully-perched monastery. On the drive to Zanskar, we suddenly noticed these rare poppies among rocks close to the road. We stopped, leapt out, and admiringly photographed their intense blue colour and characteristic foliage. As you will know, they are regarded as rare, even endangered,’’ Sheppard told this writer.