Stories and Novels

Prologue  I had never been inside an ambulance before. It was kind of creepy. Like a hospital was suddenly asked to pack up and move. Instruments, catheters, drips and a medicine box surrounded two beds. There was hardly any space for me and Ryan to stand even as Alok got to sprawl out. I guess with thirteen fractures you kind of deserve a bed. The sheets were originally white, which was hard to tell now as Alok's blood covered every square inch of them. Alok lay there unrecognizable, his eyeballs rolled up and his tongue collapsed outside his mouth like an old man without dentures. Four front teeth gone, the doctor later told us. His limbs were motionless, just like his father’s right side, the right knee bent in a way that would make you think Alok was boneless. He was still, and if I had to bet my money, I'd have said he was dead. "If Alok makes it through this, I will write a book about our crazy days. I really will," I swore. It is the kind of absurd pr...

Northeastern Tibet, 1935   ‘Tah-shi de-leh. Khe-rahng ku-su de-bo yin-peh?’ asked the leader of the search party. Little Tenzin Gyatso looked up innocently and replied, ‘La yin. Ngah sug-po de-bo yin.’35   Dalai Lamas were manifestations of Buddha who chose to take rebirth in order to serve other human beings. The thirteenth Dalai Lama had died in 1933. The Tibetan Government had not only to appoint a successor but also to search for and discover the reincarnation of the thirteenth Dalai Lama.36   In 1935, the Regent of Tibet travelled to a sacred lake near Lhasa. The regent looked into the waters and saw a vision of a monastery with a jade-green and gilded roof and a house with turquoise tiles.   Soon, search parties were sent out to all parts of Tibet to search for a place that resembled the vision. One of the search parties went east to the Tibetan village of Amdo, where they found a house with turquoise tiles sitting dwarfed by the hilltop Karm...