Everyday Exile

By Tammy Winand

Imagine being sent on a long hike in winter, as a child, not knowing if you will ever go home. Being separated from your family in a land where you barely speak the language, able to communicate with home only by phone, and only in code because your calls are being monitored. Imagine going to prison and being tortured for expressing your wish for religious freedom and equality.

These are just a few of the issues facing Tibetans leaving occupied Tibet. Most of them end up, at least temporarily, in a small village in the Himalayan foothills of north India called Dharamsala, where their exiled spiritual leader has lived since 1960.

McleodGanj, Upper Dharamsala, is a hill station in north India which has been the seat of the Tibetan government in exile since 1960, and the residence of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet. An estimated 60,000 Tibetan exiles have settled in the region since the middle of the last century.

Writer and photographer Tammy Winand spent 16 months between November living in the Himalayan regions of north India and Nepal, volunteering with non-profits dedicated to improving life for the Tibetan exile communities there. Her first manuscript from this experience, Everyday Exile, provides an intimate glimpse into a unique culture few westerners ever have the opportunity to experience.

During her first visit, Tammy's students, including several former political prisoners, monks and nuns, shared stories of survival and hopes for the future which moved her deeply. On her return to the United States, speaking to others about her experiences in the Tibetan community, the lack of general knowledge about these issues inspired her to create a project to make Tibetan voices heard.

Everyday Exile aims to present a first-hand narrative that anyone from school child to adult can learn and benefit from. It is not intended to be scholarly nor comprehensive. The book is aimed at those with little or no knowledge of Tibetan culture or history.
It is the book the author wishes someone had written and handed to her when she first arrived in the Tibetan community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tammy Winand
• Release date: Nov 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301419036

Tammy Winand

Tammy Winand is a writer, photographer and artist who currently resides in Chicago, IL. Born and raised in south central Pennsylvania, she has lived in 7 US states and 4 countries, from the Grand Canyon of Arizona to the Himalayan foothills of north India. Her fiction, mixed genre (fictionalized memoir), memoir, and poetry draws upon these travels for setting and mood. Among many notable events in her life, Tammy recounts attending teachings by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in his exile home of McleodGanj, HP, India as the most uplifting and life changing. A bit of an adrenaline junkie, she toured with rock bands in the late 1980s and followed a NASCAR team for several weeks in the 1990s. Tammy also loves gardening, cats, and tea.

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Everyday Exile, Life in the Tibetan Settlements of India and Nepal

By

Tammy Winand

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Tammy Winand on Smashwords

Everyday Exile, Life in the Tibetan Settlements of India and Nepal

First Edition

Copyright 2012 by Tammy Winand

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Author's Introduction

I did not go to India for religious reasons. I did not go to do volunteer work. I did not go expecting to find anything other than historic architecture and scenic views to capture with the camera I have so much trouble putting down when I'm traveling.

I arrived in Mumbai with a list of destinations and a series of e-train tickets a recently reconnected college friend from the city had booked for me. One of my stops was McleodGanj, Upper Dharamsala, often called Dhasa, or Little Lhasa. It was intended to be a 10 day mountain retreat.

In fact, when I arrived in McleodGanj the first time, at the end of November 2009, I was running away from India. Having seen only pictures in travel guides, something had called me to the hill station. I fled a rough series of experiences, including a stalker, in Rajasthan and intended to stay about two weeks, resting in peace.

Little did I know then how the place, and the people, would change my life.

The first thing I noticed, once I'd found a guesthouse and recouped from the 18 hour bus journey, was that people were actually smiling at me. No one looked like they wanted to eat me alive. I did not feel threatened, and I began to breathe again.

About four days into my visit, another American staying at my guesthouse offered to take me to a school where he was volunteering. I was matched with a group of three Tibetan students, two monks and one hysterical woman in her late twenties. We had a fabulous time. At the end of the class, I was introduced to the staff, who invited me to write some articles for their website about the former political prisoners who worked there.

I came to the ex-political prisoner's talk on Tuesday night. Appalled at the things I heard, right then I knew I had to stay longer, do more.

I became a regular volunteer English conversation teacher. I learned to communicate ideas in fewer words and gestures than I'd ever imagined possible. I learned new ways of being. I learned that words were not always necessary.

These strangers who barely spoke my language, soon became my best friends. We spent hours simply drinking tea,walking around the temple, reading the dictionary, and watching TV. We cooked together, sang and danced, and laughed like fools.

At times it seemed language was unnecessary. Kind gestures were enough. At other times, I was so confused and frustrated at our cultural differences that I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs from my balcony over-looking the Himalayan valley. I cried as much as I laughed.

Sharing laughter with people who had suffered greater hardships than I could even imagine began a healing process in me. Healing from the pain of the past twenty odd years of my crazy life.

Winter was long and cold. I learned that it's possible to adjust to very unusual circumstances. By the time spring rolled around and it was time for me to go, I truly felt that I had found the place I belonged. I had come to look at McleodGanj as home.

Leaving was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do. I loved my Tibetan friends more than anything. I had learned to love them without, I thought, wanting anything from them. We all promised to exchange emails, facebook messages, even phone calls. I promised I would come back as soon as I could.

Excerpted from the blog post I wrote in Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport as I waited to leave India for the first time:

"Quite frankly, I have gone numb. I am sitting in the Delhi Airport waiting for a flight to Mumbai which is still nearly 6 hours from boarding.

I am exhausted. The bus ride down from McleodGanj was not horrible, but I cannot say it was comfortable. I may have had 4 hours of intermittent light sleep (dozing is more accurate) while sitting partially erect, head occasionally flopping off to the left.

