Cricket World Cup: Young Tibetans of McLeodganj hooked to cricket and Team India

Situated some eight kms above the HPCA Stadium, the monastery in Mcleod Ganj has been a big tourist attraction. Outside on a gray wall, a freshly painted text in green, yellow and red carves out a picture. “Tibet is my country, my people, my political history.”

Tenzin Geche, who works at the Monastery office, tells this paper: “I was maybe four when my family came here. My father, who’s passed away, was in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) before he came to Tibet and met my mother. He brought us all back here but my mother’s parents still live there.”

Geche speaks of the different influences among the Tibetans here.

“By culture, we’re Tibetan. But there’s a very deep influence. The young ones want to listen to Bollywood songs,” he says. How can cricket be far behind?

For Passang, who works at Serkong House – a centre for the preservation of Tibetan arts and culture in Dharamsala – and has lived all his life in India, the bat-and-ball sport is a passion.

“I have been into it since my childhood. I used to play it in our locality in Chandigarh, Sector 22,” says the 57-year-old, who’s been to two of the three World Cup games at the HPCA Stadium.

Support for the home team

As the Indian bowlers start to make inroads into the Bangladesh innings, Passang starts looking ahead. “Now I think we need to beat New Zealand. South Africa, England, inse darr nahi hai. Pakistan se bhi nahi hai (South Africa and England shouldn’t concern us, neither should Pakistan). New Zealand will be tough,” he claims.

His father, who’d moved from Tibet in the late 50s, had little to do with Passang’s sporting obsession. He lets us in on the man responsible,

“First, I watched Kapil Dev. I loved his bowling action. We used to watch him on the black-and-white TV and whenever he used to bowl, there was a halla (noise) from the beginning. Almost like everyone knew he’d take a wicket.”

There is another memory, from 1984, of having watched an India-England match in Chandigarh. “Back then, the stadium wasn’t in Mohali, it was in Sector 16. I watched Kapil Dev, Yograj Singh – this was 83-84. Also, Allan Lamb,” Passang recalls before the conversation veers back to cricket in Dharamsala.

Do the young Tibetans, who grow up in the hill city, also have as strong a bond with the sport as he had with his early years in Punjab?

“In Namgyal, the younger monks play it. I remember there was a tournament in Chandigarh some 10-15 years ago where one of the monastery teams from here won the entire thing. They had monks from Shimla, Dehradun and a couple of other places.”

Tenzin Phuntshok, who is among those at Namgyal preparing for upcoming exams, holds football above cricket. An ardent Indian national team fan, he shares his agony of having watched the men’s team go down 5-1 against China at the recent Asian Games.

“I didn’t think they would beat China three or four nil but I thought they would give them tough competition, like a draw. A miracle might happen. 1-0, I was hoping for that,” he says with a wry smile.

There’s something about watching your team lose that way against this very opposition, right? Phuntshok doesn’t have time for politics. Outside of his schedule from waking up at dawn and attending classes till eight in the evening, playing and watching sports is the only thing he looks up to. And yet, there’s an important observation he has to offer, “It’s not like we hate China. We hate the Chinese government. Chinese people are not bad people.”

For some of the others, it’s tougher to not think of what’s happening back in Tibet.

“Before 2008, a lot of people were coming to India. But since then, after the Olympics time, there was a big protest in Tibet so the Chinese regime curbed it. And also, they’ve restricted the border area. My family is in Tibet. Many of the monks’ families are in Tibet. I don’t have any contact with them these days. If I do, it could be a danger for them,” says Geche.

It’s not just the restrictions that have changed an entire generation’s perception towards their faith, but also the manipulation, adds the Monastery administration worker.

“In Tibet, history was manipulated. It was taught that his holiness Dalai Lama is no more, he’s passed away. Now, they’re saying the young monks below 18 years aren’t supposed to be sent to a monastery. Because they’re suggesting that they should get proper education and once they become adults they can make decisions themselves. But until 18 is a long time. Till that time the education systems are already structured by the Chinese government. There’s brainwashing.”

For Passang, whose wife also hails from Tibet came to Dharamsala for her studies but couldn’t go back home, the prospect of a return to their ancestral land is almost withered.

“Ab hum log ke time mai toh mushkil lgta hai,” he says with a dejection. “China is becoming more powerful. There may be a day in the time to come when something like the USSR happens. My wife’s family is still there. Her parents passed away though.” Did you get to go there when it happened? “No.”

The 57-year-old though has not a shadow of a doubt when it comes to the present home of his family and community. “It (Tibet) is developed, there’s money coming into the region, but they still don’t have the freedom. This is their second home now. Hmara toh pehla home hai (For me, it’s my first).” Thanks to cricket? “Haha, yes.”