THE FIRST CEREMONY BEGAN AT 8:30 THE NEXT MORNING. THE DALAI Lama was scheduled to bless the new Buddha statue I had seen from down in the valley the day before, so that’s where we were going. Our driver, Dorjay, took back roads to avoid the crowds, but the closer we got to Diskit Monastery, the more packed the streets became. Armed soldiers stood guard as streams of the Buddhist faithful, from the very ancient to the very young, walked toward the festivities. After passing thousands of pilgrims on our drive to the assembly grounds, we were dropped off right on time at the base of the access road that spiraled to the golden Buddha above.
“We’re with Khen Rinpoche Lobzang Tsetan,” I said to the guard, but even as I said it, I knew it wouldn’t work. I needed a badge or a letter or something. Without it, I was just another groupie trying to sweet-talk the backstage bouncer.
Totally ignoring my feeble attempt at gate-crashing, the guard directed us along with every other visitor to an open area where the Dalai Lama’s public appearance would take place in a few hours. It was a large roped-off space, two hundred yards long by one hundred yards wide with a few army tents off to the side, a wide ornate podium up front for the dignitaries, and a colorful web of prayer flags strung in the air. Other than several rows of folding chairs near the stage, there was only the hard-packed dirt to sit on.
“Where do we go?” Logan asked.
“I’m not sitting back here,” Jackson said, referring to the very back of the viewing space, where many spectators were already getting comfortable.
Is it strictly a Western, entitled way of thinking that says you should always want the best seat? Front Row Ticket Syndrome? It certainly didn’t appear to be a goal for any of the locals as we entered the grounds. Though there was still plenty of room down front, families were spreading out blankets seventy-five yards from the podium and then other families were sitting behind them in an orderly fashion. They had absolutely no view of the stage. Though there were loudspeakers strung up on poles around the grounds, there were no Jumbotrons to watch. After traveling for days, many having walked into the Nubra Valley, these devotees would likely never get a good look at their beloved leader.
This is a mentality that Traca understands; she has no desire to jockey for position. But I can’t deny that I was hugely relieved when a smiling usher pointed toward a central aisle and encouraged us to go to the very front of the stage.
“Now this is more like it,” Jackson said, her mood improving by the step as we walked past thousands of men, women, and children who seemed perfectly content to let us cut the line. We ended up sitting in the folding chair section, a space reserved specifically for foreigners, thirty feet from the podium.
This kind of preferential treatment was not uncommon for us in India. In fact, in our experience, Western visitors were often treated far better than the average Indian citizen. One good example of this happened back in Leh when I went to negotiate a plane ticket change for our return flight to Delhi.
Before we came to Ladakh, our plan had been to take a bus from Leh to Srinagar at the end of our stay, then fly to Delhi from there. Srinagar has been called the “Venice of the East” and is famous for its lush gardens and its houseboat tours of Dal Lake—but that’s not why we decided to go there. Plane tickets from Srinagar were extremely cheap, and at the time, that was really all we needed to hear; money was getting tight and we were looking to conserve. Even though it would be a brutal eighteen-hour bus ride to make our connecting flight (Srinagar is 258 miles from Leh), we bought the tickets and figured we’d deal with that leg of the journey when the time came. Of course, that was before tensions between Muslim rebels and the Indian police began to rise once again … before street fighting broke out in pockets around the city … before tear gas and bullets were fired … before sixty civilians were killed.
The conflict had begun in 1947. At the time, both Pakistan and India claimed the area around Srinagar that was really made up of hundreds of princely states. But after a bloody war that solved nothing, the two countries established an arbitrary and unpopular border known as the Line of Control. In some cases, this line divided villages—even homes—in half, with one half belonging to Pakistan and the other half belonging to India. In Srinagar, the large Muslim majority suddenly found themselves Indian citizens against their will, and decades later, they’re still not happy about it.
There’s no real rebellion going on anymore, but armed resistance does flare up from time to time. As we had no interest in driving into a war zone, even a small one, our new plan was simple: switch the tickets, fly directly out of Leh, and pay as little as possible for the change. I brought Jackson along with me just to sit there and look vulnerable as we met with Mr. Menon, the Kingfisher Airlines representative.
“This is a nonrefundable ticket, sir,” Mr. Menon said politely. He was in his mid-forties like me, wore a thick mustache, and was working on the oldest computer still functioning on the planet. “Srinagar is very cheap. Flights from Leh are five hundred U.S. dollars apiece.”
