In Exile and in Mourning
In other years Losar in Rewalsar is a happy time. Town is filled with Tibetan children home from school for the holidays, pilgrims from Ladakh and Kinnaur, traveling salesfolk from Kullu and Spiti hawking socks, shawls and jewelry. The highlight of the year is the annual celebrations held at the various gonpas (monasteries) in the area, followed by eating as much sweet rice and khapsas as possible. Each year we travel down the hill to Zigar Gonpa, to experience songs, dances, and traditional Tibetan party games like tug-of-war, or tsampa eating.
Not this year. At the last moment Losar was cancelled as a celebratory occasion. Instead, the holiday was to be spent in mourning, for Tibet and all the people lost in China’s latest round of suppressing the country. Countless Tibetans died in the last year. Friends disappeared into Chinese jails or into the Tibetan hinterlands, hiding among relatives still living the nomadic life.
And so, Losar as a holiday was officially moved up a day, and the gathering itself declared as a day of mourning. There’s a computer program I have that calculates Western dates into Tibetan dates, and their capacity for good fortune or ill. Consulting it, I discovered the adjusted date for Losar gatherings was the last day of a “Black” month occuring during the dark of the moon at the end of a very bad year. In short, it was inauspicious for doing anything more important than perhaps drinking a glass of water.
Nonetheless, Lena and I made our way down to the gathering to witness the lama dances and greet old friends.
No food, no endless cups of butter tea, no fancy dress. No party canopy. No chairs from the tent-house. Those attending made themselves as comfortable as they could sitting on the bare ground, or on nearby rooftops. People arrived wearing everyday clothes, instead of their best tchubas and silk shirts with extra-long sleeves.
The brightest spots in an otherwise solemn morning were provided by one of the ceremony’s oldest attendees, and one of the youngest. Two years ago Sonnam Yutron was so paralyzed by arthritis that she had not seen the sun for four years. Two days ago, she walked out of her house on her own feet (with some assistance), properly dressed in tchuba and apron as any other Tibetan housewife. The few steps that represented a major milestone for the Emergency Medical Fund happened without fanfare, only a few meters away from Zigar Gonpa.
The other was bright spot was a pugnacious little monklet who proudly declared he was all of three years old (probably four by Western reckoning). His personality and bearing so impressed a Ladakhi princess attending the ceremony that she treated him to a jalebi (Indian fried-sugar treat). Shortly afterwards a group of important visitors from Taiwan called the monklet over to give him a few Losar treats too. As the he passed the child of some poor migrant construction workers, he stopped. Very gravely, and very carefully, the monklet broke his treat in two so the other child could have some.
Overall, there were no exuberant Losar greetings, or flinging of kataks around the necks of loved ones. Wangdor Rimpoche, Kenpo Sonnam Tashi (the monastery’s abbot), and Zigar Rimpoche stayed hidden away in an upstairs receiving room, from which they watched proceedings. Ordinarily they would have seats of honor in front of the audience, in which they could receive New Year’s greetings, and hand out strips of blessed cloth to visitors.
This year the gonpa held only the lama dances. No PA system, or even someone to play master of ceremonies. The musicians sat up on the dais where normally the rimpoches would sit, and played as soon as the dancers were ready. The dances were intense and mournful. I watched them with a profound sense of loss and grief. China has tortured and killed so many people. The “Middle Way” of diplomacy and talks with China has completely failed.
As I write this, tonight many of Rewalsar’s Tibetans are taking a candle-lit kora around the lake, in memory of those killed or lost in the last year. Unable to attend in person, we have set a candle out on our balcony to join in.
Will you do the same, tonight? Light a candle to bring a little light to the Tibetan New Year?
