Tibetans usher in their new year

The Tibetan community in Mumbai wishes "blessings and good luck" as Losar, the Tibetan New Year, arrives

As children, Losar, the Tibetan New Year, began not at the stroke of midnight or dawn. It began somewhere between, when in new clothes and shoes, my sister and me, carrying chima (a mound of barley which is offered to people on the occasion) and changu (alcohol brewed from millets), went from house to house in our little town of Kalimpong (Darjeeling), rousing people from their sleep and wishing them a prosperous new year. No one minded. It was Losar after all. And in return, we were given money to celebrate. And celebrations carried on for 15 days.



Strictly speaking, the joys of Losar did not even begin on the first day. It began two days before with what Tibetans call Nishugu (29th of the 12th month in the Tibetan calender). That night, Tibetans eat guthuk, a kind of noodle with broth. It is mixed with dough balls that resemble a peja (Tibetan book), or contain cotton, charcoal pieces, chili, etc., each one foretelling what the following year would be like for the diner.

The one who got the peja was the most envied, for he would be the brainy one. If father got cotton, we would say, we always knew his soft-as-cotton heart, and if he got chili, we would, as equally, say, no wonder his mouth is so vile.

But celebrating Losar, far from home is difficult. I haven't celebrated Losar in five years. And I am not alone. As Losar arrived yesterday, Tenzing Choeying, 23, was getting ready for his first day at work in Mumbai. The son of a tea-seller in Gangtok, he worked as a tour guide before collecting enough money to pursue hotel management. Today he is a flight steward.

"For the first time in my life, I am going to be away from Losar festivities. It used to be so much fun, especially Nishugu," he says, remembering how his father using dough made a figure of a female demon. In Tibetan households, after their dinner on Nishugu, fathers make such a figure and pray that all evil and disease leave the house along with her. Shouting, "Get out", the family will then take that figure to a point where three roads meet, so if she tries to return, she will be confused on which road to take.

"During Losars in Mumbai, I almost replicate everything we Tibetans do in our neighbourhoods, except Nishugu," says Tenzin Gyalpo, 25, who along with his sister, lives in Goregaon. "I would make khapsays (Tibetan biscuits), chima, changu, everything. However, if I make a demon figure and shout 'Get out', people will think I am a pagan-worshipper," he says.

But while the Tibetan community came out to celebrate Losar, festivities were tinged with somberness. Accusations of spying against the religious head Ugyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Karmapa Lama, has hurt the community. Gyalpo says, "The biggest fear was that the suspicion against the Karmapa Lama would negatively impact the support that Tibetans have traditionally received on the issue of Free Tibet."

To put it straight, the CBI recently issued a clean chit to the Karmapa Lama, agreeing that the money found were donations from devotees and not handed by the Chinese government. The reason why the money was 'stashed' was because the pleas that the two trusts, created by Karmapa Office of Administration (Saraswati Charitable Trust and Karmae Garchen Trust), handle the donations went unheeded. As a result, money just accumulated.

And the reason why his aides wanted to build a monastery for him in Dharamsala was because he has not been granted permission to travel to Sikkim and assume the seat of the Karmapa Lama in Rumtek Monastery. He, in fact, has been living in Gyuto Tantric Monastic University, an institution belonging to the Gelug sect. To put it crudely, it is like having the Archbishop of Canterbury live in the Vatican.

"Now that the Karmapa Lama is not under investigation, we can celebrate Losar," says Gyalpo. As for my sister and me, two weeks ago, we received a bagful of roasted barley. And for the first time in five years, we prepared chimma and ushered in Losar.