Author: Samudra Gupta Kashyap
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: November 8, 2009
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/in-tricolour-tawang-ready-for-dalai-lama/538734/0
Forty-seven years ago around this time, Tawang
was a ghost town. The Chinese had occupied Tawang, forcing its residents to
flee. But on Saturday, the town was abuzz with life as it got ready to receive
the 14th Dalai Lama. Everywhere the Indian tricolour fluttered along with
the Tibet flag.
"The Indian flag is all over the town
because this is India. And the Tibetan flag because His Holiness the Dalai
Lama, the highest Tibetan spiritual leader, is coming," says Guru Tulku
Rinpoche, head of the Gaden Namgyal Lhatse, popularly known as the Tawang
Monastery. The nearly 400-year-old monastery that overlooks the Tawang-Chu
Valley in Arunachal Pradesh was where the Dalai Lama headed after he escaped
from Tibet in the winter of 1959.
"He stayed here for a few days when he
fled from Tibet 50 years ago. He was here three more times, the last being
in 2003. But this time is special, in view of China's unwarranted objections,"
says Phupten Tenzin, a local Monpa tribal, who runs a souvenir shop.
In the town, the smell of paint follows you
everywhere. Almost every house has got a fresh coat of paint while almost
everyone has helped sweep the town. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee
Khandu is personally supervising the preparations for the Dalai Lama's four-day
visit that begins on Sunday.
On Saturday, Khandu spent over an hour supervising
work at the monastery where the Dalai Lama will be staying. "His Holiness
the Dalai Lama's visit to Tawang has been pending for over a year now,"
says Khandu. "He is coming here to bless the people. He was to be here
last October but that visit had to be cancelled at the last moment,"
he adds.
The Dalai Lama will inaugurate the Tawang
Monastery Museum and the Tawang district hospital, visit the Khinmey Monastery,
the Yid-Gha-Choezin Gonpa and the Urgelling Monastery, lay the foundation
stone of the Jikhob Thongdrol Choeten and visit the Manjushree Vidyapeeth
here apart from offering special prayers in the Tawang Monastery.
While the Dalai Lama's visit to Tawang had
generated a lot of heat after China objected to it, calling him "an enemy"
of the country, the chief minister refuses to speak on the issue. "It
is for the Government of India to handle that issue, and the Prime Minister
has already said what India has to say," he says.
Meanwhile, Buddhists, including many Tibetans
from the north-eastern states, are flocking to Tawang. Nima Gyelpo and Sonam
Yandon along with their one-year-old daughter Karma Chomzom travelled over
900 km, changing four vehicles from Kohima in Nagaland to Tawang, to see the
Dalai Lama.
"We have always longed to see our own
country, our dear Tibet. It is just across those mountains. But since that
is not possible at the moment, at least we can get the blessings of our great
leader," says Gyelpo, whose parents escaped from Tibet to India in 1959.
