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Tantric chants
Morning prayer inside the Tawang monastery.It was drizzling at Tawang lamasery as in Bomdila. The 400-year-old gompa, surpassed in antiquity only by the temple of Llasa, the heartland of Tibetan Buddhism, is still in slumber. The monks are yet to gather for prayers. The sonorous tune from the gyaling pervades the lamasery. Two young monks shrouded in morning mist blow the short trumpets from a small temple atop an unfinished building in the compound. Neighbourhood Monpa women help monks with their daily chores.
The monastic musicians enter the gompa past ferocious chimandas who guard the pantheon of Vajrayana deities. They stow away their gyalings inside a box between the rows of cushions. Presiding over the pantheon of deities and fairies is a mammoth idol of the Buddha in a yellow robe. The gompa is huge compared to the one in Bomdila. In fact, Galden Namgyel Lhatse, as the lamasery is known in Tibetan, is the largest in India.
The abbot, followed by three young novices, enters the gompa. The Lama proceeds to the pride of place while the novices do their customary genuflection. Boy monks stream to the gompa. Seniors follow them. Gradually, the courtyard turns maroon from the many robes. Tawang lamasery, founded
Little Buddha
Little lamas arrive for morning prayers at the gompa. by Mera Lama in the 17th century and renovated in 1997, is home to more than 600 lamas. The boys who ran and kicked in the air are transformed to calm monks once they enter the gompa. The collective chanting begins.
Mera Lama’s 300-year-old silver possessions are kept in a museum facing the gompa. Ancient metal compounds are moulded into many Buddhas behind glass panes. The Buddhists perfected the art of alchemy and blended gold and silver to produce wonderful compounds like lima and nakpo as early as the 13th century. Chenresik Chhakshipa or the four armed Avaloketeswara, the god of compassion, Dolma or Tara Devi, the god of wisdom and health, Jambeyang or Manjushree, the god of wisdom… Gongs, bells, trumpets, tea/porridge containers, goichen chhupa (brocade cloth used in lama dance)…
The museum houses 700-year-old statuettes of Padma Sambhava (Lopon Rinpoche), who founded the Nyingmapa sect, and Je Tsongkhapa (born in 1358), who founded the Gelugpa sect, to which the Tawang lamasery belongs. Even after Bailley bridges connected the hills and valleys over furious rivers, the monastery revers Maha Sidhi Tangtong (Drubchen Thangtong Gyalpo), the “great iron bridge builder” born in 1386. The most prized possession, however,
Pema Drema
Life at 13,700 feet. Sela Pass is Seir Chhoi, the 300-year-old golden scripture. The monastery has 100 volumes - 500 pages each - of Kagyar Seir Chhoi.
We have to leave now, if we want to reach Bomdila before sun sets. (Not surprising. It took us two full days to cover 180 kilometres to reach Tawang from Bomdila.) Visiting the other monasteries and nunneries - on higher hills - would hold us up in this cold town for another day. At Tawang town, a district hq, we ask around for an ATM. There is none. Debit cards remain what they are - plastic. Rajesh does some quick arithmetic and declares that we have just enough to pay for our rented car and food on the way. We had no money to spend the night at Bomdila and rent a car to Tezpur. The nearest ATM was at Tenga, 20 kilometres past Bomdila.
From 10,000 feet above sea level at Tawang, we climb to 13,700 feet at Sela Pass, the highest point on our journey. On the way is Jaswantgarh, named in memory of Jaswant Sing Rawat, one of the 2420 Indian soldiers killed - as per official estimates - during the Chinese aggression in
Symbiosis
Yaks replace cows as we gain altitude. At Sela Pass. 1962. A plaque tells of Rawat’s heroics. The warrior kept the Chinese at bay for three days single-handedly, even after his company was ordered to retreat. The infuriated Chinese cut off his head and took it to China. After the ceasefire, the severed head was returned by the Chinese commander along with a brass bust of the brave soldier, which is installed at the memorial at Jaswantgarh. Rawat was awarded the Mahavir Chakra.
More military lore. On the way to Bumla on the border is a lake named after two women — P T Tso and Madhuri. Pankang Teng Tso was a Chinese engineer, who built a road from Bumla to Tawang for the People’s Army to march on. Later, in more romantic times, jawans named the lake after Madhuri Dixit, who came here to act in the Hindi flick Koyla. She looked just like in the movies, Tsering Phuchu, our driver, says.
Yaks jump to safety as our vehicle approaches. Sela (La itself, stands for pass) Pass is still hidden in thick mist. ‘Danger, go fast,’ tells a board put up by the army. Army areas protected by barbwires, and possibly mines, sprawl the stretches by the
Momos ready
Chicken momos are the next best thing after rakshi, the local brew. stream. Two jawans fish, probably for trout. After a couple of hairpin bends, we reach the settlement where Pema Drema gave us noodles, tea and rakshi the previous afternoon. The girls had promised to sing for us when we return. But we are anxious to reclaim civilization. Pema’s doors are closed. Perhaps she is praying with her pebbles - one for every 108 chants - by the samovar.
