Author: Vijay Kranti
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 20, 2002
In China's Tibet today one thing
which is at premium is the knowledge and fluency in English. A Radio Jockey
on Lhasa's Radio China International is a dream position that a young Chinese
girl or a Tibetan boy would love to reach - irrespective of the trash or
pidgin that some of the RJs roll out. Young girls and boys, working as
tourist guides in Potala palace or in the government controlled tourist
circuits are another lot who are a target of envy among the youths living
in today's Lhasa. But there are situations when being young, educated and
English speaking does not guarantee any convenience and advantage. More,
if one is a Tibetan and sitting among inquisitive foreigners in a restaurant
or another public place. I learnt this lesson in a sudden meeting with
a young Tibetan in a Lhasa restaurant. The ease with which he answered
my quarries in English about a place was tempting enough for me to ask
him if I could share his table.
He was a graduate from a Chinese
university and works in Lhasa. Soon I realized that he was waiting for
his girl friend to have dinner in that restaurant. After exchange of formal
niceties I placed order for cold drinks for both of us and kept asking
him elementary questions about the social life in Lhasa. In the beginning
he looked enthusiastic but as our meeting crossed five minutes I could
see his discomfort and restlessness. From the sides of his eyes he was
looking at people on tables around us to ensure that he was not being watched
for talking to a foreigner.The last straw came when I asked him about his
assessment of how acceptable was the Chinese sponsored Panchen Lama boy
to the Tibetan people as against the one recognized by the Dalai Lama in
exile. By that time his girl friend had also joined us and he had already
explained to her about me. I too had waved for a third drink to the Tibetan
waiter girl for the lady. My question had an electrifying effect on him.
He looked down on the table for a moment, held his girl friend's hand and
signaled her to stand up.
In a soft and friendly voice he
said, "You are asking very difficult questions. I am afraid my wrong answer
will not satisfy you." And before I could absorb what he had said, he stretched
his hand for a good bye and said, "I am sorry, we have to reach a friend's
place for dinner." He nearly pulled his girl friend out of her seat, went
to the cash desk, paid for all the drinks and walked out with a light good-bye
nod to me. His statement was far clearer than I had expected.
I got the real answer to this question
in Shigatse, the second largest city of Chinese occupied Tibet. The town
is home to Tashi Lhumpo monastery, the seat of Panchen Lamas. In 1995 China
arrested the six year old Gedhun Choeky Nyima, the boy recognized by the
exiled Dalai Lama as the 11th incarnation of Panchen Lama, and installed
its own hand picked boy Gyaltsen Norbu as the 'real' incarnate. Tibetans
are fond of displaying the pictures of their incarnate lamas at any and
every available place in the house or place of work.
While no Tibetan would dare display
a photo of Dalai Lama or Gedhun Choeky Nyima, the photos of the Chinese
sponsored Gyaltsen Norbu too are conspicuously absent from shops, small
bakeries, restaurants and even poster shops that dot each street in Tibetan
cities. People, instead, display big portraits of the late 10th Panchen
Lama - a too clear statement to be misunderstood.
The only place where I could see
the Chinese sponsored Panchen Lama's picture during my 8-day and 750 km.
long encounter with today's Tibet, was inside Tashi Lhumpto monastery.
Here too, one can not miss how the Tibetan devotees quietly bypass his
seat and picture. In sharp contrast one can recognize the vacant seats
of Dalai Lama in every big or small monastery just by the large heap of
Khatas (ceremonial scarves), and currency notes offered by the devotees.
One also can't miss long scarves tied around wooden pillars of Norbulingka,
Dalai Lama's summer palace from where he escaped to India in 1959. Yet
another statement of an occupied people?
There are occasions when Tibetans
make loud political statements too. But after the 1987 public demonstrations
and the ruthless Martial Law that followed, the frequency of open public
demonstration of anger has gone down drastically. It is only once in a
few months when a couple of monks, nuns or lay Tibetans would surprise
the PSB agents and the bystanders in Barkhor with a Tibetan flag, flying
pamphlets and shouting slogans. It is a public knowledge that this kind
of act is bound to result in severe physical torture plus 8 years in jail,
if not 25 or 40 years. There are more than 400 of them languishing in the
dreaded Drapchi prison of Lhasa alone.
In past 50 years Tibetans have had
enough lessons on how to live with their Chinese masters. They have been
through testing periods when anything Tibetan was the focus of Chinese
destruction. Not only the temples and the omnipresent Chorten (Stupa) were
destroyed, even the 'Dhongmo', bamboo tea mixer used for making Tibetan
salt-and-butter tea was banned for decades. It was not uncommon to face
public ridicule, even public spitting and kicking, in a 'Thamzing' (community
conducted public trials) for crimes as serious as holding a prayer wheel
'Mani' in public or for making tea in Dhongmo which makes gurgling sound
that is audible a street away in quiet morning hours.
No wonder Lhasa looks peaceful and
Tibetans appear to be content with the Chinese rule to a visiting tourist
who is overwhelmed by massive buildings, ultra-modern shopping arcades
and, off course, by Tibetans going around the Jokhang temple with their
rotating prayer wheels and clicking rosaries. But if you are one of the
kind who would not get swayed by this glitter, then you are surely not
going to miss the statements people make even at an as impossible place
as a discotheque. Unlike the Chinese Karaoke bars that offer every kind
of music and sex escapades through an ever increasing population of Chinese
prostitutes from the mainland, the Tibetan 'Nangma' is a different kind
of experience in beer, dance and social life. These discotheques have come
to stay practically as the only public place where 10, 50 or even
a hundred Tibetan youths can meet under one roof.A Nangma would come to
life after 11pm when Tibetan girls and boys in the age range of 13 to 30
suddenly start pouring in groups of twos, fours and even a dozen at a time.
All dressed in jeans and T-shirts sip Coke, beer or just mineral water
and swing on hard Chinese Rock amidst a flood of laser beams, crystal lights,
dry ice fog and nauseating cigarette smoke. Dance sessions take intermittent
breaks when live singers take to the floor.
The evening when I witnessed the
show started with a 'Tashi Delek!' song by a young male singer. Sung in
Tibetan, the good-luck wishing song attracted a long scarf from the management
and many cheers from the crowd. Next song was a politically correct one
praising Beijing for whatever it does to Tibet. Not a single clap. No cheering.
No scarves. The real hero was another young Tibetan who presented a traditional
love song that filled the hall with a bursting applause and two scarves
from the crowd in addition to the one from management. But anyone hardly
listened to him when he presented a politically correct song in Chinese
that showered praise on Tibetans for improving the environment of the country.
But the real stealer of the hearts was 'Madhuri Dixit', a young Tibetan
girl dressed in an Indian Saree and over done make up. Though a poor imitation
of the famous Indian cinema heroin from whom she borrows her nick-name,
yet her Hindi song 'Chal Jhhoothi.' pulled all the plugs and drowned the
hall in claps, cheers, whistles and - five scarves from the audience.
Among the Tibetan society at large
too, there are many innocent looking songs like 'Agu Pema' (Uncle Pema)
which quickly do rounds in the community and disappear before the Chinese
authorities realize that the song had a political message behind it. This
particular song which looks like one sung in the memory of a lost dear
uncle is actually dedicated to the exiled Dalai Lama who is also revered
as 'Pema' (meaning 'Lotus') among the Tibetans. This song is already out
of circulation inside China 's Tibet but it is still a hot number among
the exiled Tibetans who are always eager to hear any political statement
that emanates occasionally from their colonized motherland.
