IN TRANSIT

On the Air Turkey plane. Running late. Possibility of missing the connecting flight. On the screen there’s a subtitled Turkish film. The film opens with an old man returning to a place he worked at 50 years ago. It then flashes back, introducing a maverick engineer, who has the crazy dream of building the first Turkish automobile. No one takes him seriously, he’s treated like a wild man from the hills, until someone in the government decides to take a punt and back him. He assembles a crack team, and they all head off to a remote site to live together and bring the dream to life. They’ve been given a bare 150 days. They also have to overcome the overwhelming scepticism of an entire nation. They suffer. Their wives suffer. But men are men. They will find a way. It’s The Right Stuff or the Dirty Dozen, set against the backdrop of the history of the Turkish car industry.

Outside, somewhere between Serbia and Turkey itself, mountains gleam with snow. The sun begins to set as the plane chases evolving night.

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TRAVEL WARNING

When people advise you before you’ve travelled that when you get to India, you should get out of Delhi as soon as you can, you have no real understanding of what they actually mean. You think they mean, Delhi is hot and busy and there’s not that much to see; spend a night or two and then head off. That’s not what they mean. What they really mean is: Get the hell out of Delhi as soon as is humanly possible.

Arriving in Delhi is the equivalent of being woken from your sleep at 5am on a Tuesday and parachuted into a Visigothic death metal club with strobe lighting, a temperature of 50 degrees Celsius, nothing to drink and not enough room to move your arms. Even if you’re the most devoted clubber on the planet, this is not something you’re going to be ready for.

Quite apart from all the things you might expect, one of the main reasons for this inordinate sense of disorientation is the fact that your first port of call, the hotel, your supposed safe haven, turns out to be your point of greatest vulnerability. Delhi hotels are run by some of the most dedicated capitalists alive. In their eyes you’re not a hotel guest. You’re a walking cashpoint. They know that Delhi is not what you had in mind when you decided to travel to India with vague notions of spirituality and locating your soul. You’re naïve, disorientated and willing to do almost anything financially necessary to get out of town. They have a plan to suit you. And most of all, they have a plan to suit them.

After arriving at 6am, we were in the hotel by 7. The free airport pick-up sounds like a wonderful part of the deal, and it has its obvious benefits. What you don’t realise is that it’s also in the hotel’s own interests to make sure you get to them, and don’t find yourself being hijacked and shipped off somewhere else. After we checked in, an attentive man appeared and suggested we have breakfast, saying he’d check to see if it was included in the price, (which he knew it wasn’t), and in response to my enquire about trains to Haridwar, saying he could get me tickets, and I should come and see him in his office after breakfast. As I went to change money he helpfully advised me not to change as much as I intended to, saying it was risky to carry too much cash in India.

After breakfast, in his office, he asked about our travelling plans. Within minutes he’d translated our vague notions of wandering around the Himalayas into a fixed itinerary for every night of our stay, at a price which included a driver, hotels, and train journeys for the return to Delhi. All fleshed out on a piece of paper. You could sense he also had a sub-itinerary for each individual day. When I asked him about the chances of getting a train to Haridwar, he said the earliest we could leave would be in two days time. His package didn’t seem unreasonable, but so soon off the plane, we asked for time to think about it. He was reluctant to let us leave before committing, but I promised to get back to him that afternoon.

After heading out into Delhi for a few hours, we went back to the hotel to catch up on some sleep. At 2pm the phone rang. It was the itinerary man. He wanted to know if we’d decided. By now we’d already made other plans, (or had them made for us). The moment I revealed this, he attacked, demanding to know where we were going, who we were going with, when why and how. I told him we were catching a flight. He told me he could get it cheaper. He’d undercut any package we’d bought. I needed to go and see him. I needed to go and see him now.

