In the distant, dusty valleys of Ladakh, there sits a 2-year-old boy all alone with a dry & grubby face covered with a bedsheet tent along with a dupatta tied to his waist that prevents him from falling off the ridge & also from crawling to the middle of the Leh-Kargil highway, where on the other side, works his middle-aged mother as a construction laborer.
Torrential rain poured over his blue raincoat as environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk walked on the 15th day of the Delhi Chalo Padyatra. Spanning nearly 1000 km from the mountains of Leh to the capital city of New Delhi, the Ramon Magsaysay Award winner led over 75 Ladakh residents through the unrelenting terrains of Himachal Pradesh to reach Delhi by 2nd October, 2024. “It’s all in the mind”, Mr. Wangchuk declared in an exclusive interview with The Womb in Lahaul, when asked of the difficulties they are facing while on the way. Adorning a traditional Himachali topi and a white scarf, he was not fazed by the hardships they encountered during the march.