On the way back up the hill a driveway turns sharply right, up to the Namgyal monastery, or Little Lhasa, as it’s known, where the Dalai Lama is currently in residence. An inveterate traveller, he’s just returned from a five-city tour of the US. Our appointment to see him is in two days’ time, but there is a flurry of activity around the buildings and word comes through that he is leading prayers in the temple and if we’re lucky we might be able to get in and film the ceremony. From then on everything happens very quickly. We’re introduced to one of the Dalai Lama’s private secretaries, a tall young man in immaculate grey suit, with a Tibetan waistcoat to match, who ushers us through a side entrance, up a flight of steps and through a metal detector. We’re then body-searched quite thoroughly and led up into a light, airy courtyard, half covered with a corrugated plastic sun-roof. The floor is packed with people, many of them robed and beaded Westerners, but we are led on past them to the edge of an inner area, where, surrounded by a sea of shaven-headed, saffron-robed monks, the familiar bespectacled figure of the best known Buddhist in the world, the incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Love and Great Compassion, sits on a cushioned platform leading the prayers. Every eye and ear is concentrated on him and yet he seems a modest figure, swaying slowly as he speaks and sounding profoundly weary. Occasionally he leans forward to shake a small bell.
We watch all this from a side door, not 20 feet away from him, which gives onto a stage, dominated by a statue of the Buddha and stacked with piles of sweets, biscuits and fruit such as you might find in a church at Harvest Festival. When we have finished filming we’re moved smartly away, as the prayers come to an end and the assembled throng rises to its feet and begins to move forward for a glimpse of the great man as he leaves, preceded, I notice, by a guard with a sub-machine gun.
In the crush, I lose sight of the crew and find myself at the bottom of a wide flight of stairs, with everything apparently going on above me. Then, out of the melee, the Dalai Lama appears, descending the stairs on the arms of two assistants. I step back out of the way but my retreat is blocked by a crash barrier, so I just bow my head and try to look invisible.
As he comes down off the steps I notice that the set gaze with which he intoned the prayers earlier has gone and he’s looking around him with an animated smile, seemingly delighted to make eye contact. A few feet away from me he stops, looks over in my direction and waves. I cast a quick look behind me, but there’s noone there. I look back and he’s waving again, almost as if he’d seen an old friend. I take one last quick look round then walk forward and shake his hand. I seem to have done the right thing, as he beams at me and, behind heavy dark spectacle frames, his eyes sparkle.
I mutter something about looking forward to talking to him later in the week. He nods, squeezes my hand and looks at me again in that pleased-to-see-you sort of way before moving on. The crowd, temporarily halted, passes by after him and I reassume my role as man at the crash barrier.
‘He probably did recognize you,’ says someone as we eat breakfast on the terrace of a pretty guesthouse overlooking the monastery. ‘He loves showbiz folk.’
This barbed compliment comes with little evidence other than his wearily over-quoted association with Richard Gere, who has stayed at this guesthouse and whose name appears, interestingly, among a list of sponsors of the Sulabh Public Toilets, Baths and Sanitary Complex by the temple car park. Among the other dozen or so donors listed I couldn’t help noticing the name of Mae Loo.
Public relations are important to the Tibetans, for McLeodganj is more than just temples and the Dalai Lama’s residence. It is home to a flourishing number of enterprises, political, religious and commercial, all of which are designed to demonstrate the seriousness and competence of the government in exile. Everywhere we go we are handed well-produced information sheets by well-dressed, knowledgeable and patient young men, who do a thoroughly professional job of marketing the mysteries of Tibet. I discover a perfect example of old traditions and modern delivery when I visit the Tibetan Medical and Astrology Centre. Though there are beggars at the door, inside all is clean, whitewashed and businesslike. The ground floor is more like a warehouse, with sacks of herbs coming in and boxes of medicine going out. Upstairs the astrologers work away on quietly humming computers surrounded by the intricate Buddhist paintings on cloth that they call thangkas (pronounced ‘tankers’).
Outside the window prayer flags are tied to nests of satellite dishes. One sending out messages, the other receiving them.
Knowing I was coming here, I sent details of my place and time of birth to the Astrology Centre so that they could prepare a chart for me. The service costs around PS50 a time and is available to anyone, as are the protective amulets that I notice they sell here (with instructions to wrap in yellow cloth and wear around the neck).
A young man, with curly dark hair, introduces himself as Phurbu Tsering, the astrologer in charge of my case. He is, like most of the young men here, neatly turned out in Western style, with sports jacket, jeans and Gap shirt.
He it is who has calculated my incarnation prospects. As reincarnation is one of the basic beliefs of Buddhism (the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of the last Dalai Lama, who was a reincarnation of the Dalai Lama before that, and so on), it helps to know what your chances are. There are six realms in which you can end up. God, Demi-God and Human Being are all good and Animal, Hell and Bad Spirits all less good.
With a certain amount of apprehension I open my chart, which is headed with my Tibetan birthdate, the 1st day of the 3rd month of Water-Sheep year. With mixed feelings (mainly of relief) I read on. ‘You were likely to be an elephant in your previous life, but you are going to be born as a daughter of a rich family in the West.’
Basil finds this particularly funny and is convinced that I’ll be reincarnated as one of John Cleese’s grandchildren.
The rest of the chart has mixed news. I’m told I ‘believe in honesty and logic feeling, not emotion’ and ‘never indulge in meaningless gossips and talks’. That doesn’t sound right.
Blue, red and white are my lucky colours (which presumably means I can support Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United at the same time). Thursday is my worst day, Fridays and Mondays my best and my marriage has been ‘disheartening’. How can I tell Helen this after 38 years?
Phurbu Tsering is sincere, friendly and speaks excellent English, and clearly believes in the truth of what he’s found in my chart. He takes me to one side as we leave and urges me to be particularly careful this year. He sees change and a crisis ahead. As I’m about to spend the next two months crossing the highest mountain range on earth, this is not exactly what I need to hear.
I ask Phurbu if he has had his own astrological chart made. He shakes his head. There is no record of his date or time of birth. All this information, and everything else his family owned, was left behind when his parents fled Tibet.
He smiles gravely.
‘I was born on the roadside.’
Perhaps the crown jewel of the exiles’ achievement is the Norbulingka Institute, named after the Dalai Lama’s summer palace in Lhasa, and dedicated to the preservation of Tibetan craft and culture. Once through the gates we’re in lush, beautifully ordered gardens rising gently in a series of terraces to the gold-tipped temple at the top of the hill. The paths are paved with slate slabs, and soft, gently swaying stands of bamboo are both protective and mysterious. Flowers trail round columns and arches and water flows artfully down, bubbling from gargoyle mouths into a series of fishponds. The air is charged with the constant high-pitched trill of insects.