In a world which is obsessed with Instagrammable content about mountains and places like Ladakh and milks them for social media, Our Encounter with a Snow Leopard opens a window for its readers to get a glimpse of the relationship between people of those regions and their surroundings, natural conditions and the hardships that are intrinsic and specific to such habitats.
Sherab Lobzang presents a first-person account of her childhood when she and her younger brother began tending to animals. On one of the days when both siblings are herding the goats for grazing in the pastures, they face a snow leopard for the first time and encounter the big cat. What follows is a fight to save the herd and themselves. It gives a detailed account of what really happened and how the two siblings try their best to survive and save the herd. After the encounter, they also deal with the guilt of not being able to save one of the animals of the herd.
The encounter serves as a coming-of-age moment for the two siblings. It is fascinating to read about how children who belong to such geographies grow up, how they brave encounters with carnivores in the valley. The reader gets pulled into the everydayness of communities inhabiting mountainous regions. The story also presents a view that is rooted in the realities of these geographies and breaks away from romanticizing a place like Ladakh and instead, chooses to share the story of its people, their lives, their knowledge and prior experience. The book also delves into finer knowledge of the community about what to do when faced with big cats, various important practices to ensure safety of fellow herders, the importance of a communication system that sounds off anyone who is going next for grazing the herd, and what can be done after the cat attacks the animals of the herd.
An engaging and endearing read, Our Encounter with a Snow Leopard quietly, softly celebrates the community, its knowledge and its children and paves the way for more such stories that need to be told, in a simple, vivid and rooted way which humanizes these experiences.