Krishan Sharma, 47, owner of a fruit and vegetable shop near old bus stand in Leh, on Wednesday stayed away from work.
Far away from the bustling Leh market he along with Sumit Singh, a class 11 student of Kendriya Vidyalay, Leh and Bhupinder Singh of Doda teamed up in a small makeup room of a local temple and emerged as Ram, Lakshman and Sita to participate in the Dussehra celebrations in the Buddhist dominated Leh district.
Dressed in their traditional attire local Buddhist and Muslim girls helped them with their traditional make up and glorified their characters with finese.
Krishan has been playing Rama for almost 21 years now and is a permanent fixture of the annual Dussehra celebrations in Leh.
He landed in Leh in 1994. He then worked for about three years at one of the local hardware shops and saved enough money to start his own business venture.
For more than two decades now, Krishan Sharma, hailing from Samailpur area of Samba, has settled in Leh and his two sons are also studying in a local school.
Bhupinder Singh has been playing Sita for the last 5 years now. A native of Doda, Bhupinder is earning his livelihood by working at a Kiryana store in Leh. Lakshman, the younger brother of Lord Rama, is a student of class 11. His father is running a tailor shop in Leh.
Before the portraits of Ravana, Kumbkaran and Meghnath were consigned to flames amid loud chants of religious slogans a traditional Rath yatra was also taken out from the Hare Krishna temple via main market and culminated at Pologround.
Hindu Trust ( Hindu Maha Sabha) Leh organizes Dussehra annually in Leh. A miniscule population of around 24,000 Hindus are staying in the region.
Balbir Singh, President of the Trust said, "we started organising the Dussehra festival more than three decades ago". In the absence of adequate infrastructure and resources Ram Leela is not organised in Leh. However, Hindu Trust is contemplating to organise it from next year. Balbir Singh said, in the past local carpenters used to make the effigies of Ravana and others using plywood sheets. The effigies used to be extremely heavy and would burn with difficulty with the help of kerosene oil. But now we are bringing the effigies from Jammu.Artists from Meerut take orders and supply us these effigies.