Re-Connecting

Walking down Jogibara road today and I was greeted by a smiling face and a large umbrella tent. Jake! Our fellow escapee from Darjeeling! The world is small, and lives continue to connect without plans and without coincidence. We sat in a small hut of a chai shop and swapped stories. Jake and Shreb had spent three days stranded in a local monastery (although stranded definitely implies negative connotations and with the bottle of rum and Tibetan words to be spoken that is clearly misleading) before travelling to Kathmandu. They were welcomed in Kathmandu by another strike. So Jake decided to leave and now he is here. Studying Tibetan and walking and talking. He told me stories of others who had hiked 37 days from Siliguri to Kathmandu and then resumed his role as tour guide and took me on a walking tour of Mcleod Ganj. Within only a matter of hours the town revealed monasteries above shops and behind hotels, we walked between roughly cobbled streets wedged between simple houses packed along the sloping hills. We visited the Dali Lama's official residence, the Tsuglagkhang Complex, where he explained the meanings of certain Buddhist symbolism while apologising for not being an expert in Thanka art. He patiently answered the hundreds of questions which popped into my head at nearly every corner. He explained the local exile dialect – which is incomprehensible to newly arrived refugees but which helps the confusion of tongues from around Tibet to communicate in India. The exile dialect is called ra ma lu which literally translates into goat female goat.

Once again I am amazed at how I continue to feel so at 'home' at places I have never visited before and so far away from my 'origins'. The persistent question asked by nearly every traveller of “where am I from” needs to be re-evaluated for now it holds little relevance to me. At the moment I have come from Kashmir, before then Ladakh, before then Manali, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangkok, Tonsai, Koh Tao and so on. New friends appear as old ones leave, old friends stay waiting to be re discovered. Connections continue – in/visible.