We descend to Senge, at 9000 feet. Every soldier posted in this sector spends six days in the transit camp in Senge and as many days at further points to acclimatise himself to the border ridges at 16,000 feet, Sukhdev Singh, the jawan from the Sikh Regiment, had said. The only soldiers who intercepted us after we left Bhalukpong were two friendly sardars seeking a lift. Sukhdev gifted each of us a pack of soft drinks. Balbir was suffering from an aching tooth.
All along our journey, while we bumped over roads that were, the roadside tombstones continued to haunt us. Whenever we crossed the cleared patches on roads regularly erased by landslides, protruding rocks ready to fall on us and rubbles ready to trigger the next landslide made us
School time
Little Puja holds her teacher Tsering Droima hostage. edgy. We came dangerously close to the end when the Sumo stopped at a high road strewn with stones. All slush and rain. For the first time in three days, I saw the reckless Tsering panic when a few stones started rolling down from the steepness on our right. On our left was the magnetic depths filled with mist. But the vehicle was yet to ditch us.
We soon forgot that we had lost money power. On these hills, it didn’t matter if you carried a plastic card or wards of notes. What mattered, as we were to find out, was a sharp hatchet and nerves of steel. The road we drove on the previous day was not the same. It had caved in somewhere, covered by mud elsewhere. Tsering said he would try to reach Bomdila before night, but it was getting dark. As he negotiated a sharp downhill curve, a convoy of trucks appeared in the mist. Another roadblock caused by comparatively small rocks. Drivers and helpers had already cleared it when we reached.
We overtake the convoy and rush downhill, but not for long. A government jeep, which had overtaken us hardly five minutes ago, is blocked by a fallen tree. As we stand shocked by the proximity of the calamitous action, our predecessors swung into reaction. They are three men. The elder has a hatchet in his hands. He walks straight to the prone tree and chops off a branch. He aims the next branch as his companions and the truck drivers, who arrived on time, push the severed log off the road. Within 15 minutes the path is clear. In the plains, we would have admonished the fellow driver for not telling someone to call up the official concerned to send in his man to do “their job”. Here, we are of help at least.
We are nearing Nyukmadung, where we were stranded the day before on our way to Tawang. The heavy landslide had even blocked Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu, whose convoy forced us aside at Dirang. It took the BRO labourers more than a night to clear the path we drove on now. We cross the remnants of a landslide for the second time. The roadside shack at Nyukmadung, where we were sipping warm rakshi 48 hours ago, is closed like all the neighbouring houses. Karmu and Mintu, sisters-in-law, don’t expect any visitors at this late hour.
Karmu was surprised when I told her that the name meant white. So were Tsering, Rajesh and Sreekanth. Winking at Prem, I told them that I was good at every language. I didn’t tell them that an hour ago, the guard at a high-altitude yak farm had told me that the name of the white yak, one of the three albinos among a crowd of 166, was Karmu. Our hostesses, who hesitated before saying their names to mispronouncing aliens, were amused. Mintu even made tea for Rajesh who didn’t try rakshi, and Tsering, who was prevented from drinking.
They were even more amused when we promptly turned up the next morning asking for rakshi, warmed! Karmu was about to go to Dirang, the nearest town where we spent the night for the road to clear. We had to wait till noon at least. She introduced me to a pretty girl, who told me in chaste Hindi that she is a teacher at the local primary school. She also told me that her name would be too tough for me. Then Karmu told her of the previous evening. I hid the yak tale and tried to be mysterious. Fortunately, I could echo the teacher’s name - Tsering Droima. Scored again.
Tsering gets a lift to Dirang. Little Puja waves off her teacher and runs to her friends, playing marbles. It’s only 7 in the morning. She joins Kanchi and Sonam, ready in uniforms. We follow them to the school, where a dozen children devise the day’s games before their teachers arrive. All of them carry a single notebook, strewn with English and Hindi letters. None of them is privileged to learn the language they speak at home. It has no script. Each tribe has its own language. It even varies from village to village. It’s Hindi that makes communication possible here, as the headmaster, Y Kishore Singh from Balia in Uttar Pradesh, says.
The Mohan Camp Primary School, hardly a year old, is funded by the Union government’s Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. Kishor Singh and Tsering Droima teach the children of local Arunachalis and Nepali migrants - 29 boys and 27 girls - English, Hindi, social science and mathematics. Very few of the kids would make it to the high school in Bomdila, Singh says.
The place seems to be jinxed. Metres away from the school, our one-eyed vehicle conks out. A short circuit. It is night and the traffic is a trickle. At last we squeeze ourselves into a lorry going past Dirang. Two days ago, returning from Nyukmadung to Dirang, five women had got into our vehicle. They had lost their houses in a devastating landslide the day before. Surprisingly, there were no casualties. Everyone was working elsewhere, with their infants sleeping on their backs. All of them, except an older woman who silently prayed, were talking and laughing loudly.
The scene of tragedy remains the same and the five women the symbol of a people who refuse to be terrorized by Nature.
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Rajiv
non-member comment
Defying teleos all the way
Hi traveler, I liked the way you present your travel experience in an indifferent manner; it's anti-teleology, non-judgmental. Do you really experience anything? reader.