We sneaked out of the hotel to do some more sight seeing. When we got back, exhausted, I could feel the eyes of the staff following us. We walked up a flight of stairs. Someone chased after us. Another man, older, barged towards us. As we stopped, he stood there a moment, and we were trapped in a silence which hinted at violent, deeply unhealthy outcomes. Then he asked if anything was wrong. We assured him there was nothing wrong. Another silence, as he worked out how to broach the issue. Then the floodgates opened. Where were we going? Why had we gone with someone else? Whoever we’d chosen wouldn’t be reputable. They’d rip us off. Or decapitate us. We didn’t understand. This is India. You can’t trust anyone. They’ll take advantage. We should have stuck with what we knew. We should have trusted the hotel.

In the face of his prophesies of our imminent doom, the vast neurosis of being a Westerner adrift in the seething mass of Delhi gathered shape. He was right. We’d been stupid. We’d been screwed. There would be no flight tomorrow. There was no way out. Delhi is the dead end. Day after day would be spent being pursued by vultures, cowering in hotel rooms, fearful of ever going out.

Finally, the man left. When we checked out the next morning, one of his staff began to ask where we were going, what we needed, how he could help. Then the older man walked past and just shook his head, resignedly. His member of staff backed off and lost all interest. We headed out into the street, and waited for the car to arrive to take us to the airport. Still fearing, as we stood on the corner, protecting our rucksacks, members of the hotel staff coming out to stare at us, children asking our names and rickshaw drivers accosting us, that our lift would never come.

RICKSHAW

You're suspended approximately

A foot above the ground, seated on

A cushion, feet on a small platform.

The machine bearing you abruptly

Swings out into four lanes of traffic.

Buses with people dripping from their

Windows thunder past. Tuk tuk’s scoot

Like clockwork toys. Cars just hoot,

Manically. You’re dependent for

Survival on the guile and strength

Of the man-child pedal pusher. When

You let out a slight gasp at the audacity

Of the trick he’s just executed, and the

Fact you’re still alive, he turns to you,

Taking his eyes off the road, and grins.

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DELHI

Twenty million people live here,

The driver said, and half of them are

Crazy. Crazy and high, buzzing

About like jacks in the box. He said

That ten years ago there was half

The traffic and half the mania.

Now, just walking down the street

Feels like its a duck and a dive.

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ON THE PLANE, DELHI TO SRINAGAR

A glimpse of the Himalayas,

Impersonating clouds,

Reaching towards space,

Impertuable, secure in an

Immensity and lifespan

Which requires no human

Help in its accountancy.

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DAWN CALL TO PRAYER, HEARD ACROSS THE LAKE

The sound of voices, pitched somewhere

Between chaos and harmony, pulses

Across the water at varying frequencies.

Sometimes a murmur, sometimes a wail.

To my ears, its an alien tone, a song that

Holds no meaning. Save for the imminence

Of its power, slipping cross water, through

Synapse, under skin. If not evidence of god,

An evidence of the power of god’s idea.

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KASHMIR

As you leave Srinagar airport, you pass a sign saying Welcome to Paradise. Then you pass dugouts with sandbags, the occasional tank, and hundreds of camouflaged Indian army soldiers, with their weaponry on full display. This is paradise with a twist.

The November air is clean and crisp. The drive to the houseboat, on a lake on the other side of town, takes about half an hour. Apart from the military presence, the traffic is relaxed, and the contrast with Delhi stark. The houseboat has a homely, familiar feel, full of ornate, upholstered furniture. Apparently, when the British got to Kashmir, they were refused permission to build on land. So they constructed houseboats instead. Apart from a crude but invaluable iron stove plonked in the middle of the living room, it felt like a late Victorian dream. Through an open window in the next door boat I caught sight of a woman praying. The boat after hers is called the Buckingham Palace.

