The Daring Tale of Dorje in Tibet

This evening I had the chance to sit in on one of Caitlyn's lessons with Dorje*. Instead of language, though, the topic of choice was Dorje's recollection of his dangerous and very illegal trip back to Tibet to visit his parents in Lhasa for a month several years ago. He studied in Dharamsala at one of the Tibetan refugee schools (and, curiously like most Tibetans I've met here, had a private audience with His Holiness there to secure his education), and during a three-month break after exams he came to Nepal to visit his uncle, then working at a monastery in Kathmandu. His uncle suggested that Dorje's parents, whom he hadn't seen in about ten years, would really like to see him, and that it would be a very good thing if he could go back to Lhasa and visit...for whatever reason, whether it was homesickness or the recklessness of youth, he decided to go for it. Mind that this is despite having no refugee card, no passport from any country; no identification papers of any kind whatsoever.

At the first checkpost, he had to swim across a river, traveling with a monk and a guide who they paid Rs.1K. He and the monk parted ways when they reached the first town, where he befriended a local Tibetan man at the bar and managed to find a place to stay that night. He had only 500 Chinese yuan starting out. The next day he got a lift to the next checkpoint after lying to a truck driver and saying he had identification. When the driver went in to sign the register, Dorje buried himself in the back hidden from view, and on they went to the next town. However, the driver changed his course, no longer heading to Lhasa. Dorje refused to pay him as a result, and told the same lie to another bus driver, heading to the third checkpoint--there were seven between his departure point and Lhasa! At this point he had to hide in the truck from policemen searching it, and the driver became very angry at Dorje for lying about having ID. He could have been in a lot of trouble, and dumped Dorje at the next town, refusing to take him any further.

However, he had suggested a lie for Dorje to tell the next unhappy driver to pick him up: that he was a tour guide between Lhasa and the border town, and had lost all of his belongings and papers on the last tour. Dorje employed this lie to the first person he met at, again, the local bar; but the man didn't buy it and said he knew Dorje was from India. Eventually Dorje went to bed at a hotel. Around 6AM he heard knocking on the door...terrified that someone had told the authorities and it was officials coming to arrest him, he opened the door; it was the man he had befriended, who said there was an army truck leaving right away for Lhasa and he should try to hitch a ride with them. At first he was too afraid, but he realized it was as good a chance as any and quickly went down to scope out the situation.

There was one Chinese army man and one Tibetan traveling in the truck, and Dorje pleaded his case to the Tibetan. The man asked him whether he was lying, suspicious, but relented, spoke to the Chinese guy, and offered Dorje a ride. Sympathizing with his alleged predicament, they bought all his meals, plenty of beers and cigarettes, and went sailing through the remaining checkpoints with no more investigation than a respectful salute from the checkpoint guards. When they reached the town near Lhasa, they dropped him off with good wishes. He walked the rest of the way to Lhasa the next day, after a night at a lovely hotel with a friend from grade school who he ran into--a rich tourists' guide--and called his parents for their happy reunion. When he described it to us, I could see in my mind his father walking towards him, crying from joy, so happy to see his son return.

He was very daring and reckless to undertake that journey, but everything worked out, and luck was on his side. What a tale to tell his schoolmates about how he spent his summer break!...it was exciting to hear, but in the end, the story is really quite sad. It's sad that the state of things is such that so much pain and separation is the norm between parents and children, and that Dorje had to risk his entire future in order to visit his home.

Yesterday, Karma came over to visit--a very charismatic and precocious ten year old in the neighborhood, and very popular with everyone at the house. As always, he sang some Hindi and Tibetan songs for us, complete with dance moves. Even more eventfully, his third tooth fell out (I always forget that we all lose our teeth as kids). When I asked whether he would put it under his pillow, he was just confused--it turns out that Tibetans save their teeth and offer them to the deities when they visit a particular place--I think the name was Yanglashe. Interesting...he had shaved the words "Free Tibet" into his hair last week, but his school made him shave it all off. Too bad. However, the wall of the gompa on our street is now covered in black graffitti calling for Tibet's freedom and a stop to the killing, in both English and Tibetan language. As Tais rightly pointed out, it's not the right place for protest vandalism...but I think a sort of desperation is taking over some of the would-be demonstrators.

The Maoists, who are dominating the election results, have threatened to begin deporting Tibetans who protest against China. They want to develop Nepal's fairly good relationship with China (delusionally, they believe China has done more for the country than India) and support the "one China" policy. Obviously this would be a huge human rights violation, since it's clear that the people sent back to China would be dealt with in a way nobody on Earth should be. It's all speculation right now, but there's definitely a precariousness to the situation. Caitlyn said that Amchi-la has been shaking his head and lamenting the Maoist victory every few minutes during downtime at the clinic.

Meanwhile I've been greatly enjoying classes with Dr. Adhikari and Dr. Ghimire. The time goes quickly. Tomorrow is a field trip to Ghodavari with someone I've not met yet (his named is Bhupendra), to get some hands-on experience with medicinal plant collection...or at least recognition!

There really aren't enough hours in the day. I've been doing a lot of research the past week or so on the history of the Orthodox church in India, linking the churches in Persia and India, for a whole host of reasons that are too complex and disorganized right now to go into here. Suffice it to say that a few things I've been reading seem connected in a way that, so far as I can tell right now, have not been even remotely adequately researched...too bad my knowledge is so pathetic and time and mobility so limited. I've decided to focus on the basic parallels between the Orthodox church (particularly its emphasis of the concept of Christus Medicus) and Eastern medicine, and go into the relationship between them only vaguely, because I can't substantiate any claims well enough. Maybe, eventually, it will be possible.

Leaving the academic nitty-gritty aside, I'm devouring all the writing of William Dalrymple, hunting his overviews for hints that lead into ever deeper waters. Even abandoning my searches, his travels make for great entertainment...I'm learning more from his retrospectives than I did in all of high school history. It's a fascinating distraction from the details of Ayurvedic pharmacology, which are becoming ever more intricate.

On an even lighter note, I've never been so into pop culture in my life. The charm of Bollywood movies has inspired me to take my insignificant base of Nepali language and apply it to learning Hindi (which is remarkably similar--all Nepalis understand Hindi, hence why Indian pop culture extends to Kathmandu movie theaters and CD players). If I ever do travel in India (probably to Kerala) it will be useful. In the meantime, I just want to be able to swoon about the "King Khan" in his own language. Besides his movie-star attraction, I've also recently been introduced to the alleged "best dancer in the world", Hrithik Roshan, who totally knocks Wade Robson out of the picture; inspiration-wise, he inherited a great deal of Michael Jackson's legendary moves. The uniquely Indian hubris is fast becoming a leisure-time pleasure for me. Aside from the Indian, of course, there are some specifically Nepali cultural delights I've come across, such as the hit songs of Naran Gopal, a classic Nepali old-timer whose music can be heard in taxis across the valley.

It's gotten astonishingly hot over the past two weeks and several of my afternoons have been wasted at the dead oasis of the Hyatt's swimming pool. Must resist the temptation to indulge in the delicious laziness there, and take full advantage of the last month I have here. There are so many things I want to do and see, it's overwhelming. I'm really enchanted with Nepal, and though a part of me is ready to return to New York, another part feels that this has really been my home, and wishes to stay.