For the more than five million Tibetans living inside Chinese borders, the Dalai Lama remains a venerated figure, and he is surprisingly present in their daily conversation. Set high on a ridge, in the shadow of snowbound peaks, the town is a mix of refugee community and hippie retreat, with dreadlocked Israeli backpackers jostling among freshly shorn monks. Today, Dharamsala is the capital for more than a hundred and fifty thousand Tibetans in exile worldwide. “Trees will take fifty years to grow, so what’s the point?” “People said, ‘We’re going to be going back in a few years,’ ” Thubten Samphel, a writer and spokesman for the government in exile, recalled. He was followed by thousands of refugees, many of whom expected a short stay when they were urged to plant trees in their settlements, they waved off the idea. The exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet-His Holiness to Buddhists, and HHDL to his Twitter followers-settled in Dharamsala half a century ago, after rejecting China’s claims to his homeland and trekking over the mountains to India. He skips the party most years, but he had promised to attend his seventy-fifth, so five thousand people turned up at the temple that morning, in a humid downpour, to await his arrival. on July 6th, in the Indian Himalayan town of Dharamsala, where he lives. The Dalai Lama’s birthday party, an event he has never much cared for, was set to begin at 9 A.
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