The Dharamshala Weekend

I spent the Dusshera weekend in Dharamshala. It was only after booking the tickets did I realize that the India-New Zealand World Cup match was also happening there at the same time. With the snow-capped peaks as the backdrop, it is little wonder that the cricket stadium is India’s prettiest.

Like a typical tourist, I spent most of my time strolling through the streets of McLeodganj. The civil service secretariat buildings of the Central Tibetan Administration were quite intriguing and perplexing. One couldn’t help but feel sorry for the plight of a state that has no territories to govern. Despite this, the CTA has departments for Finance, Education, Culture, Security, International Relations etc. It also boasts of a functioning Supreme Court. Check out their website here.

Established a little more than a year ago, the Tibet Museum is worth visiting. It’s small, well curated and gives one a sense of their painful and tragic history. The most captivating section for me was the one dealing with the CIA-funded anti-China covert operation which was code-named ‘Operation Mustang’. It was slowly wound down with the Nixon-Mao rapprochement in ’72. Jamyang Norbu who was a member of the Tibetan resistance force in Mustang, on the Nepal-Tibet frontier in the early 70s also has a tome on this period titled ‘Echoes from Forgotten Mountains’.

I don’t see much changing for the Tibetans with a belligerent China watching every move of the Dalai Lama. A case in point is this fascinating story of the identification of Mongolia’s next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism – an eight year old boy – and China’s watch over him!

Apart from this interesting slice of history, I gorged on a lot of Tibetan food. The thupkas, the soutsemens and the shapaleys were out of this world!