The noodle maker of Kalimpong : my untold story of the struggle for Tibet Gyalo Thondup and Anne F Thurston

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Taktser Village and Kumbum Monastery -- My family -- The search team arrives -- My brother is recognized as the fourteenth Dalai Lama -- The Dalai Lama's new life -- My family's new life -- My life changes -- My student days in Nanjing -- Stranded in India -- Becoming an intermediary -- The Chinese invade -- The long journey home -- Home again -- Escape from Tibet -- Beginning life in India -- the Dalai Lama visits China -- The Dalai Lama visits India -- The CIA offers to help -- The Dalai Lama's escape -- From Mussoorie to Dharamsala -- Mustang -- Settling down in India -- The war between India and China -- The CIA stops its support -- A new life in Hong Kong -- My return to China -- The tenth Panchen Lama -- Meeting Deng Xiaoping -- Return to Tibet -- Our negotiations fail -- Another opportunity lost -- Opportunity lost again -- Return to Tibet -- Watching the world from Kalimpong.

In December 2010 residents of Kalimpong, a town on the Indian border with Tibet, turned out en masse to welcome the Dalai Lama. It was only then they realized for the first time that the neighbor they knew as the noodle maker of Kalimpong was also the Dalai Lama's older brother. Gyalo Thondup has long lived out of the spotlight, but his whole life has been dedicated to the cause of his younger brother and Tibet. He served for decades as the Dalai Lama's special envoy, the trusted interlocutor between Tibet and foreign leaders from Chiang Kai-shek to Jawaharlal Nehru, Zhou Enlai to Deng Xiaoping. Traveling the globe and meeting behind closed doors, Thondup has been an important witness to some of the epochal events of the twentieth century. In fact, only the Dalai Lama himself has played a more important role in the political history of modern, tragedyridden Tibet. Now, with Anne F. Thurston, Gyalo Thondup is finally telling his story.