A CLUSTER OF TIBETAN LAMAS stand in the street, gorging themselves on juicy momo dumplings.
In the temple behind them, many more are prostrating towards a large statue of Buddha, while still more circumvent the compound, spinning prayer wheels clockwise as they go. All around, the streets teem with stalls selling Tibetan jewellery, embroidery, music and food.
At first glance you might be fooled into thinking you were in the back streets of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. But this Buddhist community is far from there, in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
Fifty years ago, when Chinese forces streamed across the border, the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, slipped over the mountains in disguise, along with his most trusted supporters. He sought sanctuary in India, where he was permitted to reside near the small hill station of Dharamsala. It’s been his home for half a decade, and has become an outpost of homeland away from Tibet. The community, known locally as ‘Little Lhasa’, is a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists the world over.
Driving up to Dharamsala, the road zigzags sharply, twisting and turning back on itself, one precarious bend following tight on the heels of the next. Either side of the tarmac, lush vegetation looms up, the trees and creepers alive with langur monkeys, butterflies and brightly coloured birds. As my taxi ascended, reaching cloud level, the greenery all around seemed to change, the conifers replaced by fabulous jungle plants and ferns.
I had arrived by over-night train from Delhi, which pulled into the sleepy station of Pathankot a little after breakfast. The drive up to Dharamsala took about two hours, most of it spent with my begging the driver to slow down. Wide-eyed and grinning, he spun the wheel easily through his hands, recounting the close calls that had so nearly claimed his life.
The Dalai Lama’s community is not actually based at Dharamsala, but a little further up the hillside, at McLeod Ganj. The incongruous place name, derives from Sir Donald Friell McLeod, a nineteenth century Governor of the Punjab. Set at six thousand eight hundred feet, the hill station enjoys spectacular sweeping views over the plateau below. Once favoured by the British, it offered a cool refuge from the ferocious summer heat of New Delhi.
As soon as you reach the outskirts of town, you see lamas strolling about, and wizened old Tibetan women, walking with canes, their legs hidden beneath striped aprons. From the first moment you arrive, the sense of tranquility hits you face on, as if the burdens of the outside world have somehow melted away. There’s irony in this, of course, because the several thousand Tibetans who make their home at McLeod Ganj do so because they’re unable to return home. Their struggle against the Chinese occupation of Tibet has been all about non-violence, after all.
Every year, hundreds of ordinary Tibetans travel in secret over the mountains to Nepal, and across into India, on a pilgrimage to Little Lhasa. For the first time in their lives they are permitted to celebrate the life of its most famous resident, the Dalai Lama. This religious freedom must come as a tremendous relief, for merely speaking his name in their homeland is a crime.
Many of the foreigners who arrive at McLeod Ganj stay for weeks, or even months, residing in the little guest houses and hostels found in the back streets and lanes. They fill the cafés on the main street, sipping green tea, chatting about Buddhism and the Dalai Lama’s teachings, or browsing the stalls for bargains. It’s not uncommon to find celebrities there as well. Richard Gere and other Hollywood A-listers are quite well known to the locals. Yet, unlike elsewhere in the world, when they come to Little Lhasa they are left alone.
Having visited Tibet a few months earlier, I had travelled to Mcleod Ganj in the hope of seeking an audience with the Dalai Lama. Two months before setting out to India, I had corresponded with His Holiness’ office.
I had heard that a private meeting is near impossible, a result of his packed programme and frequent travels. After all, there’s a neverending line of world dignitaries hoping to meet him.
Fortunately for me, there had been no last minute travel plans. His Holiness’ private secretary asked me to present myself at the main monastery in McLeod Ganj, called Namgyal, the afternoon after my arrival. Following an informal chat, and being looked over, he told me to return the next morning at ten a.m.
While waiting in the office, I was surprised how many dozens of tourists casually drop in, optimistically hoping for a spur of the moment rendezvous with the Dalai Lama. They are all politely turned away.
Having passed through airport style security, I was taken up to a private meeting room; and, after a short wait, was ushered down a long corridor into His Holiness’ study.
It’s always weird to see someone face to face who you know so well already – or, at least, someone you think you know. But, in this case, it was strangely comforting. Dressed in his trademark maroon robes, and wearing sturdy brown lace up shoes, the Dalai Lama shot up, and ushered me to a sofa.
In the three quarters of an hour we spent together, chatting about the situation in Tibet, and our shared affection for yaks, he struck me as someone utterly at peace with the world around him. Unlike anyone else robbed of their country, his pacifist approach was astonishing. But it isn’t to say he was ready to give up the fight for his homeland.
As a writer, he asked me several times, to do all I could to draw attention to the plight of Tibet, and to remind the world of the situation for his people.
On the evening of my audience, I was sitting on a low wall in McLeod Ganj, thinking about it all, when an old Tibetan woman staggered up, and rested herself there. She had plaits, was dressed in the traditional apron, and looked about eighty-five. I asked her if she had lived there long. She looked at me hard, her eyes watery with age.
‘I came here across the mountains with his Holiness,’ she said. ‘That was fifty summers ago. I was young then, and strong.’
I asked if she had ever returned back to Tibet. She shook her head slowly, left then right.
‘The soul has left our country, and who can live in a place without a soul?’