Life at the Kagyu Nalanda Monastic order in Bylakuppe, Karnataka, India -- doing homework and playing video games (Flickr/Abhishek Sundaram)
The laughter of little children as they darted around us, the shy smiles as we walked about with our SLRs clicking away at anything that moved, some heads bent over books memorizing their contents in classrooms, others tending to daily chores, and everyone waiting for the Saturday evening screening of a Bollywood flick in one of the larger classrooms. No, I am not in a Residential Primary School but the Kagyu Nalanda Temple at Bylakuppe.
It was on July 2nd that we found ourselves heading towards Bylakuppe, a Tibetan settlement near Mysore, India for a photo holiday. Bylakuppe, surprisingly, is said to be the largest Tibetan settlement outside of Tibet. I would have imagined either Dharmashala or Sikkim, the seats of the Dalai Lama or the Karmapa, to be the largest. Having previously through some friends received permission to stay within one of the monasteries, we set out... More>>
