By Carleton Cole
Clad in a traditional dress and striped apron, a Tibetan woman stirs stewing coils of wool with a pole then hoists them from the steel vat in which they have been dyed a deep red.
“Our wool is from 100-per-cent Tibetan sheep from Ladakh,” says Dorjee Tseten, manager of the Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Centre in Darjeeling, where the threatened culture of Tibet is proving to be resilient.
While pressured to assimilate into the way of life of the Han Chinese who are the dominant majority in Tibet, Tibetans in northern India are preserving their traditional culture and making it a source of livelihood. Primary examples of their handiwork are seen in the centre, which was formed in 1959, when thousands of Tibetans fled the repression of their culture following the Lhasa Uprising.
The centre is home to 650 Tibetan refugees and their descendants, who in exchange for free housing and food are learning and passing on knowledge of Tibetan handicrafts: woollen carpets and clothing, wood carvings and other handmade items. Sales of these products at the centre as well as online at www.tibetancarpets.com form the bulk of the centre’s income.
In one workshop here, two dozen Tibetan women weavers rhythmically move their hands around the threads of looms, slowly piling up thick rugs with Tibet’s ancient animal and nature motifs. Their daughters watch every move, learning the timeless movements as the 14th Dalai Lama beams down from one of the centre’s many shrines to him.
“In 1910 the 13th Dalai Lama built a house not far from this site,” says Tseten, referring to a period of tension between China and Tibet when the Tibetan leader fled to India. “From here he declared Tibetan independence.”
“The general Tibetan public wants peace and a well-developed economy” he adds, stressing that he is “concerned about the culture and the future of the six million Tibetans in Tibet”. He emphasises that real autonomy, cultural preservation and economic opportunities are more important than independence, echoing the conciliatory views expressed in recent years by the 14th Dalai Lama.
Still, in August the Dalai Lama said: “If there is no resolution in two or three years, it will be difficult for me to explain to the youth the validity of the ‘middle path’ [of supporting autonomy rather than independence].”
Despite the exiled Tibetan leader’s efforts to seek a peaceful solution to ensure Tibetan national rights, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, progress toward a long-term solution has been notoriously slow.
Even in India, says Tseten, Tibetans face other, more subtle forms of assimilation.
“We must preserve our culture, our religion, our language: otherwise we would mix into the local population,” he says. As part of its multifaceted mission of cultural preservation, the centre is home to a Tibetan-language school attended by 120 children, as well as a small Tibetan Buddhist temple.
In his book “Tibetan Nation” scholar Warren Smith writes: “The Tibetan language, even more than Buddhism, remains the most important national and cultural characteristic distinguishing Tibetans from Chinese. So long as China cannot regard Tibet as a territory devoid of nationality, Tibet remains a political issue for China conceivably resolvable at some time in the future in Tibet’s favour.”
Among the hundreds of Tibetans who have come of age at the centre is Sonam Tenzing, who learned to speak Tibetan at the school and acquired a liking for Tibetan dumplings in the communal kitchen.
He sits on a floor cushion while carving the interlocking ribbons of a Tibetan knot of eternity into a wooden block for a special customer.
Earlier this year Sonam says that Heinrich Harrier, author of “Seven Years in Tibet”, commissioned a pair of Tibetan book covers, which protect religious texts throughout the region’s Tibetan temples.
Born in India, the 24-year-old woodcarver appreciates how the centre keeps him in touch with his ancestral homeland. In other workshops here, Tenzing’s mother makes woollen rugs, and his father makes Tibetan wool coats. “This is a great opportunity for me,” he says while selecting from among the half-dozen awls lined up on his worktable. “I am so glad to have these skills.”
Two metres away at another workstation, the woodcarver who taught Tenzing his craft, Banjour, 36, chisels one of the eight Tibetan lucky symbols onto a block of wood. Born in Darjeeling, he has never seen Tibet and learned his skills from a master Tibetan craftsman, a photo of whom hangs above him. Ensuring the continuity of cultural skills from one generation to the next is a hallmark of the centre, which shows in its quality handicrafts.
The woodcarvings of dragons and eight lucky symbols made here are regularly snapped up by tourists visiting the centre’s shop.
The longevity of the centre and the resilience of its community gives director Tseten reason to be optimistic about the future of Tibet and Tibetan culture: “We don’t intend to stay here for ever but came here to protect our culture and language.”
A valley away in the hill station of Kalimpong, a Tibetan family running the Deki Lodge, a British-built bungalow dating from the 1930s, is doing its own bit to ensure the survival of their culture.
Since 1979 the guest house has catered to foreign visitors, mostly Western, who come to experience the region’s Tibetan culture. This in turn has reinforced the family’s own dedication to ancestral traditions.
“Foreigners prefer to stay with a Tibetan family and enjoy the sense of home and hospitality,” says Sonam Choden. Born in India to a couple who fled Tibet in 1959, she helps manage the guest house.
“When I say that my parents came from Tibet, they want to know all about that,” she says, adding that many foreigners have stayed with them for months at a time while learning about Buddhism and meditation in one of the area’s Tibetan monasteries.
Seated beneath a huge photo of the Potala, sacred home to the Dalai Lamas in Lhasa, Sonam explains that she also has taken an interest in Tibetan Buddhism as a way of staying in touch with her ancestral homeland and has learnt much from reading books written by the current Dalai Lama.
“After reading that I learned so much about being kind, compassionate, non-violent,” she says.
“Every month we have a puja” she adds, describing how 30 to 40 monks come to offer blessings “for prosperity”. She sums up the pragmatic nature of Tibetan Buddhism’s similar forms by saying: “We follow all the sects.”
Tibetan prayer flags whip in the wind outside the family’s home, which features classic striped Tibetan bunting of primary colours hanging above doorways.
“Most Tibetans are involved in making Tibetan handicrafts,” says Sonam. That’s manifested in the nearby lanes, where small shops make all manner of religious paintings and regalia, selling them to travellers as well as fellow Tibetans in the area.
Sonam’s mother, Chimi Donkar, is one of the town’s many diligent artisans. In the back of the guest house she regularly shows visitors a room stuffed with layers of handmade Tibetan-style bedspreads, clothes and wall hangings.
Because of failing eyesight she doesn’t sew any more, but Donkar is proud to have passed on her skills and part of Tibet’s cultural legacy to one of her daughters, a sister of Sonam. “I miss Tibet,” she says. “I will never forget my home.”
