Indian TV channel airs film on His Holiness’ escape to India

By Lobsang Tenchoe

DHARAMSALA, July 18: Epic, an Indian television channel aired the Tibetan Spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s epic escape to India.

The first part of the two episode Hindi film, ‘Escape of the Dalai Lama’ that chronicles the Tibetan spiritual leader’s 14-day journey from Lhasa, Tibet’s capital to India to seek asylum 57 years ago was aired on July 15 and the second part will be aired on July 22.

Apart from Tenzin Dalha, a Tibetan boy from Darjeeling who studies in Delhi University, the film has a cast of relatively amateur Tibetan actors.  Dalha had earlier acted in a Bollywood film titled ‘Margarita with Straw’.

The film narrates the Dalai Lama’s life in Tibet and the perilous journey he was forced to undertake at the age of 24, escaping Chinese persecution and finally seeking asylum in India in March 1959.

His Holiness and His office in Dharamsala helped a lot in completing this film, the film maker was quoted as saying in reports of cityairnews.com, July 15.

The film begins with His Holiness and his brother Ngari Rinpochey narrating the 14-day escape through harsh terrains with the imminent threat of being arrested by the Chinese government.

With the launch of the first episode of ‘Escape of the Dalai Lama’, Epic is set to launch greatest escape stories in a new mini-series titled ‘The Great Escape’, which also includes Sushmita Banerjee’s escape from Taliban, Nihal Singh, an Indian prisoner of war’s escape during the Indo-Chinese war and Shivaji’s bold escape from the clutches of death from Aurangazeb, the report adds.

Directed by Nidhi Tulli and Ashraf, of ‘Art in Exile’ documentary fame, ‘Escape of the Dalai Lama’ was produced by Mumbai-based Rangrez Films.

The film was shot in 15 days in the picturesque Spiti valley of Himachal Pradesh which borders Tibet.