In spite of a few Sikh and Hindu temples, Srinagar is almost exclusively Muslim, with mosques on seemingly every corner. At dawn, the sound of prayers emanating from various mosques echoes across the lake, generating a weird and haunting sound. In town, the omnipresent religion feels like a benign presence. We were shown around the city’s main mosque, the Jamia Masjid, and seven hundred years old. Within its 370 wooden pillars, it is apparently capable of holding 37, 333 people, precisely. The mosque has a sedate feel, open on most sides to the elements. Threading your way through the pillars feels a bit like walking through a forest of oaks. In some corners, glass windows are being introduced, but Shaquil, our guide, (‘like the basketball player’), told us that in the Winter months, when the temperature plummets, people bring earthenware warming pots which they place under their coats as they pray. These pots are endemic, bulging beneath the long, heavy robe worn by both men and women. In the Winter, Shaquil said, everyone in Kashmir is pregnant.

The city streets have the inevitable Indian bustle, but its less frenetic than in the larger cities. Tourists are thin on the ground, (we didn’t see any in town). At the white Hazratbal Mosque, further away from the centre, which claims to house a hair of the prophet Mohammed’s, people openly stared at two white Westerners. In 1995, six tourists were kidnapped and four killed, part of a ten year conflict in Kashmir. The Indian government still advises against visiting, but gradually, over the last two years, tourists are making their way there. Kashmiris say that the government stance represents a continued punishment of the region.

On a visit to a carpet manufacturers, the sad-eyed owner, who claimed to represent a co-operative representing 5000 families, explained how the lack of tourist capital was helping to kill off an age-old tradition. After showing us remarkably intricate carpets, which can take up to six years to make, demonstrating the way the quality rose as the knots per inch went from 400 to 800, he said it was a dying art, with children now reluctant to follow the family tradition. Each family he represented possessed its own individual designs, handed down over the generations, but the conflict has meant that demand has dried up, and he said that many designs would soon die out as the families look to other means of making ends meet.

The strong military presence feels oppressive, but it also hints as the severity of the conflict. Standing on a bridge over the Jehlum River river, Shaquil said that for years there was a constant sound of gunfire somewhere in the city. He said that God was punishing Kashmir, observing that when he was young, you could drink from the Jhelum, but now its as polluted as any Indian river. Another man, Jimmy, told us how, in 1995, forty houses in his village were destroyed by the army. They have still not been rebuilt, and his family and fellow villagers now live in huts without electricity.

Beneath the normalcy of Srinagar’s day to day surface, there is much that needs to be done to re-create Paradise in Kashmir. The scars are still raw. Srinagar is just as cricket mad as anywhere in India, with kids playing on river banks and street corners, in spite of the cold.

Looking to understand Kashmiri attitudes, I asked Shaquil to what extent he considered himself Indian. He was evasive, but when we started to talk cricket, and I asked him if he followed the Indian team, he smiled, and said that 80 per cent of Kashmiris would be far more likely to support Pakistan than India.

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THE LEAVES IN THE GARDENS OF SHALIMARGH BAGH

Autumn brings a rain of leaves from Maples and

Beeches, a golden carpet, thick as a jam sandwich.

Women sweep up the leaves, a task which seems

Sisyphean. They sweep with vigour, for the leaves

They collect represent warmth. The leaves are taken

Home and burnt. From the ashes charcoal is made.

Which will then be burnt again in the pots people

Carry beneath their cloaks. Men and women,

Pregnant with the warmth of Summer’s leaves.

+++

SONAMARG

The route from Srinagar to Sonamarg follows the course of the Sindh river. As you climb into the mountains the snowcaps begin to shine through. Even the most jaded of travellers is liable to be impressed by the fearfulness and majesty of the Himalayas.

The road itself is one of the world’s more dangerous, even if dangerous roads is something India specialises in. There’s a complex, coded pecking order. Large lorries and cows can do what they like. Dogs respond to horns. Humans have lesser rights, also some remain unaware of this, chatting in the middle of a suicide bend. Weddings and cricket have special dispensation. In the middle ground, motorbikes, jeeps, buses, rickshaws, tuk tuks, tractors and cars fight it out with hair raising intensity. The authorities have erected signs with helpful information along the way: ‘Life is a journey. Complete it.’; ‘Don’t be rash or else/You will crash’; and lastly, with a poetic simplicity that gives an old cliché more weight than it normally carries: ‘Better Late/ Than Never.’

