Kundun

Kundun

-Brian Mendonça

The oracle warns

of imminent danger

As the black-necked crane

rebukes the dragon.

Prayer drums twirl

in fervent supplication

as the Rinpoche intones

Adso’s bequest.

From the land of the high snows

comes the god-king

Regent of Avalokiteswara

The Four Friends pose

at TCV

As ping meets pong

on a rock-cut slab.

Yesterday’s Times

tanghka’s the thumpa.

 The destiny of a people

Lives in the heart of a boy.

(Tibetan Children's Village

Dharamsala, 2000)

Glossary

Kundun:  a film on the life of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso by Martin Scorsese
Black-necked crane: symbol of Tibetan resistance to the Chinese occupation of  Tibet in 1950
Adso: novice in Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose.

Land of the high snows: Reference to John Avedon's book  In Exile from the Land of High Snows

Four friends: Buddhist painting of four creatures standing under a tree - the monkey on the elephant; the squirrel on the monkey; the bird on the squirrel plucking the fruit. 

Ping meets Pong: ping-pong diplomacy

Tanghka: sacred Buddhist frescoes depicting tantric antecedents of Tibetan Buddhism and lives of saint poets like Milarepa (1040-1143)

Thumpa: Tibetan dough roll to be had with gravy

Destiny of a people: caption for Kundun recalling the boy-king in Berolucci's Last Emperor.

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A recent collection of short stories from Tibet took me once more to Dharamsala, Kullu-Manali, Pokhara, and Delhi. To look at these places through the eyes of the story tellers was to retrace my own journey as a poet. When mum passed on in 2004 it was the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (1992) by Sogyal Rinpoche that I carried with me to Kathmandu.

The stories depict the life of Tibetan refugees across the world after the Chinese occupied Tibet in 1949.  The stories are written originally in English, Tibetan and Chinese languages. The last two are translated into English. 

In ‘The Silence’ Jamyang Norbu tells of Nyima, a shepherd who plays the piwang – a two-stringed fiddle. Nyima, whose parents were Drokpas, falls in love with Pema but is denied as her father objects to her marrying a dumb person.  

‘Under the Shadow’ by Bhuchung  Sonam is about the hacking down of the soul tree in the middle of a school campus in Manali and the havoc this causes. 

‘Nyima Tsering’s Tears’ by Woeser internationalizes the Tibetan issue by setting the story in Oslo, Norway. Buddhist monk Nyima -- looking ostentatious in his maroon robes -- is rebuked for living in Chinese-occupied Tibet. 

‘The Flight of the Wind Horse’ by Pema Tsewang Shastri is story about two girls who have the same name but stay far apart in Tibet – one in Lhasa, and the other in Lithang in Eastern Tibet. 

A writer goes to a retreat centre run by a lama in the Catskill Mountains, New York, hoping he will complete his book in ‘The Season of Retreats’ by Tsering Namgyal Khortsa. He meets a beautiful girl there and questions his purpose in life. 

Indian Airlines flight IC 814 was hijacked enroute to Kathmandu on 24^th December 1999.  The narrator in ‘The Connection’ by Bhuchung Sonam, knows one of the suspected hijackers. He finds himself being interrogated when he goes to the local police station to apply for an IC (Identity Certificate).

In ‘Snow Pilgrimage’ by Kyabchen Dedrol,  Lhamo from Gota joins the house of red lights and meets a handsome stranger.

Finally, the white crane wings its way overhead in ‘Hunter’s Moon’ by Jamyang Norbu. The old man looked up and then closed his eyes . . . he knew it had come to take him away.
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Old Demons, New Deities: Contemporary Stories from Tibet, edited by Tenzin Dickie. (New Delhi: Navayana, 2017). Available at Central Library, Patto, Panjim, Goa. Pic courtesy amazon(dot)in. Updated 27 August 2021.