Hippies, porridge and refugees

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I've decided it is about time to write a post on the cultural oddity that is Mcleod Ganj. Mcleod is where we often come on the weekend to see our friends who are teaching here and escape from nunnery food to eat delights such as porridge.
I can safely say there is nowhere else like it in all of India. It was originally a British hill station in the days of the Raj and was where the Brits would come when the rest of India got too hot for them. Since the early 60s it has been the home to the exiled Tibetan community who fled here to escape persecution under the Chinese invaders. It is now more Tibetan than Indian but there are also a lot of Western travellers attracted by the Buddhist community and presence of the Dalai Lama who also lives here. Every time I come I find it strange all over again to see other white faces. Where I'm living we're the only foreigners for miles around the the sight of another is cause for great excitment amoug the villagers, so it is very odd ebing here from that point of view.
Lots of the travellers here are hippies, and I'm sure many of them are very nice people, but they do get very annoying. They are the kind of hippies who wear shapeless (and in a conservative country far too revealing clothes) and sit around into the evening smoking and having psuedo deep spiritual discussions and come back saying things like "I really discovered myself in India". Many of them come here for Buddhist meditation courses and the such like or because they have some interest in Buddhism which is all very well. I was talking to one of the senior nun's at my nunnery about meditation and she says that Buddhist believe you can only really meditate when you have studied Buddha's teaching and have developed a real understanding, something the nuns spend years and years doing: which contrasts sharply with the 2 week Buddhist meditation classes that are on offer all over the place in McLeod...for a price of course. Like I say it can get irritating. In McLeod it is virtually impossible to get Indian food. Granted you can got Tibetan food but a lot of it is continental....I find it altogether too western for my liking, I didn't come travelling to an entirely different culture to be able to eat pizzas and buy Hobnobs (though exceptions for porridge can be made when your diet throughout the week consists only of rice and overcooked vegetables.)
There is however a complete other side to McLeod, that of the Tibetans which you almost forget when you get so used to seeing Tibetan faces until something happens which reminds you.
We were in a shop the other day when the owner said he was closing the shop momentarily because His Holiness the Dalai Lama was driving past. All the shops on the road closed and the people stood on the left hand side of the road to pay their respeces to their spirtual leader. Just as you're fuming about spotting yet another American tourist in a strappy top and shorts you'll spot a poster about the kidnap and disappearance of the 6 year old Panchan Lama in occupied Tibet. Or you'll spot a recent arrival from Tibet (noticable because of their bright red cheeks) which makes you pause and think about how they've had to risk they lives coming on foot over the Himalayas to be able to have the same freedoms we take for granted.
I have learnt so much more about the atrocities that the Tibetan people have, and still are, suffering from under the Chinese. The human rights abuses and destruction of Tibetan culture and it makes me so angry that other nations will make the right noises but won't ever do anything about this simply because China is too important to them economically. Human suffering should always come before economics.
It really is humbling to talk to Tibetans about the issue because of course they are extremely angry about it, yet they still stand firmly by their Buddhist belief in non violence being the only way to solve issues.
There is one monk who we keep meeting around Mcleod who was political prisoner in Tibet for three years after which he escaped in to India. He had taken part in a demonstration in Lhasa against the Chinese in which a Chinese policeman had been killed. He was arrested and tortured until he gave a (false) plea of guilty, his trial made a mockery of the words "fair trial" and prison conditions were equally grim. Some of the fellow monks he was arrested with have been executed and others are now paralysed as the result of the torture they have endured. When he escaped across the border Bagdro was so sick from the treatment he received that he needed a year of specialist medical treatment and still years later has the shakes and night terrors. He is just one of countless individuals who each have their story to tell. He has written an book detailing his experiences which me and Ashleigh are using in our English lessons as we discovered many of the nun's know very little about the situation in Tibet. The live a very sheltered life in the nunnery, many are Indian not Tibetan and those who are Tibetan were born in India so their knowledge is scarily scant. We have arranged for Bagdro to come to Tilokpur the give a talk to the nuns which we hope will open their eyes at least a little.
Two night ago we went to a performance at TIPA (the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts) which was one of the first initiatives put in place by the Dalai Lama when he first came into exile as the Communists were, and are, actively trying to destroy Tibetan culture. It was such a wonderful performance, they did dances and songs form all the different regions of Tibet and the costumes were exquisite. At the end of the perfromance a large Tibetan flag was brought on stage and every stood and sang the national anthem (which is really beautiful.) I found it all very moving.
There was a very positive message behind that performance, that Tibetan culture will not die out, that even though the performers (who were mstly in their 20's) have probably never seen their homeland as they will have been born in exile they feel a connection to their culture and are passionate about it. On the other hand it is so sad that they have to do it here in India, in a specially put on concert, that they cannot express their national indentity and celebrate their culture in Tibet because they will certainly be arrested for a number of years. I came away very angry once again.
So as you can see McLeod invokes a lot of very mixed feelings whenever I come here.

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