The Statesman
Sangeetha Nair
BYLAKUPPE (Karnataka), Oct. 24: With heavy maroon robes flapping in the wind, auto-rickshaws speeding down an empty road, seated inside are three bald novices, Buddhist monks on their way to Kushalnagar to watch a film. “Three days’ holiday,” screams a little Buddha, waving his bright pink electronic fly swat, the ones that look like a tennis racket and made in China. Hardly a week had passed since the US Congress awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama.
About 87 km southwest of Mysore, lies the first and largest of the Tibetan settlements in India ~ established in 1969-70. Thanks to a maharaja and a monk, approximately 20,000 Tibetans live in the Dickyi Larsoe camps here.
In 1957, Penor Rinpoche (25), the 11th throne-holder of the Palyul Monastery in Tibet and the chief caretaker of Tibetan refugees settled in Bylakuppe, having understood the irreversibility of the Chinese occupation, set out with a group of 300 people to India.
They reached Assam in 1960 but only 30 survived the ordeal. In 1961, the Mysore Maharaja, moved by the plight of homeless Tibetan mendicants, gifted 1,500 acres to the Dalai Lama.
Later, an NGO, the Mysore Rehabilitation and Development Agency (MYRADA), gave the community an economic leg-up by taking over the responsibility of building settlement houses and schools. At present, there are 16 villages at a distance of about three kilometres. The MYRADA also helped establish six schools, a hospital, a Tibetan medical and astrology institute and individual health clinics in all the villages.
Mrs Nima Dorma, a Tibetan refugee born and brought up here, said each settlement has an officer who is the representative of the department of home appointed by the Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamshala. “He is in-charge of running our camps and is the main link between the people of the settlement and the Central Tibetan Administration,” she said.
Life at the Dickyi Larsoe camp, she said, is pleasant. “My hopes are pinned on my children and the cooperative society that has boosted my business. I have lots of buyers for traditional carpets. A 3’X6’ rug is priced at Rs 21,500. The American flag is the most selling item.” Her carpet business generates a sizeable income that goes towards tuition and boarding fees for her second born, who is being educated in an up-market college in Mysore. Her first-born, like most other first-borns in the settlement, was sent to one of the two monasteries to become a nun.
“I see her only during vacations, from January to March. My daughter will remain there till she is 16, after which she gets to decide if she wants to continue.
Nuns are not given the same freedom as the monks. While monks are allowed to use I-Pods, cell-phones and Internet, eat at the local mall, ride motorbikes, go to Kushalnagar or Bengaluru to watch films, female novices are allowed none of these and must adhere to severe prohibitions known as gurudharmas (eight special rules that essentially establish the nuns’ standing to be lesser than that of the monks),” Mrs Dorma said. Only monks got to witness the three-day celebrations that took place at the Sera Jay monastery to commemorate the award won by the Dalai Lama. Depending on one’s outlook on life, Bylakuppe can mean different things to different people ~ for the shopaholic it’s an excellent mall stocked with made-in-China goods, for the traveller it’s a picnic spot with a view of the Coorg mountain range, for the devout it’s a spellbinding experience to stand in front of the 60-ft gold plated Buddha and tantric paintings.
But for the Tibetans, Bylakuppe is home. When Ms Dorma was asked if she would like to go back to Lhasa, to her grandparents’ home, she said: “Of course, for a visit. But I am not sure about settling there, the weather is too cold.”
No comments:
Post a Comment