Students for Free Tibet are organising music concerts in the city, with the hope that it will be a small step in asserting the free spirit of Tibet and reach their cause to a wider audience.
“I don’t sing because I’m happy. The singing makes me happy.”
-- Anonymous
Have you ever heard a dhamnir? Would you recognise a yangche?
Such are the names of the ancient Tibetan string instruments that will be played at a concert in the city. If you are interested in musical traditions in different parts of the world, here is a concert you should not miss. A group of eight musicians from Kushalnagar near Mysore will be performing at the Bangalore International Centre and at Alliance Francaise on June 18 and 19.
The programme is being organised by Students for Free Tibet (STF), a loosely-bound group of students of Tibetan origin, with a 100-strong membership in the city. It is funded by the Tibetan Rights and Freedom Restoration Committee. The students attend different colleges, but they have a website and a Facebook page, and they keep each other updated about events. With the more recent changes in political structure at the helm of the Tibetan government-in-exile, the students are keen to reach out, more widely, wherever they live.
On May 29 this year, the 14th Dalai Lama ratified amendments to the governing charter presented to him by the Tibetan parliament in exile, devolving his political powers to a democratically elected leadership. That brought the curtains down on a system of governance by successive Dalai Lamas, which can be traced back to 1642. Six million Tibetans, long accustomed to a spiritual head who was also their political leader, will now have to get used to a new political leadership.
The two concerts in the city are being held with the intention of spreading the word about Tibet. The freedom to return to their own land and practice their traditions there eludes these long-displaced people, and many young Tibetans in India today have only heard of Tibet. The struggle waged for freedom by people displaced from the highest region in the world, however, has conquered many hearts. 1959 is remembered as the year when the Dalai Lama fled his homeland and entered India as an exile and a refugee.
The concerts would be one small step in asserting the free spirit of Tibet, which floats in exile. So how do young Tibetans react to the recent political change? Tenzin Woeden, a student of computer science at Radiance College, Koramangala, and an active member of Students for Free Tibet, says, “I’m sad, at one level. But in our parents’ generation, there was much reliance on the Dalai Lama for freeing Tibet. I think what the Dalai Lama is trying to tell us is that we are all now that much more responsible for our own freedom. He has shown us that Tibet’s history is rooted in the Buddhist tradition, and that our freedom movement should be a non-violent one, following the middle path. And he has repeatedly asserted that Buddhism is at the root of our culture and history, and that we must keep our traditions alive.”
So is the concert also one that will feature religious music? The programme for the concerts includes songs, these are not necessarily religious, Tenzin says. And since the expectation is that there will hardly be any members in the audience who follow Tibetan, there will be translation too, in English.
Little Lhasa Tour
The Students for Free Tibet would be happy to include members who are not ethnically Tibetan. To seek membership, you could visit either the website: http://sftindia. org/ or the Facebook page: sftbangalore. You could also call Tenzin Woeden: 9900574642
To know more about the Tibetan government-in-exile, you could even go on a tour of institutions run by the Tibetan government in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. The trip is not free, and all expenses will have to be borne by participants (the STF runs on a shoestring budget, selling specially designed T-shirts with slogans calling for freedom in Tibet to meet expenses). For details, call Tenzin. A tour called the Little Tibet Tour, to the monastery in Bylakuppe, the largest in India, could also be undertaken, provided STF finds a sufficiently large number of participants. This two-day tour would also be one in which participants bear all expenses.
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