On any quiet morning, the reverberations of “Om mani padme hum” seem to rise from the belly of the Himalayas, a chant as eternal as the mountains and as unchanging. They seep into the low-key bustle of locals setting up shop, roadside vendors releasing the steam from the day’s first batch of momos, groups of young monks marching in their deep yellow and maroon robes.
A sudden gust of icy wind lifts a robe, revealing a bright football jersey. His companion balances a prayer wheel in one hand with a cellphone in the other. In the distance, temple bells are ringing; closer by, the Internet parlour blares out hip-hop beats.
Maybe it is the thin mountain air, but reality always seems slightly out of sync in McLeodganj. If India lives in many centuries, this hill station crams in cultures, chronologies and characters with the insouciance of the mighty Dhauladhars themselves. They have seen them all: The British, who established a garrison town in the 1850s (the name comes from David McLeod, then lieutenant governor of Punjab), the Indians, who kept floating in and out but never made it home, emphasizing the separateness by calling it “Upper” Dharamsala and, then, the Tibetans, unerringly zeroing in on a centre of calm to heal their uprooted lives.
Little Lhasa is likely to make its presence felt at the most unexpected moments. Sitting on a bench on the first floor of the temple in the Thekchen Choling complex, I watch Kangra valley take its cue from the setting sun and begin to wind down for the day. Loud shouts from the temple grounds below disrupt the peace with complete disregard for the Zen-seeking tourist: “Answer me quickly!” followed by a quick clap, an impatient snap of the fingers. For young monks immersed in their evening studies, learning and sharing knowledge through the ancient art of rhetoric, it is only a sudden shower that sends them scurrying indoors— but there’s no respite from their lessons till nightfall.
Tech savvy: A monk fiddles with his mobile phone at the monastery.
Rigour informs life here in ways that make disciplined urban lifestyles look like soft options. As I watch, a frail old woman prostrates herself on the ground in the direction of the sanctum sanctorum, arms stretched in supplication, and rises to complete one circle of prayer. And she does this again and again and again, and she does this every day, evidence of a level of fitness that city slickers such as me can only dream of.