Seven Years in Tibet
Finding your peace
I have always been an indoors person and have always wondered at the whole point of trekking. What does one really gain from climbing uphill and scraping one's knees and hands in the process? How better it is to read a book or watch a movie instead (my vain, geeky self adds) which would offer me a wide ranging perspective on people and things?
Heinrich Harrer, in the film 7 years in Tibet, answers my question, when asked “what do love about climbing mountains” .
He says “the absolute simplicity. That’s what I love. When you are climbing, your mind is clear, freed of all confusions. You have focus. And suddenly the light becomes sharper, sounds are richer and you are filled with the deep, powerful presence of life”
Watching the film was like taking a long and beautiful trek itself - the closest I could experience sitting at home in the lockdown at least. And one thing that I realised in this ‘climb’ was that even if you reach the peak - the world's highest peak - and the world stretches below your feet, the sky will still be higher above you. Trekking can give you a sense of achievement and humble you at the same time. It will overwhelm you and ground you simultaneously. So, actually, the point is scraping your knees and hands - putting yourself out there and continuing to climb till your heart understands that bit of old knowledge that our forefathers and foremothers have repeated - it is not the destination, but the journey that matters.
The film ‘7 years in Tibet’ is based on a book by the same name, written by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, describing his path breaking journey to Tibet which he took with his friend and fellow mountaineer Peter took by traversing the treacherous high plateau.
It was 1939 when Heinrich started his journey from Austria - leaving behind his pregnant wife in the times of an impending war to join Peter Aufschnaiter and his team in attempting to summit the Nanga Parbat. The summit, if successful would not only be a glorious personal achievement for Heinrich Harrer but would also contribute in validating the theory of ‘racial superiority’ Nazi Germany was advocating at that time.
Their journey was brutally cut short when they got arrested by British Officers for trespassing ‘their land’ and taken to a Prisoner of War camp in Dehradun in Himalayas - present day Uttarakhand. (I could not understand what was more arrogant - or ridiculous, in fact - the Germans wanting to conquer the mighty Himayalas to prove a point about their racial superiority or the Britishers claiming the impenetrable Himalayas as their property and arresting people for climbing it)
Heinrich ended up spending 5 years of his life unfairly languishing in the POV Camp - a period which cost him his marriage. It was only after multiple unsuccessful and heart rending attempts of Jail break, that he escapes with Aufschnaiter and embark upon their journey to Tibet - a land where they hoped to find refuge.
Their journey to Tibet was perilous to say the least, even for seasoned mountaineers like Heinrich and Aufschnaiter. They were no longer representing their country now. The prison had reduced them to rags and bones with little or resources at disposal to protect them from the cold and hunger. They were treated with hostility and suspicion wherever they met Tibetians (can't blame them, we know what foreign invaders did to the tiny country just a few years later from the time Heirich took the climb)
Neither had any incentive to go back to their country at war where they would be unwelcome for their failures. Going back to India and courting arrest was out of the question. So they continued, despite the odds - feeding on raw horse meat when they had nothing to eat and trading their personal belongings for clothes - till they were finally welcomed in the holy city of Lhasa.
Another chapter unfolds, a second journey ensues.
I tried to imagine how Heinrich must have felt while staying in a place so far away from his home, away from his family, undisturbed and unaffected by the politics and war and the freedom struggles of the neighboring countries. I tried to think what must have held him back, almost magically, to a quiet and peaceful country like Tibet where the way of life was completely juxtaposed with a life and philosophy he led and held dear in his own country until then.
Maybe he needed to heal. Heal from the wounds of his family breaking and his son refusing to consider him his father - for the child had only known that his father had abandoned him for a mountain quest in a far off land. Maybe he wanted to break free - from the ideas of ‘might is right’, superiority and aggression that ultimately only led to death and devastation in the world he knew. Ideas that he once believed in until life in Tibet taught him otherwise.
In one of the scenes where he shows his pictures of mountain conquest to a local girl that he loves and wants to impress, she says - “this is another great difference between our civilization and yours. You admire the man who pushes his way to the top in any walk of life. While we admire the man who abandons his ego”.
Maybe he needed to forgive himself too.
In the course of his stay in Tibet, Heinrich was introduced to the 14th Dalai Lama, who was still a boy and became his tutor.
It is surprising how a friendship can strike and bloom in the unlikeliest of the places, between the unlikeliest of the people. It is surprising how much a friendship can do to a human being, too. It was Heinrich’s relationship with the Dalai Lama that influenced him the most. It calmed him, in fact. He finds a purpose in teaching and mentoring the child, imagining him to be his own. His loneliness, his bitterness, the instability that harbored his mind ever since his wife left him is unburdened. For the young Dalai Lama, Heinrich was perhaps the only person who treated him the way he wanted to - at that age - with love and warmth and equality - something that his elevated status could not bring from the others.
The way the friendship between Heinrich and Aufschnaiter unfolds and strengthens is also interesting. Arrogant and rather pompous when they began their journey, Heinrich continued to refuse the good company and good counsel of Aufschnaiter till the mountains wore him out and brought out the vulnerable self that needed Auf’s kindness.
When the chinese started their invasions in 1950, both of them compared it to the situation in their own land, when Germany had invaded Poland. “History repeats itself - even in Paradise” says Aufschnaiter to Heinrich. Indeed it did, many, many times after this - all over the world. I have no hope from the governments and nations now. But the film made me believe that individuals can rise above all that - above the ideas of nation and nationalism - and hearts can unite where boundaries divide.
In the end, Heinrich returns to Austria and meets his son. He is not the same person any more, and does not wish to establish authority. He merely wants to meet his child, see him play. And maybe, that breaks the ice. Heinrich defeats his ego and wins over his son. And together, they set out to conquer the mountains again.
