DORJI BHUTI is 81 years old and grew up in the village of Chungdu, in the Tibetan province of Utsang. She was the only child of farmers, and escaped her country in 1959."The Chinese who were occupying our village made us feel very uncomfortable,” Bhuti remembers.
“They came to our homes and asked lots of questions," she continues. "And they returned several times. If we were consistent in our answers, things weren’t as difficult for us. But if we ever hesitated, or gave different answers to the same question, they would come back even more.”
Bhuti's father was imprisoned. Her mother, refusing to leave the country without him, advised her only child to flee while she could.
“We were all suspicious of one another—even within the Tibetan community,” Bhuti recalls. “It was difficult to know who to trust.”
Dorji Bhuti joined a group of thirty who fled their village in the middle of the night. When asked what it was like to leave her mother, she burst into tears. “Saying goodbye to my mother was one of the hardest things I ever did,” she cries.
Bhuti had already married; her husband had previously escaped. The couple were parents to two young children.
“I had my eight year-old by the hand and my four year-old on my back,” Bhuti remembers.
“By the time we arrived in Ghantze, the Chinese were there—and many Tibetans surrendered. But my children and I blindly moved ahead. I could hear guns shooting from every direction."
Dorji Bhuti breaks into tears. "I was worried my child would be shot on my back,” she says.
What gave her the strength to go forward?
“Knowing His Holiness was also escaping," she answers. "I had no other ambition for myself and my children other than to be with him.”
Bhuti and her children found themselves at the base of snow-capped mountains by the Bhutanese border. With the help of two fellow travelers, they managed the treacherous journey into Bhutan.
Once in Bhutan, and to her great shock, Bhuti reconnected with her husband. Together, the family traveled to Darjeeling and then to Bylakuppe, where she bore two more children.
Since her escape, Dorji Bhuti has returned once to Tibet, in 1986. But while there, she says, she "found no freedom to say or to listen."
“I’m thankful to the Indian government that we have a place to stay here in Bylakuppe," she says. "But after all these years, it still feels like we’re simply taking shelter here. It would be lovely to return to our country as free Tibetans."
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