The Tibetan Institute for Medicine and Astrology

In a process that has taken almost ten months, I am now in possession of my full astrological chart from TIMA – The Tibetan Institute of Medicine and Astrology.

Inspired by Michael Palin from his BBC TV series Himalaya in 2004, who is seen walking into the Institute and walking away with his chart. He was particularly impressed that he was an elephant in his past life.

How times have changed!

I visited the Institute back in August who in fairness warned me they were severely back-logged and the process would take about a year. All they requested in my first visit was my email address which I wrote in a huge ledger and they would contact me. I did so sceptical that I would hear from then again.

I was therefore somewhat surprised when I received an email from them in February requesting my time, place and date of birth. It costs US$50 to process payable through Paypal or Western Union. I write back informing them I am still in Dharamsala and they agree to accept a cash payment of Rs. 2502.50

Place and date of birth is no problem, but there is disagreement between my parents on the exact time of birth. No problem say the Institute providing I can give them a ball-park time in a range of 2 hours. Great! They inform me it will take about another three months to process.

The postman delivers the chart to me this week. It´s quite interesting and detailed, but i´ll share some of the stuff with you – my gentle reader.

It tells me I´m a Fire Sheep for my lunar calendar shows my birth is the 14th day of the 12th month.

According to my Natal and Elemental Signs, I must be affectionate, intelligent, but quite capable of stupidity (so true!) I must also be very creative, talented, loyal, stubborn, short-tempered, uncommunicative and “desirous of good food.” Only parts of these seem accurate.

It also tells me that Fridays are my Soul – Days, Mondays are my Life- Force Days, but Thursdays are my Foe Days.

It also offers me some future predictions. It informs me of excellent health and a long life beyond the age 82.

The chart predicts misfortune between the ages of 48 – 52 both financially and within relationships, but these will improve up until I reach 66 years 6 months and fourteen days. I´ve been warned!

Although detailed and quite interesting, I am very disappointed that there is no information on my past lives which was my prime reason for pursuing the chart in the first place.

TIMA is based on Khara Danda Road, Dharamsala or check out their website.

Toe Update

Following concerned friends´advise, I went back to the Men Tsee Khang Tibetan clinic in the village. I show the doctor the toe and he prods it a couple of times and then takes nine different pulses from my lower arm. He writes out the prescription which I take to the pharmacist´s counter.

Some of the six medicines he has prescribed what looks like old friends (little brown pastels that I took for my persistent cold), but I am given a couple of new things as well. One is a salmon pink powder that I need to take with warm water after lunch, and the other is known as Rinchen Jumar 25.

This is known as the Precious Pill and contains 25 different ingredients including coral, pearl, lapis lazuli, saffron, nutmeg, crocus and sativus linn (I thought this one might be a cannabis derivative, but it transpires that it is a Japanese radish). The pill was first formulated by the ancient Tibetan physician Shasandhara Lakhsmi who himself was a great advocate for this wonder-pill.

It suggests in directions of use that it is beneficial to repeat the mantra of the medicine Buddha “tadyatha aum bhaishjya maha bhaishjya raja sa-mud ga-te svaha,” but I am not sure I can even get my tongue around this one.

I have been given complex instructions to take the various medications throughout different times of the day and night for a week. I am told not to drink too many cold drinks and to avoid tomato ketchup.

It must be a Precious Pill as I am charged a hefty RS230 (US$5).

Happy Birthday HHDL

Yesterday was the birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Now aged 74, birthday celebrations were held at the main temple, even though the Birthday Boy was not in attendance – he is currently in Paris to collect an honoury citizenship award.

HHDL continues to work tirelessly to promote the Tibetan cause despite his recent ill-health over the last few years. Compare the global awareness of the Tibetans´ plight compared to those of the Uighurs in Xinjiang. Like the Tibetans, this Islamic minority group have suffered horrendously at the hands of the Chinese government. Yet their fight is little-known, making the global news when they hold an insurrection which they are organising with increasing frequency and ferocity. BBC report at least 140 people are feared dead from Sunday´s uprising.

