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101 3 Taking Refuge in (and from) India Film Songs, Angry Mobs, and Other Exilic Pleasures and Fears From its inception the experience of a refugee puts trust on trial. The refugee mistrusts and is mistrusted. Valentine Daniel and John Knudsen Yet the craving for spectacle, for romance, for a funny turn or two, for singing and dancing, remains and has somehow to be met. If the film does not meet it, nothing will. Satyajit Ray The sparkling lights and raucous firecrackers of the Indian holiday Diwali filled the vast dark valleys below Naddi Gau during the Yak Band’s final rehearsal before its long-awaited public concert in November 1994. As the band’s new keyboard player, I had spent all afternoon, right through twilight , on the flat cement roof of the Yak Shack waiting for the electricity to come on and making posters to advertise the next day’s show. “The Yaks Come to Slow Rock You!”“Yaks Live in Concert!” Ngodup, the thin young drummer, proved himself particularly gifted at drawing the band’s logo, the English word yak subtly incorporated into abstract, spreading horns, and pointed hooves, with black ink and brushes.An American friend of the band had recently paid for a huge black and orange banner with the same logo on it to be used as a concert backdrop. As we worked, Thubten, the band’s rhythm guitarist and leader, helped pass the time with stories about fighting on the Siachen glacier along the disputed Pakistan border. I hadn’t realized until that day that he, a young man only a few years older than I, had spent seventeen years in the Tibetan regiment of the Indian Army before quitting the military at age thirtythree . His stories flickered, as usual, between gritty realism and the supernatural , in this case between the cold and terror of mercenary military action and the reassuring protection of Tibetan amulets. Bundles of these precious amulets hung around the necks of everyone present, even those who shook their heads at Thubten’s riveting tales of impossibly close calls and hand grenades that landed nearby and then mysteriously lay idle in the snow. I learned that afternoon that Tibetan soldiers carry around a kind of pill that they can take if they feel they are facing death. The pill is not poisonous, but if it is, in fact, the soldier’s time to die, then he will expire instantly and peacefully on taking it. If it is not his time to die, the pill will have no effect and the solider can proceed without fear, even with extra confidence and enhanced bravery. This is big medicine in a dangerous world, but only if you believe in it. Thubten learned other tricks in the army, during the long hours waiting in tents or driving in convoys between camps: how to flick a cigarette in the air and catch it between his teeth, how to win any game (involving cards and dice, if not love), how to imitate any accent, mimic any film star, make any story last for hours, and pierce the heart and tickle the funny bone. Phuntsok, the band’s bass player, hooted from the kitchen downstairs that the power was up and running just as we were losing the evening’s light.We gathered up our art supplies and empty tea mugs and climbed backward down the rickety ladder from the roof.While the Yaks set up the band’s equipment, I sat out on the front porch watching some baby goats clamber onto the Gaddi neighbor’s steep slate roof and slide off of it, out of control, into a haystack below. Laughing, I absentmindedly scratched the stomach of the anonymous and very pregnant black dog who was always hanging about the place, using a rock instead of my hands after being scolded by Paljor about fleas.A screeching sound check from the house soon drowned out the holiday firecrackers, scared away the animals, and drew me inside to the rehearsal. For the first time, we ran through all the songs we planned to perform in concert. Several rehearsals had been cancelled this week out of respect to the surrounding Gaddi community, because the village headman’s father had expired. The band members, who were the only Tibetans living in the immediate area, made continual efforts to maintain good relations with their Pahari-speaking neighbors, particularly since the interethnic trouble of April 1994. In fact, the Yaks...

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