Dark Nuria
23/11/2019
You feel Catalan but you are Spanish because your ID says so, you feel like an atheist but you are catholic because you were baptized. You may feel like a woman and you were born a man.. Being and feeling are not the same. Life is a fucking chain of dilemmas and although legal imperatives grip you, luckily, you still choose the feeling of identity.
In May of 2002 a three year old boy –does not smoke– He walked with his adoptive family –Catalan– for the Diversity Festival circuit, Barcelona event of the progressive community against racism, then mandatory attendance. A few meters away a Tibetan monk with a shaved head appeared.. He looked a little like Blessed Lightning, the lama who helps Tintin find Chang. The boy let go of his mother's hand, He ran like crazy towards the north and threw himself around the lama's neck.. ¿What must have happened, what emotion or what memory, for your head? ¿What alert was triggered when seeing a saffron tunic?
The Tibetan, like nobody, knows that you feel where you want but you are where they leave you
The monk smiled and they ate together among the stalls.. He explained to them how, as a child, fleeing Chinese persecution, his mother was murdered –one more among the million victims of the Tibetan genocide– and how he, on his father's shoulders, crossed the Himalayas in endless days. How he became a beggar boy on the streets of Nepal and the 16 years he entered the monastery of the Dalai Lama.
He approached the boy's ear and said, in your language: “Wherever you live, "Don't forget your origins". Again the identity. He gave a namaste and left. Since then, and until today, when they ask “¿where are you from?” he answers "Catalan from Nepal". The family did not know, until many years later, watching television, that that monk with the eternal smile and shining bald head was Thubten Wangchen, director of the House of Tibet in Barcelona.
I saw Thubten again a few days ago at the Verdi. It presented a great documentary about the Dalai Lama's passion for science (“If it hadn't been Dalai, I would have been an engineer or electrician.”) and celebrated the 25th.º anniversary of the House of Tibet. at your side, in the armchair, your boss: the president of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile. Roots, belonging, identity. you carry them with you, It doesn't matter what land you step on. The Tibetan, like nobody, You know that you sit where you want but you are where they let you.
These days, in Nepal, part of the Sikh community celebrates the Nagar Kirtan parade: They pray at night and share what they have among the attendees “no matter where they come from.”. I just found out –we are not buddhists (I'm ready) ni sij– and the boy I was telling you about, today a kid, he doesn't know either. I'll tell him tonight at home.
