Shout Out #33

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  Darjeeling, India
Saturday, April 5, 2008

Just as I'd finished my morning yoga routine the lady running the guesthouse brought in a cup of tea and let me know the hot water for the shower was turned on. Seeing the dense fog from a room full of windows made it easy to relax through the early morning. For a year every day was Saturday. This was going to be a Sunday. Having such a nice room with views of such a beautiful area was a rarity. My time abroad was also coming to an end. Relaxation time was to be appreciated. I sat in bed reading Civil Society, listening to music, and drinking delicious Darjeeling tea.
Sometime mid-morning I went to a cozy restaurant run by an exceptionally nice Nepalese family. The restaurant was full of Christian missionaries so an Israeli man asked to sit at my table. Nanu was at the end of an eight-month trip through many of the same countries I went through. He toured Laos and Cambodia on rented motorcycles and considered buying an Enfield in India. The Indian roads were a little too crazy for his liking though. He was an attorney prior to leaving, upon returning he was starting a new career as a teacher. In speaking of India- and whatever else- he had great insight from a much different angle than mine.
"With India, you start to see time differently. People contemplate god, spirit, existence, and all that, but time is such a big part of it. Time is completely different. Bus or train rides that take 40 hours! Even 10 hours...people who spend most of the day sitting still. In India time changes."
"Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's probably part of the reason why people either love it or hate it here." Time is as cultural as religion.
He compared India to China. "There's a balance between the two countries. In China they only allow one child per family, which puts huge pressure on that child. He has to take care of two parents who've given him everything- he's their only child. In less than 100 years, 5000 years of Chinese culture is being lost. The Chinese people don't know their own history or the place China currently has in the world. In India the population is growing and their system is very different. They are the two countries with over a billion people, with two completely different natures, and two of the deepest cultures. It's interesting that they're right next to one another." He liked the geographic, social, and economic balance between the two countries and the rest of the world. "With wealth- mostly U.S. and European- Asia, Africa, and the Middle East having so little, Israel is right in the middle- geographically, economically, and culturally."
Following breakfast I went for a stroll through town. Darjeeling roads zig-zag up the hillside in a confusing network. My room was at the top of the hill, just behind most of the city. The main town plaza was on the crest of the hill about a kilometer up the road from my room. Several shops and restaurants ring the plaza. Even though I had several kilograms of books in my pack, I couldn't resist walking through a bookstore. An Indian girl came in and stood close while I looked at various titles. I kept thinking it odd that she was looking at the same section of books. (This girl has great taste in literature.) When she followed me to another section I started getting suspicious. Especially when she reached for a book just as I did. (Why is she so curious about my choice of books?) She ended the mystery with simplicity; she said hello. (Oh, now I get it!) In almost any other country the situation would've been crystal clear. It was probably even obvious in India.
This was her seventh trip to Darjeeling. Her father couldn't join the family this time because he was busy with business. She was hoping to get in the Darjeeling art school because she liked the area so much. Before going to meet up with her family she offered to show me around Kolkata before I flew home and said I could stay at her house. We exchanged emails, took a picture together, and said goodbye.

