Renegade Lama Drama

A quick scan over “most read” on The Grauniad website shows some interest in the story of Osel Hita Torres. At the age of 14 months he was identified as a reincarnated Buddhist spiritual leader by the Dalai Lama himself.

Now 24, he is, as Dale Fuchs writes at The Guardian, “more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha” having turned his back on Buddhism, grown his hair long and become a film student in Madrid.

Talking to Spanish newspaper El Mundo he describes how he never saw a couple kiss until he was 18, was astonished the first time he went to a club and that the only film he was allowed to watch was The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy. He’s described this as causing him to “suffer a great deal” which is understandable; although I do think that he’s overlooking a rather good turn from Charles Dance as the villain.

Anyway, fair play to the boy for moving on.

But more importantly growing web awareness does allow for great headlines like this one on thefirstpost.co.uk:

Reincarnated Lama goes off the rails

Okay, it’s not as factually accurate as The Guardian (“Boy chosen by Dalai Lama turns back on Buddhist order”) – you could hardly describe film studies as “going off the rails” – but it sounds funny.

It doesn’t take much to make me happy.