Letter to a Friend in McLeod Ganj

"There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. 

One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live."

Dalai Lama

 

10.05.2023

 

My dear, 

Happy birthday!

I am extremely happy that you are celebrating it in such a unique place in the world as Himachal Pradesh, a crossroad place of many cultures, and today's capital of Buddhism.

I carry with me memories of wonderful times spent with Soumya around those mountains; magical and mystical experiences that few places in the world can offer us.

Among many, the memory of the Dalai Lama's temple in McLeod Ganj and all those people, from all corners of the world, who, by choice, have embraced Buddhism, gathered in a mesmerizing, charming and chanting prayer.

A huddle of monks and worshippers praying – they say - for all of us.

Those images, now vivid in my mind again because of the awareness of you there, remind me of the many films I have seen about the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan diaspora. At the time, but even today in retrospect, it almost didn't seem real to me to be there, in that place suspended in time, but also in space: of all places, perhaps, Dharamsala is the least Indian.

A stronghold of pagodas, and reinforced concrete buildings, perched under sharp-cornered roofs, sometimes red, sometimes emerald, held together by jumbled skeins of high-tension wires.

An enchanted city, shrouded in mist and rarefied air, entangled within a labyrinthine maze of mountain paths and narrow lanes accompanied by colourful “mantra wheels”.

Asleep, in a valley of peace, amid the verdant flanks of the mountains that rise up, to the hills of Triund, and then further on, to the whitewashed peaks of Dhauladhar; and sometimes awakened, by the ringing of grazing cows, the laughter of children, or the screams of some hungry monkey, rummaging through the garbage in search of booty.

I couldn't think of a better place to go now, to find some peace from our thoughts, from the hustle and bustle of our lives, from the expectations of this future that never seems to come.

India, with its endless traditions and contradictions, has so much to teach, and although these words may sound a bit corny, it is these trips, to these remote places, where the locals spend their simple lives away from the knowledge and turmoil of globalisation and mass tourism, that often we find again ourselves. Places where, for these real reasons, man feels closer to everything we put under the umbrella of metaphysics. Which is to say, not only to god, but also closer to ourselves, to our innermost and deepest spiritual self.

I trust this will be a revelatory journey for you, as it was for me at the time.

I say this with the melancholy of one who has had the fortune to fill much himself in the years immediately after Leiden and who is going through a dark period, pervaded by a sluggish, whimpering, apathetic nihilism.

I remember the burst of optimism and the feeling of gratitude for the things that the fate has given me (including our beautiful friendship) that that trip to India in 2019 rekindled in me, similarly to the one I took to Thailand in 2017 with a friend, and then to South America last year, alone.

I remember that fiery energy that awakens and satiates us eternal, voracious e romantic curious people.

I hope this trip will be a source of reflections and memories that you will carry with you forever.

I love you so much my friend.

May all your birthday wishes come true.