The last few days, everyone could witness all over Mcleod the posters advertising “ The Biggest Music Concert of 2007” with the poster choc a bloc with about 16 artists who would be performimg on the day of the concert—the 4th day of losar.
Everybody was quite excited about the show because it looked like a grand show. Losar at Dhasa is quite a boring affair. In fact, Mcleod looked more alive and exciting the 2 or 3 days before losar. The streets were full with all kinds of people shopping for losar and sellers selling every kind of things…most from Tibet selling Chinese clothes, shoes, bags, sweets etc.
It’s quite ironical to see these things of Chinese origin being sold and bought with great glee right under the nose of the Tibetan govt. in exile and the office of the TYC. And the funniest thing was both the buyers and sellers are of Tibetan origin. Maybe this can also be considered as a step towards maintaining an atmosphere for peace negotiations to go forward between Tibetan govt. in exile and the Peoples Republic of China!!
The three days of losar was quite uneventful affair ;maybe because we couldn’t get the blessing of His Holiness. So, everyone was quite excited about this musical concert. No one minded much about the 100 Rs. ticket.
Everybody was quite excited about the show because it looked like a grand show. Losar at Dhasa is quite a boring affair. In fact, Mcleod looked more alive and exciting the 2 or 3 days before losar. The streets were full with all kinds of people shopping for losar and sellers selling every kind of things…most from Tibet selling Chinese clothes, shoes, bags, sweets etc.
It’s quite ironical to see these things of Chinese origin being sold and bought with great glee right under the nose of the Tibetan govt. in exile and the office of the TYC. And the funniest thing was both the buyers and sellers are of Tibetan origin. Maybe this can also be considered as a step towards maintaining an atmosphere for peace negotiations to go forward between Tibetan govt. in exile and the Peoples Republic of China!!
The three days of losar was quite uneventful affair ;maybe because we couldn’t get the blessing of His Holiness. So, everyone was quite excited about this musical concert. No one minded much about the 100 Rs. ticket.
On the 21st, the day of the concert the weather gods turned mischievous. It was cloudy, and raining off and on the whole day…and not to mention the bitter cold. But still nobody minded.
Everyone waited for 6.30pm to arrive so as to enjoy the concert. We arrived at about 6 pm at TIPA-the venue for the concert…the ground was already teeming with boys and girls. The weather was still not behaving but the concert was still to go on in the open. So we waited …it was a long wait.By that time the ground became almost full with boys and girls.
I wondered where have they all come from because whenever there is some sort of demonstration in support of freedom of a political prisoner or against the Chinese Policy then we can almost count on our 10 fingers the young boys and girls participating in such things.
That was quite a sad thing to realize. Even in this cold and inhospitable weather we bear all hardships just to have a few moments of fun but I wonder how much of these same people will turn up if it was announced there is going to be a peace march or gathering of support for our own nation. It is quite heart rending to even think on it because I fear that not even a single boy or girl at the concert will turn up for such a thing. That’s quite a terrible thing for a nation’s youth to be doing!!
The weather gods were also not pleased , I think ,with the Tibetan youth –although the rain couldn’t deter the spectators from turning up but it was successful in spoiling the concert by making the mike system unworkable in this weather. So we all returned home disappointed and upset. The organizers promised another show the next day…lets see whether that too gets washed down by the rain!!
The highlight of the disappointing concert was that non-Tibetan foreign woman singing in pure Tibetan without any trace of her mother tongue's accent!! The contrast was so glaring ..but I wonder if anybody noticed at all!! There she was looking so beautiful in the traditional Amdo chupa (Amdo being the region where His Holiness belong to) singing an Amdo song.And there on the same stage were our own youth singing in Tibetan but sounding more like a foreign version; what with the rappings and the beats at every pause and wearing clothes probably inspired by those rappers being shown on MTVs and its ilk!
Will that be our future one day? Our culture and tradition being presented to us by non -Tibetans who take more interest in them than our own people… one day we have to go to these same foreigners to learn about our own culture!!
I hope His Holiness never gets to see such a day…how heartbroken he will be!!
Posts
