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| Chushi Gangdruk fighters in Mustang, Nepal - 1960s |
When
a posse of the occupying People’s Liberation Army shot dead his root lama in
the middle of the Kyichu River on 10 March 1959, Jedung Jampel Lekmon joined a
small underground resistance group in Gyangtse, a strategic town in central
Tibet. His group soon joined Chushi Gangdruk and engaged in numerous fights against
the Red Army.
After
his escape into exile Lekmon enlisted himself with the Tibetan guerrilla
fighters and received training on wireless communication, air signalling and
heavy weapons engagements from CIA operatives in Colorado. Immediately after
the training they were airlifted to Bangladesh from where they sneaked into
Mustang in Nepal via India. This small band of men proved themselves worthy of their
warrior ancestors whose spears pierced holes into the Chinese empire over the seventh
and eighth centuries. However, in the early 1970s the Tibetan guerrilla
movement came to a sad and painful end due to circumstances beyond the leaders’
control.
Today the history
of the Tibetan resistance is down-graded, unrecognized and often intentionally cast
aside by all parties involved, including the exile Tibetan government. A
handful of surviving former fighters are at the tail end of their lives, thumbing
rosaries and reciting holy mantras to wash away sins they may have committed while
fighting for their country. Irony can’t be more acerbic.
No
good deed, however, goes unremembered. Not in the world of literature, at
least.
Kaushik
Barua’s novel Windhorse is a fitting
tribute to these Tibetan resistance fighters. In his delightful prose, Barua
has recounted their lives – what was at stake and why so many were ready to
forego so much to pick up arms and face death.
Barua
is a natural storyteller. His book follows the tales of two central characters
– Lhasang, who was born in eastern Tibet and grows up soaked in Tibetan culture,
myth and folklore; and Norbu, who was born in India’s capital Delhi to a
well-off Tibetan merchant but had no idea about his people and their way of
life.
While
Lhasang was entrenched deep in the struggle from childhood, Norbu discovers his
roots much later in life. Norbu’s future is fluid, as Barua writes, his vision ‘nameless
and barely visible – like a lighthouse in a fog’. It is Dolma, his girlfriend,
who clears the fog and shows Norbu his destination. ‘You can join, Norbu’ Dolma
says referring to the rebel group being put together in exile by Thupten,
Lhasang and others.
Four
years later Norbu writes to his girlfriend from Mustang, from where the
guerrillas were carrying outs raids into occupied Tibet. ‘Today I killed a man.
I pulled a trigger and a bullet pierced his skin… I don’t know if he expected
it. If he knew what happened. I was far away. If this ever happens to me, I
might think of you.’
Windhorse is a powerful human story.
Despite the fact that the narrative is based on the real-day actions of the resistance
fighters, it has so many elements of personal stories woven in to create a deep
emotional impact. This is a story of dislocation, love, loss, betrayal, conflicts
and frustration making it a potent representation of a people who are ruthlessly
driven out of their ancestral homeland.
Barua’s
moving account of the freedom fighters is also likely, in my mind at least, to
clear two invalid assumptions about Tibet’s struggle for freedom: that it has
been nonviolent throughout and that Tibetan people are always peaceful, compassionate
and happy. Characters in Windhorse are
such average, everyday people that many – whose minds are overstuffed and saturated
with prevalent images of Tibetans – will have hard time accepting that the
story is in fact about recent history of Tibet and the people involved in it.
This
universal tale, evocatively told in a language that reflects the ordeals of
people still lingering in refugee camps, will tug at any reader’s heart.
For
the Tibetans, Barua’s story appeals to us, in the words of imprisoned writer
Theurang – ‘to
call upon the courage of our conquering ancestors / to raise their
warriors’ swords / to invoke their
martial spirit...’ There have to be more Gesars, Milarepas, Lhasangs, Norbus,
Athars and Ratus to ignite the embers of freedom.
And, there
will be more.
