McLeod Ganj

A little over two weeks ago I arrived in McLeod Ganj. Coming from Delhi was an exhausting two days of travel, but I made it - to FREEZING cold weather. It's a fair trade off though. I give up the warmth and mosquitoes of Southern India for the cold without mosquitoes of McLeod Ganj. I'll take it.

It is stunningly beautiful here. I'm in the Dauladhar Mountain Range in the foothills of the Himalayas. I'm surrounded by majestic mountains and trees. The area has two main parts: McLeod Ganj and lower Dharamsala. His Holiness the Dalai Lama's residence and his monastery, Namgyal Gompa are both in McLeod. The Tibetan Government in Exile is located in the Ganshen Kyishong complex between McLeod and Lower Dharamsala. The entire area is home to a Tibetan refugee community.

On my second day here, I made a Tibetan friend, Tenzin, a social worker. He's turned out to be a valuable friend because he has many connections and has made inquiries into several places where I can volunteer. He also has some convoluted fantasy that I might fall in love with him some day, so I've had to set some clear, firm boundaries with him, like it will NEVER happen.

McLeod Ganj is small, really two main parallel running streets that both lead down to lower Dharamsala. The streets are lined with vendors, both Indian - mostly Kashmiri - and Tibetan, and restaurants. The food is delicious. I keep warm by eating Tibetan thugpa, noodle soup, and love munching on street side potato momo. Chowmein here is bomb. Most places also serve pancakes to my delight, and the best pancakes are at Nick's Italian Kitchen. I was having dinner there one evening and the music they were playing gave me my first bout of homesickness. It was a mix of songs by American artists - Leanne Rhimes, Alison Krauss, Mariah Carey - all songs that I love to sing along to.

I was at a small chai stop on the way down to McLeod Ganj one day and a radio was tuned to an Indian radio show. Pearl Jam's Alive started playing and I told Tenzin that the band was from my home town. That week gave me many reminders of home.

On my second day in McLeod, I circumambulated the Dalai Lama's temple at Namgyal Gompa, turning the prayer wheels. Elderly Tibetans walk with their malas chanting mantras while circumambulating the temple and walking throughout town. I see shopkeepers with their malas too as they sit at their stalls or talk to customers. I don't see young people so much with malas.

I love being in McLeod because I love being among a community whose spirituality is absorbed into every aspect of life. It is evident from the craft cooperatives, the craft vocational programs, the cultural preservation and education institutes like Norbulingka, how hard the Tibetan government and community work to preserve their language and culture. They do so much with limited resources and with a growing refugee community, I wonder how the growing Tibetan diaspora will choose to shape itself and be shaped with populations in India, France, the U.S., Australia, Switzerland, Canada and elsewhere. With limited and overburdened resources in McLeod, the Dalai Lama is encouraging new refugees to return to occupied Tibet to tell the truth about their culture and history after receiving their education from Tibetan schools that exist all throughout India.