At the Dalai Lama Temple in McLeodGanj, there are the usual hordes of tourists, armed with cameras and selfie sticks, clicking away at everything in sight; even within the sanctum where a board says ‘No photography’. There, among the crowds, seated on a bench were these two old ladies, twirling their prayer wheels, fingers busy with the prayer beads and chanting quietly to themselves. They were unperturbed by the people around them; including those who sat next to them, posed for photographs and left even without a smile or a thank you. A big thumbs down here for insensitivity.
It is a well-known fact that McLeodGanj is the official residence of the Dalai Lama and also home to several Buddhist monasteries and thousands of Tibetan refugees. It is also the headquarter of the Tibetan government-in-exile. The first lot of Tibetan refugees came to India in 1959 and since then thousands more have followed; all leaving their homeland behind, in the hope of a better, more secure life. In the hope of freedom.
I wonder how old these ladies had been when they made that arduous trek across the Himalayas. They must have been little girls. Do they remember their homeland? What thoughts and memories lie behind their calm, serene expressions? Or have they made peace with the fact that they may probably never go home again? That they will live and die in a land where they don’t belong? Is that why they come and sit in this temple, chant prayers and turn the large, golden prayer wheels that are placed there?
Do they light the butter lamps and pray that they or their descendants will one day go home again? To a land that has now become foreign to them?
How must it feel to live one’s life in exile? To have a nationality but no nation? To have your status read : Refugee.
They go about their lives just like you and me, but in a land to which they will never belong. They make every effort to keep alive their culture and traditions, their only legacy for the next generation. And they do it all in a place where, to many; they and all that they hold dear, are nothing more than a tourist attraction.
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