At 2.25 we are advised that he will be coming. I arm myself with a katag, a thin white scarf, which is a mark of greeting and respect among Tibetans. Try not to dwell on the fact that I am about to embark on a 40-minute talk with the spiritual leader of one of the great religions and can’t remember a single one of the questions I rehearsed in my room last night. The only warning I am given is to avoid asking specific questions about his current relations with the Chinese. Two of his closest advisers will sit in on the interview, to help translate, they say, but I know they’re there to keep an eye on us.
The 14th Dalai Lama, born Llamo Thondup, the son of peasant farmers, confirmed as the incarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama when only two years old, arrives without fuss or fanfare, entering the room unescorted and looking pretty good for a 68-year-old who must have shaken a thousand hands already today. His presence is powerful, but in no way intimidating.
He pauses in the doorway, bringing his hands together and bowing his head towards me in traditional Buddhist greeting. His skin is clear and healthy, his complexion barely lined. He holds his head slightly forward, giving the impression of someone who likes to listen as much as command. Pushing his maroon and yellow robes back up onto his left shoulder, he comes towards me. His arms, like those of any Buddhist monk, are bare, save for a chunky watch on his right wrist, and noticeably hairless. Almost brushing aside my offer of the katag, he gives me a firm Western handshake. His grip is strong and his palms cool. He sets me at ease straightaway, grinning broadly.
‘Your face very familiar because of TV.’
Well, what can I say to the man who has stared at me from his book cover this past week.
‘You watch the BBC then?’
‘Practically every day.’
I’m genuinely surprised. This is a monk I’m talking to.
‘Because I have more trust.’
‘Yes?’
‘And…some beautiful documentaries on film, including your own sort of film.’
My head is swimming. This is turning into some fantasy commercial, and there seems to be no stopping him.
‘And sometimes…I wish to journey with you,’ says the Dalai Lama. ‘I could see many places, and meet different people.’
I can’t remember the exact details of the fact sheet I was given earlier, but I think that, since he first travelled outside India in 1973, the Dalai Lama has been to 50 countries or more.
‘From my childhood I always have curiosity…to know more about different people, different culture, and as a Buddhist monk I also, you see, have an interest to learn more about different religious traditions.’
I tell him we’re going to Tibet next.
‘But I don’t think you’d want to come with us.’
He laughs very hard at this, then says quietly and seriously, ‘Although I’m here outside Tibet, not inside Tibet, as a Tibetan I want to extend my welcome to you to visit my old country.’
There’s pathos in this remark. A reminder that he speaks for 120,000 Tibetans living in exile.
I ask what we will find there, what may have changed most.
He cites Chinese immigration. Tibetans are a minority in Lhasa now.
‘These people find it very, very difficult to preserve their own cultural heritage. So that’s on the negative side.’
Unexpectedly, he picks out the modern buildings in Lhasa as a positive, but is worried that the big new blocks are being filled up by Chinese, not Tibetan workers. The unskilled Chinese make money more easily.
Another positive is, he says, the growing interest in spirituality in China. There is great interest in Buddhism in ‘China proper’, as he calls it. Especially, he notes, among the richer Chinese.
He’s engagingly happy to talk about everyday life.
‘One week ago I return from United States. Sleep not much problem, but my stomach still on American time.’
He pats his midriff.
‘Toilet usually morning, but nowadays it’s evening.’
He beams mischievously.
‘That can’t change through prayer.’
I learn that he gets up at 3.30 every morning, but goes to bed around 8.30, and that he recently lost his temper, in a dream.
I ask him if he ever loses his temper in real life.
‘Sometimes yes, but not remain long.’
For his relatively robust health he thanks his parents for giving him a good body and his general peace of mind.
‘Sleep without sleeping pill, happy without tranquillizer.’
For a world leader he seems extraordinarily well-balanced, natural and unaffected. His emotions are spontaneous, his judgements carefully pragmatic. He would justify the violence of a Second World War or a Korean War on the grounds of just causes, but not Vietnam, nor I sense Iraq.
He feels that not enough was done to negotiate a peaceful solution with Iraq. He suggests that some council of wise men should perhaps have gone to Saddam Hussein. Those he admires and would have included, along with Muslim leaders, are Vaclav Havel, Bishop Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter.
He believes it is very important to enlist with everyone, high or low, on a personal level. To communicate the positive.
Does he worry about his own safety when he travels?
‘Generally no. Friendly atmosphere should immediately happen. When I’m passing through a street I always smile, when I look at another…nice smile. But then sometimes you see the other side, no smile.’
It all begins to sound a bit Mary Poppins when I write this down, but there is nothing remotely weak or woolly about the man himself. He just doesn’t do cynicism.
We talk on well over our allotted 40 minutes, and even when an hour’s up he is happy to pose for a photograph. (I have it on the wall beside me as I write up these notes. The Dalai Lama is in the middle, clasping Nigel’s hand on one side and mine on the other. The crew are spread out on either side and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this hard-worked unit looking so happy.)
The only sign of any tension is after he’s gone, when both the Dalai Lama’s private secretaries lay aside their two-way radios and pitch in to help us de-rig our lamps, wires and cables. The next interview (with an Israeli crew) is already 20 minutes late.
Day Forty : Srinagar, Kashmir
An hour and a half after the azan (the Muslim call to prayer) has woken me, replacing the barking of dog packs as the sound of the night, I’m reclining like a maharajah’s mistress on the soft cushions of a long flat-bottomed boat with a canopy above my head. Behind me a small, tightly built figure is propelling me slowly forward with a single paddle.
A heron perches elegantly on a thin pole, ignoring us as we slip slowly through lotus beds towards a robust stone bridge beyond which I can dimly see and hear a clutter of canoes and the distant sound of voices.
My hooded skiff, known as a shikara, has an English name board fitted above the bows. ‘Stranger In Paradise’, it reads, and it’s very suitable.
Stranger I certainly am and Dal Lake in Srinagar, long, wide and lazy, with high mountains protecting its northeasterly shore, would give many paradises a run for their money. Except that this one is in Kashmir, where, nowadays, heaven and hell come pretty close.
To get to this idyllic place we have had to undergo tighter security checks than anywhere else on the journey. Police and army posts, baggage and permit checks dot the road to Srinagar with increasing frequency.
It’s not cosmetic, either. Within a couple of miles of this aqueous paradise 16 people have been killed by bomb and bullet in this last month alone, and to that figure can be added another 60,000 who have died in Kashmir since the conflict began.
Why?
In 1947, when India and Pakistan became independent, Kashmir was a Princely State of India, ruled by Maharajah Hari Singh. All 565 Princely States, comprising 100 million people, were required to sign instruments of accession to the newly formed country. What made Kashmir different was that 80 per cent of its population was Muslim.