Angjor, a 15-year-old Nepali refugee who looks no older than eight, was forced to sing like a man this year. Strapped to a stubborn-looking dzo, a cross between a Tibetan ox and domestic cattle, the only way for the boy to steer the animal is to sing in deep, guttural chants that can be heard kilometres away: 'Kaw ... kaw ... kaw ...' The beast begins to plough.
Nearby, his guardian, Tashi Lonchey - a farmer and tour operator - observes the teenager with a heavy heart. 'Boys who don't begin farming at a young age can never learn to sound like this,' he said. 'They grow too shy to sing to the animals.'
His complaint cannot be taken lightly. In Mr Lonchey's home of Ladakh, an isolated region high up in Indian-controlled Kashmir, swarms of young men are heading to the bright lights of the nearby military base. There they can enjoy facilities most Ladakhis will never see: the world's highest-altitude golf course, a cinema and a basketball court.
Local Ladakhis, on the other hand, are more fascinated by the occasional white face and mastering new technology - like a radio. The growing presence of the Indian Armed Forces (IAF) in Ladakh has proved both a blessing and a curse to the isolated region westerners have nicknamed 'Little Tibet'.
The IAF entered Ladakh after India achieved independence in 1947, and has quietly grown to number 60,000, a large force in a region with a population of just under 300,000. The military presence has helped connect Ladakh - a sleepy region where, 40 years ago, residents received only one pencil-copied newspaper a year - to the rest of the world. But its urgency to modernise the region also threatens to destroy the delicate ecosystem in one of the world's last truly self-sustaining societies.
From a military standpoint, New Delhi believes that Ladakh needs all the help it can get. Once part of Tibet, the region is precariously gridlocked between India's two great rivals, Pakistan and China. In defending a growing military presence in Kashmir, former chief of staff of the Indian Army V.P. Mallik told a recent press conference: 'The boundary disputes should be settled as early as possible so that there are no misconceptions.' Most of the border tensions developed after partition in 1947, when the British hurriedly drew a line to divide India and Pakistan.