McLeod Ganj. Meet Lobsang Wangyal
After Buddha Janti it was time to head for the cooler climates of the hills, back to McLeod Ganj. The home in exile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and thousands of refugee and Indian born Tibetans. This once tiny village is now a small city which teeters on top of a hill, at the foothills of the Himalayas. As the world embraced His Holiness, more and more people have flocked to McLeod Ganj and it has been fondly re-named Little Lhasa of India.
I first met Losang back in 1996 on my visit to McLeod. Lobsang is not only well know in town for his good looks and charm but mostly for his tireless work to let the world know about political situation and occupation of Tibet as well as the plight of the Tibetan people inside and outside of Tibet. Unlike most of the young Tibetan boys and men in town who chase or court female tourist in the hope of a getting visa to the west, Lobsang has no desire to leave the Tibetan community in exile. He feels he can work more effectively to raise awareness of Tibet issues with the people who visit McLeod and have connections to the Tibetans. He also works with the Tibetan people to raise their awareness of global issues and international events as he feels Tibetans need to open their perspective of the world and even support or collaborate with other peoples facing occupation and persecution. While not full on political, Lobsang has come up with uniuque and interesting ways to get information on Tibet into the mainstream news and society. For example,to protest the 2008 Olympics in China, Lobsang decided to hold the Tibet Olympics at the Tibetan Children's Village. The event was not only successful but the advertising alone made people speak out more against Chinese occupation of Tibet. To keep people informed Lobsang updates his a news paper web site everyday with global events and has well over 2000 readers a day. Check it out at; http://www.tibetsun.com
Lobsang also enjoys promoting Tibetan culture and often attempts to modernize Tibetan culture with various events such as film festival and music concerts;
His most successful event is the Miss Tibet pageant which has grown in popularity over the years.
More info on Miss Tibet here is the link; http://www.misstibet.com
More info on Miss Tibet here is the link; http://www.misstibet.com
Lobsang present undertaking is to help promote McLeod Ganj itself, complete with events, volunteering opportunities, courses on every thing from meditation to cooking classes as well as all the info you could want on hotels and restaurants. This is a huge project but Lobsang is loving his new self imposed task and believes it will help not only local businesses to grow and become more professional but inform so many weary travellers and Dharma investigators who come to this city on the hill.
Check out Lobasang new web site on McLeod Ganj at;
Thanks Lobsang for all you work over the years and I wish you all the best and every success in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment