Thoughts on Geleck Palsang's Prayers
Answered
I
have an offering: http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1591
A
short 29 minute documentary about the journey of a group of small Balti
children from Turtuk, the very border of India, Pakistan and Tibet, to a
Tibetan school in Ladakh, Prayers Answered is a really charming small film with
a very appealing hero. The events surrounding the film are thus: in 2005, His
Holiness the Dalai Lama visited Turtuk and suggested that the villagers could
send some of their children for an education at the Tibetan Children’s Village
school in Ladakh. The villagers then sent 15 children to Ladakh. The
documentary begins with His Holiness’s visit and then follows the children.
I
was fascinated from the first frame, when the village headmen of Turtuk talk about
the history of Turtuk and its people and their culture. The Turtuk people, who
are Baltis, speak Balti—which is an amazing stir fry mix of Ladakhi-Tibetan,
Urdu/Hindi, Farsi (I assume it’s Farsi: I don’t know it but it sounds like
Farsi and it must be Farsi) and… English. For a Tibetan speaker, it’s truly
amazing to hear. It sounds like an invented language—the conjugations are
mostly Ladakhi, the base vocabulary and the base grammar is Tibetan, with
generous helpings of Urdu-Hindi and Farsi, and then the occasional dash of
English. Perhaps some of the grammar is Farsi also. This is all coming from a
non-linguist. I can only guess.
Here’s
the caption that appears at the beginning of the film, to teach viewers a
little about this remote region:
“Turtuk is a little known region located in a
remote corner of northern India on the border with Pakistan and Tibet. Turtuk
was once part of Baltistan, which is now in Pakistan. The village of Turtuk
became part of India after the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971. This mountainous
village is virtually cut off from rest of the world. Due to its sensitive
border location, Turtuk is under the control of Indian army, and access is only
possible with a special permit. Very few outsiders have visited Turtuk.”
The
Balti people, of Tibetan descent, used to practice Bon (the pre-Buddhist
practice of Tibet) before the 8th century, and when Baltistan fell
under Tibetan sovereignty during the rule of the Yarlung kings, the Baltis also
became Buddhist for several centuries. In the 14th century, Muslim
scholars from Persia and Kashmir converted the Balti people to Islam, which
they still practice today.
One
of the village elders explains that the Balti people of Turtuk were a tribe
comprising of people from Iran, Tibet, Dard and Mongolia. They certainly look
it, and sound it. He talks about Baltistan’s cultural features, its similarity
to western Tibet (eating, dressing, living, language etc) and how they used to
use Tibetan script but later they switched to Arabic script.
Here’s
a rough transcription of how he said this, rendered one and all in Roman
alphabet:
“Dheney
Baltistan ki daksai mi uney, dukso, langso, khashes ..…jis tare…..khaskar
meney
pura language bi daksang original language pe use… ….. magar script khadam zos
ki yaley.”
The
….. are Farsi sounds I couldn’t even catch.
See?
It’s all like this and more so: Balti, Tibetan, Ladakhi, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi and
English. It’s amazing.
Hearing
Balti is like listening to a radio that keeps changing its frequency—I”ll
understand some snatches of the speech and be able to break it down to its
component parts and then there’ll be other long parts that I just don’t understand.
There’s snatches and whole long clauses which are in Ladakhi Tibetan and then
there’ll be some Urdu-Hindi vocab, some of which I know and some of which I
don’t, and then there’ll be phrases that I think I have understood but when I
think about it and try to break it down, I haven’t, and they may or may not
have been Ladakhi and then there’s other sounds that I just don’t understand
but assume must be Farsi, and then there’s the occasional English word thrown
in.
For
Tibetan speakers, just the sound of Balti is an auditory treat. For
non-speakers, however, the film still has its merits. The film is made skillfully,
with restraint and mature confidence and deep sympathy for the kids.
It
was only about halfway through the film that I realized its hero was the little
boy named Ata-ul Rehman, a plucky little chubby cheeked fellow, sweetly shy and
passionately intense. It does feel a little bit as if Geleck Palsang himself
recognized only halfway into filming that Ataul was his hero—in the latter half
of the film, we stay closely with him, to the film’s benefit, and I was really
sorry when the film ended.
I
would have liked to see more of the children settling in—the film shows the
children at Namaz, learning Arabic from their dorm mother and teacher Zenab who
came with them, and learning Tibetan and English, and playing with classmates,
and then that last scene, of the circle of them at a table singing the popular Phurbu
T Namgyal song “Bhoejong ngatsoe phayul,
Bhoerig ngayi phunda! / (Tibet is my homeland, the Tibetans are my people)”
at the top of their voices. It’s a moving and bittersweet scene to end with. I
remembered Ataul’s mother who cried at the thought of sending him away but said
that education was important and hoped that he wouldn’t be hungry at the
school, and the man who sang a Balti folk song to welcome His Holiness to
Turtuk.
These
children are bridging a thousand years and the Karakoram mountains and the
Himalayas. I know that bridges are important, and there are rewards…but there
are also costs. I just hope that they’ll
continue to sing Balti folk songs along with Tibetan pop.
There’s
a really funny little scene of Ataul and his classmates in English class. They are
reciting a passage in tandem from their textbook, with little gestures and
actions that their teacher had taught them to pepper their recitation with. It’s
just such an incongruous little scene, and hilariously funny when you watch it,
because the little gestures the children make are so cute, and they have so
clearly memorized this passage and because they are chanting so seriously and
earnestly.
A
score of children’s voices, high, with the volume tuned up, and attendant
motions:
Everybody
says I look like my father!
Everybody
says I look like my mother!
Everybody
says my nose is like my father’s!
Everybody
says my lips are like my mother’s!
Everybody
says I am the image of somebody!
But
if you really want to know,
I
want to look like me!
I
want to look like me!
Thank
you!
Ataul
Rehman hasn’t caught up to the rest of his classmates yet. He says the first
two lines and then he moves his mouth to approximate the shapes but it’s clear
that he’s lost for now.
Everybody says I am the
image of somebody
But if you really want
to know
I want to look like me!
