In This Holy City, Shah Rukh and Aishwarya Rule
(by Jyoti Malhotra | Indian Express | July 26, 2004)
LHASA: Look as hard as you like in Lhasa, but you won't find a photo or even a remote likeness of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's most important leader. Instead, in the heart of the holy city, in the 'parikrama' of the Jokhang monastery called the Barkhor, there are posters of Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Rani Mukherjee and even an unknown Indian actress called Divya.
Clearly, what New Delhi hasn't been able to do for the last 45 years "since the Dalai Lama fled his mother country and escaped to live in Dharamsala, India" Bollywood has succeeded in doing.
Aishwarya in all her 'Devdas' finery and Shahrukh in vaguely mismatched clothes and his inimitably raised half-eyebrow sell for 5 yuan each. That's about Rs 25 and it's not cheap. Shopkeepers say they sell like hotcakes.
Barkhor music stalls belt out Punjabi rock all over the place, but softly. Tibetans are mostly a gently, soft-spoken people and the invisible, but all-powerful long arm of the Chinese Communist Party is never very far. So, by the time evening arrives, little dinner stalls pull down a cloth curtain and in the privacy of the interior offer 'thugpa' and entertainment for a price.
From one such stall on Saturday evening emerged the strains of the song, 'You are my Sonia'. You lift the curtain out of sheer curiosity. On the television in front, a video of a girl – she could be Tibetan or Chinese – dressed in a red sari and loads of gold jewellery is happily dancing along with a boy. He too could be Tibetan or Chinese.
Possibly, when you live in a spectacularly beautiful land, when the word Tibet conjures up a lingering mysteriousness that cannot be explained away by numerical exactnesses such as the 'Three Represents' or the 'Four Modernisations' that other races might be more comfortable with, then it's a small price to pay for normalcy.
'Indu', the word for India in both Tibetan and Chinese, is an instantly recognised commodity whether you're in Beijing or Lhasa. But that's as much true for the highly popular Mysore sandal soap illegally imported via Nepal as for the Sakya Muni, the Buddha himself, who every Tibetan knows lived in India.
Problem is, the Dalai Lama, the incarnation of the 'avalokiteshwara' who is in turn the incarnation of the Buddha, also lives in India. Depends who you speak to in Tibet, India is either the mother source, from where the Padmasambhava brought Buddhism in the 7-8th century and transformed Tibet. This school of thought is also quietly grateful that India has given refuge to the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans over the years and doesn't put pressure on them to leave.
As the woman selling Aishwarya Rai/Shahrukh Khan posters said, "If every Tibetan had a passport, they would escape to India where the Dalai Lama lives, and not come back here."
Or then there's the other school of thought which believes that the Dalai Lama is not only a spiritual figure, but through his "split activities" wants to split Tibet from China and make it independent. Because India is giving him and all those escapees from Tibet refuge "instead of sending them back across the border as Nepal often does," it must mean that New Delhi has never fully given up its "special claims" on a region with which it has ancient, historical links and political ties until 1954.
Certainly though, as visiting Indian journalists have discovered in every nook and cranny, the idea that Tibet can somehow "be different" as it once was, perhaps even till 1954, is quite dead. This is a new nation and it shows in all matters of omission and commission. Right from the enormous square in front of the Potala palace done up in Socialist Realism style to education in Chinese and Tibetan to the absolute control that the Communist Party of China (CPC) enjoys in every sphere of life.
Certainly, too, as many Tibetans old enough to remember also aver, "liberation" in 1951 also brought an end to the often oppressive, feudal system that was a sign of pre-1951 times. On the other hand, the distinctive religious and cultural lifestyle of the Tibetan Buddhists is also a thing of the past.
The Tibetans, meanwhile, defend themselves with their silences. The CPC has ordered, for example, that keeping the photo or even a remote likeness of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, who lives in India, is illegal. The fear with which Tibetans, who revere their Dalai Lama, follow the Chinese prescription is palpable. But it's quite a regular sight to see Tibetans prostrating themselves in front of the Potala palace, the home of the Dalai Lamas. Clearly, even after 45 years, Tibetan Buddhism's most important leader, lives on in the hearts and minds of these people.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org