Merry almost Christmas to all you wonderful people! Here’s hoping you get to enjoy the winters from a warm place. For those of you not in wintery atmospheres, here’s hoping you find yourselves a few cool breezy days leading up to 2024. Before we get into some beautiful photographs we took in Chamba & Bharmour (the two main towns of Chamba valley), there’s some amazing news we’d like to share here.
As some of you may know, we have been hard at work publishing a book called “National Green Tribunal on Western Himalayas Second Edition”. We’re proud to share that the book is now accessible from at least six of the top ten university libraries of the planet across North America and Europe: Oxford, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Princeton and Yale!
We had been in talks with Yale and Oxford to send in copies of our book - a process which has borne fruit, getting our work into systems such as borrowdirect, that connect some of the most prestigious libraries on the planet! More about institutions where our handbook will be available at soon. Fingers crossed!
This means a lot because it helps increase the permanence of our work, allowing readers across the planet pretty much unfiltered access to the state of this majestic mountain range today.
It hopefully demonstrates that meaningful work on climate and environment needn’t just come from huge metropolises and mega think tanks.
Whilst the latter is necessary, it needs to be balanced by work that has been created in the context of geographies and societies where planetary change is most starkly playing out today.
On the flip side, we’re happy that scholars across the planet will be able to access contemporary and primary sources of research (court orders) straight from the source. It’s pretty much like the “organic” aisle at your local grocery store.
We have written on the entire process leading up to this moment in past issues of this newsletter here, here, here & here.
A factoid - thanks to Indian Post, it took us about $7 & $10 to ship our handbook to the U.K. and U.S. respectively! That means less than $20 to catalyze massive reach for a piece of work that would otherwise have been limited to a few parts of India.
This literally shows the sheer power of giving. So this Christmas, please do give towards our corpus to catalyze similar impacts. As you can see, no amount is too small!
This wouldn’t have been possible without the tenacity and hardwork of the fellow researchers who joined the Center at a nascent stage. Y’all know who you are and rest assured, your name is very visibly credited in the book - that now sits in some pretty hallowed halls, innit?
Alright, let us move to Part II of our photo essay series on the Chamba district (click here for Part I). Last time, we took you to Kugti Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the most remote and beautiful nature preserves in India. Let us now see what the nearest town, Bharmour looks and feels like shall we?
And now, let’s witness a 1400 year old temple complex that makes Bharmour famous! It is the only place in the world where these is a shrine dedicated to “Yamraj” the messenger of death!
Like Kugti, Bharmour is also pretty remote, even by Himachali standards. It is the place where the mountain people come to vacation. The biggest town of the valley is its namesake, Chamba. It is as, if not more, ancient as Bharmour (which is far more than Dharamshala, which is merely a British cantonment). We’re talking at least 1,500 to 2,000 years old. Check it out:
Let us explore the ancient beautiful doors of the town:
Some more ancient facades:
And last but not the least:
The point of this photo essay was, well, simply to show the beauty of one part of the Himalayan region to you all! Hopefully with some factoids thrown in. Like a little, end of the year present :)
We’ll try and be back with one last newsletter this year, so see you soon and merry Christmas again!
Happy holidays,
Himalayan Advocacy Center
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Postscript:
As you may know, we are a small non profit in the environment + law space located in the Indian Himalayas. We are completely bootstrapped! This means no foreign funding and no fancy headquarters - just a small community - of which you all are an integral part - in the long run we hope!
What’s more - we, at the Center, are determined to localise efforts for the planet, without compromising on the best that the law has to offer. If you have the means, and want to support a committed local undertaking, please do consider contributing to our corpus. We hope to pleasantly surprise you with detailed information on where you money has been spent!