Mcleodganj – A Traveller’s Diary

Mcleodganj is like little foreign country of India. You can see people from different countries Russia, Singapore, France, Canada, America hanging around in this small place greeting 'Namaste' to everyone on the way. Walking on the streets of Mcleodganj is entirely different experience. You can see people visiting the place not for one day or two, but for weeks or months and for few 'till visa is not over'.

Usually, some people coming to place like this create lot of noise. Travellers coming for the pursuit of peace have to find nearby places where they can spend time away from madness of mind. Some of the nearby places of such kind are Dharamkot, bhagsu, upper bhagsu.

Dharamkot is village 2 km from the city. Dharamkot is very small place, people here are very simple (Thank God) and well it has some cafes to hang around. Local people in this region are very connected to the old culture of India. Many houses has a small temple which is of different kind. Unlike public temples, which are very big in space, this temple is very small like over 2 x 2 feet area and about 5-6 feet height with low entry. You have to bend down to enter into the temple. Shape of the temple is such that it acts as a closed space for individual meditator.

Bhagsu is also small village 2 km from city square. Bhagsu has lot of tibetian people. Bhagsu has big market area and lot of things to provide including yoga, Tantric meditations, Osho meditations, gurdjieff stop techniques, music, hand crafted material, wooden material, tibetian handcrafts. Many cafes host live music on weekends.

vipassana

The moment I decided for 10 day vipassana course, first thought came to my mind was "10 days silence". Is it even possible for a person like me? But I decided to go and looked at the schedule of course and find out that "morning to evening only meditation". But still I had this feeling I had to go through this.

Day 1: 

Day begins with instructions for silence. Not just normal silence "noble silence". Noble silence means no verbal or non-verbal communication. You cannot talk or communicate with each other with gestures. Not just that when you walk your eyes should be down avoiding any sort of eye contact with others. Budha says when one look into someone's eyes there is a certain communication, exchange of energies happen between those two persons.

Day 2: 

Morning bell in morning at 4 AM woke me up. On second day, I was able to do meditation with little more ease. I shared my concerns with teacher. He was quite experienced with the technique.

Day 3: 

On this day, we continued with meditation felt like we are going against mind. Mind has certain cycles. Like in the morning 10 AM, we think about work or job. There are feeling towards our family, friends because we have not spoken to anybody. All these things keep on running in our mind but now we realize these things very clearly. An old habit of doing normal things, to keep on thinking about something is broken.

Day 4: 

Then they introduced the real vipassana meditation with 3 day preparation. For me first of all, it was hard. I felt as if lot suppressed energy within me has been released. I realized every part of my body had some suppressed energy which was released. It was such intense experience that I felt each part of my body so intensely.

Day 5: 

With vipassana continued, more and more energy is released from the body. A feeling of lightness comes in the mind. One realization which happens to mind is with food changed and regular (at fixed time), now it is easier to sit for hours in meditation. It shows a deep connection between our food, how we eat and how mind functions.

Day 6: 

On the end of each day, there is a discourse by video lectures by S N Gonenka. He is a very funny person. Over these days, listening to him through videos I felt as if certain relationship is developed with him. The best part is he would reveal the exact state through which mind is going on while doing this technique.

Day 7: 

Now it feels exhausted, it starts to feel that we are living in a different world. We are turning into some different creatures and those people outside are so free that they can go anywhere they want. Another mystery about mind is revealed. Mind needs freedom it cannot be bound at one place. It has its own mechanism.

Day 8: 

Mind starts revealing its inner hidden desires. Anger about many people starts coming on the surface. Many people, friends, relationships in the past and many emotions like anger, lust held back started to come on the surface somehow. It feels both uneasy but good both at the same time. Life comes with many choices and anger is only a choice which we can let go. And that is what we call forgiveness. I realized forgiveness is not an ability to forgive others but an ability to let go your anger and free yourself from that burden.

Day 9: 

It was declared that at the end of the day silence will be broken. Finally I was waiting for this whole silence vow to get over. Although it was silence, but I felt I was talking not to people but to life first time and not precisely talking I felt I was listening. Whole life has something to say like trees, monkeys. Friends walking on the street laughing, kids playing on the road, everything around we see has something to say, some message to convey. Only thing is that we have to learn how to listen.

Day 10: 

Silence was finally broken. Everybody was speaking, like everything is bursting out from inside. Everybody was back on their phone sharing their experience, laughing, speaking and feeling life again. In these 9 days, I felt even when I was silent but somehow I was communicating with many people. Because on the 10th day, I spoke to many people with whom I had silently spoken.

Thank you India

Mcleodganj is one of my favourite places to visit. It was about 7:30 in the morning, I was walking on the streets on the way to Dharamkot. On the way, I saw a local person typical Tibetian short height man carrying bread and milk in his hand for breakfast. He was continuously chanting some mysterious mantra. Couple of dogs in street made me look little worried. As I was hesitant to go ahead, he told me 'Don't worry, they won't bite'. That little disturbance made me closer to him and hence we started talking. I asked him 'What are you continuously chanting' He said 'om mani padme hum'. It is the mantra that is given to him by spiritual teacher Dalai Lama. In 1959, China took over their place and they got exiled from that place. He is one of the refugees who got settled down in India in 1959.

