A Window No Doors

She sings for the mountains alone, so they say. Clad in a chuba , in grey and silver, she springs to her feet and begins to sing the nomadic tunes in her dialect. Mesmerized, even the silence of the night wakes up to her music as the logs are being added to the fire. The man in the red bandana, popular to this land for his activism, erupts to the calm. He is a poet, a writer, and a refugee born with a ‘capital R’. He lives on his poetry and like a salesman sells it along the road. The words in that book are the tales of separation from his land, the land that lives in his heart, where he belongs, and where he cannot be. Tenzin recites to us ‘When it rains in Dharamshala’ a poem he wrote about the monsoons in this town that he says are a waterfall of its own will that pours like ‘cats, dogs and donkeys!’ The very next morning, it rains on us. “It is true. In Tibet, sometimes we whistle to make the wind blow." nods Thinley (name changed) at breakfast, an undergraduate like m...

 (What do I know about five rupees) Late Evening. Vishwavidyalaya metro station. Walking on the pavements of the University Campus, crossing the Chattra Marg, and the red lights, I was just taking a stroll to kill time. Thought I’d save a few pennies and lose some calories at the same time. But just walking half the way, as my destination was vijaynagar, I walked up to a rickshaw. “Bhaiya, vijaynagar?” “Tees rupaiya” (Thirty rupees) Usually it is just twenty rupees, so I disagreed and continued to walk ahead as I didn’t mind walking a bit further as I wanted to kill some more time. It didn’t make a difference to me. But then the rickshaw wallah called out- “Accha, pachchees rupaiya” (Twenty-five rupees) I thought it still to be a bit high up the price but then I thought I better take the rickshaw as I was also a bit tired. The streets are a little empty and dull without the usual student crowd these days. Some of the roads have been reconstructed. The new arrival...