The road was until recently shelled by Pakistan on a regular basis. The number of soldiers and military installations along the route gives the impression of being in an occupied territory. Our driver, John, said that the government still claimed there was ongoing terrorist activity in the mountains. Whilst he was critical of the Indian government, he had no sympathy for Pakistan either, suggesting its activity in Kashmir only served to cause more trouble.

Sonamarg itself is a small village, 3500 metres high. We were invited into a bare home, moved from one room to another, with green walls, no furniture, and thick blankets for warmth, beneath which was placed the ubiquitous Kashmiri earthenware charcoal pot. A distinguished looking man unhurriedly prepared Kashmiri tea, and then started taking underwater gulps from his hash pipe. When I asked him about it he smiled, mischievously and said it was very strong. When we left, John the driver stayed behind, and on the way back his even more erratic driving and edginess gave the impression that he’d made the most of the time to sample the mountain fare himself.

Another guide took us on a short trek up a pass. The mountains are a hive of activity, with localpeople foraging for wood, and chopping it up. We passed gypsy huts, left deserted for the Winter, low, flat sheds which seemed incredibly dark and unwelcoming on the inside. At one point a lone tourist descended from higher up on horseback, lead by a local guide. Our own guide instantly and dismissively labelled him as a ‘buffalo tourist’; the type who rides a horse through the mountains rather than walking, and thinks he’s indulging in the real thing.

I had momentary, shadowy fears of being kidnapped by a group of AK 47 wielding warriors, who’d spirit us deep into the mountains, beyond the range of satellites or drones. However, the friendly smiles of the locals as we made our way back through the village belied any fears. The greatest danger we faced was the road back ahead of us.At the furthest edge of our trek, it crossed my mind that this is Osama country, part of the vast range which stretches from Afghanistan to China, within which Bin Laden is supposedly hiding out. The futility of trying to police this vast region are quickly apparent. One hour away from the main road and you’re already immersed in one of the most forbidding wildernesses left on the planet.

JIMMY

Jimmy sits with his hands held out to the stove.

He’s worked on this houseboat for forty years.

Since he was a child. Now he wants to leave.

His boss exploits him, and his poverty

Cannot be smoked away with a hash pipe.

In the war, in 95, his village was destroyed

By the Indian army, supposedly hunting

Terrorists. Now his family live in huts, without

Electricity, with no end in sight to their mis-

Fortune. He stares at the stove, smoking a

Uruguayan cigarette, his face creased by the

Weariness of a life of harsh Winters, Kashmir

Cold, and an abrupt despair which can never

Be mended. But up on the houseboat roof,

In the morning sun, Jimmy tells me how he likes

To go water-skiing on the lake in the Summer.

He says he loves the Summer months, when the

Warmth cradles his bones. At night he stares at

The stove again, and holds his hands up, like a

Prayer, to ward off the encroaching Winter.

+++

WRITTEN IN MY NOTEBOOK ON THE ROAD FROM SRINAGAR TO JAMMU

“Quizgund is the famous for dry fruits in the world.”

Another sign on the road:

“It is not a Rally. Enjoy the Valley.”

+++

ON THE TRAIN: JAMMU-PATHANKOT

A man is seated across the carriage from me, on

The blue linoleum bench, filling out an old-style

Ledger. In his briefcase he carries a change of clothes,

His accountancy books, chewing tobacco and a

Mobile phone. Nimbly, for someone in his fifties,

He hops up to the top tier bunk, also of blue

Linoleum, where he will sleep through the night.

As I would like to do, only I have to get off the

Train at 11.30, only two hours into its night, after

A whole day spent crossing Himalayas in the

Most terrifying jeep journey of my brief life.

