5 min readMay 14, 2026 03:48 PM IST
First published on: May 3, 2026 at 10:47 AM IST
A clever little white-eye bird that outwitted a crafty tomcat, a Manipuri cat with yellow-green eyes. A little girl in Kumaon who transforms into a bird to escape her mother’s unjust beatings and whose plaintive cries protesting her innocence still reverberate across the hills.
A beautiful waterfall in the Khasi Hills called the Leap of Ka Likai after a young mother, whose daughter was killed, jumped off the precipice.
For a long, long while, the Himalaya have nestled stories and fables of people, animals and spirits within its formidable folds. Stories that have floated on the mountain breeze, flowed down its sparkling streams and echoed among its rugged ridges. Stretching over 2,900 kms, the youngest mountains in the world have preserved old stories and ancient traditions that are as diverse as the region it spans.
The stories may vary but common themes and images thread and connect the mountain range, infusing them with a familiar spirit. The folk tales from these mountains are dotted with trees and flowers, rivers and ridges, birds and animals. Some have a moral, others carry a message, each is imbued with wisdom.
The oral tradition has ensured that the stories are passed on from generation to generation and in each retelling, some things change while others remain the same.What endures though is that community remains at the centre of these tales.
Informal map to the mountains
From the people who make up a community to the spirits that connect the past to the present, the collection of stories that make up Voices in the Wind: Folk Tales, Folklore and Spirit Stories from the Himalaya, is almost an informal map to the mountains, its stories their signpost.
Edited by author Namita Gokhale, whose works include Himalayan studies and mythologies, and Malashri Lal, a retired professor of English at Delhi University, the collection has contributions from over thirty-five storytellers and scholars. Original woodcut prints by the artist Nalinakshya Talukdar liven the collection.
The stories are distributed over four sections: The Western Himalaya that includes Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh; Central Himalaya that spreads over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand; Central-Eastern Himalaya, from Bhutan, Sikkim and North Bengal; North-Eastern Himalaya, expanding from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya to Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.
Portal to unfamiliar cultures
Some of the stories from Voices in the Wind may be familiar to some, while others are not so well known outside their region — tales of the Balti community are a case in point. Partition in 1947 and the War in 1971 left families divided, the scars of which were imprinted on the community’s identity, culture and language. Stories in this collection, including Amo-Dalmo Ju: The Story of an Ibex Mother, capture the vibrancy of the culture of Baltistan.
Occasionally folk tales may appear simplistic with their uncomplicated plot lines and the usual tropes of a creature turning into a prince but the message they enunciate isn’t. It’s the promise and power of transformation that lies at its core. So, in the spectacular isolated reaches of Ladakh, the land of high passes that stands at a crossroads of cultural and religious exchange, the story of the Snake Prince of Ladakh is recounted by parents to their children, gathered together on cold, winter nights made warm by the transformative power of love and hope.
From Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in the Central Himalaya come riveting tales where the natural and the supernatural meet and part. Women form an integral part of these stories, either in their human form or in the form of spirits.
As old folk lores acquire new layers and meaning with the years, so does the present rework the past. Fittingly, this collection presents a version for our times —an AI one — using ChatGPT-3 to present The Wonder Child, a folk story. That perhaps just goes to show that even in this rushed and hurried era, there will always be time for a story. As reels and slides on Instagram and social media take old folklores to new mediums and audiences, the shapeshifting creatures of our folk tales may change form yet again, but they are in no hurry to leave our storied world.
The clever little white-eye bird that outwitted a crafty Manipuri tomcat is just one of the many unforgettable characters populating the folk tales of "Voices in the Wind." 
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