There was a time in Ladakh when life expectancy was modest, but life itself was expansive. People did not live long, but their lives were hard. By the time a person reached their late 50s, they had logged more real-world mileage than any smartphone could store, eaten food that had never been stored in a packet, and hauled enough barley sacks on their backs to humble a tractor. Death, when it arrived, usually did so without much drama, after a full life of movement, weather, work, and lungs trained in the thin air.
Then something quietly shifted. People began living much longer.
Our grandparents, who treated stairs as optional and chairs as conveniences, started touching 80, sometimes even 90. They walked because there was no alternative; ate what grew nearby because nothing else existed; slept early, woke earlier, and regarded the idea of ‘exercise’ as faintly insulting. Work was exercise. Junk food was something like a slightly charred Booskuruk(a thick flat-bread). Even today, villages like Igoo are known as the unofficial headquarters of octogenarians, a place where being 80 is not a medical miracle; it is simply the standard age for a long walk and a game of Cholo (dice). Without naming it, they were living inside an ancient future long before the phrase arrived.
Today, the future appears to be shrinking again.
The next generation may struggle to reach 70 or 80. The present one, if honesty is still permitted, may find 60 to be a competitive target. This is not a prophecy. It is visible science. Diabetes has become conversational. Obesity has become sociable. Heart attacks now arrive early with the efficiency of modern services. I must confess that I am personally contributing at least three data points to these statistics. Possibly four, if you count my relationship with Mok-moks.
‘Diabetes has become conversational. Obesity has become sociable. Heart attacks now arrive early with the efficiency of modern services.’
We now sit for a living. We travel even a few hundred metres by vehicle. Movement has been replaced by mobility. Walking has been replaced by wheels. Food arrives soaked in sugar, uncertain in nutrient, and deeply reassuring in flavour. Even fruits and vegetables have ambitions now, raised on fertilisers and chemicals, impressive in appearance but less so in substance. Nutrition has been replaced by confidence.
Somewhere along the way, abundance became complicated. Having defeated scarcity, we decided to practise it voluntarily. This has taken the form of intermittent fasting, a wellness fad promoted by social media influencers, involving eating less, explaining more, and feeling slightly superior throughout the day. The emphasis is on when one eats rather than what one eats. This is convenient because it allows a pastry to remain a pastry, a Puli (homemade biscuits) to remain a Puli, instant noodles to remain instant noodles, and real juice to remain surreally unreal, as long as they arrive at the correct hour. The discipline holds firm until dinner invitations intervene. At that point, the practitioner is caught between principle and pudding, explaining somewhat awkwardly that they are not hungry, only committed, while their fork twitches like a rebellious mountain goat. In urban Ladakhi circles, this has become both badge and burden, performed for social proof and complicated by real-life desserts.
Meanwhile, thinking itself has been outsourced. Memory has been relegated to phones, attention split between endless notifications, and judgment gently nudged by algorithms. The brain, like the body, is being carefully preserved from use.
The cruellest irony is timing. Heart attacks, once reserved for respectable old age, now arrive comfortably in the 40s, efficient and punctual, without any regard for seniority. A society that survived altitude, isolation, and brutal winters now finds itself negotiating cholesterol, screens, and sofas.
If we are not careful, the future Ladakhi obituary may not mention wisdom or endurance. It may simply read: “Died peacefully at 52. Very active on social media.”
Progress gave us excellent wi-fi, but it is quietly weakening our signal. Our ancestors did not survive thin air and hard ground so that we could exit history seated, scrolling, and comfortably unfit. Perhaps one day we will remember that mountains do not care about hashtags and history does not pause for social media likes. Until then, time will keep moving, the wind will keep blowing, and we will remain on the couch, wondering if the view will ever come to us. The ancient future has not disappeared. It has merely stopped waiting. Ta Borang wa!
By Phuntsog Tsering
Phuntsog Tsering is an entrepreneur from Leh and manages Migsal Enterprises.