The Dalai Lama created a Tibetan capital in exile in India. It's shrinking
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DHARAMSHALA, India — Boys and girls harmonize together as their music teacher Tenzin Nordel leads them through a Tibetan song in a classroom overlooking an alpine forest. Theater kids practice Tibetan operas in the school hall. Even as they shoot hoops, teenage boys wear traditional shirts that button to one side, under the shoulder.
For decades, this is how the Tibetan Children's Village imparted Tibetan students with their language, culture and faith in their de facto capital in exile in the northern Indian city of Dharamshala. Except now, the number of children attending the school is shrinking, echoing the fate of the exile community itself.
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"It's like taking water out of a bucket," says Bhuchung Sonam, a Tibetan poet and publisher, describing the city. "You take one jug or two jugs, that much, the bucket becomes that much empty, right?"
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The Dalai Lama and his sisters set up Tibetan Children's Village in Dharamshala in 1960, after they fled Chinese-ruled Tibet following a failed uprising.
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