The Mibby Post

Date: April 11th 2005

Hey Matt and Steve,

I know Matt has editorial perogatives for the Mibby, but perhaps the subscribers would enjoy reading some of the adventures from McCleod Ganj. Okay Matt?

Jamie and I met and Autralian couple on the night bus from Delhi who had accidentially booked two rooms at different hotels, so we walked into the popular "Green Hotel" and our new friend said we have a "reservation." The Tibetan guy behind the desk laughed. No such thing as reservations I guess. We got a room anyway.

McLeod Ganj is a tourist town. There are world travelers on every street: Isrialis, Germans, French, Slovenians (one anyway), Australians. At first I felt that there were just too many tourists, but soon realized that this has a positive aspect in that it balances the division between Indians and Tibetans and foreigners, allowing numerous conversations, a freer flow of information about what is going on in town, and the sellers and beggers don't have to work so hard to get your money, because there is another tourist right behind you.

The town is situated in the foothills of the Himilayas. There are a few snow-covered, magnificent peaks visible beyond the also very steep green hills (mountains by our standards). The nearer hills are covered with large coniferous trees, houses nestled into their flanks in a thickening carpet of dwellings until you are in the warren of buildings of Dharamsala itself on the valley below. McLeod Ganj's streets are narrow and jambed with taxis, trucks, pedistrians, scooters, motorcycles, dogs and cows. Every inch of street-side has a small stall selling Tibetan religious articles, scarves, jewelry, fruit, rice and dal, haircuts (that include a head and shoulder massage), Ayuvedic massage, yoga classes, and the ever present Chai. The shops are generally the size of your average American bedroom, or closet in some cases. It is very dangerous to walk of the streets without paying close attention to the wheeled vehicles, and other moving things. I've jumped onto the sidewalk to avoid trucks numerous times, been nearly stepped on by a cow, and almost struck by a flying motorcycle, escaping the collision only because a Welsh guy pulled me out of the way.

On Friday night we met up with a group of English travelers, and I started playing guitar on the streets. Passers by began to gather to listen. People were clapping. Our German/Turkish friend Olgam began dancing with a guy from New Zealand, and we had a party going. People on the street were asking us the next day where we would play again that night. The chai stall owners began nodding to us. Another Indian guy asked if I would like to play at a little cafe on a street above, but we never found it.

Saturday was a particularly intense day. A few days earlier Jamie and I were invited back to a little apartment by a young Tibetan woman who had walked out of Tibet just three months earlier, and who wanted to learn English. This young woman was living with an Australian girl, an Indian guy, and another Tibetan man named Tenzin who knew some English. Early on Saturday evening I was chatting with Tenzin as the cars and people swarmed around us, when another Tibetan man, quite drunk, reeking of alcohol, came up to us and began gesturing, bowing, laughing, and firing away in rapid Tibetan. Tenzin explained to me that the man wanted us to come to his room. I was a little hesitant, because of his condition, but Tenzin said we should go for a little while, so I agreed.

The room was down a rank set of stairs, dark, smelling of piss and burning sage. The room was tiny and jambed with empty bottles, cases of CD's (the man, like many others made his living selling on the street), food packages, a little gas stove, a table and a bed. We sat on the bed as the man staggered and struggled to make us butter tea, gesturing and talking all along. Tenzin was translating as well as he could. The man had walked out of Tibet just six weeks earlier. He had spent three years in a Chinese prison for having a book by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He began to cry, to show me his scars from where the Chinese had tortured him, pulling up his pant legs and shirt, turning over his lower lip, pounding his chest. He was 39 years old. He had left a wife and three daughters in Tibet. I choked down the butter tea, ate a little hunk of bread. The man was crying and bowing, saying that they would fight the Chinese, but His Holiness said not to, that I should always do what his holiness said. I was so moved by this event that I went back to the hotel feeling horribly sad.

That night, after hanging out on a roof-top, we heard about a "Trance Party" from some Indian guy we had met earlier. We imagined a little international circle of people singing the cultural equivelent of "We Shall Overcome" around a little fire in the woods, or on the roof of a guest house. We agreed to go even though it was already midnight. Jamie, Olgan (our Turkish/German friend) and I were led by these two Indian guys (after we bought them a bottle of cheap Indian whiskey) up the side of a steep mountain, in the dark, for three hours! We could hear the party on the steep mountainside above, and it didn't sound a bit like "cumbyah my Lord." We realized that our guides were drunk and lost, so we just went cross country up the mountain, following the sound of the music. A guy stopped us in the dark and demanded 50 rupees as entry fee. We detected a lack of conviction, and because so many encounters in India are followed by a scam, we refused and hiked on up the mountain. We were stopped again, this time even closer to the strange, bussing sound of the music, and this time the fee was 100 rupees, and the guy was really serious. "What for?" we asked. "To cover the expense of dragging the sound equipment up the mountain." he said. We payed.

What we found on the little flat spot on the mountain was like some strange dream. An international Grateful Dead concert fueled by halucinegens, hashish, and "Trance" music, a European dirivation of House Music: a frenetic, electronic beat with no melody, like a conga party on a cocktail of speed and steroids. There was a crowd of about fifty people writhing around a fire, milling around. The sound of the generator was completely drowned by the pounding beat of the music, so loud it shocked you. There were some indians selling beer and water at exhorbanent prices, little side fires with circles of wild looking travelers huddled around them. The stars were out, and the lights in the valley traced the contour of the foothills and the valley below. Jamie, Olgan and I were seperated, and I just began to dance. At first I really hated the music, and felt like the whole scene was just too bizarre, but after a while I just moved to the music in the mass of people jostling around the fire. The sense of seperation between us began to fade; we were one moving mass.

At one point the music stopped, so thinking it was over, and inspired by the continuing beat of a few guys squatted in the dust playing conga drums, I went to get my guitar where I had stashed it in the bushes below a stone wall. It was dark away from the fire, and I couldn't find the guitar. I saw a Spainish guy I had met who had a little flashlight. "Hey, could you toss me that light?" I yelled. He threw it, and not realizing how close to the stone wall I was, I ran to catch it. I tripped over the wall, of the far side of which was a three foot drop. I landed directly on my face, nearly breaking my nose, scratching my cheek and my forehead. I was shocked, wondering if I was really hurt. "Hey are you okay?" yelled the Spaniard. I was okay, but sore and bleeding from several places. I went back to the fire and continued to dance until the sun was up. People began to tack visible shape, instead of just being dancing figures. The dust, the blankets wrapped around shoulders, the dread-locks, and the asian faces were now discernable. I rested for awhile with a group around a small side fire. The dancing was still going on when I walked off the mountain at seven in the morning. "India..." People were saying: "Only in India."

As I walked down the mountain rode I saw monkeys on a burning garbage pile, and a Tibetan man singing an amazing song, standing on the side of the road, projecting his voice into the valley below, with such facinating vocal power. Oh, man...India...

J.C.



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