Bir Away from Chaos
By Bharati Motwani

Bir in the Kangra Valley is a small Tibetan settlement in the shadow of the mighty Dhauladhars, in central Himachal. Tibet has long been a cool cause in the Western world and back-packers come here, drawn by the gentle, rumbling emanations of “Om Mane Padme Hum”, far from the chaos of Macleodganj and Dharamshala.

                Bir's other claim to fame is that it is the landing site of para gliders and para sailers who take off from Billing hill nearby. Billing is a small meadow and is the launch site of several international flying events. It faces the vast open Kangra Valley and allows the flyer miles of uninterrupted free-flying, making it a legend in the international paragliding circuit. The flyers return to touchdown in a large, terraced field at Bir, where pink-cheeked Tibetan children perch on walls and trees to cheer the pilots as they drop out of the sky. There is something climactic and exhilarating about the sight- men have flown, like Icarus into the sun.

                But truth rarely comes in life's climactic moments. Rather, it is found in the lulls and the interludes. For the long-term tourists who settle here for months learning Vipassana and chanting, truth is found in serotonin not adrenaline, in floating and not in soaring.

                Bir is an impromptu jumble of tin and stone dwellings, set amidst orchards and fields and hung with hundreds of faded prayer-flags… a flap in the pleasant chill blowing down from the snow-capped Dhauladhars. Like other ‘Happy Valley’ settlements in India, Bir is a fragment of Lhasa that flew down on the wings of a prayer-flag when Chinese forces attacked Tibet in 1950. There are chortens, monasteries, mani-walls, the aroma of thukpa and the sound of prayer wheels turning- symbolic of the great karmic wheel of cause and effect, symbolic also of the circle of happiness and despair that rings this community-in-exile.

                The grandest building here is a magnificent blue, red and gold palace -the residence of the Ogyaltopgyal Rimpoche. It's a lazy afternoon at Bir- women walking by with their pink-cheeked babies slung on their back, burgundy-robed young monks zipping past on motorcycles at a most un-Zen like pace, a portly matron saying her beads outside a murky tea-shop, a few foreigners eating 'momos' at a rough hewn table in the sun. All around, among the autumn-coloured trees, are the exuberant pink flowers of the paja tree- a recurring motif all over Kangra.

                Just outside Bir, are Sukhabagh and Harabagh- two Thakur Villages, culturally distinct from Bir with their slate-tiled houses, well-tended fields, chillis drying in the sun and pretty Kangra girls wearing the bright bordered woolen pattus that they've woven themselves. There are several pleasant tea-shops here,                where you can drink the famous black Kangra tea and have communion with Gaddi shepherds on their way down from higher slopes. Not far from here is Andretta, famous for the glazed blue-pottery which Delhiites get to see at the annual Diwali Mela at the Blind School. Andretta is also famous for its revival of the Kangra school of painting. There is an artists' village here started by the legendary Norah Richards, responsible for the revival of Punjabi rural theatre.

Getting there
The only way to get to Bir is via Kangra/Palampur or
Dharamshala depending on your mode of transport.

Best time to visit
Rated as amongst the world's best paragliding
destinations, the best time to visit Bir would be from
March to early June and from September till November.