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Jan
Goodey hears of an incredible journey
 Imagine
a six week journey, scaling the Himalayas, in sub-zero
temperatures, with limited food supplies and inadequate
clothing. Add to that the fear of torture and imprisonment,
plus the nagging suspicion that you'll never see your
mother again, and you're half way to understanding the
extraordinary feat of endurance undertaken by Pasang and
Tenzin, two young brothers escaping Chinese repression
in Tibet.
Their
spine-tingling journey took place in 1995 and has been
immortalised on film - Escape From Tibet - by respected
documentarist Nick Gray. "Tibet is a country invaded
[in 1949], where cultural and religious freedom is denied,
where there is discrimination against native Tibetans
on racial grounds," he tells me. "Out of a population
of six million, one million have been killed or starved
to death. But for the TV audience in Britain, Tibet is
a country a long way away. In order to get a programme
commissioned I needed to find something to interest the
audience." Anyone failing to be interested by the
result must have had a compassion bypass, this is a tour
de force with the power to unhinge.
At
the time Pasang was 17, and Tenzin (not their real names)
was 11. They had been jailed and tortured in Tibetan capital
Lhasa and then once again near the Tibetan border shortly
before their dash for freedom. The crime? Begging.
From
the age of 11 Pasang had been placed in the nearest monastery
to the boys' home, but didn't like the life there and
made his way to India for a first visit where he ended
up in the Drepung monastery, while Tenzin remained at
home. It was memories of this initial trip that made Pasang
persuade their mother that Tenzin would have a better
education (in Tibetan) and a better life in India.
How
they came upon Nick Gray is another story. Gray explains
the lengths he had to go to before he could even start
filming. "There was an immediate problem. If we showed
people inside Tibet criticising the occupying power, they
and their families would be put in
danger. They would be imprisoned, tortured or forced into
exile. For their protection we made sure people we filmed
intended to stay outside Tibet for at least five years,
that their names and family backgrounds were changed,
and that we'd seek the approval of His Holiness The Dalai
Lama for the project."
The
risk didn't rest with the refugees alone. The Tibetan
problem is highly controversial in India, and officials
don't readily give permission to make films about it.
If Gray had been discovered the film would have been confiscated
and he would have been deported, or worse, thrown in jail.
"I had gone to my bosses at Yorkshire TV and to ITV
with the proposal," explains Gray, "and to their
great credit they said, 'Yes!' So we left before they
could change their minds." And that's how Gray and
his team found themselves freezing, on the top of a mountain,
waiting for refugees to appear over the border.
The
ensuing documentary has now been shown all over the world,
China excepted. It has had special screenings at the Foreign
Office, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of
the Child in Geneva, and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile
has even requested it be translated back into Tibetan
to be smuggled into Tibet.
To
update you, Pasang and Tenzin first ended up in the Drepung
monastery mentioned earlier: a colony of 25,000 Tibetan
refugees settled in southern India. Tenzin learnt the
Tibetan language, which he tells me, "was quite hard
to understand. I was called bighead because I always came
top." The monastery rules were strict: if you were
caught in the cinema you were fined 500 rupees. But that
didn't stop Tenzin having pictures of another soldier
of fortune on his wall: James Bond.
Following
an invitation to take up scholarships for a year at the
School of English at Kings College in London in 1999,
Gray helped to settle the boys, now men, in this country.
Pasang, 24 wants to work here, Tenzin, 18, wants to go
to university. They are applying for political asylum
as victims of torture. A few weeks ago they had their
first telephone contact with their mother who they had
not spoken to for six years.
Gray,
in the meantime, has just finished a documentary about
an Indian princess who studies tigers and is working on
three programmes for the BBC about the Church of England
called The Power.
It's
the power of Tenzin's closing words to me which emphasise
the unswerving Tibetan spirit which the Chinese will find
hard to crush. "I will stay a monk all my life. Will
I change my mind, get married and have a family? No. Never.
My ambition is to become a Tibetan scholar and teach other
monks, and to become a big lama. If you spend time in
prayer every day and you're kind to all living beings
then perhaps you will become a lama in this life. I have
learnt to forgive the Chinese guards who tortured me."
Special
screening of Escape From Tibet plus a Q&A with Nick
Gray, Pasang and Tenzin, Duke of York's cinema, May 8,
6.30pm.
copyright New Insight 2002
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