Showing posts with label majnu ka tilla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label majnu ka tilla. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Foot In The Mouth




Slow chat in my favorite tailor shop in Manju ( which deals mainly in framing thankas ) while I wait for my new Macbook case ( which raises the first laughs : just like a pecha case ) . The one guy makes a joke that I don't get, and gets both a great laugh and a loud slap across the arm .
"Yoru're supposed to be peaceful , not like Khampas"
Hilarity ensues , of course ( I had no idea ) all three come from Kham.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Food package

I was walking down de road (actually , the narrow maze of alleys in Manju ka Tilla that put definite limits to your BMI and karma , or both ) the other day when I was blessed. It came in the form of a white polyethene bag being closed with a snapping move, handed over by one of the the guys in shorts and flipflops near the temple square.

" Here , you take this."
" ?..."
"It is a blessing."

I peer in to the mixed blessing , balloonish from the trapped air . The only thing I can make out is a two centiliter pack of Frooti Juice. No one else is being blessed at the moment , no clues in that way of how you actually handle white poly bag blessings.

Thanks is not the answer , shorts man clearly doesn't want the act polluted by gratitude : "You take it " is the only answer to my question. Move along.





Later , waiting for the bus to Manali, I break it open . First thing is a real blessing , a perfectly ripe sunwarm mango . One cut pole to pole with the knife , and a gentle tug makes a perfect bowl where the slices gently fall : that goes to the nun next to me. Less perfect deal with the kernel half : I've always been the messy one.

(Mundane matters : twentyfive minutes from the wheels hitting the ground at IGI airport in Delhi to loading my pack in the cab , ninety minutes to hitting the bed in Manju - including bucket shower. New glasses , a wool unchu for the cooler nights that probably won't come , bus out the next evening to Manali , some twelve hours. Sleeping in Vashisht, 2098 meters. )

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Sendoff



Last prayers today in Majnu ka Tilla for Dalai Lama´s elder brother , Thubten Jigme Norbu, who died in USA. Buttertea afterwards, always buttertea.

Norbu (also known as Taktser Rinpoche after their birth place ) wrote for many Westerners the first introduction to Tibetan self image , Tibet , it´s religion , history and people , together with anthropologist Colin Turnbull.

Soundclip

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Saturday, August 09, 2008

Tingmo At Last




Arrived in Majnu yesterday after midnight , and got out after a few hours sleep. Eerie , vacant feeling , nothing open : Olympic shutdown. New posters with detained/vanished in the March uprising.

I end up finishing Jiang Rongs Wolf Totem , a book that starts with his arrival as a Chinese cadre in Mongolia, presumably with a role to "enlighten" the people in the Chinese extreme periphery, and ends with the arrival of a huge sandstorm in Beijing , the inevitable consequence of the destruction/modernisation of the grasslands. Between that a long fascinating story of his tutors , the Mongolians who in turn are taught by the rulers of that realm : the wolves , who Jiang sees as the personification of what is missing in the Chinese society. This is a seeming parallell to Xin Rans Sky Burial : both books are descriptions of a Chinese traveling to the periphery in the sixties and being transformed by it. But Wolf Totem stands out in sharp contrast : this is a tale where you can feel the smell of wet wool and and hear the ice breaking under your raft. Sky Burial on the other hand is consitently lacking in that kind of detail and also in any real willingness to be changed : it is symptomatic that the the twin author/main character finds the names of the family she's living with too complicated , and renames them .

Train to Shimla tommorrow.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Book post




Last days rituals : slimming down my pack after a prelim weigh in at the train station before the flight, which involves sending books, maps etc. home by post. The most time consuming part of this is the making of a approved book post package : a sewn parcel with a inspection slit.



This years version was so-so , I'm thinking of bringing the makings of the parcel with me next time .

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Escape from Manju ka Tilla



Once again I sit down in the square in the front of the the two small temples , thinking this is .. well , not great , but it works. Then I put my hands on my knees , and afterwards the pants are not wet , but soaked. Time to get out of the monsoon.

On the night train to Kalka (camera bag under my head, backpack under my knees ) I pick up Kim Robinson's Escape from Kathmandu , a minor guesthouse libarary classic.

A standard theme in boks from Nepal and Tibet is time travel : moving in to another age on a commercial flight. The time travel picks up another dimension when the now in the book also represents another age.

It starts with a ... letter. Gather around my feet little ones , and I'll tell you of a fara away time when we sent pieces of paper to each other. I was there , and I also was in Nepal just before the book was written : a time of innocence when you could point the finger and laugh at the theatrical aspects of the royal power , before the long dirty war between the government and the Maoists.Timewarp has moved Nepal ahead of my home in some respects : there is a lot more software produced in Kathmandu than in Stockholm , and Nepal today has stripped the king of ceremonial powers beyond our constitution : our king can't be brought to court.

At the same time the life along the trail has not changed much since early eighties, and many of Robinson's one-liners survive well , like the one about flying with (formerly Roayal Nepal) Airlines : In Nepal , clouds have rocks in them. It is written at the breaking point of our innocence , at the time when you start to to wonder of the life banana pancake baker , and step in to the kitchen.

This sounds really serious , which is far from the truth . It's a grea romp ,with a supporting cast to match : Jimmy Carter (former american president) , Tsongkhapa ( founder of Gelugpa school of Buddhism ) , pot-smoking Secret Service-men , Ang Rita ( twelwe time successfull climber of Mount Everest) . And of course a Yeti named Buddha ..

--
Nice walk with Sally from Oz in the morning , playing guide , and a nice dinner in the White House with Jamyang , Tsering and little Tenzing , who treated me with a first review of the new Milarepa film. Will pick up a copy in Manju before leaving , hopefully also Angry Monk , the film about Gedun Chopel.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

The fan rules


..fell down from the sky , rattled thru the morning landscape of Delhi (highway construction and breadbaking on the side of the road , newspaper reading under the trees)and eventually arrived in Manju.. or ? couldnt recognise - and then way in to the shadows I saw a sign with the conch, familiar names : Gomang , Sera Jey..

Naked under the fan, shower. Collected tomorrows train tickets at Potala Tours, bought Ladakh Melong and Tibetan Review in a bookstore , more panting time under the fan. Woke up to the call of pani-pani-panile ! and the din of the fan - bought my water in the guesthouse instead : banana curd, lime soda.

The fan rules totally : gripping money , drowning out conversations .. but actually it is better than the last time here : less crakling from the wires overhead, cooler.
The guests at Wongden House have been complemented by a number phyipas , outsiders : french and british travellers . Not better or worse : change.