Forced into politics from a very young age and living in exile for 50 years, HHDL has faced much greater difficulties than any of his 13 predecessors (or previous incarnations). It has been increasingly reported that he has lost the support and backing of the younger Tibetans in exile. However, whenever I speak to the younger exiles, they have nothing but respect for him.

HHDL has made it clear that it is up to the Tibetan people to decide if they want a fifteenth Dalai Lama on his death. However, any successor would not have the additional burden of being the political leader, the role being passed to the democratically elected leader of the Tibetan (in Exile) parliament.

Cooling Down with Apple Juice

During this pre-monsoon heat, I have been cooling off with fresh apple juice. It doubled in price since I started travelling in India – but at Rs40 per large bottle, it´s still good value an en excellent alternative to water or fizzy drinks.

Over the last year I have come to develop a degree of patriotism to Himachal Pradesh, the national state of Dharamsala (and also Manali, Shimla, Lahaul, Spiti and Kinnaur). The state prides itself on the growth of temperate fruit. It is said that 50% of all Himachal Pradeshans are involved directly or indirectly with the apple industry. Yet the history of the apple is a relatively short one.

Samuel Stokes was an American who arrived in India in 1906. He purchased an estate in Thanedar, just outside Shimla, and in 1919 he put an order for apple saplings. As the orchard prospered, Stokes gave apple saplings to poor farmers in the area. Farmers in the state have never looked back.

Plum and litchi juice are also available.

Hell to Beckham! What About My Metatarsal?

I´ve broken my toe. As a devoted football fan, I know quite a lot about metatarsal injuries, made extremely fashionable by English football´s biggest export – David Spice in the 2002 World Cup finals.

It bloody hurts and has turned a very weird colour.

I´d love to say I got it trekking the slopes of Spiti valley or coming off the tractor on the Kunzum Pass, but I can´t

Rather unceremoniously, I dropped my large bag on my foot that I am busily packing. My toe (the one that stayed at home on my right foot) ended up in a totally unnatural 90 degree angle to my sole, that I had to put back into place. It was totally disgusting. Good job in a state shock; it didn´t hurt as much as it should have done.

DOH!

Cannibalism in India

The usually reliable Times of India reported on this interesting if rather sick story this week:

ROHTAK: In a gut-wrenching case, four persons in Palwal town were reportedly caught feeding on a partially-cremated human body on Thursday night.

According to sources, horrified by what he saw in the night, a watchman of the cremation ground raised an alarm. Soon a crowd gathered and thrashed the cannibals before handing them over to the police.

The police on Friday booked Santram, a municipality worker, his son Sunil, Ramesh and Kamal under various sections (trespassing on burial places with the intention of wounding feelings of any person, insulting religion, defiling a place of worship with intent to insult religion of any class and wanton provocation. The accused were produced before a local court, which sent them to police remand for five days.

The police said Chhawender Singh had left the cremation ground at Alawalpur road after the funeral rites of his mother. He paid some money to a boy, Sunil, and asked him to take care of the pyre that was still burning. Sources said late in the night, Santram, his son and two others arrived at the cremation ground and started drinking.

Ajay, the watchman, noticed that one of them had pulled a half-burnt body off the pyre. Then what he saw was bizarre: the men had started eating parts of the body. Ajay and his mother then ran out to inform cremation ground management committee member Krishan Kumar Bhutani about the incident. Soon, a crowd gathered at the scene and beat up the accused. It was after the arrival of cremation ground committee members that the four were handed over to the police.

It Was 20 Years Ago Today...

SRN is an East Londoner and another high quality friend of mine - indeed i am blessed with several! No really … this guy is a top gadgey! I met him during our undergraduate days in Bristol, a fantastic small city in the west of England.

