words from the world

It's hard to sleep on the winding and bumpy roads of the Himachal Pradesh. We finally pull in at 5 o'clock in the morning at MacLeodGanj. We go for finishing our night in a faraway guesthouse, lost at the end of a dusty alleyway.
Not far from Dharamsala, MacLeodGanj is the haven of many Tibetans whose dalai lama, the most well-known among them. The tibetan exodus started in 1950 while the Chinese invaded their homeland. A museum reminds the struggle of fundamentally pacifist people and brutally repressed by the Chinese army. The catastrophic result sends a chill down our spine. The systematic destruction of the monasteries and temples reached the frightening number of 90%. More than one million of Tibetans passed away and several ones fled despite the harsh conditions of the Himalaya crossing. A pacifist solution seems hard to find so that Tibet gets its independence back. And the Chinese keeps on carrying out the "sinization" sending millions of Chinese to live in Tibet, to such an extent that, from now on, Tibetan are minority in their homeland.
MacleodGanj is a haven, a welcoming land for this thousands of Tibetans in exile. Refugees wishing more than all going back to their occupied country. We stop in front of the humble dalai lama's dwelling. Followers and onlookers huddle together to see him, shake his hands or take part in a collective meditation session.








We won't have time to meet him and leave the place hopping on a morning bus to Amritsar, capital city of a remote but symbolic religion, the Sikhism. At the India scale, a few hours from Dharamsala, religious capitals meet in the tolerance and the mutual respect.