Some experiences don’t announce themselves. They arrive quietly, and settle somewhere deep inside you – the kind you return to, again and again, long after they are over.
This is one of those.
The Road to Saspochey
It began with a simple invitation. The owner of the hotel I was staying at in Leh mentioned a remote village tucked away in the mountains. He was taking two German ladies there to meet some of the local women. I took it as an opportunity to explore remote parts of Ladakh, and I tagged along.
The whole ride was breathtaking. After a certain point, you could hardly see any other vehicle on the road. It felt like we were the only ones on the road. The scenery, the monasteries on the way, the whole journey was filled with awe-inspiring moments. On the way, we stopped at a river. The water, we were told, is among the purest in all of India. We stood there for a while, feet in the cold current, mountains all around us, saying nothing.
Saspochey is the kind of village the world has mostly forgotten about. With a population of around 200 people, here, there are no shops, no signals, no noise. I think Snow leopards and Ibex are more common visitors than tourists. And yet, when we arrived, there was nothing missing. The women were waiting.
The women
They welcomed us into a small community hall with wooden ceilings and warm faces. As soon as we sat, they fed us one thing after another. That’s traditional Indian hospitality. Just keep feeding guests. Even if one is full, one ends up eating a lot to honour the effort behind it. We had thick hand-baked biscuits, butter chai, seabuckthorn juice, and rotis with local accompaniments I had never tasted before. There is a particular generosity that exists in places that have very little.
Then, they got woollen shawls and stoles which were made of pure wool, and hand-woven on traditional looms. Each one a quiet masterpiece. I chose one stole, which I could use as a muffler. One of the German ladies bought a pashmina shawl. But what I could not take my eyes off were the hands that had made them. Women of every age, including one who must have been at least eighty, spinning yarn with a calm and steadiness that felt like a kind of wisdom. Their world was contained within this small village. And yet something about them felt completely, utterly free.
The invitation
Something moved in me as I sat with those women that day. Almost without thinking, I mentioned what if I came back and taught them yoga? I felt they could really benefit from it. Their response was immediate. They were keen. Every single one of them.
On the way back I followed up with uncle. He said yes, and that he would ask them again and send me the names of those interested. Word spread through the village, and they sent back names of 30 people who would attend the yoga program. And by the time everything came together, what had started as a simple offer had become a full weekend.
Teaching Yoga in Saspochey, ladakh
I stayed at the home of the woman who is the local head of NGO – Seva. She had put the whole program together. She had also kindly asked someone from the village to drive me from Leh to Saspochey.
There was no hotel in Saspochey, no WiFi, no city kind of toilets. A warm home, simple food, and a silence so complete it felt like a presence of its own, is how I would describe the stay.
As soon as I reached Saspochey, I was told that people were expecting me to start teaching the same evening. Like what? I had informed earlier that the class would start the next morning! Now, given the residents expected me to start the same evening, and the word had spread, I rushed. I set up the community hall with the help of the lady who was the local head of NGO Seva.
People started pouring in. Word spread not only through messages or announcements, but by people calling out to one another across the village, across the hills. Around thirty men and women came, and got whatever mats they could find.
We began
There are classes you teach and then there are classes that teach you. This was the second kind. The attention in that room, the willingness, the complete absence of self-consciousness – I have stood in front of many groups in many cities, and I have rarely felt anything like it.
Previously, I had seen kids being naughty in yoga classes, but here, it was the old ones who were naughty. Like really naughty :D. They would open their eyes when they had had to be closed, and would giggle at each other. People in 20s and 30s were still ‘serious’, but the ones over 60, were naughty and how! I was surprised, and a little amused to witness this.
The next morning, the same. And the evening, and the morning after that.
In the afternoons, I sat with the women as they worked – spinning wool, hands moving in an unhurried rhythm that looked almost meditative. They laughed easily, and teased each other in Ladakhi. Then came the tea break. In this break, they kindly offered me roti, barley bread, biscuits, and chai. I was surprised to see them having Coke! They also had butter tea, normal tea, and Chang(local alcohol made from barley :D).
As I sat there, I watched an eighty-year-old woman spinning yarn, completely absorbed, completely content, and thought – this is what it looks like to be at peace with your life. They were supported by ‘Seva’. That afternoon, after I returned, I sat by the window of the homestay and looked out at the mountains until evening class. I did not want to look away.
The last Full day
On Sunday afternoon, the lady of the house and her husband took me somewhere they thought I would love. I was excited. This place has no name. It is at a place where there are no roads, and only locals can take you there. Here, the mountains there were extraordinary – layered, sculpted, almost surreal, like landscapes from another world. Somehow, the shape of the mountains reminded me of Cappadocia in Turkey.
Then came the evening session, the last one. After it ended, the women gathered and shared what the experience had meant for them. One by one they spoke about learning Surya Kriya, about the days we spent together. They were grateful, genuinely, simply grateful, for the opportunity of learning a classical hatha yoga practice.
They also thanked the person, Norboo uncle, who made it possible by connecting us. Listening to them, I was reminded of something I sometimes forget in the busyness of teaching – that these practices have the power to genuinely touch lives. I know this intellectually. It is what made me leave my corporate job to teach yoga. But hearing it directly from the people you have taught makes it real in a way nothing can.
That evening we went home late. Around midnight. None of us seemed to mind.
Time to go
Then came the last morning. People who attended the sessions came with khataks – the white scarves that in Ladakhi tradition are offered as a blessing. They came from different corners of the village, tying them around my neck one by one. And then two women came running, breathless, just before I was about to leave. One pressed a handmade snow leopard keychain into my hands. The other gave me a marmot, crafted by her own hands.
I stood there holding these two small things, and felt what words cannot quite hold.
What Saspochey Left Me With
We talk a great deal, as teachers, about the gift of yoga. What we speak of less is the gift of the student – the one who shows up fully, who receives what is offered with their whole self, who reminds you why you began in the first place.
The people in Saspochey did that for me.
Yoga does not need marble floors or ocean views or the perfect playlist. It needs sincerity. And in that small hall in a village with no shops and no signals, surrounded by mountains and people who laughed and spun wool and ran to say goodbye – I found more of it than I have found almost anywhere.
I came back with a shawl, two handmade keychains, a string of khataks, and a quiet that has not entirely left me since.
Saspochey stayed with me. I think it always will.
If you wish to read about my teaching experience at the retreat I conducted in Leh, click here, and follow me on Instagram and YouTube for more from my teaching journey.