-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
April 30, 1998

I just happened, Wednesday, to come across a crowd in front of the Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square. Lots of people were holding candles burning dripping-free in styrofoam cups. Some were holding flags and posters: "Free Tibet".

There were six hunger strikers in New Delhi pledged to strike till death if their demands weren't met. I thought the speakers were talking about one of them, but, no. It was Thupten Ngodup who died. Two days before, he'd set himself on fire to protest China's rule of Tibet, and, more immediately, the action of Indian authorities who'd forcibly hospitalized the hunger strikers. Six more men were set to begin fasting after the first group. Five are fasting now--Thupten Ngodup was the sixth.

(The Dalai Lama doesn't approve of such tactics, including them among violent forms of protest. But it's been 48 years now; Tibetans in exile are getting more and more frustrated.)

All this I found out after the fact, though. At the time all I knew was that a man had died, for a cause I believe in, and I could join in remembering him in some small way.

As I worked my way into the circle of candle-holders, I felt like an alien observer. They were singing in Tibetan... women singing in that high reedy way I associate with India. I could only watch and listen, from the outside. But then the man at the microphone spoke in English, and I realized they were welcoming anyone who was interested. Before all was done, I raised my voice with others singing We Shall Overcome.

It was not a short gathering. People spoke with passion, at length. A young monk led a prayer. Candles burned down, catching styrofoam cups on fire. I watched one cup on the ground turn into a cylinder of flame, its walls becoming insubstantial and crumbling, before its owner finally stamped out its remains.

I didn't yet know Thupten Ngodup's name, nor how he'd died.

Chinese and Tibetans came to the microphone; black and white Americans spoke. They talked of tortures and deaths. I'd just seen _Kundun_ a couple weeks before... the image of the massacre of monks in red robes, their bodies strewn across the screen like grains of rice, would not leave my head.

But then before the meeting dissolved, the organizer called for a minute of silence, in memory of the many deaths of these 48 years. And as we all quieted, two girls about 4 years old swung clasped hands back and forth, sing-songing a joyful game together. An old woman standing next to me put her finger over her lips, and caught one girl's eye. The girl pouted, "Why?" and though she quieted for a moment, the game resumed almost immediately. It took a couple repetitions before she realized that everyone was being quiet, it was nothing personal. Then she giggled with her hands over her mouth, "Oops!" and was quiet for the last few seconds. Not that any of the dead minded, I'm sure. Joy is joy.

And that's what I managed to come away with. Despite the recent death, and the many others that were recounted... when I looked at the young monks, and the Amnesty International workers, and the singsonging girls, it was uplifting. Life is precious. When I watched _Kundun_, what stayed with me was not the deaths and the politics, but the compassion of the monks who wrapped the young Dalai Lama in instructive, gentle affection; the compassion of the Dalai Lama--his hands touching the cheeks of people lined up to see him--seemingly seeing through his fingers.

Touch joy. Live compassion. Feel music. Sing life.