Mysteries of the subcontinent

No one's ever been able to explain the rubber bicycle tires lying on the thatched (and corrugated tin) roofs.

And what about the painted trees? Trees with their trunks painted white.

My great-aunt Evelyn used to have all the trees in the yard painted white from the "waist" down. I had only seen that in the American South. Imagine my surprise at seeing it all over India.

Rachel asked someone about the trees and they said "those trees are government property and can't be cut down." But like everything in India, I expect there is more than one answer.....


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Now playing: Digital Underground - The Humpty Dance
via FoxyTunes

Smiling peasants make your day

First world images of the majority
Kathmandu

I'm preparing to enter another international photo contest - two, actually.

One appears to be (judging by past winners) really big on smiling peasantry. Toothless old ladies in traditional headdress. Happy poor people. Friendly natives.

I admit to having a lot of these cliches in my portfolio...should be a shoo-in. ;-)

Here are just a few I have shortlisted.

Coming attractions

Lamawatch continues
Dharamsala via Kathmandu
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Now playing: Tenzin Dhondup - About the DraNyen
via FoxyTunes


I am very often asked, "When will the Dalai Lama be appearing publicly in India?"

This is question I always welcome; my eyes light up like a little kid on Christmas morning.

I should really write the Complete Guide to Seeing HH in India - how to get a seat, what to bring and not to bring, how to register, where to stay and so on. It does require some planning, but unlike in the west, his public teachings in India are always free. (That's right. Five or 10 days with the Dalai Lama - for free.)

You can always get His Holiness' latest schedule updates at the Official Website.

And it pays to check every few weeks - there are always changes. He's in Germany now, but I am happy to report that HH will be back in Dharamsala later this summer.

It's very, very hard to believe that it will have been nearly ONE YEAR since I've actually seen him....but that's the way the river flows sometimes.

Teaching in Dharamsala (H.P.), India from August 4 to 6: His Holiness will give teachings on Atisha's Lamp for the Path To Enlightenment (jangchup lam kyi drolma) at the request of a Korean group.

Teaching in Dharamsala (H.P.), India from September 25 to 27: His Holiness will give teachings on Je Tsongkhapa's The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (lamrim chenmo) at the request of the The Tibetan Buddhist Center (Singapore). Contact: The Tibetan Buddhist Center (Singapore), 02-28 No. 1 New World Center, Singapore 209037 Singapore Tel: +65 6491 1027 Website: www.tibetanbc.org

Teaching in Dharamsala (H.P.), India from October 1 to 5: His Holiness will give teachings for Chinese Buddhists.

Lhasa letter

Another vicarious letter....am I getting lazy?
Lhasa via Dharamsala, India via Kathmandu

My American friend Amy asked me "what are you hearing from Lhasa these days?" I was sorry to say I didn't have a direct contact to Lhasa, and that the Tibetans here report a near-total news blackout. The blog of Tibet activist Jamyang Norbu, though, has an anonymous letter on current living conditions in the city.

Norbu is a well-known author, one of the more lucid writers on the Tibet issue and former Tibetan freedom fighter. His blog is well worth a visit.

Walking the streets of Lhasa, seeing big tea houses unusually empty and many shops still closed, makes you aware of how scared people are these days. Very few people stop on the street when they meet friends, because every gathering of people is cause for suspicion. A lot of people still stay at home because they are scared they will get arrested for no reason if they go out.

When you finally find someone not too scared to talk to you, you hear consistent, dramatic, disturbing and daunting stories that give you nightmares.

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Now playing: Snow Lion of Peace
via FoxyTunes
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Blatant self-promotion, but for a good cause

I was thrilled to learn, late last night, that my photo of an elderly Tibetan demonstrator in Dharamsala had won in an international photography competition.

(Okay, I didn't get first place, I got first commendation - but we all received $200, and besides the winning picture - of a woman interviewer in a burqa wielding a microphone - really was better.)

The contest, themed "Women and Communication," was organized by the Canadian organization World Association for Christian Communication.

Here are the specifications:
WOMEN AND COMMUNICATION
Photographs that capture women communicating; women's communication rights in action or photographs illustrating how women use communication to empower themselves.

Other winning photos hailed from Afghanistan, Honduras, Thailand, Maldives and Argentina.

In most of the other photos, the women were acting through various outlets of modern media (radio interview, public address, graffiti). In addition to carrying the flag, this woman was visibly praying. Like many elderly Tibetans, her mouth was constantly in motion breathing mantras. I am continually amazed at the Tibetan community's sincere belief that prayer is a definite, pro-active force in changing things.

This woman was probably a young girl at the time of exile and has grown old in India, hoping for return to her home. The day was pouring down rain and quite cold; still she made it out to what had in many ways become a very routine event with little or no signs of progress (that is, the annual Uprising Day vigil), to pray for change.

My gratitude to the woman in the photo, to WACC, to Rita Banerji of 50 Million Missing for alerting me to the contest, and to Cheryl Hurwitz of New York City who was visiting Dharamsala that day and was kind enough to loan me her camera.


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Now playing: Lama Gyurme & JeanPhillipe Rykiel - Calling the Lama from Afar via FoxyTunes

Pricey rice

In a food mood
Kathmandu
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Now playing: Michael Stearns - Opening / Nepal Morning
via FoxyTunes

World food shortages and skyrocketing food prices have been in the news a lot lately. In a primarily agricultural country like Nepal, I read things like this and wonder how it got that way.

What kind of convoluted system of subsidies, trade agreements (or disagreements), embargos, poor planning, population increase and price-fixing results in a place like Nepal (terraced rice fields everywhere) not having enough rice? My friend Brother Martin knows a lot more about this stuff than I do (at least in the American context).

It also leaves me wondering how people (in places like Ladakh, as well, where rice definitely does not grow and every grain has to be "imported" up the Leh-Manalai Highway from lower India) have become so dependent on white rice.

In Nepal, there are lots of locally grown alternatives...buckwheat ("dhido"), barley ("tsampa") and corn maize ("aato"). Tsampa grows best in Ladakh, along with millet and several varieties of fast-growing wheat.

It's become a downmarket thing in Nepal to eat Dhido - according to Culture Shock: Nepal people don't even like to admit having a taste for buckwheat. I've only ever seen it served in one restaurant, and I had to special order it.

And before some know it all writes in and says "Corn is not an Asian crop" --I know that.... but it does grow darn near everywhere here now. Literally every vacant lot in urban Kathmandu seems to be sprouting corn sometimes. I will leave it for someone else to decry the effects of introducing a non-native crop.

According to this IRIN News report, India banned export of the cheap rice. It might make sense to ban exporting it to western countries, but to Nepal, the poorest nation in SAARC?

Nepal has been largely dependent on low-cost rice and vegetables from India. The ban on exports since October 2007 of non-Basmati (cheap) rice from India had caused a huge problem, said Ragan. According to local traders, India's supplies roughly meet 25 percent of Nepal's food requirements.

The Ministry of Agriculture estimated that the production of summer paddy would be 17 percent higher this year, but it is likely that rice prices will still increase by over 20 percent because of the lack of food imports from India, according to WFP.
The government's Central Bank of Nepal estimated that the price of rice had increased by over 30 percent in the last three months. However, owing to lower incomes, people in remote hilly areas were most exposed to the price hikes.

...."The cost of rice has increased from Rs 5,000 [$80] to Rs 8,000 [$127] for a 100kg sack. Just imagine our hardship," said Sunita Chettri from Dolpa.

And if anyone has an answer to every diet-conscious traveller in Asia's constant question - that is, whatever happened to natural, nutritious brown rice instead of refined white rice? - please tell me!