Torgya Festival, Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh
Three days before Losar, the Tibetan New Year, the monks of Tawang Monastery perform Torgya in near-total isolation at 10,000 feet. The monastery, the largest in India and one of the largest in the world, sits above a town that most domestic tourists have still never visited. In winter, the road from Dirang closes without warning. The pilgrims who arrive are almost entirely local Monpa tribespeople. You watch masked monks in silk brocade enact the defeat of evil spirits through cham dance, and the drumbeats carry out over the valley with nothing to stop them. No PA system. No commentary. The ritual was not designed to be explained to you, and that absence of explanation is the whole point. You receive it or you don't.
