The Scotsman - January 1996

An ageing hippie with a home counties accent was just ahead of us in the queue to change money at the State Bank in Dharamsala. Throughout the hour and a half we had to wait, he maintained a monologue species plumage and call but a much younger species. I don't know what effect it had on her but my wife and I were mightily amused.

"This is such a super place to find yourself. I know exactly what I'm going to do for the rest of my life now. When I get back home I'm going to paint thangkas on wood - but I'm going to pot a bit of myself into them. You know w my parents don't know where I am - they would only worry if I told them... Yes, it's ridiculous isn't it? At my age too (conservative estimate 50+) ..... Listen, you must stop worrying. If you want to enjoy India you have to take things as they come. Just go with the flow..."

Eventually he squeezed through the door into the tiny bank. When he came out, still clutching his traveller's cheques, his philosophy seemed to have changed. 'It's Outrageous. I've wasted half the day. Why can't they tell you they won't accept (an English clearing bank's) cheques? It's too much." As he stomped in into the distance we reached the head of the queue and presented our traveller's cheques which did very nicely, thank you.

Later we spent some of our newly-acquired rupees watching the comings and goings in a restaurant by the bus stand in Dharamsala. It reminded us of the one in the first Star Wars movie. The clientele may not have included any extra-terrestrials but the weird and wonderful people around us certainly seemed alien to this remote corner of Himachal Pradesh. Sinister-looking German bikers rubbed shoulders with Buddhist monks, Australian backpackers, smartly-dressed Hindus, and even file odd Saga tripper.

The Rough Guide' to India describes Dharamsala as 'one of Himachal's most irresistible destina-tions". But its scenic and historical attractions do not explain its popularity. True, it is an excellent starting off point for treks over high mountain passes, and the charming little church of St John in the Wilderness is a fascinating remnant of the British Raj. However, few people undertake the terrifying 13-hour journey by taxi from Delhi in order to view the graves of British officers "killed in action against the Kachins and the Mahsuds", the memorial to the civil servant "killed by a bear" or even the imposing monument to Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India and son of the Marbles man.

No, what brings all these visitors is the presence of just one man. If the Dalai Lama had not settled here after he fled from Tibet in 1959 this would be just another impoverished Himalayan village. As it is, the local Gaddi population has enjoyed an economic boom, as the village has become at once a place of pilgrimage, a refuge, and a pseudo theme-park.

Before I descend into cynicism let me stress that this is no Disneyland. Yes, there are the designer beggars who work a regular nine-to-five shift on the path to the temple, And the antique and refreshment sellers are just as efficient at extract-ing the tourist dollars as are the hamburger stalls at EuroDisney. But if you look beyond the narrow tourist streets of Upper Dharamsala you find stark poverty, humble piety, and many, many unan-swered questions.

What is the future for the small boy with empty eye-sockets playing in the dirt outside your luxury hotel? How can the Tibetan Government-in-Exile cope with the constant influx of refugees from the homeland? What will happen in Tibet when Deng and the communist hardliners die? And where will the thousands of young Tibetans who have been born in exile live out their lives?

In the week we spent among the Tibetan community in Himachal Pradesh we learned what it means to live in exile. The area is exceed-ingly beautiful and, in October at least, the cli-mate is perfect, but this is only a relatively safe haven. Kashmir is a mere 30 miles away. Earthquakes are com-mon, winters are cold, and rainfall can be up to 150 inches a year. Recently more than 100 Tibetan children were among the victims of a landslide. This was a dis-aster as devastating as Aberfan and yet it went largely un-reported in the West.

A stream of refugees continues to pour into India, 35 years after the initial influx. They seek freedom - freedom to practise their customs and beliefs, but most importantly freedom for their children to be educated in their own language, history, and traditions. The area around Dharamsala cannot cope with any more refugees so this is only a temporary stop for the new arrivals, most of whom will settle elsewhere in the subcontinent. Their new-found freedom wit' he tinged with hard-ship and the stress of uncertainty for many years to come.

However, some of the earlier refugees have found a kind of stability and employ some Western-style comforts. My wife and I were invited into the home of Lobsang Yamphe and his wife, Dolma, one of the first families to arrive in India in 1959. We were treated to a meal of Thukpa (noodle soup) followed by a variety of delicious Tibetan-style vegetarian dishes and a beautifully presented salad. Enchanted by a radish which bad been transformed into a rose, my wife urged me to take a photograph. But when Dolma revealed that she had learned how to make it from Delia Smith in the BBC World Service I quietly put my camera down...

After the meal we were shown the handful of religious relics which the family had managed to bring with them out of Tibet - and Lobsang's extensive, but mostly empty, collection of Scotch whisky bottles. Settling back with a large Glenmorangie he told his story.

As a young man he had spent two years fighting as a guerrilla against the Chinese. His brother was killed and he was shot through the knee. He described the fighting. "We had a few weapons and we were not well-trained In using them. Mind you, the Chinese were sometimes short of weapons as well. Once a helicopter found us and I thought we were finished but they only had rocks to drop on us ... But it was hopeless. Every time we killed one a hundred more came to take his place."

It took Lobsang and Dolma three months to walk out of Tibet. If they had been caught he would certainly have been killed. They have raised a family of six children in India. One daughter lives in Canada, another in Melbourne, one son is a monk, another wants to be a teacher, and the only son still at home, Tenzing, is train-ing for a career in business. All of them were edu-cated in Tibetan schools in India and are proud to be Tibetan.

We liked the family very much and were touched by the warmth of their welcome. Although we live in completely different worlds we share similar hopes and aspirations for our children. After we had left them my wife said that there had been one question in her mind which she had not been able to bring herself to ask. "Will the young Tibetans who have been born in India, or elsewhere in the diaspora, give up their lives and careers when and if Tibet is freed from the Chinese?"

This question stayed in our minds over the next few days as we visited the refugee schools and met the young Tibetans who will one day have to provide an answer. When that time comes, the choice for some of them will be quite easy. Giving up a subsistence existence in a crowded slum for the chance to help rebuilt their newly free ethnic homeland will be no hardship.

But what about those who have built successful and comfortable lives In India or the West? what about the professionals, engineers, academics, and scientists whose skills will be most needed to rebuild a society torn apart during the Chinese occupation? Will they go to the aid of a land they have never known?

Lobsang's son Tensing exemplifies a commitment to Tibet that may indeed provide a positive answer to this question. He and his brothers have chosen to retain their Tibetan nationality rather than apply for the Indian passports which could have opened many career doors for them. If the majority of young Tibetans in exile share their dedication, then there may yet be a future for their country.