+++

SPRING

Two thousand metre high Himalayan mountain

Streams have the temperature of a liquid ice box.

But when you remove your feet from their chill

They feel as though they’ve been reincarnated.

+++

McLEOD GANJ

McLeod Ganj is part India, part Tibet, and part international hippy-dom. It’s the home of the Dalai Lama, named after a British soldier and the small Hindu temple at Bhagshu, a kilometre or so from the centre is a sacred site of devotion for Nepalese Ghurkas.

To get to McLeod, you have to climb. We caught a taxi at midnight, which took us rom the state of the Punjab into Utter Himachal, arriving at Dharamsala, McLeod’s base camp, around two in the morning. From Dharamsala onwards the taxi ground through the gears as it struggled round vertical hairpin bends, taking half and hour to travel 10 kms. The three streets of McLeod were all deserted. We had nowhere booked, and didn’t know where to stay. As ever in India, there was a solution to hand, as the taxi driver banged on the door of a cheap hotel, and a kid groggily opened up, offering us a room we were never likely to turn down.

McLeod is the base the Dalai Lama chose as the physical and spiritual home in exile for Tibet. The streets are crammed with monks in their saffron robes. Because of their identikit uniforms, it’s their shoes that stand out, something they seem to take pride in, wearing anything from brogues to Adidas. All of them seem to carry mobiles and wear shiny, chunky watches. Some mingle with the clutches of hippies who’ve taken up residence. It seems clear that for the Tibetans, the greater the international awareness of their plight, the better. The town walls serve as impromptu noticeboards. One poster displayed a quote from Obama expressing his hopes for stronger Chinese-Tibetan relations, with a rebarbative response from the Tibetan council posted below.

+++

MONKS IN THE TEMPLE

Five monks stand, whilst a dozen watch.

As a team, the standing men make their

Arguments. Slapping hands aggressively

To make a point. Their tirades are aimed

At one monk in particular, a soft-eyed man

Who listens with a questioning look, and

Offers polite reply to their high spirited

Enthusiasm. The slapping hands, assertive

Conviction are reminiscent of an NBA

Basketball team. All in the cause of an

Argument which remains indecipherable

No matter how legible the body language.

+++

THE TSUGLAGKHANG BUDDHIST TEMPLE

In the cabinet of Green Tara

Is a goddess with a stern

Expression, fulsome physique

And several packets of McVities hob-nobs.

+++

In the cabinet of Kaluchara and

Visvamata is a fearsome four-

Headed god with a necklace of

Skulls, a collection of spices and

Two Snicker bars and some Petit Vache cheese.

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FROM THE HINDUSTAN TIMES

‘8 Killed in Snowstorm near Rohtang Pass

Manali: A snowstorm struck around Rohtang Pass on Friday, killing 8 persons out of a group of 85 going to Manali from Lahaul and Spiti on foot… on the Manali-Leh road.

All the victims were labourers, 7 from Jharkand and other from Gohar in Mandi. They had gone to Lahaul for work but were stuck for the past four days due to sudden snowfall.

Sources said 95 left Koksar, the last village in Lahaul for Mahri, near Manali, early in the morning despite officials’ at the check post warning. But only ten decided to stay back, while the rest started crossing the snow-bound pass.’

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KANGRA MINIATURE PAINTING

In the museum of Kangra art in Dharamsala

The first cabinet contains a giant 19^th century

Pot and a million year old fossil, alongside

A few desultory shards of pottery.

+++

The hovering attendant quickly steers you

Towards the Himachal miniatures, delicate

Pictures in vibrant colours of Hindu scenes,

Created by the same families over the centuries.

+++

He points one out, saying his great grandfather

Painted it. Upstairs, he shows his own collection,

Along with a family tree which states that Anil

Raina is the last in a line of craftsmen which has

Survived generations but now faces extinction.