But I was persistent. “Do you have a daughter?” I asked, knowing that he did because I saw the picture on his desk.
“Yes, I do, sir,” he said proudly, looking at Jackson.
“Would you take her to Srinagar just now if you were me?” I asked.
Mr. Menon smiled and punched a few numbers on his ancient keyboard, then got up and left the room.
“What are we doing?” Jackson whispered. “He’s already said no like ten times.”
“Let’s just wait,” I whispered back. “Look pathetic.” Then Mr. Menon returned, still smiling.
“All right. We will do it,” he announced happily. “Four tickets. Four hundred dollars total. It is fair?”
I said it was more than fair.
Mr. Menon tipped his head to the side, the matter settled. Then his smile completely disappeared and he became suddenly stern for the first time since we arrived. “But I can tell you this,” he said, leaning closer, his eyes flashing. “Had you been an Indian man, I would have thrown you out right from the start!”
Western favoritism or not, I was grateful. I felt the same way as we strolled to the front of the Dalai Lama’s stage and took our seats, a courtesy that was extended to us every day that His Holiness spoke.
On Day Two, we arrived late, but we knew the drill. We used the center aisle to bypass the thronging thousands—only to find the foreigners’ section already full. With no place to sit and the crowd already packed to the very back of the viewing area, we did something so bold, it still surprises me when I think of it.
We climbed onto the stage.
There was an empty space off to the left against the side wall, and we took it. As the only Westerners on the platform, I fully expected us to be kicked off at any moment … but we weren’t. As the seconds ticked by, we hunkered down, trying to act casual, a growing sense of glee blooming among the four of us. The kids were thrilled. Even Traca raised a sneaky eyebrow at me. We felt lucky, even more so when other foreigners tried to follow our lead and were turned back.
“What about them?” an Australian fellow said, pointing at us.
The guard stood firm. “They are allowed,” he said emphatically. “You, sir, are not.”
It blows my mind, actually. I just can’t imagine an Indian family attending, say, a presidential speech in the United States and being ushered to seats of honor reserved at the front simply because they were visiting from a foreign country, or being allowed to share the raised platform with the dignitaries and sit twenty feet from the most beloved figure in the country.
But then, there was a lot about that day that I still find surprising.
Like the way they offered tea to everyone in attendance with relay teams of novice monks running up the aisles to fill thousands upon thousands of glasses; or how beautiful the sea of multicolored sun umbrellas looked spread out before the stage like a rippling rainbow; or how cool it was to see Khen Rinpoche sitting just a few feet from the Dalai Lama’s throne, smiling at us with a child’s delight when we caught his eye; or how much I loved to listen to Logan strike up a conversation with a stranger next to him, talking about volunteering, asking questions, sounding so happy.
As for the Dalai Lama himself, it was a thrill to see him. It reminded me of the time Traca and I saw Maya Angelou speak in New York City. When she stepped onto the stage, such a wave of emotion swept through the crowd that it felt like a physical thing, like a huge blanket of respect and love that we all wove on the spot and passed around. The same was true of His Holiness. To see him appear amid the horns and drums and pomp, to see his little-boy smile up close and in person, to see the reverence on the faces of those around us, it was a sincere honor to be there. We all felt it … at least for a while.
Actually, to be completely honest (and I hope this doesn’t sound disrespectful or shallow), three days of the Dalai Lama speaking in the Nubra Valley wasn’t the nonstop blissfest I thought it was going to be. At ten thousand feet or so, the sun felt much closer than usual, blazing down from a cloudless sky as if it was trying to cook us in the paper-thin air. And His Holiness, while revered and inspiring, spoke only in the local dialect, with no translator that we could hear. After an hour, then two, then three, then another day of the same, it was like watching a really long foreign language documentary with no subtitles and only one camera angle. Logan and Jackson earned their Non-Complaining scout badges by the second day—but they begged not to go back for the third. Feeling more than sated myself, I stayed with them back at the guesthouse while Traca hit the viewing area for one more incomprehensible three-hour lecture.
“How can you stand it when you don’t know what he’s saying?” Jackson asked when we were all back in the car, heading out of Nubra for the long, winding ride to Leh.
Jack wasn’t looking for an answer and Traca didn’t give one. She just watched the snowcapped mountains out the window. But I knew why she went back for Day Three. As she had said about Khen Rinpoche the first time she met him in Portland: Just being in his presence was enough.