Friday, October 10, 2008

The Hidden Heaven of the Tibetans - Mundgod

Mundgod, also known as Mini Tibet, is located at the suburbs of Karnataka, with the most number of Tibetans out of all the Tibetan settlement all over the world. Looking at the outstretched lush greeneries on both the sides of the highway, one will not expect a small town to be hidden amongst the greens. There lives the Tibetans for the past 40 years in Doeguling Tibetan Refugee Settlement.

I have been wanting to go to Mundgod since last year when I found out about this place from a mandarin speaking Tibetan monk who got admitted in the Surgery Ward. Finally, we made a trip there yesterday. 9 of us. It took 2 and a half hours to reach.

We first visited the newly built Drepung Loseling Monastery, which was inaugurated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in January this year. My Tibetan friend invited me to attend the inauguration but too bad i went back to Malaysia. The monastery simply looks majestic, with red pillars and a very large shrine hall. There are statues of different god and goddess in the shrine hall, with Lord Buddha sitting in the middle. We offered white robes (Khata offering). The robe is then placed in front of a cardboard model of Dalai Lama on his throne. (I'm not sure if we are offering it to him or to Lord Buddha. But I guess as long as there's sincerity in the heart, what makes the difference?)

We then went for lunch in Lama Society Restaurant. They served Indian food. Was expecting Tibetan food, but my senior who came for the 4th time said they serve beef and we all don't eat beef. And so happen that the veg dumpling stall is closed. As all of us were hungry, we didn't really mind it. Everyone got excited to see chopsticks on the table. I guess, eventhough some of us don't know how to hold chopsticks properly, but seeing something like this just make us feel at home. And the menu is written in Tibetan Language. Cool huh...

There, we met a very helpful lama who could speak fluent mandarin. He came from Sichuan and has been here for almost a decade. He helped us order food and my senior started chatting with him. I was interested in their conversation, but I'm not sure if i could join them as I presume Tibetans are conservative and the females shouldn't talk too much. So i could only eavesdrop. Thanks to my senior for being extremely sociable and managed to make friend with anyone in just 1 minute. It turned out that this lama became our tour guide, showed us 2 very important places, where a normal tourist wouldn't have a chance to visit.

After lunch we headed to Gaden Jangtse Theosam Norling Monastery. The sky looked extremely beautiful. The shrine hall and the statues looked almost similar to the previous monastery. Later I realized that in fact they are all similar. All monasteries have the symbolic thing on the roof -- 2 deers (i think) and a wheel. (I haven't had time to find out about this, sorry if i give wrong info)

The lama then took us to a house, which was where an old lama used to stay previously. This house is now frequent by many pilgrims. Why so? It is said that this lama is clinically declared dead but his mind is still in a meditative state. The surprising thing is there is no sign of decomposition until his meditative state has ceased, which was 3 weeks later. Samadhi is the word they used to describe it. They have now put him in a big wooden squarish box which i assume he is in a sitting position inside.We paid tribute to him and sat down in the house to listen to another English speaking lama tell us more about this lama and Mundgod. Didn't snap any pics here. I don't think we should.

Our 'tour guide' lama was still with us. My senior was again talking to him. I sat beside him to listen to what he says. He kept saying that his mandarin isn't so good. But i personally thinks that his mandarin is good. Good enough to convey his thoughts. It was just a casual talk but I gained a lot from it. And I would say it was my most pleasurable moment in this trip.Will write about it more in my next post.

The last destination is Drepung Gomang Monastic University. There is also a big shrine hall, basically it is also like all other monastery. On the top floor is H.H. Dalai Lama's room and his conference room. We managed to enter and look around. Thanks to our 'tour guide' lama. We were told that there is a room for him in every monastery. For him to stay whenever he comes. (But so far, he has only been to Mundgod twice. Once in 1995 and once in 2008.)
This trip wasn't anything exciting or adventurous. It was simply pleasant. Just pleasant. Being there makes you feel calm, no burden, no troubles. The streets are not busy,no litter, no paan, no spitted sputum lying aroun like what we get in Belgaum. There are not many vehicles. You will only see many monks dressed in their traditional maroon-coloured robes on the streets, whether young or old. Perhaps another factor is the faces. Majority are tibetans. We all look-alike. So we don't feel like we are in a foreign place at all.