+++

Home, a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

The Tibetan Environmental Society’s showing of the documentary Home takes place at 5.30 pm in an unheated hall 2000 metres above sea level. The majority of the audience are gringos of one description or another. The film is projected onto a large screen, with an introduction given by the society’s Tibetan head.

You might think that this location, not so far from the roof of the world, would be the ideal place to take in the film’s abstract narrative about the fate of the world and the environmental mess homo sapiens has made of it. The movie is made up of edited sequences, filmed from the air. Volcanoes. Elephants on the charge. Fisherman on an African beach. Vast lorries in a hyper-mine. However, in practice, the venue in no way alter the unfortunate juxtaposition the film presents between the terror of its message and the beauty of its images.

When you’re actually within the exploited, impoverished world which the rich 20% is abusing to both fund its lifestyle and abuse the planet, the lush power of cinematic technology can feel faintly offensive. Your mind can’t help but speculate on the costs of hiring helicopters, exec producers salaries, and expense accounts. And even if everyone involved was working for 500 rupees a day, there’s still something jarring about the way in which its expensively graded images are employed, as though the film’s beauty is somehow necessary for its message to be put across to the Western world.

A somewhat preachy American voice, which I later learn belongs to Glen Close, narrates the film’s loose narrative from Genesis to imminent Apocalypse. Perhaps I’d have felt more comfortable if the accent was Malaysian, (say), or had gone for subtitles. However, ultimately, no matter what it was saying, I wanted it to get off its helicopter plinth, go to ground, and actually speak to people.

Travelling opens your eyes to the harshness from which the Western world is so often inured. Pigs rooting through burnt rubbish on the streets, affirming the conjoined crimes of poverty and environmental degradation. Whilst we know its out there, we don’t want to face up to it. Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s beautiful but banal movie seems symptomatic of this attitude.

Outside in the cold air of McLeod Ganj, itself something of an island within India’s teeming sea, the real fight continues on the millions of frontlines which the West is only aware of through news reports and sanitised, graded images on its TV screens.

+++

MAX

Max works in the Exile Café, a travellers’

Haunt which plays early Dylan and has a

Photo of John and Yoko next to the

Obligatory Dalai Lama. Max isn’t Tibetan,

He’s from Mumbai. He’s got here having

Worked his way all round India. This is

The best place to hang out, he reckons,

Shivering, his dark skin in marked contrast

To the exiles’ pale mountain tones.

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GRINGO

A loud American woman is seated with two monks and an elegant Tibetan wearing a black shirt and a fawn coloured sweater. She makes a call on her mobile. She says into the phone that one of the monks has smuggled a text out of China. She says the name of the author. She says, he was tortured to death by the Chinese. She a little money for the translation. She wonders if the person on the other end of the line wants to do it.

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LISTENTING TO THE DALAI LAMA PREACH TO A CONVENTION OF RUSSIAN BUDDHISTS

The Dalai Lama speaks in an engaging sing-song

English. He is within his temple, we are outside in

The gentle Himalayan sun, but he’s visible on a live

Feed, direct to plasma screen. Several hundred monks,

Tourists, devotees and merely curious are seated on

Paving stones. It seems likely that many of the Tibetans

Not sporting the simultaneous translation headsets

Cannot understand the teacher’s words, but still they sit,

Attentive, intrigued, clutching beads, shoeless, gleaning

Meaning from the sound of his voice alone as he talks of

Motherhood, young cats, and the value of emotional balance.

Monks carry giant pewter tea pots. Old hands take mugs

From backpacks, hold them out to be filled.

+++

SOME OF THE DALAI LAMA'S WORDS, VERBATIM

We are social animals.

One important thing is human affection; human compassion.

We have to pay more attention to the world of the mind and inner consciousness.

Which emotion is of benefit to us, and which is destructive to us.

It is essential for Buddhism to learn from Western science; whilst Western science is now showing an eagerness to learn from Buddhism.

+++

LAMU

The nun’s dormitory room is cold and sparse.

