While he normally went to bed early, in Santa Fe he had to attend dinners most evenings until late. And Thondup eventually made his way to Santa Fe. Many years later, in Dharamsala, India, Thondup talked his way into a private audience with the Dalai Lama, who told Thondup that he had never forgotten the bright teenager in the back of the Pondicherry classroom, waving his hand and answering every question, while the other students sat dumbstruck with awe. One day, the Dalai Lama visited his class. Thondup made it to Nepal and from there to India, where he enrolled in a school in the southeastern city of Pondicherry with other Tibetan refugees.
Thondup had escaped the Chinese invasion of Tibet as a kid, crossing the Himalayas with his family in an epic, multiyear journey by yak and horseback. The founder of the Tibetan community was a man named Paljor Thondup. The Tibetans had settled in Santa Fe because its mountains, adobe buildings, and high-altitude environment reminded them of home. I had become friendly with a group of Tibetan exiles who lived in a compound on Canyon Road, where they ran a business selling Tibetan rugs, jewelry, and religious items.
In the mid ’80s, I was living in Santa Fe, N.M., making a shabby living writing magazine articles, when a peculiar assignment came my way.
