Remembrance of things past, Tibetans in search of lost home

“Since that night I have never seen my siblings. I wonder if they are alive,” he says.

“We walked for a month on foot through the dense forests, drank water from waterfalls and ate fruits from trees,” he recalls. After a month they entered Menchuka in Arunachal Pradesh and were put up in a refugee camp. “ We did not have a penny and ate two meals a day provided at the camp,” says Sherap. Sherap joined the Special Frontier Force in 1968 and participated in the 1971 Bangladesh war.

Thirteen-year-old Leksang Chodar (name changed) was meditating in a monastery in Tibet when the spiritual head told them that the Chinese were coming. Fifty young monks started the difficult journey to save their lives. “We started in September 1959 and walked till January 1960 when we reached the border. It got very cold and we did not have proper clothes or shoes to protect us from the snow. Some of my friends died on the way,” he says. “ We hid in the jungle during the day and sneaked into India at night,” says Leksang.

“ Since then I have settled in India. But on that night I could not bring my family along. I wish I could go back to a free Tibet and meet them,” he says.

Thendup Tshering (name changed) remembers starting on this heart-breaking journey in 1955. He was six then and spent a large portion of the journey on his father’s lap. Thendup remembers biding goodbye to his uncles and cousins for the last time. “ My father, a shoemaker, used to tell us that the Chinese would gradually take away our country. When I bade goodbye to my cousins, I did not know that I would never meet them again,” he says. Tendup and his parents walked for six days and reached Chum in Nepal. The family stayed on in Chum for the next 15 years. “My father would often sneak into Tibet to meet his countrymen. My parents could not stand the grief of living as a refugee and died within 10 years,” says Thendup.

He came to India in 1970 and lives in Orissa now. “India has been under foreign rule for centuries. They (Indians) should know how it feels to lose your freedom,” says Thendup breaking into tears.

“I was born in Tibet when my country was burning. There was blood everywhere,” says 38-year-old lama Tobgay (name changed) who entered India in 1993. He says that the lamas in Mendong monastery were not allowed to meditate.