Remembering John Lennon at Dharamshala . I remember the exact night, thirty years ago, when I heard John Lennon had been murdered. I was in the hall of the kashag (the Tibetan cabinet) building in Dharamshala, at a benefit dance for the literary magazine Lotus Fields (Pemathang). Raju, the lead guitarist of The Subterranean Vajra …
The Happy Light Bioscope Theatre & Other Stories (Part 2)
From their first encounter with the modern world Tibetans appear to have taken to such inventions as photography with relative insouciance – considering Tibet’s reputation as a “forbidden land”. We hear of a Tibetan using a camera, and even compiling a photography manual, around 1881-82. The cine-camera, of course, came a bit later.
The Happy Light Bioscope Theatre & Other Stories (Part 1)
In old Hollywood films of intrepid white explorers encountering savages in darkest Africa (or tribals in benighted Afghanistan) there is usually a decisive moment in the story when the bwanas (or sahibs) are captured and it appears they are done for.
Dipping a Donkey-Ear in Butter-Tea
Most Tibetans, it seems, want to celebrate Losar this year. I agree that a modest observance of our most important cultural holiday would not come amiss right now, no matter how grim our current situation…..
Titanic II
I read this morning that the last living survivor of the Titanic sinking of 1912, Millvina Dean, who was 9 weeks at the time, had died at age 97. I have some “Titanic” related memories of my own but they only go back a decade and have nothing to do with that great ocean liner.
A Losar Gift for Rangzen Activists
Before the Chinese Communist invasion of 1950 Tibet was a fully functioning and independent state. It threatened none of its neighbors, fed its population unfailingly, year after year, with no help from the outside world.
Cinema ’59
The Russian Revolution of 1917 sparked off a revolution in the way the function of entertainment and art, especially cinema, changed to become a powerful tool of social and political transformation.
