Losar at Bylakuppe : Part 1/2
Cleaning : morning duties: cleaning the lamps in the lamp room; Namdroling monastery, Bylakuppe.
My last visit to Bylakuppe was a short stop-over on the way to Madekeri but this time, being there for Losar, was more involved.
We reached the Namdroling monastery at 8 on saturday morning, when it was teeming with the duties of the monks. As a few locals cleaned the courtyards with broomsticks, young student monks were about in the lamp room, cleaning the lamps, arranging them back on the stands, pouring the oil and then lighting them one by one. As bus loads of tourists went straight for the Golden temple, we hung around the main courtyard trying to find out when and where the festival was being celebrated, if any.
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We walked to the nearby nunnery and one helpful local acted as our Tibetian-Hindi interpreter finding us information that a festival would take place the next day at Namdroling. We decided to visit the other monasteries but on a whim turned into a side road in Camp3 and it turned out to be a good experience. The Thunsam Devaling here is the prayer hall and courtyard used by the locals, and they had finished their celebrations just that morning. As we spent a few minutes looking around, the locals had already set up a table for us with a feast of sweet rice with dry fruits, a cup of tea and some chang made from ragi. Overwelmed by the warm reception given to us, we talked to the camp leader there for a while getting to know more about the camp.
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Moving on to Sera Je we found the huge prayer hall completely deserted but it was not so at Sera Mey to which we walked to through the quaters where the monks lived. A function was in progress and a monk was giving a speech; all the monks rushed out as soon as the function concluded, they were probably as hungry for lunch as we were. Many of the restaurants were closed because of the holiday and our search for momos took us to the Olive restaurant which was fortunately open. The owner of the restaurant who was also incharge of the camp was open enough to show us how they celebrated Losar at home.
With full stomachs we headed towards Kagyudpa where many of the monks were getting ready for a football match. After much waiting, both the teams were ready in tees, shorts and studs and the match started with the blow of the whistle by the referee. We watched the first half of the match at the end of which the score was 0-0, before heading back to Kushalnagar for the night.
Losar at Bylakuppe
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deepsan) wrote,
