Even the names of many establishments in McLeod Gunj, particularly the commercial ones, highlight the importance of tourism and the desire to appeal to outsiders' idea of Tibet as a Shangri-la. For instance, on the Jogibara Road this is exemplified in names such as Yak Restaurant, Snow Land Restaurants, Hotel Shangri -la, Snow Lion complex (hotel, restaurant, and medical store), and Travel Tibet Tailoring Shop. The fact that many such establishments are owned by local Indians goes to show that a primary motive for such naming practices is to appeal to tourists. In fact, this dynamic is also underlined by the presence of other shops with names that are unabashedly Orientalist, such as Dreaming Oriental Carpet Cottage Handicrafts, Royal Asia Art, Heaven Art, and Rising Horizon Cafe. It is hard to imagine the old city of Lhasa having place-names such as Shangri-la, Dreaming Oriental, or Yeti before its incorporation into the international tourism networks. My hypothesis is that while Tibetan names such as Amnye Machen Institute, Gangchen Kyishong, and lhagyal-ri reflect a desire to re-create a familiar environment, other more Orientalist names such as Shangri-la and Travel Tibet pander to exoticized representations of Tibet. This is supported by the fact that while the former are predominantly used in Tibetan governmental and nongovernmental institutions, the latter are found exclusively in commercial establishments.

The preservation ethos is not hegemonic in the Tibetan diaspora. Counterhegemonic spaces are available in Dharamsala for innovative and more contemporary practices of culture. Even these practitioners are not in opposition to traditional culture but complementary to it. For instance, though Norbulingka's catalogs and brochures fail to mention this, the institute has a section where young artists work on contemporary themes. Moreover, even the traditional cultural practices are often laden with contemporary political meanings. The Namgyalma Stupa [88] in the center of McLeod Gunj, erected during the 1960s as a memorial to the Tibetans who lost their lives fighting against the Chinese, is a good example of this combination of traditional religion with modern politics. Similarly, the dolls made in the traditional style at Norbulingka carry "Free Tibet" badges.

The political context of occupation and coercion is always present even in the space provided for traditional art and crafts. Despite the dominance of the preservation ethos, the focus of identification has now shifted from local contexts to a national one-instead of individual localities and regions, all of Tibet is collectively imagined as the homeland to which the refugees hope one day to return.

Rather than seeing culture as informing politics and vice versa, the entire category of culture has to be understood as political. For instance, both the desire and the attempt to preserve a culture under threat are acts of resistance to dominant forces of modernization and to the Chinese occupation. Therefore, we must consider not only the way in which politics affects the works of art but in what sense an artwork may itself constitute a political act or statement rather than being conceived merely as the result of a political intention (Millon and Nochlin 1978). It is difficult to miss the centrality of the Tibetan political cause in McLeod Gunj's landscape-"Free Tibet," "Boycott Chinese Goods," and similar stickers and posters are glaringly visible. The symbolic geography of Dharamsala in this sense is a geography of resistance as much as it is a geography of regeneration. In other words, the cultural is political.

An integral part of Dharamsala's geography is the festivals and various other events occurring throughout the year. Rather than seeing the festivals as merely reflecting religious beliefs or political rituals, we can examine the techniques and dynamics through which the narratives, symbolic spaces, and collective fantasies of communal identities are reproduced and regulated among the Tibetans and their supporters. Examples of such festivals that are replete with multiple meanings are Losar (February 12), Tibetan Uprising Day (March 10), the Dalai Lama's birthday (July 6), Democracy Day of Tibet (September 2), and the commemoration of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Dalai Lama (December 10). Connerton's observation that "the ritual performances and commemorative ceremonies are important in building up collective memory, which in turn is crucial for the development of a sense of home" (in Kong and Yeoh 1997, 217) is also applicable in the case of the Tibetan diaspora.

Though the focus is on the preservation of culture, a visible feature of the symbolic geography of Dharamsala is hybridity. In their everyday life, Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala and elsewhere in South

Asia negotiate with the popular culture of India; it should come as no surprise, then, that Bollywood has a very significant influence on the identity of many Tibetans (see Diehl 2002). Everywhere I went, I found a striking similarity between Tibetan songs and songs from both popular Hindi films and Western pop music.

However, such observations, while complicating the notion of preservation of a "pure" culture, do not militate against a more sophisticated conception of Tibetan culture. The new generation may not practice "authentic" versions of culture, but, as evidenced from the activities of the Tibet Youth Congress, their creative negotiations with dominant cultures around them do not hamper their po-liticization. On the contrary, the ability simultaneously to negotiate and resist varied cultural practices makes the diasporic Tibetans well placed to carry forward their political movement in a rapidly changing world. The simultaneous negotiation, appropriation, and resistance are key features of postcoloniality.

What does a postcolonial reading strategy look like? How can it seek to contextualize a politics of place and identity that takes into account the politics of representation? Here I wish to make six interrelated points relating to Tibetan identity-roots and routes of culture are complementary; identity is discursively produced; Exotica Tibet plays a productive role; the Dalai Lama's role is vital; an image of the "homeland" is crucial; and, finally, Tibet is a re-imag(in)ing construct.

First, the space for a different reading is afforded by the word dharamshala itself. As pointed out earlier, the word indicates a temporary home and this temporariness has been a central motif in Tibetan diasporic identity discourses. Tibet, the original homeland, is foregrounded as the final destination in these discourses and it also permeates the material as well as the performative cultural expressions of the Tibetans in diaspora. While focusing on the starting and finishing stations, such a reading ignores the crucial element of the travel itself. Dharamshala is not only a temporary home but also a temporary stop on the way to somewhere else. It is a house offering temporary hospitality to travelers on their way. One does not travel from home to dharamshala to return back to the home. Travel is transformative and constitutive. Rather, dharamshala is a temporary shelter to facilitate travel from one place to some other new place. If instead of focusing solely on the theme of return, we look at the process and experience of journey itself, we may be better placed to appreciate the conundrum of Tibetan identity politics.

As Clifford points out in a different context, "Practices of displacement might emerge as constitutive of cultural meanings rather than as their simple transfer or extension" (1997, 3). Instead of concentrating solely on the essence, the roots of Tibetan identity, we should look at the processes that constitute the routes traveled, including the creation of a pan-Tibetan exilic identity. Adoption of such a view allows us to appreciate the ambiguities involved in the project of cultural preservation as well as the changes that come about in the life of a community of people. While understanding the need to espouse one's cause in terms of an essential identity, [89] the contingency of such claims is not papered over-and herein lies the strength of the alternative theorization. Therefore, instead of framing an artificial opposition between the roots of culture and the routes of culture, we may look at them as complementary, for this false dichotomy is sustained only by the conventional view of culture as rooted in a particular place. If we look, on the other hand, at the roots as contingent foundations that are always already contested, we can begin to appreciate the complementarity.