WILDLIFE AND NATURE CONSERVANCY IN OLD TIBET

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One evening at McLeod Ganj, in the late ‘90s, a couple of my sarjor (new arrival) friends from Lhasa brought Taktra Rimpoche over to my house. He was the incarnation of the last regent of Tibet who died in 1951, or thereabouts. Rimpoche had been a small boy when the ’59 Uprising took place but in its aftermath he was imprisoned along with a number of young trulkus: Reting Rimpoche, Khardo Rimpoche, Drigung Kyapgon and others at a special laogai facility. After Deng’s “liberalization” these young lamas were released from prison and “rehabilitated”. Taktra was appointed one of the vice-chairmen of the Tibetan Buddhist Association. Rimpoche had, of course, come from Lhasa to Dharamshala to meet His Holiness, but he was young and outgoing and my Lhasa friends thought he might enjoy talking to me.