I cringed because after a day of landing in Lhasa, the chief thought running through my head was that I wish I had come here at least ten years ago. Most of it, other than the little Tibetan quarter was so unlike the exotic Shangri La of my imagination. Guilty! I sound exactly like those whiny self indulgent tourists. So for what its worth I offer no defence, just snapshots of what I loved in my encounters with people there. Allow me, dear reader, a few paragraphs to rant first, please.
Tibet is tragic. Apart from the hundred thousand plus Tibetan refugees, a few bleeding hearts and a handful of Hollywood stars, no one really gives enough about their plight. Sympathy does not translate into action. It’s a lost cause and no one has any hope of an independent Tibet any more, least of all His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama.
A few weeks after my return, a three part article written by N Ram appeared in the Hindu newspaper. After a whirlwind tour of Tibet as a guest of the Chinese government, with a Chinese guide, this eminent leftist journalist was full of praise for the progress China had brought to this dry, inaccessible, formerly primitive land. He must have spoken to many, many Tibetans before writing these articles. Or then again, maybe not. Three cheers for progress but this bounty has come at a very high cost to the people of Tibet who have no recourse but to accept all of it with the fatalism of their gentle faith.
Of course it’s wonderful that they now have a massive modern airport, well stocked shelves in supermarkets, decent roads linking big towns and electricity in every remote hamlet we visited. Heck when I saw that, I almost wrote to the Chinese asking them to invade Kodagu, my electricity strapped pothole ridden hometown in India! And yes, Chinese food is a great, after a diet of tough yak momos and indigestible tsampa that tastes vaguely like uncooked chappati dough.
And we were fascinated and amused to find out that one can order Victoria Secret lingerie online from the US and they deliver to Lhasa. Now that’s true upliftment of the masses. Progress!
What’s also going on is cultural genocide. Tibetans have become minorities in parts of their own country with wave upon wave of Han settlers from the mainland. Their children are forced to study in Mandarin, people who escaped to India and returned are hounded and persecuted and jobs made impossibly hard to get. People aren’t allowed to worship their spiritual leader, display his photographs or even mention his name openly. The Chinese are bypassing age old traditions and are declaring their chosen ones to be trulkus (reincarnated monks who often lead big Buddhist sects). Naturally only the tractable need apply. Case in point, the 11th Panchen Lama.
And coming back to that marvel of engineering, the controversial train to Lhasa… we saw the effects of it first hand. It was quite a moving sight…thousands of chattering Chinese tourists jostling each other (and us) in the holiest of holy, Tibetan shrines exclaiming over the wonders that their government has done its best to wipe out during the Cultural Revolution in the years between 1950 and 1970. They come in droves these tourists, they stay in huge Chinese hotels and they leave without lining the pockets of the Tibetans. And curiously, their tour leaders carry Mickey and Minnie Mouse flags to rally their troops…go Disney! That’s progress too.
Enough ranting…what was special in Lhasa was the Barkhor or the kora (circumambulation) around the Jorkhang monastery.
The Jorkhang is the spiritual nerve center of the Tibetan quarter. We spent hours there people watching, seeing young and old shuffling their way through the crowds, spinning prayer wheels and stopping to pray at shrines at every corner to feed the fires with offerings. The women almost always wear the traditional chuba with a small striped apron and so do many men although western dress is quite popular with men too. Cowboy hats are worn with great elan! Amdo women, with their hair done in 108 braids and strapping Khampa men who wear red and black tassels in their hair are among the most colorful to see. I was so taken up by one gorgeous woman that she completely took me in when I bought some old prayer beads from her.
One is supposed to circumbulate only clockwise, so Cat and I spent ages going round and round the Barkhor scouting for bargains or just looking for each other. I often hung out at the Makye Ame rooftop restaurant which has one of the best views of the Barkhor. Rumor has it that the dissolute 6th Dalai Lama used to slip out of the Potala to this place to meet up with a mysterious woman friend. The Summit café was also a favorite after hours hangout and had a fairly good Internet connection. I tried to see if one could access information about Tibetan politics, religion and leaders but surprise, all those sites were banned!
