Some Auspicious Afternoons

For all those that were waiting on the edges of your seats, Losar ended wonderfully! As I mentioned, the last day of Losar was my friend Molly’s birthday. That was the plan anyway. Turns out, that specific day was deemed to be inauspicious. Anyone on this study abroad program can tell you the importance of auspiciousness and that you definitely do not want your Losar to end on an inauspicious day. Obviously, the only solution was to prolong the holiday! Losar was officially extended one more day and unofficially extended for many more days. The inauspicious day was still a holiday though, of course. It turned out to be a fabulous day and a group of us went on a picnic and spent a wonderful afternoon in the sun!

We went about 30 minutes outside of Dharamsala to the Kangra Fort, which is a super old and cool fort (I didn’t exactly commit the history on the sign at the entrance to memory, sorry…). Anyway, it’s on the top of this mountain with a spectacular view of the surrounding landscape. There were rivers running through the valleys on either side of the fort and mountains on all sides. We spent a while there, had a picnic with the Losar food, explored the landscape, sunbathed, and played cards. It was a marvelously relaxing mini vacation and I had the best time soaking in the scenery and the animal life. It seems that I’m not only slightly fascinated by monkeys, but all sorts of creatures. This category includes but is not limited to goats, cows, sheep, hawks, and pigs. I’ve just never seen these animals so close before and am strangely enthralled by them! I think my next blog post will be a flora and fauna tour of my India trip so far.

The fort was absolutely magnificent and I wish I could elaborate on it but I don’t think my efforts will be very successful. They do say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll put my photos where my mouth is and let y’all see the scenery for yourselves. The day after the inauspicious day we traveled to Bir, which is about two hours (East?) of Dharamsala and houses a significant Tibetan community. We stayed at the guest house at Sherabling monastery and again enjoyed a lavishly quiet and peacefully beautiful landscape. The quiet was only sporadically interrupted by young monks lighting fireworks to celebrate the end of Losar. In Bir we toured a Tibetan Children’s Village school. The TCV school system was set up when the Tibetans realized exile would last a while and they needed a way to continue the legacy of Tibetan language and culture outside of Tibet, where education is headed in a different direction. It’s a surprisingly well run and organized school that is very efficient and produces hard working and motivated students interested in preserving the unique Tibetan identity.

It turns out that the TCV schools all have four houses that their students are divided into and during the year they have competitions where each house has an opportunity to win a competition and a big trophy. I wondered if this practice was initiated before or after Harry Potter was popularized. Karma, the young Tibetan guy that helps out with our program, was in the Gryffindor equivalent and very proud of that fact. After the TCV tour we had an audience with Ani Tenzin Palmo, a Tibetan nun of Western origin who has gained some notoriety from the books she has contributed to. Her life story is really fascinating if you want to check it out and recently she decided to build a nunnery in India, which we toured. It was extraordinarily beautiful and so forward thinking! The buildings were gorgeous and extremely environmentally friendly. I’m so grateful on this trip that
I’ve gotten to meet and converse with so many wonderful people. And next weekend is supposedly our teaching with His Holiness, the most auspicious figure of all those in exile!


I can’t wait. I’ve been in India for just over a month now. Although it is a bit misleading to say that I’m in India because I’m really thoroughly entrenched in Tibetan culture and community at all times. But I’ve loved almost every minute of it so far and can not wait to see what comes next! I also wanted to mention the fact that my friend on the trip, Max, is a splendid photographer and is keeping a blog at
experiencingdharamsala.blogspot.com which has some great pictures to check out! Keep your eyes on this blog for an upcoming smorgasbord of flora and fauna that will hopefully make you as happy as it makes me!