It contains three beds, two maps of Tibet, each

Containing strategically placed silvery hearts.

As well as a selection of books and some cooking

Utensils. The nun left Tibet in 1991. Her English

Is timid, but she wanted to practice, so that she could

Visit Buddhist shrines. Lamu entered to join the

Conversation. She left Tibet with her father five

Years ago, aged sixteen. Like the nun, she walked

Across mountain passes to arrive here. Her father,

Who’s 72, had been both businessman and

Political prisoner. He’d chosen her to care for him

In exile, leaving her mother, three sisters and two

Remaining brothers behind. It’s four months since

She last spoke to her mother. In Tibet she didn’t go

To school, because the schools, run by the Chinese

Teach neither Tibetan language nor culture. Now,

She’s studying English, Tibetan and computers.

She hopes one day to return to her homeland as a

Teacher. But one day is far away. She does not

Expect to see her mother again. She talked about

How in the Summer, in her province of Kham, she

Used to work the land with her family. In the Winter,

She says, no one works. Winter is weddings and

Parties on the high Tibetan plain. She coughed as

She talked. She doesn’t like the idea of travel. India

Is safe, but the food and the weather aren’t like home.

21 and in exile, she smiles as she talks, and says she’d

Like to go home. A blackout terminates the conversation.

We stumble out through the corridors of the Tibetan

Refugee home in pitch black, the mountains that separate

Lamu from Tibet shining like beacons in the dark.

+++

McLEOD GANJ & TIBET EXILE

As with anywhere, fair or foul, it takes a hile to begin to get under the surface of what’s really going on in McLeod Ganj. Beneath the hippie veneer and the natural beauty, the reasons why people find themselves heading to this obscure corner of a small North Indian state are all to do with politics.

Tibet is omnipresent here, both as an ethnic and cultural presence, and political issue. The staple food is the momo, a dumpling eaten either steamed or fried, on their own or in soup. Chow mein is more common than Biriyani. Chopsticks are standard. Faces are more Asiatic. Women wear striped Tibetan skirts and everyone wears blankets made from yak wool. Tourists and locals alike wander around in Free Tibet tracksuit tops (a big seller), badges and T-Shirts. And whilst in McLeod, the Tibetan and Indian communities appear to live in harmony, the artist Anil Raina, in the Kangra museum in Dharamsala, suggested that immigration was becoming a problem. It wouldn’t be surprising to find resentment when Tibetan culture overwhelms the indigenous to such an extent that local traditions become under-valued as the travelling world pays homage to the Dalai Lama.

However, there’s a reason why the Tibetans are here, a reason which a visit to the Temple’s museum forcibly brings home. Since the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, its culture has been systematically persecuted and degraded. Beyond the physical damage to sacred sites and the country’s most ancient monuments, the country has also been subjected to the kind of ethnic cleansing or engineering which was seen to be so abhorrent in a fractured Yugoslavia. Whilst untold numbers of Chinese have been shipped in by the Chinese state, hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have been forced to flee, risking their lives on mountain passes in order to find sanctuary in India or Nepal.

Tibet seems a long way away, meaning that the full extent of the Chinese hatchet job tends to get lost in the fog of global politics. One of the first things the student Lamu asked me was what I made of Obama’s recent pronouncement which she understood to be implying that Tibet is ‘part of China’. Her disappointment with the new president was acute. The mellow tones of the Dalai Lama himself, his genial image radiating compassion and peace, perhaps doesn’t help in the presentation of the full facts to the world. If he seems so genial, then what’s the problem?

However, the facts paint a stark picture. Since the invasion, up to 80% of Tibet’s ancient monasteries have been demolished. Children in school are taught in Chinese rather than Tibetan, and compelled to wear traditional Chinese clothes rather than their own. Ordinary people live in fear of arrest or torture, and political persecution is an everyday occurrence.

