September
26, 2011.
The
expected weather this time at Dhasa, as said after the local Mela (sort of vendors of varied
household stuffs week long display of their cheap wares) would be more pleasant
as marking the end of rain and blanketing mist, proves the otherwise: with
accidental gush of rains, cloudy, drowsy and misty now and then. It seems to
have forgotten its bliss. It’s again drowsy today but no rain—the sky overcast
all the day long.
When
Sersang comes back after his English class at Tibet Charity, he behaves rather
oddly like not responding well and brooding. I only after some while, when he
must have gained a lift of mood, learn from him again the two young monks, Lobsang
Kalsang and Lobsang Kunchok who are 18, of Ngaba Kirti monastery in Tibet did
protest this morning at 10.30am by setting themselves ablaze against now months long extreme Chinese
suppression and notorious austere re-education schemes carried out at the under-siege
monastery after Lobsang Phuntsok of Kirti monastery who succumbed to death
after setting himself ablaze on 16 March this year as to commemorate the 3rd
anniversary of Tibet’s large scale demonstrations against Chinese tyranny
throughout Tibet in March 2008, when the regime was in full swing to deploy,
spend and take whatever it cost to cheat the world by being able to host
Olympic Game and thereby proving progress, prosperity, unity, happiness and
freedom even in her occupied hinterlands, especially Tibet.
Yeah, he
has real reason to be so. I get him. I thereafter search on internet about the
same through facebook and learn some from phayul.com and dossiertibet.it. I update
my stauts by sharing the same of dossiertibet.it but I learn more from the
former site.
“There
must be a program on the same today?” I ask him.
“Yes,
there is going to be candle light vigil this evening”, he says looking down on
the tip of his nose, seemingly in trance yet.
*
As it’s
5.10pm and the program usually starts at 6.30pm, we prepare to leave after a
strong tea. We decide to take a Lingkor,
the clockwise long circumambulation around Lhagyal Ri, the abode of His
Holiness the Dalai Lama. The winding path around is deserted as usual. When we
near the bustling main square, from where the program kicks off, I hear a
cracking voice over microphone asking for the gathering. There are some
participants stading in a row and holding candles (set in the hole made on a
piece of ripped carton-paper to guard from melted drips) on the parts of the
square like filling the brim and creating a scene like spectators watching over
something happening in the middle. We take our positions at one side on the
steps of a store. As candle of such is distributed free here not like in South
India, Sersang goes over to take two from the carton-box for us.
The
speaker on the portable microphone is a young short Tibetan guy in a striped
polo-shirt and bright cotton trousers. His languid and pressed-thin voice
suggests he has been doing so for the time. When he speaks in English, I see
how he contorts his mouth like mouthing the same torments him a great deal. I
overhear the one behind me saying to his mate it’s needed to speak in English
more.
A little
later Tenzin Tsondue La, our staunch hero for Tibet Cause, arrives holding a framed
picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in both hands raised above his chest. I
feel his presence imparts the gathering somehow. He seems to be in the same
dark shirt and faded sky-blue jeans; his red headband, dark thick framed white
glasses, hair like a Bhutanese woman’s traditional short hairstyle speak his
restlessness and compact style so far. As he arrives, the tall bespectacled
Indian guy in a khaki jacket and dark-blue jeans approaches near him taking off
the professional camera slung over his shoulder. He takes some continuous
shots. As Tsondue La stands among the participants at one side, a tall
foreigner guy with long blonde hair walking by sees him and looks closely while
walking away.
Minute by
minute the participants swell into a large group troubling the passing
vehicles. And so the buildings around begin to light one after another but the
tall streetlight with multi-light-heads over one side isn’t needed yet. A thin
veil of grey mist swoops on the square and disappears thereafter; the sky
overcast like an inflated stomach. A sudden whiff
of overheated oily smell of deep oil-roasted stuffs like chicken, egg or potato
brews the air thick.
I see a short young Indian woman by us
holding a candle. She doesn't look like a local one from her modern taste in
dressing. I don’t find a single Indian other than her.
Yeah, but
there is that tall bespectacled smart Indian in his forties, the photographer.
