Home is where the heart is

A foot overbridge in a busy part of north Delhi leads you to another world. Suddenly, you are no longer assailed by the city’s cacophonic noise and depressing dirt. Instead, the path melts into the gate of the Tibetan Refugee Colony and, like a magic portal, takes you to Little Tibet. There is noise here, too, but it is the buzz of life.

Prism: Buddhist monks in the refugee colony

Sixty years after the Dalai Lama crossed into India, little Tibets have been thriving in many parts of the country. The spiritual leader of the Tibetans, fleeing oppression in China, brought with him a microcosm of the land that he grew up in and left in the dead of night on March 17, 1959. He arrived in India on March 31.

You know you are in the heart of Delhi’s Little Tibet — called Majnu ka Tila — when you spot the monastery. Tibetans are sitting inside the complex, discussing the day’s affairs over bowls of thukpa — a thick broth of vegetables and chunks of meat.

Old ways: Several organisations and individuals have been seeking to promote Tibetan culture, food and traditional knowledge, especially among the youth

This is a place where you will also see scores of Delhi University students, for the winding lanes — like Thamel in Kathmandu — offer various kinds of cuisines and souvenirs.

A vendor, not a Tibetan, knows that he is not quite in Delhi when he is in Majnu ka Tila. He has developed a Tibetan accent, navigating the colony’s lanes. As he moves around selling shaphaley , he calls out the name in a long drawl that stretches from one end of the lane to the other. He has learnt to enjoy the taste of the Tibetan bread stuffed with meat and cabbage.

In this crammed labyrinth of a colony, the stalls are full of copies of branded shoes and clothes, reflecting the latest in fashion trends across Asia. Many of the tiny outlets sell Buddhist curios and Tibetan literature. And there are eateries that offer several kinds of cuisines — from grilled Korean fare to Tibetan breads thick with meat and the lightest and fluffiest English pastries.

Many young Tibetans run or work in these eateries, shops and guest houses. Chinese-origin products are also on sale, and Karaoke bars offer visitors — and locals — a night of music.

At Tee Dee’s, where the youngsters hang out for Tibetan, Nepalese and Bhutanese food, a group of Tibetan millennials is taking selfies. The music that plays in the background is a mix of Bollywood-Punjabi and Ed Sheeran-Taylor Swift.

The young in Manju ka Tila straddle two worlds. One is that of their forefathers; the other, the modern universe of youth that cuts across nations and communities.

"I speak Hindi, but my English is not that good,” says Tenzin, a young man who works part-time at a stall selling Chinese pottery bowls and incense stands. When he is not at the shop, he is in college, or binge-watching Korean serials. Sometimes he is out with his friends to, as he puts it, “feel the breeze”.

A walk in the monastery underlines another side of the neighbourhood. Here, most people are in the traditional Tibetan attire. This is where the young — and the not-so-young — talk about Tibetan independence. Take 44-year-old Tashi Chophel, who came to India in 1996, taking the arduous route from Tibet through Nepal.

“It took me two months on foot (to reach India). We were 20 men and women who were crossing together. Towards the end, the food that we had brought with us got over and we had to forage in the jungles. A few lost their fingers and toes to frostbite,” he says matter-of-factly.

He — like every Tibetan — knows all about the Dalai Lama’s journey. Following a failed uprising in 1959 against the Chinese occupation of Tibet since 1950, the Dalai Lama, then 23, had requested then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to grant him and his people refuge in India. According to popular lore, in order to escape an alleged Chinese plot to kill or abduct him, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet disguised as a soldier. He entered Indian territory — Chuthangmu in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh — with close members of his family, four cabinet ministers, attendants and bodyguards — on March 31, 1959.

The 14th Dalai Lama and high-ranking officials of what is known as the Tibetan government-in-exile are based in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. There are several settlements in India, including in Karnataka and Uttarakhand. The Majnu ka Tila area in north Delhi, beside the Yamuna river, was allotted to the asylum seekers by the Nehru government. It was only in 2013 that the area was included among a list of colonies to be regularised, after a court order stayed the eviction of the residents.

Over the years, many of the residents have acquired PAN and Aadhaar cards, required for their businesses. There are Indians in the neighbourhood, too, and many run businesses inside the Tibetan colony, officially called New Aruna Nagar.

Tibetan refugees continue to cross over into India from China, the locals say. Phuntsok Yonten was six when he came to India with his siblings in 2003. He grew up in Delhi, studied graphic design in Bengaluru, but cannot forget the Tibetan cause.

“About 1.2 million Tibetans — one-sixth the population — lost their lives as a result of the Chinese occupation. Many of those still residing in Tibet are increasingly sending their children and other family members to India as a result of the discrimination and oppression they face there. The new generation of Tibetans is just as determined to regain the country’s independence as the older generation,” he says.

More than anything else, Yonten, who works in his uncle’s shop in Majnu ka Tila, wants to be reunited with his mother, who is still in Tibet. He is in touch with her via the Internet but doesn’t know when he will meet her.

“Anyone who knows the situation of Tibetans will understand why I haven’t met my mother all these years, even though she is so important to me,” he says. He talks about the problems of the youth, living among ethnically different people and as a disenfranchised community.

Several organisations and individuals have been seeking to promote Tibetan culture, food and traditional knowledge, especially among the young. The Tibetan government in-exile encourages this, as reports come in about the Chinese government attempting to “hegemonise” Tibetan culture there.

The Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), founded in the 1970s in Dharamshala, is the largest non-government organisation of Tibetans in the world. It organised a campaign earlier this month to mark 60 years of the “resistance against the Chinese occupation” of Tibet.

“We are here to send a message to the Chinese government that we will not give up; that the Tibetan resistance remains strong and we will continue our revolution until Tibet is free,” says TYC president Tenzing Jigme.

His namesake, a nine-year-old boy, does not understand — not yet, at least — what Tibet means to his community. Little Jigme is busy watching a cartoon show on a tablet, seated with his uncle Tashi in the monastery.

He lives in Assam, studies in Kiddies’ Corner in Guwahati and has come to Delhi to visit his family. He has been taught a new song at the colony’s monastery and is fluent in Tibetan. But he would rather talk about his friends in Guwahati. For the boy, that is life and home — so far.

Payel Majumdar Upreti