Old People Home: A Visit Again

Tibetan alpine cattle Yak....the pride of the nation

August 13, 2010.

As I had a missed call from my friend Tenpa Tsering last night, who has been serving his aged grandparents at Old People Home (Mundgod Tibetan Settlement, South India) , I called back later that night and told him I was going to visit him the next day as he wished so, as we haven’t been able to meet for months now. Accompanied by Tsondue we follow the grey mud coated road as of the recent continuous pouring for weeks, which is partly impressed with wheel-prints, partly badly potholed, those remaining muddy patches alongside the road exude the glossy complexion of wetness and greenish lacquer on the surfaces. And there under the overhanging branches of the trees on either side of the road is shady, cool and matted with the yellow tiny petals fallen from the trees bearing the clusters of flowers like grapes. I have the impression of walking along a heavenly road, like a welcome gesture to the place less visited. Yes, I can visit this time on the sidelines of going to DTR hospital for showing a medical report of someone else.

Yes, writing this piece about this visit is only for Tenpa’s grandpa Sonam, who can’t hear well, telling a story by chance. With his bleary but wide blinking eyes like scanning me thoroughly as I sit on the bed next to him; the two protruding moles on his skinny wrinkled face bear a touch of pride and significance. He is in a worn checked white shirt and dark cotton trousers, which are so befitting to his lanky flimsy outline with slightly slanted shoulders. Yes, it’s sultrily scorching today.

Nudging at my hand rested on my knee with the touch of his soft cool hand, he tries to draw my attention to his story punctuated by my shouting close to his left ear despite his misheard responses that arouse hearty loud laughter from Tenpa and Tsondue. But I can let him get my questions at last.

He says he is 91 now and expresses such strong wish plus boisterous prospect for being able to go back to Tibet within 5 years. He says America (USA) will help transporting him, so aged then, to his homeland. He was born in Kham Jupa. But he proudly says he detached himself from his family care at the age of 18 to experience the following many years of vagabond’s life. Joining Khampa caravans, traders with their freights on mules, he could come to Kalimpong India, the hub of Tibetan traders then, when he was 20 and it was British India then in 1939. He is so proud to make it heard again and again. The caravans traded Tibet’s wools, the products of Jangthang, to British India through Tsang Dhomo, Nathula silk route. So when he learns Dhomo is my native place, he hurls a volley of questions to show off his knowledge of the place. But I find stranded with only limited knowledge of its upper and lower parts; I don’t know to which part I belong. He laughs and says I don’t know anything.

He also says he was 21 when he can remember His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama, 6 then, was first led to Potala Palace from Norbulingka amid cavalcades in melee for getting the blessing sight audience of the young God King. He says the attending personnel had to fend off the simmering and approaching devotees to clear the way for the great one.

He expresses such rancor for losing our freedom to China, but points to the single event: The succeeded assassination conspiracy carried out against the incarcerated regent Rateng, who he firmly holds as possessing the elemental force of anti-Chinese aggression, and Kundeling superseding the regent title thereafter that witnessed the beginning of the inevitable fall, the fate of the nation. How I can reason back but to listen attentively not to let him nudge at me again.

He says His Holiness the Dalai Lama has made clear of regaining the autonomy status, if not independence, soon that holds his sinking soul aloft. I can see the space between his eyebrows puckering into the lines of deep grooves that speak of his deep inner concentration on one single hope. I do share and sense his pain too nodding responsively back.

And again I have to leave it but with a story this time that pricks this longing sense deeper and deeper.