Hemantkatiyar

I read it a long time back and cannot recall exactly the events in chronological order.

This book will inform you about the monk culture (perfectly), Chinese attack on Tibet (in a very vague way) and how the Tibetan came to reside in India.

If you want to know what the hell happens in the monk world u may try this, and i assure you my atheist and agnostic friends that you will have a great laugh or may be i am too cynical to believe Dalai lama for certain facts he presented such as man sitting with no discomfort on ice in -40degree. The thing which most shocked me was how the future occupancy of certain monastery post was decided . it's voodoo like all religions.

All in all i was having a good time reading it until i stumbled upon his decision of non violence, even this could be overlooked considering he is a monk but demotivating others who were fighting for their country was perplexing. In whole book he lauded Gandhi for accepting non violence as the only form of defending the country and i can bet that he thinks that Gandhi alone using non-violence freed our country. What about Bhagat singh, subash chandra bose, Tatia Tope etc. may be he haven't heard of them and all blame goes to his monk school education which teach them to be optimistic.

Even jawahar lal nehru stated clearly to him if you need your country to be free "FIGHT".

i accede with lokesh joshi's review mentioning"its always bad to mix religion with politics".Dalai lama being a religious man and like all god fearing creatures thinks that there is some customized big brother up above in the skies to protect his county and people and all they have to do is sit ideally and wait for a omen from the sky(may be in the form of a flier saying---"YOUR COUNTRY IS FREE,ENJOY").
.
.
well Mr. Dalai Lama,Mao Tse Tung said "Change must come through the barrel of gun" so sit around and contemplate next time you meditate and 3 star because it was a easy read,