PXylem

There are times when we all talk about the past, the past that is hundred years back; and without any thought process involved we all start dreaming…and we dream. And what we all find in our dreamy state of our reverie, all those gadgets and the lifestyle that are around us getting vanished; we all residing in a peaceful scattered village hamlet. Where our needs are few and far between.

That’s imagination is what you will find in the book A Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet written by Sarat Chnadra Das, published by Rupa and Co., and edited by W.W Rockhill.


In the book you will find the customs, culture and beliefs of the Tibetians people. Besides it, you will definitely get engrossed with the graphic descriptions of the vegetation, religion and the architecture of the area where the author has traveled. It is a different story that he worked as a spy for the government of British India. That was not disclosed when the book was first published.

I will not go deep into the book since it is very tough to encapsulate the whole book in go. There are far too many interesting subjects covered in this book for me to mention them all here; but here are some “picks” from it that has really touched me or say surprised me.

Discussing the virtues of polyandry versus polygamy versus monogamy he writes: “…..she stared at me with undisguised astonishment. “One wife with one husband!” she explained. “Don’t you think we Tibetans women are better off ” The Indian woman has but a portion of her husband’s affection and property, but in Tibet the housewife is the real lady of all the joint earnings and inheritance of all the brothers…”

On marriage he writes: “In Tibet, there are no caste restrictions with regard to marriage in India. The rich may bestow their daughters on the poor; the daughter of a poor man may become the bride of the proudest noble of the country”.

While describing the conditions of employment of an express courier between Lhasa and China, he writes: “They are required to subsist daily on five hen’s eggs, five cups of plain tea, a pound of cornflour, half a pound of rice and a quarter of lean meat. They are forbidden to take much salt, and are strictly forbidden to eat onions, garlic, red pepper, butter or milk. At midnight they are allowed to sleep in a sitting posture for three hours, after which they are awakened by the keeper of the stage-house…The courier is allowed to change his dress once a week”.

And here is the last ‘seed’ I am taking since it will change your whole perception about the world, and the small world where we are living. The world is not what is in and around you but somewhere else, far away from your wild imagination and thought process.

Here is goes, the writer writes: The custom of several brothers making one woman their common wife, to keep the ancestral property entire and undivided, ……is at this day extensively practised. ………The wife is claimed by the younger brothers as their wife only so long as they continue to live with the eldest one. ………It is not unusual for a father or uncle to live with his son’s or nephew wife, and even in high life a father makes himself a partner rights over his son’s wife.

The book is full of many unexpected U – turn surprises sometimes curvy and sometimes very straight tangentially.

PUNJAB