I'll definitely go back again. I will.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Hari Raya Open House - part 2

shabbi, priyanka and me

prisy and priyanka

abhishek bachan lookalike and me


my batchmates

all the guests

my chinese juniors

some of the many girls

Hari Raya Open House

the best dress for male is won my avinash nair

this is us with the female best dressed- datin prisaana ramakrishnan

girls

me

Sunday, October 05, 2008

The Making of 'Erin and her Cheongsam'

The hari raya open house is today.
On the invitation card, one of the events scheduled was ‘Best Dress’.
I guess everyone is attracted to this, especially the girls. Or should I say only the girls.
All planning of what traditional dress to wear, cracking their head, went shopping for material, hunting for tailors who are willing to make baju kebaya or baju kurung.

As for me, hmmm…
I’m not sure if I’m excited over the ‘Best Dress’ thing…i guess not... but I simply got excited, simply want to join the fun and dress up a little. Wanted to wear kebaya, but I left my saree material back home, so I din want to get another new material. Didn’t have baju kurung also.
So, my final decision is…. ‘Cheongsam’!

This is kind of a big thing for me…because I have to go on diet, in order to... errr... look better in the cheongsam…
(Must portray the beauty and elegance of this traditional dress of the Chinese culture maa… cannot bring disgrace to the ancient Chinese culture)
So, basically…all I need to do is to make sure that there’s no excessive unnecessary adipose spare tyre…But I only have 1 week’s time…Gosh!

I don’t remember when i started it. I didn’t really plan it out. And I know the way I ‘diet’ is really unhealthy.
I skip meals, but I still eat breakfast. (It’s a must) I eat lesser, I don’t go for non-veg, except for my lung-fung soup. I drink glucose to give me energy, not always though. (Not sure if that really helps.) No time for more exercise, so I force myself to do sit up. First day, 100 times… till my abdominal muscles ache, next day have to cut down…but still do about 20-30 times… and that goes on for the rest of they day.

But I didn’t diet till pengsan loh…thank god... still fit and energetic and conscious.
Had 1 episode of hyperacidity. I could feel some burning sensation in the stomach and oesophagus. Relfux? GERD? Immediately ran to cafĂ© and ate something right after class. Damn scared. Sometimes experience postural giddiness/ hypotension. And that’s when I know I shouldn’t go on like this anymore.

Meanwhile, my evil friends sabotage my plan… keep tempting me with food… ask me to go dinner with them and make me be their DBKL like how I always do. Looking at the food, being their so-called growing child who requires adequate nutrition, always eating double the portion of what a guy eats.. haih… I gave in lah… but not during yesterday’s dinner! I can’t let my effort all this while go down the drain. I have to disclose something private and confidential here. My stomach has quite a big capacity. And each time after eating a proper meal, it will enlarge to the size of gravid ‘tummy’, like a pregnant woman, with a fundal height of 36 weeks. I’m not kidding!

Once in a while, I was thinking that should I just give up and wear a baju kurung, so that I can continue stuffing myself with the many many delicious foods that they are serving during the open house. In the end I thought I will stick to my plan, which will only end after this whole thing finishes. Meaning, I won’t be able to eat much later coz I can’t let my tummy bulge out and my cheongsam tear. (like those heroes in the cartoon, when they need to fight, the muscles will undergo hypertrophy in just one second and the clothes will be torn into pieces.)

Well well… I’m gonna get ready for the open house now. Of course, don’t expect an adipose-less hour glass figure. At least I manage to get rid of those spare tyre. This is for plain self satisfaction. And I’m not going to do it ever again in my entire life (maybe for my wedding I will, if I manage to.) It’s TORTURE for me, a pertumbuhan terbantut growing child not being able to eat u know…

Stay tuned…