My friend Cat was fascinated by the devotion with which people do the Chaktsal (prostration) and watched all day while an old woman went through this series of steps over and over. I spent time with two wonderful people…both introduced to me through my Tibetophile friend Trish who had helped us plan our trip. Charming, hospitable Phurbu, who along with her husband makes and sells the most stunning Tibetan carpets, is also mother to a number of orphans in the Lucky Star orphanage. And Tseden Namgyal, master painter of Tibetan tankhas (paintings) who patiently answered my questions about Tibetan iconography and came with me while I selected fabrics to frame the White Tara I bought for my mom. I must state for the record that we did not discuss politics or religion and that the views expressed here are mine and mine alone.
I was blown away by my first glimpse of the Potala Palace. It hovers over the city like a guardian angel and was being renovated at the time of our visit.
Ironically the Chinese government is now fixing up the same places they destroyed to make money out of tourism. A monk, years ago had gifted my dad a tapestry of the Palace and as a kid I loved this picture. It was a dream come true to actually set foot inside of what ranks among of my list of all time favorite old buildings. After extensive security checks, we were let into the complex and saw an unusual sight. The roofs were being replastered in a uniquely Tibetan way. Two bands of laborers, back to back, took turns marching to their leaders’ commands but they sang as they stomped in unison. We heard later that they drank copious amounts of chang (barley beer) before they worked! Someone should tell our bosses about this method of keeping workers happy!
After a few days in Lhasa, we left the comforts of the Tibet Gorkha hotel and hit the road with a driver and our school teacher guide Tsedor.
Soon we were on monastery overload. The big monasteries are actually quite different from each other (Drepung, Sera, Ganden, Reting, Tashil hunpo and Samye) but the Tibetan pantheon of gods is vast and utterly confusing. It was always more fun to watch the pilgrims who came in large merry groups or startle monks surreptitiously playing with mobile phones instead of immersing themselves in prayer. The smell of butter lamps and the hum of chanting is what I will remember too. A fascinating sight was watching the younger monks have their practice debates…some got pretty fierce with much wild gesticulating and clapping of hands!
We drove for 7-8 hours at a time, day after day, through the mostly arid, unchanging landscape. The towns bordering big cities were full of Chinese and were gray, drab places. Tibetan households everywhere were easy to spot from their brightly colored doors. There were other splashes of color for Tibet has many rivers and is greener than I have always imagined. As we ventured further out of Lhasa, the roads became increasingly more bone shattering and dizzying.
One of our first stops was Tridum, a nunnery famous for its therapeutic hot springs. To this place goes the dubious distinction of the worst public toilet I have ever had the misfortune to use. Our rooms were pretty basic and with the same indifferent standards of hygiene. To avoid spending time there, Cat and I decided to try the hot springs. Cat had sensibly carried a swimsuit but I had not. At first we headed to what looked like a small private hot spring but after we had inadvertently frightened and chased away the poor man who was soaking peacefully there, we discovered that the water was way too hot for us.Finally we found what looked like a women’s pool. A bunch of ladies were just leaving, including one girl who spoke Hindi and had just returned from Bylekuppe, a massive Tibetan settlement near my home town in India! Conscious of offending local women but tempted by the water, I nervously stripped down to my undergarments and waded in. This water was just right (am beginning to sound like Goldilocks now!) Soon two nuns arrived on the scene. They told me that they had walked for two hours over the hills just to soak. They started to strip. I had never realized how many layers of clothing nuns wore…it went on and on…and then suddenly they were naked. I was traumatized…it was like seeing the Shankaracharya or Mother Teresa nude!
