Author: Noel Barber
Publisher: Srishti
Year: 1997
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8187075082
Description
From the Land of Lost Content may well be the last book to describe the Tibet of Old-that remote and romantic land before ten years of Chinese oppression drove the inhabitants to revolt and the Dalai Lama to exile.
In 1959, on Tibet’s south-eastern border. Chime, youthful leader of the Khambas-Tibet’s only warrior tribe, set out on an epic march to Lhasa at the head of his followers to urge the equally youthful Dalai Lama to lead an effective revolt against the Chinese. The Dalai Lama was caught in an agonizing dilemma all he believed in and stood for forbade the spilling of blood, even the blood of enemies; yet to refuse an official Chinese invitation to Peking would invite the worst reprisals, while to accept would leave his people leaderless-for it was unlikely that he would be allowed to return. Realizing the hopelessness of his situation and sensing the rebellious mood of his people, he made a dramatic escape from the Royal Palace.
There follows a vivid account of armed resistance in Lhasa. Not all Tibetans were heroes, some even turned traitor. But where heroism was needed it was found, as in the case of an elderly hunchback who, single-handed, kept three mortars firing at a large force of Chinese-and lived to get away; or the party who fought off the Dalai Lama at the river crossing, beyond which lay India and safety.
REVIEW
Recreates the tragedy of Tibet as vividly and compellingly as though the story had never been written before.
-New York Times
Contents
PART ONE: THE UNEASY TRUCE
February 13, 1959
February 14-15
February 16-24
PART TWO: THE INCREDIBLE REVOLT
March 3-16
March 17
March 18-19
March 20
March 21
March 22
Up to March 25
EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
HISTORICAL APPENDIX