Waiting for His Holiness

photo exhibition by Kullar Viimne at ENM Exhibition house
(J.Kuperjanovi 9, during Worldfilm festival 11-18)

Waiting for His Holiness is a photo exhibition born in the making of the documentary The Messenger (Sõnumitooja). The photos tell a story about the Tibetan people, patient and praying,  waiting for His Holiness The Dalai Lama either in exile in Dharamsala (North India) or in Lhasa, the heart of Tibet. While the expectations of the former culminate in His return, people in Lhasa have been waiting for more than fifty years...  

Due to the strengthening of the communist regime in China, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans The Dalai Lama was forced to escape to India in 1959, followed by 80 000 Tibetans. In the midst of the voluptuous greenery of Northern India, in the city of McIeod Ganji in upper Dharamsala, the Tibetan refugees founded their community and government in exile. McIeod Ganji is also known as Little Tibet  - it is the home for the residence of The Dalai Lama, various monasteries, culture and refugee centers, children´s village and the school TCV with its 2000 students (http://www.tcv.org.in/), the first and biggest one of eight Tibetan exile schools.  

Hundreds of schoolchildren and local Tibetans holding prayer flags, beads and incense, have gathered in a street of Dharamsala, North India. Soon a car arrives, carrying His Holiness. Suddenly the elevated crowd falls silent, praying towards Him. The exile Tibetans always greet His Holiness returning to his residence with such elegance and dignity, regardless of where he is coming from. Be it then a visit abroad or a one to a hospital in Delhi to have a kidney operation like it was on that day.  

The photos taken in North India are connected with its Tibetan community, which already forms a majority of Dharamsala´s 20 000-people population. They think of their current residence area as of a real Tibet – a free country where the Tibetan national flag greets the sunrise every day, where one can buy nomad clothes and tourists are taught to make Tibetan bread. A tourist is an appreciated consumer and an English teacher, the herald of  Tibetan woes and hopes to every quarter.  

Lhasa, the capital city of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in the People´s Republic of China, on the other hand, is a far more closed site to the rest of the world. You cannot just buy a plane ticket or take a taxi there. To enter TAR, one must apply for a special permit and hire a PRC-controlled tourist guide, but the fees are so high  it may even scare one off from the thought of going there. The permission is often denied for journalists and human rights activists. However, when finally arriving to Lhasa, our appointed tourist guide turns out to  be a former TCV student from Dharamsala, one of the few locals who has been able to study the international language (English). The strict-looking restrictions gradually start seeming like formalities and it turns out it is even possible to get around by your own, without the controlling eye of the guide. At the same time, on the flat roofs of the buildings one can see rifled snipers, watching. 

On this rooftop of the world, everything seems to be so close, yet so far... Tibet is gradually turning into a museum. Here is the Potala Palace, an architechtural wonder the building of which started on the 7th Century, here are all the other fascinating monasteries. But the buildings that used to be lively educational centers once, are almost empty now. Hundreds of monks and nuns have gone missing: many have been taken to prison, accused of high treason. There are still some monks wearing purple robes in the monasteries, but they are fake monks, keeping an eye on everything.

Despite the change of power, thousands of pilgrims are still travelling to Lhasa from all over Tibet. They travel to pay honor to The Dalai Lama.

The Tibetans in freedom are also praying faithfully, waiting ... 
 
Kullar Viimne