September 17th 2012

The Dahli Lama


Both yesterday and today we had the chance to see the Dahli Lama: at Woodstock and in Happy valley. It was really cool to see him and hear him speak, and especially to see the reactions of the people around me. At Woodstock, several people ran up to the Dahli Lama as soon as he entered to receive a blessing or just get a closer look. He spoke about compassion, and took questions at the end of the speech from selected students and from the audience. He had a contagious laugh and spoke light-heartedly.

the Dahli Lama at Woodstock

The atmosphere was very different in Happy Valley, which is a Tibetan settlement and the first place the Dahli Lama went to in India after his exile. When the Dahli Lama entered everyone stood up and put their hands in front of them like they would if they were saying "namaste." The Dahli Lama sat to watch a Tibetan Opera and interrupted a few times for commentary. The Tibetan Opera was very interesting: there was a lot of very loud singing/yelling and the costumes were amazing. Afterward, the Dahli Lama spoke in Tibetan to the crowd.

Tibetan opera & the Dahli Lama in Happy Valley

When the Dahli Lama spoke at Woodstock, Nick bravely pushed his way through the crowd to hand him a Princeton mug. So now (as unrealistic as it might be) I think of the Dahli Lama enjoying chai out of our mug.

We have been continuing Hindi class as usual and tutoring with Youssef Ji who teaches at Woodstock school. Progress is definitely slow for me; I am procrastinating on my homework as I type.

Tonight we walked briskly to dinner at Woodstock in the rain, hopeful that the food would make up for our uncomfortable walk and soaking clothes. To be honest, dinner was terrible, bahut kharab. It serves as a prime example of an attempt at Western food with little Western cooking knowledge and only Indian ingredients. This morning we were woken up at the ungodly hour of 6:00 am by our recently moved in 8th grade dorm neighbors, who are here from Dehli for a writing convention. It was especially annoying when we noticed, at dinner, that their food looked a lot better than ours.

After dinner we went to tutoring with Youssef Ji, which is always fun. When we left we discovered (after walking down a few flights of stairs in pitch black darkness) that we had been locked in from the outside. We waited for someone to get the key and walked/ran back to Hanifl Center through the rain.

All of my complaints here are menial, and I just have to remember that the uncomfortable and annoying situations add to the experience. And that includes future sicknesses and far more uncomfortable situations.