The full moon over the Himalayan foothills and the soft pink glow of the peaks made my heart swell. The line of lights that is McleodGanj, strung out along the hillside like jewels as we descended towards Lower Dharamsala...simply remembering it brings on a feeling I cannot describe.

So the full moon sailed over India and the bus chanted mantras all the way to Chandigarh...gears exactly the same deep low timbre as monks' chanting emanating from temples and monasteries...

Two Bollywood films played at the beginning of the journey, before we stopped for dinner. I ordered one naan...one stinking NAAN (a simple tortilla like bread)...and of about 40 people present, I was served dead last, and almost missed my bus. I think this was the universe reminding me of the lessons I learned (started to learn, apparently) in McleodGanj.

Farewell Dhasa (Little Tibet), welcome back to India.

Back on the road, Law Abiding Citizen was popped in the DVD and played til after midnight.

There were a few hours of quiet. On the plains, moonlight pierced a thin veil of smog, silhouetting tall leafless trees rising against a flat blue backdrop.

We stopped at a seedy Indian bus stand where the toilet watchman wasn't letting me get away with not paying the 2 rupee fee (there isn't even a US equivalent for 2 rupees, it's so low)...so I had to run back to the bus across the dirt through a crowd of leering Indian men...joy. Perhaps the sight of an American woman wearing a salwar, khata, and Tibetan Buddhist prayer beads running with toilet roll in her hand was simply too much for them to comprehend!

At 4am, like clockwork, the bus drivers decided it was morning and Hindi music pervaded the coach, along with groaning from numerous seats.

My seat-mate, 70 year old Australian adventurer Pammy, disembarked along with most of the Tibetan passengers at Majnu ka Tilla (the Tibetan colony in Delhi). I stayed on with maybe 5 other passengers bound for ISBT.

ISBT is the main bus station in Delhi. The thought of it made me shudder. My previous experience with it was arriving from Jaipur after dark way back in late November. I remembered a huge, bustling, crowded, incomprehensible terminal with no signs in English and no English speaking help.

This stop? We were unceremoniously put out on the side of the road amidst a swirl of auto-rickshaws, drivers virtually grabbing luggage from travelers, shouting Rikshaw? Auto rikshaw? Hotel? Airport?

My attempts at speaking full English sentences with them failed...again. Airport? Domestic? Ek sau pachas?! (one hundred fifty) they cried incredulously. Hahaha madam.

Fine, I'll pay freaking 300 rupees, just get me out of here! Two young local girls piled in with me and my bags and we careened off into the Delhi sunrise.

I could not see much out the window, especially covered as it was by a whipping tarp which reeked of urine. I remember seeing the Air Force base and, as we neared the airport, a huge expanse of what looked like really nice apartments...until I realized this entire expanse was abandoned. Pink and golden light filtered over the surreal scene, softly high-lighting empty windows and what were once streets now filling in with weeds and dust.

Now I sit in the waiting area of terminal 1D, having stuffed myself on KFC (yes, that's right, KFC) and black currant ice cream, having bought an Elle Decor India magazine which I'm saving for the flight...people watching, uploading pics, killing time...

And mostly fighting off feeling. I cannot allow myself to really think about the past 48 hours, yet. About all the beautiful, kind, loving souls who came with me to the bus station to send me off, even ones going through emotional trauma much greater than my own...

I am incredibly blessed.

I am loved. I belong. I have a home in the Himalayas, and people eagerly awaiting my return.

That is what I came to find, halfway around the world from where I started. I never dreamed I would find it in India, in a Himalayan hillside community where many of the people can only speak to one another with their eyes for lack of words in one anothers' languages...and where EYES speak far louder and more clearly than words.

Back in the US, at first I was grateful for simple things. Unlimited hot water showers, and actual baths. All my favorite foods. Super high speed internet and 24 hour cable tv with tivo. But everything seemed too big, too clean, too far apart. I could not wander from cafe to cafe all day greeting friends. I was confined to the house 4 days a week. People seemed cold.

The job I accepted to raise money to return to India was far from ideal. I struggled reconciling my new found Buddhist beliefs with the conservative Christian ideology of my co-workers. I continued studying the basics of Buddhism from books and magazines, but felt I needed a teacher to really make things make sense.

I was living for my return to McleodGanj. I clung to sporadic emails and internet messages from Tibetan friends to sustain me emotionally. I repeatedly imagined our happy reunions. It was the only thing which kept me going as I decided to leave the job and return to my roommates' home across the country.

Several unexpected expenses had virtually wiped out my savings. By August I was not sure I could manage the return to India at all. But my roommates cum parents, having seen how much of a difference my first trip had made in my life, came to the rescue by offering to give me an allowance which could sustain me in India. (cost of living in McleodGanj is roughly a fifth to a quarter of that in central Florida).

In mid-October I was on my way back to the people and place which had changed my life in so many ways.

A Brief Overview

My involvement with Tibetans began totally unplanned, but in retrospect I hesitate to say it was by mistake.

I arrived for my first visit to McleodGanj, in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, at the end of November, 2009, with no idea what to expect. I’d added it to my itinerary to experience a way of life different from the rest of India, having seen images of His Holiness’ temple and the surrounding mountains in a popular guidebook.

I knew that the Dalai Lama had been exiled there since being forced out of Tibet in 1959 by the Chinese take-over, and that the Tibetan Government-in-Exile was located there. I knew that there was a sizable Tibetan refugee community.