By Aliefya Vahanvaty
Mumbai, June 26 – Shopping at Hill Road on a Sunday evening is not something any sane individual would subject himself or herself to on a lazy grey Sunday evening. But for Nyima, Nyima Dolkar and Dhamchoe, three Tibetan nuns who recently fled Chinese occupied Tibet and made their way to the Himalayan abode of the Dalai Lama, taking in the sights and sounds on Hill Road was a real treat.
Sleeveless shirts, silk pyjamas, wine glasses, even mangoes were exclaimed and giggled over. They spent hours debating pant colours and kurta fits, the shopkeepers taking them for chinkys from Assam or Meghalaya, not knowing that these girls had endured torture and imprisonment for what they believed in.
Dhamchoe’s mother was a nun in Lhasa before she quit and got married; her old aunt is still a nun in that same nunnery, which is why at the age of 16, Dhamchoe decided to go to the nunnery to look after her. “There are the real nuns who study Buddhism and then there are girls like me who simply stay on at a nunnery to help out and do the daily chores for the older nuns. We don’t really study Buddhism but we do participate in the prayer meetings and discourses whenever we can. We actually did most of the construction work,” explained Dhamchoe.
Explaining why she didn’t want to study Buddhism and become a proper nun like her aunt, Dhamchoe recalls, “The Shar Bhumpa Nunnery was destroyed by the Chinese during their occupation of Tibet several years ago. Till date, there are hundreds of destroyed nunneries and monasteries in Tibet. They are slowly being rebuilt but it’s extremely difficult. I decided that it was better for me to help in rebuilding a nunnery so that later on more nuns could study there rather than study Buddhism myself.”
As if carried on by the weight of her own past she spoke of how there was no freedom of any kind in China occupied Tibet. Of how even today Tibetans have no freedom of speech, _expression, assembly and other basic human rights. Of how if a family in the rural areas had more than two children and those in the urban areas had more than one child they would face severe sanctions by the Chinese government. The father could lose his job, there would be severe restrictions on medical aid and education and other such facilities. And yet despite all odds, the people of Tibet protested.
In 1995, Dhamchoe along with four other nuns from her nunnery held a Free Tibet demonstration and wrote letters and pamphlets of protest. These were obviously not appreciated by the Chinese authorities and all five of them were put in prison in Lhasa. Dhamchoe served a term of six years. It was while in prison that she met Nyima and Nyima Dolkar. All of them were severely tortured by the Chinese authorities while in prison.
After their release from prison, the three met up in Lhasa. The situation was bad. Being stamped as political prisoners it was impossible for them to get a job anywhere. They could not roam around without being watched and even their families faced constant threat and oppression. The three of them actually gathered funds from friends and family and opened a small restaurant in Lhasa to try and earn a living. The authorities shut it down within a month.
Unable to live in a climate of suspicion and fear anymore, the three decided that they had to leave Lhasa for the sake of their family and friends. A 12-hour journey by car from Lhasa to the Chinese-Nepal border and then some fake paperwork got Dhamchoe across the border into Nepal. She then spent two months at the reception centre in Nepal because the queue of refugees pouring in from Tibet occupied China went into the thousands.
Finally, it was with great relief that she reached Delhi. However, on reaching Dharamsala she was a little pained to hear the Dalai Lama’s statement, which asked the Tibetans to co-operate with the Chinese and to give up on Free Tibet. “We can’t give up on Tibet. It’s where our home is and where even today our families live under constant oppression. If it is our country then why are we being treated so badly and why don’t we have basic human rights? In Dharamsala we can breathe freely even if its borrowed air. In Chinese-occupied Tibet we can’t even breathe!”
Dhamchoe, Nyima and Nyima Dolkar plan to study languages and politics and raise awareness about the situation in Tibet.
