Landscape
of Dharamshala and Mcleodganj
The
one place where you can stick your head out of the car and enjoy the cool
breeze is undoubtedly the hills. The cool grainy lashings of mountain dust and
an occasional stray leaf in the pure wind against your face, creeping through
alleys in your hair, refresh the mind in a way no spa therapy can rejuvenate.
I
realise and feel the joy my dog felt each time it got to stick its head out
from the window. I wonder if its not too much to really imitate a dog and stick
my tongue out as well; but i decide against it. my cab driver is blasting
Punjabi songs from his stereo which does not bother me in the least; the music
exudes of the vivacity and brightness of his people who now work in the hills
but refuse to let go of the plains they call home.
Lower
Dharamshala is a little disappointing; after you pass the impressive army
barracks and smartly uniformed soldiers, the scene is of a regular Indian
market in a small urban city. It takes the pleasure of the joyride away; you
wonder: wait. What? And just as you are about to dismiss this holiday as a
wrong decision, the Himalayas play another trick to take your breath away.
Arrive:
Upper Dharamshala. Passing a church set in colonial times, i always feel a
sense of the British presence, one of my favourite daydreams. I make a mental
note to visit the cemetery late in the evening—a narcissistic yet adrenaline
powered rush to my sceptical atheist self. St. John’s is dilapidated, its stone
walls giving away to the green moss sticking and growing all around it. the
graves fascinate me because they hold within them entire life stories of people
gone by and now reduced to bones in a box.
The
tall, undaunted pine and deodar trees impress upon the mind, their towering and
elegant personas. Never overrated is the clarity of mountain air breathed in
deeply to detox. It reminds me of crystals and intensively untainted gifts of Mother
Nature.
The
constant, speedy hits of opposite continue to strike me like a marble on a
foosball table. Mcleodganj is now reduced to a grubby little mountain town,
aping the west better than a chimpanzee trying to play ball. All you see around
you in the main market are clothes shops, eating joints selling mcdonald’s
variety foods and people shopping till they drop. I mean, really! And to add
insult to injury, a small Buddhist temple now lies sandwiched between wine
shops and souvenir shops, ignored by the local tourist. It makes me seethe in
anger to see young adults loitering around, sipping their cheap breezers and
toying with prayer wheels, making them whir with the fickleness of a four year
old playing with a new toy car.
The
entire point of a vacation, a visit to the mall or “going out” has become TO
SHOP. And specifically, to shop for clothes, shoes, accessories. Where did
books vanish in this picture? Personally, the only shopping i would want to do
in a tourist spot would be a book (i fancy discovering a repository of the
world’s finest in a quaint little wooden door book shop. Sigh) and perhaps
something of local make as a useable souvenir. Or quality music. Imagine Bach
or Etta James flowing melodiously out of a little store and discovering their
records being played; gramophone style. Carry your carefully chosen book to the
mountains with you and discover how smoothening the caress of words alongside
the playful touch of the wind in your hair, can be while the Himalayas tower
mightily and graciously above you.
Yet,
i digress. Mcleodganj, in all its immense cultural changes and diversity has
merely become a place where young students come to shop for “cool stuff”, to
eat in “wicked awesome” restaurants and to smoke some “dude, it was kickass”
marijuana. I sincerely believe the reader understands that my usage of the
quotes is pure and heartfelt sarcasm for the language and culture of our times.
Anyway,
as i make way through this crowd of young screechy adults, i discover a yellow
concrete building at the end of the road. I breathe a sigh of relief as my eyes
are treated to sights of Tibetan women in Sikang chupas, steaming momos at the
roadside. I wonder what this building really is, so i enter.
To
my painful discovery, it is the temple of the Dalai Lama. You wonder why i say
painful. To my mind, a monastery must be as stunningly beautiful on the outside
as it is on the inside. All the pictures i have seen of Tibetan structures have
struck me in their complexity and sheer aesthetic charge. I have not yet been
lucky enough to visit Ladakh or Tibet and give a more comprehensive
understanding of their architecture. But like any lay man, i imagine pagodas,
fading yet vibrant prayer flags and brightly robed monks when i think of
Tibetan Buddhist centres.
In
mcleodganj, the monastery is shockingly pedestrian in its exterior
architecture; but it manages to stun you on the inside. I wonder if it is not
the same trick as playing foosball. The atmosphere is hypnotic in its mystery,
droning chants and quaintly carved prayer wheels. A few Tibetan elderly people
sit, humming their mantras on the spacious balcony, as the candle flames quiver
with every drone and sound of silent magic.