Dalai Lama got settled in Mclodgeganj and he helped his people to get settle down. He talked with government and arranged houses for everybody.

Although, I was listening to him pretending to be very intellectual and understanding but somebody got entirely uprooted from the place of their culture and that pain is still alive in their hearts after 50-55 years. It was hard to understand that pain for me. In fact, that entire culture is uprooted from its original birth place. His story was so heartfelt. So far, I had only read this kind of stories from books, newspaper, magazines. But this time it was directly coming from a person. This means, my real travelling had just begun.

'Have you seen 'Thank you India' written somewhere in this area' He said.

'Oh yes I have seen the one written at Dal Lake in Nadi.' 'Yes! It is gratitude shown by Tibetian people to India for letting us stay in your country and thank you preserving our culture.'

I saw some kids playing in the street, laughing badly doing some notorious things. Unaware of the fact that these moments of laughter is result of long struggle of few people. Sometimes I wonder how much granted do we take happiness in life, whereas it might be the result so long hard struggle of our parents, culture, society we live in.  We can only realize it when we see others in pain.

By the time his house came, he said 'Come on in, Lets have breakfast.' I said 'No! Thank you.'

Happy New Year

New Year is the time of celebration and stamps the beginning of year ahead according to Gregorian calendar. We all know historians and anthropologists would explain different cultures mark New Year at different time during the year, due to various reasons and celebrated in various ways. But what we really care about is following various trends we see around inherited from many cultures chained with many activities and sustained through ages with little bit our own creativity. This day is the time of celebration when many celebrate it at holiday spots. Many special programs run on TV. People plan parties, night outs to make that day memorable. Travel lovers roam around the world to explore new places.

Among many trends we see around, most common trend is New Year resolution. We are all obsessed with New Year resolutions. Whether we believe or not, but the idea of taking resolution fascinates everybody. Besides the basic ones like losing weight, ‘learning something new’, ‘quit smoking’. Few come up very different ones like ‘Getting organized’ or ‘reading books’. Choosing one for you gives self-esteem and sharing with friends gathers lot of respect without much of an effort.

Whatever be the case, one thing is common, dissolution of the resolution into our mind is so fast that after few days it becomes even hard to recollect what ‘the resolution’ was all about. Plenty were there in the mind at that time. Which one was finalized becomes the question. Only place it shows up when friends in a group taunt you about the resolution which you had confidently and mistakenly broadcasted to everybody at that time. They say it takes 21 days to become a habit but the resolution seems to vanish even far before that period. Finally only ‘making no resolution’ sustains for years.

But taking resolutions gives us a chance to look into ourselves, make us often conscious about the goals we want to achieve, habits we want to pursue. We all try to explore the positive side of commitments and to see the effect on our personality. Well, one might wonder commitment to oneself be most egoistic thing but one of the safest options as well. We slowly learn to ignore the honour part and grab the practical part of it and set the more realistic resolution next time.

Kasauli Trip

Our trip was born when all 7 of us got together with laughter and fun. And like every trip, our trip started with booze and songs. Whether beer or Lichi juice, everybody was intoxicated with excitement. Overnight journey was tiring. In the morning, we reached near Chandigarh. A stop was much needed, Mcdy at the highway seemed to be a good place. Refreshment after a tiring journey was more important than burger and tea.

That break almost made us ready for adventure and we could see some foothills which gave us the feeling that trip was slowly turning from travelling to touring. We stopped by a tea shop where having tea that relaxed us much more than needed. This stop was more of a luxury than a need. Our conversation slowly slipped from daily discussions to our ancient scriptures justifying the fact that we had left Delhi far behind in our mind too.

This part of our trip is called ‘waiting and looking around’. We desperately waited for our resort we booked, getting frightened at the sight of the every broken building. Finally after taking one or two long routes, we reached our claimed to be ‘far better’ place.

After a short rest at resort, we left for Kasauli. Entering Kasauli was relaxing. Passing by two beautiful girls just smiled over and it made at least this part worth it for most of us. A decent meal was absolute necessity at that moment. As planned we reached sun set point, amazing view took almost every one’s breath away.

Next day, we headed for Chandigarh. Rock Garden was the first place we visited. Although sculptures built of waste products and man-made interlinked waterfalls were great but nobody of us could digest too much of art and we quickly headed towards Sukhna lake. Sukhna lake attracts many birds, cranes, girls and therefore many creatures like us.

We were finally on our way back. We were refreshed and happy but tired and exhausted at the same time. Every trip has its own way to relax us. It touches different people in different ways. Our fight for front seat, over favourite songs made it an enjoyable as well as memorable trip.