Then a bunch of ladies arrived with their pink cheeked snotty nosed offspring. The women wore some elaborate braids with turquoise and ribbons. Some had thick woolen capes and had obviously not bathed for quite a while. They all stripped down to basics too. Now Cat and I were overdressed! The mothers dunked their squalling kids in the water and scrubbed them mercilessly. It was increasingly merry. The nuns taught me the names of different polite body parts in Tibetan (I got over my blushes pretty quickly) and all the ladies were giggling and pointing at us. Occasionally some mother would blow her baby’s nose and a wad of snot would float by. The boys from the men’s section were really curious about the naked ladies and were trying to peek over the wall. I was worried about how the nuns would react to this, but they were blissfully unconcerned! We sat there in happy harmony until our skins started to wrinkle.
Our next stop was camping overnight in yurts at the NamTso lake. This massive salt water lake, the second largest in China, is ringed with snow capped mountains. Henreich Harrer crossed over some of these 7000m peaks when he made his journey to Tibet and spent 7 eventful years there. The water in NamTso has an ever changing color palette reflecting its mood that ranges from grays to blues to greens to purples.
One can sit there and look at the water for hours, which was what I was doing when I met Tashi, a young man selling Tibetan prayer flags. I bought a few flags to tie on the top of the hill next to our camp and then Tashi asked me if I wanted to go drink Tibetan tea with him. So I followed him away from the tourist yurts to a Tibetan canteen tent… there were a number of Tibetan men, women and children in the tent and a huge flask of yak butter tea was plonked in front of us. The tea was salty and an acquired taste but I found it tasty enough.
When they heard where I was from, the folks in the tent got pretty excited. Unlike many of our neighbours, the Tibetans in Tibet actually like Indians. They asked me the usual questions about Bollywood and then somebody asked if I had a picture of the HH the Dalai Lama. I regretfully said no, but then I had a brainwave. I ran back to my yurt and brought back my Lonely Planet Guide. Cat came along too out of curiosity! When I showed Tashi and his friends the letter from HH on the first page and his signature, they all started to respectfully touch the book to their foreheads. It all made me a bit teary, so on impulse I tore out the page and gave it to them. From then on Cat and I were treated like honored guests. The Lonely Planet guide to Tibet was passed around and they poured over pictures of their own country, places they were unlikely to ever see in person. Cat took pictures and there was more giggling and smiling. And lots more butter tea… which they wouldn’t let us pay for.
One of the boys brought out an obviously precious tattered folder from which he drew forth a sketch saying it was of the Dalai Lama. There was a faint resemblance-the man was the right age and wore glasses. He graciously allowed me to take a photo and it came in handy when we were asked the same question again. And people always responded with the same reverence.
It was deeply moving to spend time with these simple devout folk. In the immortal words of George Michael, “You gotta have faith.” It sure helps get people through tough times.
At our last stop in Samye, we trekked up a mountain and unexpectedly came upon a cave with monks and nuns chanting prayers. It was brilliant to sit in the sunlight and soak in the atmoshere. Back at our guest house which was pretty fancy by Tibetan standards, I befriended a bunch of older women pilgrims who hugged and kissed me. One lady looked exactly like my beloved long dead maternal grandmother!
Before we returned to Lhasa, I was hell bent on a pilgrimage of my own. I fervently wanted to cross the Yarlung Tsangpo river and spent a sunny morning taking the ferry across. For many years no one knew that this river became the Brahmaputra in India for people apparently could not fathom how this wide expanse could cross the Himalayas. But it does, and the gorge where it drops down thousands of meters to the plains is unfortunately inaccessible.
A month later, back home in India I was on my way to Kodagu with my parents. We stopped for breakfast on the road and met a bunch of Tibetans heading to the Bylekuppe which is the second largest settlement outside of Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile. I went over to say “Tashi delek” and practice the few Tibetan words I had picked up. They were fascinated that a girl from Kodagu had made it all the way to Tibet and were full of questions about what was going on and where I’d been. Their longing for their homeland was apparent. Some had never even seen Tibet and yet it was home. For the first time, I appreciated how lucky I was to be able to come back to India whenever I wanted. No matter how comfortable these refugees might be in their adopted countries, exile is exile and it leaves one yearning. Yes, Tibet is tragic.
June 2007