Sersang has got this to share with me: He is the owner of the two high-running
cafés: Moon Peak and Bean Café. As we both like sipping espresso, we take
interest in such places. From the bag with Free Tibet lettering slung on his
shoulder, taking interest in such program taking pictures and employing
Tibetans at his cafés I take he holds such affinity for us, Tibetan refugees. I
feel a pang of gratefulness right on the spot. Thanks!
There are those other photographers and video recorders of both professional bearings and
personal ones with digicams and cell phones. I find those taking shots from
inside the restaurants around like stealing a peek from a hidden place.
The
proper program commences at 6.30pm beginning the march monitored by Tenzin Tsondue
La and headed by the guy on portable microphone and those Tawu monks with
Tibetan national flags who have come all the way long from Gaden Jangtse
monastery in South India up to here on Hunger Strike March (the proper marching
program started from Pune city and around many major Indian cities; on foot
from Chandigarh up to here; arrived here today). The marcher-monks, not more
than 8, have suffered much from their sun-burnt dark complexions to frailty.
It’s to walk along the Trousers-shaped streets with the temple at the heart and
make three clockwise rounds singing the single stanza of evoking Bodhichitta (Jangchup Semchok Rinpoche…)
for ‘peace of mind’ to create a better world. When a vehicle comes along, the
narrow street gets clogged for a while. Those local Indian shoppers, who stand
by the doorways or lounge on the steps, look upon us like viewing the familiar
scene of driving away their customers for a while. There are those foreigners at
the corners taking shots.
There are
some elderly dedicated foreigners among the marching participants and a few young
by me. There must be more of them today expressing their supports in such way. And
they are going to be lauded and thanked gratefully by each speaker on the packed
porch.
*
Then it’s
to head towards the proper rendezvous in front of Tibet Museum, the narrow
L-shaped yard packed. We find a place before to see the standing speakers in
the small porch. Tenzin Tsondue La as the host I follow each speech (first by
the concerned co-ordinator monk of Kirti monastery, Dhasa, TWA president, TYC
president) closely as possible. All the three speakers try to throw lights on
the background of this morning tense and sad incidents, raise the tone of
protest against suppressions and atrocities, appeal the world at large for supports,
motivate and inspire the fellow Tibetans diaspora. But TYC president makes the
point clear for practical supports rather than mere verbal sympathies as the
latter have been heard much enough that don’t make any concrete difference. He
also says that even if it’s learned from the sources of bystanders during this
morning demonstration, when the two monks mouthed slogans calling for ‘The
Long-life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’ and ‘Religious Freedom in Tibet’
before setting themselves ablaze, that one of the monks died on the spot and
the other in critical condition taken away to an undisclosed location by
Chinese security personnel, but from the other concerned source it has been
just learned that both monks are alive but in critical condition in an unknown
location.
Standing among the participants and listening to the speeches, I
find those photographers standing before with their camera pressed to the eyes
rather flustering. They, the two of them, weave through the standing ones like
searching for something and take continuous shots when finding something
poignant. I find the expression on his face, the bespectacled one in shorts,
rather humorous as he stares in such way through the thick glasses.
Before
the end of the program, when Tsemei Yonten
(Boundless Merit, the timely and marking poetic work dedicated for Tibet’s
Cause and World Peace by His Holiness the Dalai Lama) is asked to sing and in
the middle of it, I have a strong impression this time following the line after
line, so sad and tear-shedding at such time and juncture. Later Sersang tells
me he finds the elderly guy beside him weeping when singing it. Yes, we are the
fated ones! We should stand together that only leads us to victory!
At the
end of the program Tsondue La asks for any interested supporting participants to
join the Hunger Strike to be carried out from tomorrow’s morning for 3 days at
the roadside by the main temple gate by those marcher-monks from Gaden Jangtse
monastery in South. The marchers have been prompted into such gruelling month-long
demonstrative action after the monk named Tsewang Norbu, 29, of Nyitso monastery
in Kham Karzhe set himself ablaze fatally after voicing slogans calling for ‘The
Return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet’ and ‘Freedom in Tibet’ on 15 August
this year around 12.30pm in Tawu.
Such is said
as the same fourth incidence in this year only. Such series of desperate acts really
attest to the prime inhuman situation
in Tibet.
SAVE TIBET!
