Behind the visual distinctiveness of Majnu Ka Tilla lies the story of hundreds of bamboo shacks, tarpaulin roofs and ‘Chang’, the Tibetan barley wine
“The growth of Majnu Ka Tilla and its gentrification is the story of the Tibetan community in exile”, says former executive director of the Tibet Policy Institute and veteran journalist Thubten Samphel.
In the late 1970s, among the first generations of Tibetans in exile, Samphel was a student at St Stephen’s, Delhi University. He and his friends, putting away the last of their History exams, rushed to Majnu Ka Tilla, to get hold of the cheap Chang, Tibetan barley wine.
In those days, Majnu Ka Tilla was not anywhere near how it is known now. The prayer flags, the temple, the people were all layered with thick coats of dust, sweating under tarpaulin roofs with their bamboo huts providing no relief. And all that the place could brew was the smell of Chang.
With its reputation for cheap Chang, Samphel says, “It was even called Changistan.”
Changistan was unlawful but given the resources of the time, it was the only way Tibetans could eke out a living from poverty.
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