March 5, 2011.
With Tsondue to Mundgod: Ensure If You Have Some Change before Leaving There
After returning back from the village restaurant, thanks for his lunch on Tibetan New Year, we, as his wish, go to the roadside refreshment café, where many Tibetans go for juice, ice cream, beverage drinks, soda, etc. It’s all about how the Indian guy at the counter, bespectacled with white glasses, in his shabby cotton shirt and trousers behaves when I hand over the Rs.500 note. He turns it over and gives it back saying its bit torn but not missed part isn’t acceptable. As I say it’s okay, he just shakes his head in defiance. I take out the Rs.1000 note, the only I have, and hand it over to him. He looks up at me and says, “You monks produce only such notes, five hundred or thousand. That’s why you monks are said to have a lot of money.” I am bit irritated. I think and try to reason for the recent offerings made at the prayer congregation for Loser as to avoid such sheer misunderstanding. But he is deaf and so swift to defend his exaggerated ground, “No, it isn’t for recent case only but always.” As he counts some hundred notes as return change, I ask him if he has got a five hundred change for my convenience. And here he is more rough proving his jealousy and says, “Oh, I want to give back in Rs.10 change rather than hundred. If you monks bring such note, how we won’t run out of change.” I retreat to answer the incoming call and ask Tsondue to take back the change.
Wanting to give back in Rs.10 change is something I find as his pointless retaliation picking up from learning what I don’t like. See, how poor for him for not being hospitable to a monk customer producing five hundred and thousand note by chance only. How he would believe about the recent such offerings made for the mass monks during the prayer congregation. How he would know almost 95% monk-students are entirely dependent on offerings made at a prayer as the only source of pocket money. How he knows about a monk, a single one, is always poor at being sparing in spending for edible stuffs; they have this much and it isn’t of any use for saving, only if there are very a few such ones. So, in their eyes (those Indians running sort of businesses), monks are found such extravagant. Only if they can come closer to a monk’s life, they would learn the fact gradually. No, they don’t do so and are indifferent to firsthand learning or reporting. They’re just jealous in such misconstrued way.
Now it’s time to be more cautious for not coming out as catching as in that way. Yes, we should know how to deal with them with change. I have found such cases earlier, reacting rather furiously for producing even 100 or 50 note for paying like taxi fare. We should learn how to act to their tunes and tastes by learning about our host local norm.
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A Source of Possible Conflict: Beware!
From the garrulous jeep driver, the Indian guy in his forties, I learn about another disturbing thing but hear him talking so to two of the monk-passengers in jeep, one by him whose Hindi is rather broken as for being from Tibet but the other one at the back of the driver who speaks Hindi fluently as he is from a Himalayan region. As we bump along the damaged road, he seems to be like chasing to find someone of us (Tibetans) to speak with about it, which proves his or jeep wala’s quest for backing from our side to boycott hiring a three wheeled auto rickshaw, their only contenders now. He says there was a gathering among auto wala a few days ago when he was asked to join but he refused. It was for charging up sort of anti-Tibetans sentiment by misinforming that Tibetans hold prejudiced view against local Indians here. He adds there was also about the same on a local Kanada daily and TV news channel. Can it be true? I think it can be so far as of the growing such racial prejudices plus jealousy attracted by our own state of being rather oblivious to the local patterns.
As Drepung has already been restricted by the monastic disciplinarians with the prudent anticipation for not getting embroiled in such further possible conflict like happened once here recently (the two monks beaten and robbed by auto drivers) and many times at Bylakuppe Tibetan settlement, especially the serious one last year with auto wala, he says knowingly, “One from Drepung would always go in jeep taxi not like those of Gaden, who hire auto. See what will happen between them like the case happened at Byalkop. Such will happen only between you (Tibetans) and auto wala, not between us, jeep wala, and auto wala; what they can do for us.”
His remarks on jeep wala with their bordered part to be covered, must be marked after a small conflict, being long friendly ones not like those auto wala seem to be plausible so far on the ground of being so despite lacking the sense of mutual dependency-friendship. But he only tries to draw such and such gaps between Tibetans and auto wala only, not expressing jeep wala’s hold against auto wala but implying it so strongly in every single word he speaks.
Yes, it must be true a group of auto wala approached Drepung Monastic disciplinarian (Gomang as I learned from someone) last year just after the prohibiting announcement had been made at the congregation, but no further comment. It must have been settled peacefully. They must have pointed out about considering for this means of livelihood of theirs, as it’s.
As I study roughly the case of more autos stationed at the Tibetan camp like those four-wheeled mini pickups in a single side by side row (there were almost not less than 10) idling alongside the road at Mundogd can be of being cost effective, cheap and compact.
What we should be highly aware of is about such dire possibility of racial conflict ignited by baseless prejudices against each other. We, especially monks (juniors), should be imbued with more discipline plus local knowledge through guidance by the concerned seniors. Yeah, the case of such discipline, the respect for elders, has been going down so sadly even among the internal loop.