He was also my travelling companion on my first trip to India in May ´89. Whilst I was on the road in Spiti, SRN sent me a 20th Anniversary email which I have inserted below.

Twenty years ago today I was stranded at (until now) an unknown Indian railway station after getting off the train to buy a cold drink.

I think we were travelling between Mount Abu and Udaipur??  I'm guessing as I can't really remember.  I got back on the train and found a much more comfortable carriage, than the third class one we were on.  However I did not realise that the train would split, so that you went (I think) to Udaipur and I went somewhere else.

Whilst waiting about ten hours for a train to get back to you, I bought with the limited money I had an English language paper which showed two significant headlines - the Ayotollah dying and Tiannamann Square massacre.

I've attached the only photo I took whilst there -I've just noticed the
sign saying Chittaurgarh - I've looked this up on Google Earth, so I know
after 20 years know exactly how lost I was!!



I remember this event well, although i´m pretty sure we were travelling from Ajmer to Mount Abu. Both young and naive, I was somewhat concerned for his well-being. We were meant to be travelling together for a few months, and in the days of pre-email and mobile phones thought I´d lost him for good after just a week. I studied the rail map and presumed that he had got waylaid in Chittaurgarh. Checking out the city in Lonely Planet it noted that there is a stunning five hundred year old fort, and a protest outside a factory where there was one disgruntled worker who had been standing on one leg for over 20 years. I had strong visions SRN would be offering his support to the sole protester – maybe acting as a human crutch?

We did successfully meet up again at the railway station in Mt Abu where shortly after I contracted my first dose of amoebic dysentery (now an old friend) from the first “decent” restaurant we ate in. As the only “foreigners” in town we were mobbed by holidaying and honeymooning Indian tourists – it was totally horrendous.

As you can tell from his photo, SRN is a natural photographer and his photos he took on his Olympus was the inspiration for me to use an SLR camera. When we were squatting in Leytonstone, East London we even managed to set up a small dark room where we would many an enjoyable weekend in front of the enlarger and chemicals.

Bromance and Sodomy in India

The High Court in Delhi today decriminalised homosexuality to consenting males over 21. It doesn´t seem to have included lesbians. This overturns a 148 year old ruling claiming homosexuality as “unnatural” in article 377 of India´s Penal Code. It defines homosexual acts as "carnal intercourse against the order of nature."

Prior to this ruling, homosexual acts were punishable by a 10-year prison sentence.

With classic Indian love of bureaucracy (a left-over from it´s Colonial past), it has taken eight years to come through the legal process, and it is seen as likely that an appeal will be launched to the Supreme Court.

In a country where traditional social and gender roles remain conservative, even heterosexual relationships between young Indians is still frowned upon. This has led many young Indian males to have very tactile relationships with each other. It is common to see to young Indian guys holding hands and/or hugging each other. It is not uncommon to see a hand caressing an ass or groin - especially notable in Indian yuppies on trains.

In what is now fashionably termed bromance in the West, this is not always a platonic relationship, although the two consenting males would be very unlikely to deem this as homosexual activity, “just something young healthy guys do”.

It is believed that 8% of gay Indian males are HIV+

Construction on the Tibetan Plateau

At altitudes of over 4,000 metres, there are not many natural resources to use for home construction. Yet the architecture in Spiti is beautiful if somewhat time consuming.

preparing mud

Mud and soil is expertly mixed with water. This goo is then kneaded by hand for several hours; all air-bubbles must be completely removed . They are then shaped into bricks and left in the sun for two weeks to dry out.

wet bricks


sun-dried bricks
The brick constructions are then plastered over and white-washed. Textures are sometimes added. The doorways and windows are then elaborately decorated with contrasting colours seen as a reflection of opposites in Tantric Buddhism.

Of course the highlight of Tibetan architecture has to be the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Construction began in the 7th Century and with it´s thirteen stories, was for hundred of years the World´s tallest skyscraper.

the beautiful Potala Palace - for many years the world´s tallest building