Travel Journals XXI: Temple Road
In the chaos that is India there are basically only four reasons anything happens. they are as follows:
1) Cultural. the quintessential example of this is the Indian wedding,
which in effect means that random processions and very loud music
will burst out at any given point of time for the better part of
a week
2) Religious. this includes more random processions where people carry
icons down the street in Pushkar this was preceded by dancing
horses. seriously!
3) Commercial. This can be a confusing one because it covers a lot of
territory from small children hollering at cows to get them to stop
eating the family vegetable stand (it never works) to the guy in Laxman
Jhula who walked around all day dressed as Hanuman making monkey noises
and attempting to bless you for a "donation". when in doubt, they want
money
4) Things Just Happen, What the Hell. this actually accounts for most
of India. one of my friends reports having seen an epic battle
between a Sadhu (holy man) and a goat in Varanasi. stuff like this
happens all the time for no readily apparent reason. you sort of get
used to it after a while.
I have now been in Bhagsu long enough to count a
trip to tiny Mcleod Ganj as "going into the city" i decided to attempt
to negotiate for what will eventually be my seventh pair of shoes since
i got here (it's a long and pointless history that I'll bore you all
with sometime). My attempts were unsuccessful due to the fact that I'm
up against Tibetans. Tibetans as a whole are one of the most lovely,
gentle groups of people on the planet with only one minor flaw: they
don't barter properly. If pressed, a Tibetan shopkeeper will smile at
you serenely and quote a price that is only slightly less absurd than
the original asking price and refuse to go any lower. worse yet, unlike
their Indian counterparts, they've all standardized the prices
beforehand so you can't go to the next shop and fare any better. This
seems like they aren't playing fair somehow. you don't even get the
satisfaction of a proper pointless argument out of it.
Having failed in my attempt to procure reasonably priced footwear, I
decided to go and re-visit the Dali Lama's compound instead. i walked
through the gates into the hive of butter yellow buildings that house a
multitude of monks. I stopped by the diminutive Tibet museum that
chronicles the struggles and suffering of the Tibetan people under the
Chinese Occupation. any annoyance caused by my interactions that
morning melted away. perhaps no other culture in recent history
has endured so much oppression and hardship for so long as the people
of Tibet.The fact that they have kept their culture alive in
exile after the theft of their land and a concentrated effort to
eradicate them on behalf of the Chinese is a testament to their
strength and quiet courage.
after a cursory security check i ascended the stairs
into a courtyard that is under some serious renovation. Large pipes
are being welded and workmen move gravel back and forth. had i
not been here before this would have been the last thing i
expected from the center of Tibetan Buddhism. it still comes as a bit
of a surprise that a place of peace is under construction. I climbed
another staircase towards the temples and prayer wheels encountering
once again the signs that encourage visitors to: "Circumambulate this
way" I left my battered sandals by a sign that read " Please make sure
that your shoes are not stolen" this is currently the least of my
worries. Upon entering the first temple, i discovered that some sort of
ceremony was taking place. about thirty or forty monks clad in maroon
and goldenrod robes were kneeling before tiny desks and chanting more
or less in unison from texts written on long thin strips of paper. the
deep throaty chanting was punctuated by the ringing of hand bells,
clanging of cymbals, blaring horns and the beating of drums. the whole
effect was otherworldly, eerie and profoundly moving. after about
twenty minutes or so the monks got up and with only minimal
conversation began to gather up a variety of ritual objects in a quiet
and orderly fashion. only a few of the older monks remained kneeling,
intently studying their texts. another tourist asked one of the younger
monks if the ceremony was over. "not yet" was the response, so i
remained among the ornate statues contemplating once again the fact
that packages of cookies were considered perfectly acceptable religious
offerings (there are many things might have expected to see on a
temple later, but i have to admit that Chips Ahoy! was never among them
until recently. ) the tide of robed bodies moved towards a pavilion in
the center of the room and began to partially dismantle it. after
several minutes of patient work it was revealed that the structure
housed what at first seemed to be an especially fine tapestry. as
i watched, several monks lifted invisible flecks from beside the
brightly colored surface and placed them carefully on it. I realised
that i was looking at the temples Mandala and what they were in fact
doing was placing individual grains of sand. responding again to some
imperceptible signal, the monks produced paintbrushes and swept what
must have been countless hours worth of work into an anonymous pile of
grey sand. the vivid crimson blue and golden pattern disappeared
before my eyes in less than a minute.
After visiting the temple grounds myself, another American couple
and a Canadian girl agreed to go get some lunch. we ate at a restaurant
whose only redeeming feature was a spectacular view and after the meal
someone declared: "all right, lets go talk to some Tibetans"
As it turns out, there is a program that helps
recent Tibetan immigrants to improve their English skills by inviting
westerners to come and converse with them. The man i wound up speaking
with was evidently one of the more recent students. his ability to
speak English was rudimentary and halting but with great patience (on
his part) he managed to explain that he was once a monk in a monastery
in Tibet. He was forced to renounce his faith and imprisoned by the
Chinese for one year. after being released he crossed the Himalayas on
foot, mostly traveling at night to avoid the Chinese army patrols.
before finding refuge in India. one can only imagine the hardships he
must have endured at home that forced him to make such a perilous
journey.
On an almost related note, i found myself hiking among
the lower peaks when i came upon a village. on the outskirts was a
little white Hindu temple about the size of a garden shed. as i
walked past, i noticed that there was a small group of about ten girls
loitering near it. the oldest must have been about eleven. one of the
group beckoned to me and guided me into the temple, she rang the bell
for me and helped me make puja (the word means respect) and put a
bindi of pink tikka powder on my forehead. afterwards they asked if i
spoke Hindi and confessed that they couldn't speak English. they
peppered me with the usual questions after consulting with one another.
they also made an attempt to teach me a few words in their language,
making sure i pronounced them correctly. one of the words was Hindi for
'raven' i learned this because periodically an inky colored bird would
land nearby and grab a piece of chapati that my hosts had brought for
the birds. they introduced themselves one by one, shook my hand very
formally and walked back towards their homes, smiling at one another
clearly proud that they could help the strange ignorant foreigner who
had blundered into their midst.
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