In
the distance, i hear the ever sweet chatter and playful shrieks of little
children; to my delight, when you look down from the balcony of the temple, you
can see the playground of a school where little dolled up kids (i have to admit
that Tibetan kids take the cake when it comes to cuteness with their small
bright eyes and apple red cheeks!), dressed in blue and white are enjoying
their recess.
The
pine cones are still fresh and green and provide a stark contrast to the aged
monks ambling around the premises. The raw smelling soft cones remind me of the
school children below—not yet hardened by reality. However, all hill people are
fond of two basic things in life—music and food. And care little for the
luxuries of the plains.
In
my world of throngs of people jostling to and from work, a punitive weather and
constant race for money, this world is alien in its simplicity and slow
attitude to ambition. Ambition is treated like a subtext here, not as the
entire book of life.
I
wish, like every other traveller, that i could live here forever, in simplistic
and basic happiness that can come from merely getting to eat meat one day or
travelling on a car the other—things that we can never view as a luxury or a
gift. I bite my nails and gulp down several bouts of “do it” impulses when i
see a job advertisement in a coffee shop offering a small stipend, a room and
meals. And i calm my dreamy heart with a practical mind, by walking in and
ordering one of the best cappuccinos of my life.
The
main town is a crowded frenzy of people determined to eke out everything that
their vacation can offer in terms of “fun”. Hike around the area, and you will
realize the subtle tranquillity in which the Tibetan refugees live; harmonious and
patient with the noisy bluntness of the tourists from the plains.
I sat on a bench on a non-descript road behind
the temple after a thirty minute walk. a few minutes later, i heard a cough and
saw an old old man politely smiling down at me, silently asking “may i sit
here?”. “of course”, said my equally big smile. We tried to talk till we
realised he knew no English, and i no Tibetan. So, i spoke in broken nepali and
he, in a few words of English.
The
conversation ended in my understanding that he is REALLY old and a monk under
the dalai lama while i was a “bit strange” little girl from the city. He gifted
me a “dorjee”—a Tibetan totem to protect one from evil and sickness. The monk
told me to walk down to dharamkot the next day and meditate with my dorjee. So
i did.
At
the rooftop of the “lonely earth” (really? HOW is it lonely?) cafe, i took my
little brass friend out and made to sit in a yogic posture, confident that the
Himalayas would bestow wisdom on me. However, half an hour of immense
drowsiness in the soft wintry sun later, i went downstairs and indulged in a
scrumptious lunch of steamed momos and a delightfully warming thukpa with
thingmo bread. The dorjee has been relegated a spot on my ‘nail of artefacts’
in my tiny box room in the city.
The
Tibet museum, in its sparseness, is a painful reminder of the injustice done to
the Tibetan people; while the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts is a bit a
of let-down in terms of “art”. However, if you are feeling cheeky, you can
always score some hash right from the reception counter; or so says the “funky”
crowd determined to couch themselves in a smoky haze.
The
rise and fall of the sun is another feature to look out for. Make yourself wake
up in the morning and trust me, the experience is worth every minute of sleep
sacrificed. Or watch the sunset with a cup of tea or Tibetan soup that
delightfully warms you in the chill wintry town. The Himalayas undergo every
imaginable shade of red, yellow, orange, blue, purple and white with the sky.
It is like watching an artist in a remote Italian town work on a painting and
constantly refurbish the colours to his liking, on the canvas. It made my mind
fabricate my own tales of how Tibetan people first made a foray for refuge
through these tough regions; of the times they must have spent camping in the
jungles, cold and hungry, yet filled with some distant hope. Hope and dreams
can never be marginalised. Imagine how they must have felt, packing up their
lives, to trek into a new country with anticipation and a resolution to create
a new life here.
Mcleodganj
is like Marquez’s Macondo; it is surreal in its own right and is populated by
generations of people so estranged from their homes that they have made this
city a home. it accepts the vast differences of culture that India bestows on
it and also lends its own, subtly and elegantly. The rain is as unpredictable
as a pregnant woman’s labour pains. One moment you bask in the gentle sunlight
and the next, you are in danger of being drenched by torrential rains.
Umbrellas lend colourful cheer to the sobriety that coldness is born with.
The
hills are always a happy reminder of the good things in life. The sea, more or
less, does the same thing too. The mountains make me wonder about what lies on
the other side while the sea makes me realise how the vast ocean is brought to
a humble end in frothy waves and wet sand when it nears land. So this trip,
despite the aforementioned loopholes, will happen again. a third time.
