Mumbai, December 19 – Seated on a rickety chair by a computer, with his back to rows of books on the Dalai Lama and excited activists, 39-year-old Lobsang Nyandak Zayul is a worried man.
But Zayul’s face doesn’t betray his emotions.
The Minister of Finance and Health in the Tibetan government-in-exile based at Dharamsala, Zayul is in Mumbai to oversee the first-ever Tibetan cultural event in the city—Cultural Performance from the Roof of the World.
Under the Dalai Lama’s guidance and leadership, Tibetans, says Zayul, are fighting a two-pronged war against Communist China—to attain political autonomy for Tibet and to preserve its ancient language and culture.
The latter, he emphasises, is no less important because ‘‘the Chinese are consciously trying to destroy our cultural heritage.’’
Zayul says it’s not easy to live with the fact that youngsters in Occupied Tibet are slowly forgetting what is their own.
“The local Chinese administration says it works in Chinese as well as the Tibetan language. But the reality is completely the opposite,’’ rues Zayul.
‘‘Tibetan history that is taught is distorted and adheres to the Chinese point of view,’’ he adds.
As conversation shifts to Tibet’s culture, Zayul brightens up. Music and songs, he explains, are suffused with the life of an ordinary Tibetan.
He says they have songs for every occasion, whether it’s a wedding or just an occasion to gulp down chang (the local beer).
Their musical traditions, he says, largely developed alongside religion and its mesmerising chants, bells and horns.
Tibet in a day
The one-day event will showcase the best of Tibet’s performing arts and introduce Mumbaiites to the wonders of ancient Tibetan medicines
It will be held at the Birla Matoshri Sabhaghar, Marine Lines, on Monday and is being organised by the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts, the premier exile body tasked with preserving Tibetan culture
A highlight of the five-hour show will be an address by the Tibetan government-in-exile’s Chief Executive Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, who will give a 20-minute talk on ‘The Universal Responsibility: The Message of the 14th Dalai Lama’