Walking to the Tibetan Refugee Self Help Center takes about 45 minutes from the plaza. Ample time to appreciate the setting- green mountains, patches of fog, panoramic views, and the blend of cultures. The more casual nature of the people brought a fun shift in mood. The Tibetan and Nepalese cultures are much more laid back and the vacationing Indians tend to be more contemporary than most. Social interaction seemed to be less restricted, especially between men and women. Women wore tighter clothes, make-up, and had a different way of walking or holding eye contact. Even without expressing sexual intent or interest their eye contact was different.
Watching people has always been a way for me to analyze situations and life. In passing an attractive Tibetan girl a stream of thoughts came to mind. Assuming she's probably had little exposure to pop culture and all it says about being sexy, stylish, and what she should/shouldn't want in a man I figured she takes a person's qualities into consideration long before bothering about their appearance. The assumption could easily be off base, it worked for my analysis though. I was scratching the surface of something much deeper but put my thoughts on hold while exploring the Self Help Center.
The trail zig-zagged down and around the hill, crossing through various little communities, ultimately ending at a paved road. The center was a short way up the road. A collection of aging wooden buildings surrounded a dusty patch of ground. The rough exterior fails to conceal the warmth of the residents. A few kids were playing basketball on a court in the middle of the space. All the buildings around the courtyard were labeled with signs in English. The place was informal. I looked in a building and saw a few elderly Tibetan women making thread. They sat and talked comfortably while doing their work. A woman saw me watching, smiled, and invited me in with a nod. They let me snoop around the room and take pictures. From making thread, dyeing, weaving rugs and clothes to producing other handmade crafts, all their goods are made using traditional Tibetan techniques. I went from workshop to workshop, looking in on the various groups of elderly artisans. The different crafts may have been divided by sex. The rooms were either all women or all men. The one group of men I came across was rolling thread into bundles.
The center was started by a group of refugees who followed the 13th Dalai Lama to India during China's invasion. With their skills, support from the Indian government, and support from the Tibetan government in exile, they managed to create a home for those who no longer had one. It still operates as a charitable organization and their goods are shipped globally. Currently there are about 650 refugees living at the Self Help Center. The children have a safe place to learn and play, the elderly have meaningful work, and they all have a close community. In a foreign situation they've managed to create something few people have.
A museum-like room had different aspects of China's occupation of Tibet on display. Geographically Tibet gives China a direct border with India; a border they've crossed forcefully in the past. China still controls portions of land technically considered India. Tibet also plays an important role in China's nuclear capabilities. Aside from having several Chinese nuclear weapons sites, Tibet has some of the world's largest uranium reserves. Other displays spoke of the ecological merits of the region. Several rivers of importance to millions of people in India and China originate in Tibet.
The Panchen Lama was also a big concern. Several signs mentioned the Chinese abduction of the next Tibetan leader. China claims the Dalai Lama got it wrong in designating Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the reincarnated Panchen Lama and offered another person as the true Panchen Lama...then kidnapped Nyima. His whereabouts are not known. As the next leader, his youthful years are critical to his spiritual training. The Tibetans want him and his family back.
A workshift ended just as I was leaving. Several groups of women and men walked along a few paths leading up the hill behind the central buildings. Rows of prayer wheels lined portions of the walkways. Everybody spun the wheels as they passed. 'Om Mani Padme Hung', a mantra of compassion, is inscribed on each wheel. The wheels should be spun with a correct mind-frame and technique and the merits of the mantra are realized. In visiting the center it was apparent I was among people who routinely spin wheels of compassion.
On the walk back to Darjeeling my thoughts returned to the topic of pop culture. My assumptions about the attractive Tibetan girl were essentially self observations- positioning myself in the context of how I saw her. The thought of her having little concern for beauty was in direct contrast to my own addiction to beauty. An addiction fueled by pop ideologies. Surface level details are of exaggerated importance. American society pushes image as a commodity and I bought the story somewhere along the way. With capitalism, people can easily be viewed as the products of the products they buy. Branded consumers. Objects then become a measure of identity, the consumer becomes the consumed, and beauty becomes a commodity. I am what I buy, what I buy am I. The self-feeding cycle creates strong attachments to a surface level image- physical beauty. These attachments are my isolation.
In a situation where my camera, shoes, and clothes makes me foreign, wealthy, and separate I was more able to analyze my sense of material attachment. An excerpt from my journal that day explains it further, 'Everywhere I go those things will limit my freedom and ability to get close with people who have none of those. That doesn't make it wrong or bad to have, I was just seeing my belongings differently." The belongings themselves aren't divisional. Attachment is the root of division and isolation. Attachment=image=me separate from you=isolation.
A major flaw of capitalism, pop culture, and the wealth associated with both is the concept of abundance as a product, not an inherited right of humanity. As a 'have', my image is purchased with the sweat of a 'have not'. Everyone knows of the plight of the 'have nots'- starvation, slum existence, violence, etc, etc, etc- but the resolution to these problems will probably come from a deeper understanding of the plight of the 'haves'. Wealthy countries are more apt to be enslaved by blindness. Liberty can't be bought sold, traded, or given. It is only actualized. Mental freedom- true liberty- tends to come after the basic necessities in life are actualized. Then the struggle becomes one of comfort. The good is the enemy of the best. Comfort can breed lethargy and lethargy makes liberty nonexistent. I could be in the freest situation possible and still remain chained; bound by a clouded mind. When people truly become (mentally)free, the world will easily follow. Because their rent is paid, the wealthy may be in a better position to do so. It's a matter of how blind we've become.
Whereas capitalism thrives on concepts of limitation- the finite nature of the manifest world- an Eastern ideal speaks of manifestation in a different sense. Mandalas and yantras are physical, geometric creations representative of the belief that 'manifestation (the world, maya) is the conformation of infinity through limitation. All of "reality" exists and takes form thanks to limitation.' (Abitare #463 Jul-Aug 2006) Yantras and mandalas are not an objectified image of self. They are a material representation of limitless abundance. Though an abstracted image of Gandhi on my t-shirt speaks of freedom and how I wear it says something of my perceptions of self and freedom, it's still an image. Yantras and mandalas express something much deeper. 'These restraints (physical form) are actually perceived as the forms taken on by freedom, rather than as restrictions to it.' (Abitare #463 Jul-Aug 2006) Until goods are appreciated as infinite manifestation they will be imagined limitation, or tools of enslavement. A plight particularly associated with 'the haves'.

Later that afternoon I bumped into Mayuko and Andreas and we decided to check out an art exhibit for some sort of global environmental day. Much of the exhibit was a display of various arts and crafts made from re-used waste. Another portion was a really nice collection of photos relating people and nature. My attention was especially captured by images of the various trash chutes around Darjeeling. India doesn't have municipal trash service. Waste is either littered or taken to certain public trash dumps. In Darjeeling, the trash dumps are actually chutes where the trash flows down the hill. Being a tourist destination for a wealthier breed, Darjeeling actually has trash bins around town. I didn't notice that it made much of a difference but the intent was there. Signs posted around town encourage people to not use plastic water bottles or bags. There is no recycling and plastic fills up the fills up the trash dumps. It was the first place where I didn't drink bottled water.
My contemplation came full circle at the exhibit. The goods produced at the Tibetan Refugee Self Help Center were very much in line with a yantra or mandala. They were manifestations of infinite abundance. That was the beauty of the arrangement. In exile they were more free than most of the people on earth. The goods accumulating in the trash chutes are the offspring of a system that sees production as a juggling act with limited resources. It makes perfect sense too. Why would a system that preaches a limited ideal be the system that has the most waste? Precisely because the goods are not 'forms taken on by freedom'. They are forms taken on by the finite economics of a limited perspective. They are my addiction to fleeting beauty.

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