All of which contributes to making McLeod Ganj so distinctive. It’s a political island where Tibetans can express their feelings, something prohibited back home. This is done in a gentle, Buddhist, non-aggressive manner. The exiles’ tools to promote change include the soft-sell marketing and good vibes which attract people to the town. In this retreat, their message is clearly put across, and it’s a surprisingly optimistic one. Tibet survives, and will continue to do so. In time the wheel of fortune will turn, the exiles will return back across the mountains, and Tibet shall be free once more.

GOLDEN TEMPLE, AMRITSAR

The Golden Temple is the Sikh religion’s most

Sacred site. In order to enter its marble beauty

You must remove your shoes, cross a small

(Marble) ditch and ensure your head is covered.

+++

I was wearing a peaked Nepalese cap, which

Was deemed sufficient head coverage, until I

Joined the queue to enter the Hari Mundar, the

Marble shrine at the heart of the Temple’s lake.

+++

A friendly guard, bedaggered, told me my head-

Wear was unsuitable. Another removed the cap,

Turned it round, baseball style, and smiled, and

With this technical adjustment I was in.

+++

However, a little later, I left the temple site without

Realising. Retracing my steps, another friendly

Guard told me the cap was now unsuitable. All

Was not lost. He had before him an oil drum,

+++

Filled to its brim with gaudy scraps of cloth. With

A stick, he poked and prodded, before selecting

A piece of spangled flamingo pink, which he care-

Fully and respectfully attached to my head.

+++

THE CASE OF THE MISSING PILLOW (AMRITSAR-JAIPUR EXPRESS)

The French cineaste seconded a pillow for the

Uruguayan lighting designer, somewhere between

Amritsar and Delhi. An hour or two later, two beefy

Looking Indians marched down the corridor, in search

Of the missing pillow. Now concealed behind the

Uruguayan. They dragged the Frenchman away,

Correctly suspecting him of committing the crime.

The Frenchman didn’t buckle, held his nerve, denied

All knowledge, covered his tracks. They let him go.

The pillow remains, forever, officially missing.

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THE MAN ON THE TRAIN

A dark, stocky man dressed in baggy trousers and

A blanket took the berth above mine. The raucous

Adolescents thwarted his attempts to sleep and

He descended, disappeared, then returned. I caught

His eye. He stared at me. He continued staring

At me. He came and sat next to me. I told him

I didn’t speak his language. He possessed one word

Of English. “Climate.” We agreed it was too cold.

He returned to the upstairs berth, staring all the

Time. Soon he was back down again. I put down the

Lonely Planet guide. He picked it up. Flicked through it,

Perused selected pages and photos. I offered

Him a glossy brochure from Dharamsala. He

Gave it back dismissively. Nearing Jaipur, he

Returned to the top berth and changed. Re-appearing

Pristine in crisp trousers and a pressed shirt. It

Was another man who got off the train, one who

Had no interest in strangers and their strange words.

THE RITUAL KILLING OF A GOAT

The Ritual Killing of a Goat

We arrive seconds after the throat was cut

In the hallway, a flight of stairs rising on the

Left, on which are perched a dozen curious

Kids. People bustle as the goat’s pulse ebbs,

Jostling for a glimpse of entrails, blood being

Swept away, the butcher’s knife’s job done. The

Mood is festive, children shake our hands, smiling

At spilt blood, signalling a day of plenty.

ZOOLOGICAL MELTING POT

Jaipur is animal city. Squirrels. Rats. Monkeys. Goats.

Elephants. Camels. Dogs. Roosters. Pigs. Dozens of

Bristly pigs rooting through black rubbish in the pink-tinged shade.

+++

The animals rub along in harmony with one another

And the assorted human fauna, some of whom smile,

Some of whom stare at the pale faces passing through.

+++

The city heaves with the usual chaos of India, but the

Soft Suffolk-pink walls suggest a gentler rhythm, first hint

Of the South, as the throng seeks a way to keep its cool.

+++