McCloed Ganj

     Raz swept us off the street promising a folk dance show which would enlighten us of Tibet's cultures core values and traditions. Perhaps we should have questioned this as he was wearing day-glo pink star shaped shades and a big mane of blownback Jimi Hendrix hair at the time, yet ever the earnest tourists we herded upstairs anticipating a a bit of packaged Tibeten culture. In the small rooftop bar Raz told us solemnly that he would now perform an tibetan prayer dance while he donned what looked like a smoking jacket. Playing a CD of suitably reflective chanting he then started to hop around the room and do twirls, all the time reverently looking up the the ceiling. There was nothing wrong with it per se except it was, well, a bit amateur. Indulgently we in the crowd nodded at each other and when he finished clapped in the encouraging way you might reserve for your musically challenged child's stab at their recorder recital.
     Another slower and slightly more surreal dance followed, seemingly influenced by Tai Chi, climaxing on a long awkward moment where Raz curled up on the floor for six or seven minutes while the audience glanced at each other nervously, unsure how to respond
     The third dance Raz ominously presaged with the comment that it would be "more modern". A few eyebrows were raised around the room, which turned to puzzled slightly apprehensive looks as the CD was started. A synth and saxophone soundtrack coiled out of the stereo, the sort of Casio symphony you might find in a bad eighties soft porn movie. Raz had now lost the jacket and was standing in what appeared to be a child's set of pajamas. Detectable shuffling had started to rustle in the audience, and that Raz was performing in front of the only exit was widely noted. We were cornered.
     What happened next is too traumatising to go into exact detail. Suffice it to say at one point I was licked, the fellow three seats in front was lifted by Raz while still in his chair and humped enthusiastically, Raz stuffed dumplings up his nose and blew them onto the ducking audience, a woman of 60 was passionately kissed, and finally we found out that under the pajamas Raz was wearing a thong. And under the thong nothing at all.

     In a weird way this tradition meets kooky modernist madness is an extreme representation of McCloed Ganj. I doubt many others Tibetan exiles here are parading around with thongs under their robes, but the culture is generally very schizophrenic. The Buddhist temple, the presence of the Dalai Lama, the museum and scriptual centre give McCloed its reflective spiritual credibility, drawing monks and dreamy soulful types seeking enlightenment. But around this core a booming liberal humanitarian fantasyland has been built with everything the compassionately inclined want to see for their donations - messages of peace, evidence of real poverty, and the ongoing drama and moral certitude of the injustice of the the plight of the Tibetan population in exile. Upon this a third layer of shopkeepers and humorous t-shirt sellers rests - the attendant decidedly non spiritual cacophony and comforts of free market globalised economics.
     The restaurants serve outstanding international food (I have had Italian here that is better than much I have had in Italy), the streets team with vast numbers of 18 year old gap year students passing on their dubious english to Tibetan monks. Beer is drunk in vast quantities and every second building is an intenret cafe. There a couple of really flashy shoe shops too, I suppose because this is the only part of the outfit the monks are allowed to customize. And some decent socks too as you can see....