In 1989, I joined Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as a faculty member. I came to know Dr. Dawa Norbu who had joined the JNU faculty in 1987. Every faculty member was allotted a single-room accommodation, overlooking the vast stretch of lush green jungle inhabited by nilgai, hare, porcupine, fox, jackal, mongoose and so many other wildlife. My newly acquainted Tibetan friend did not like my addressing him as Dr. Norbu, and insisted that I call him Dawa. In the afternoon, around dusk, Dawa and myself used to go out strolling, discussing both academic and non-academic matters. After knowing the meaning of his name, I gave him an Indian name ‘Chandramani’. Dawa in Tibetan means ‘moon’, and Norbu means ‘jewel’. He laughed and said, “So, I will be known in India as Chandramani”, while preparing a dose of khaini. Dawa was indeed very fond of khaini, putting the tiny containers of lime and packets of tobacco in his pocket for his daylong consumption. Half way down to his office, he would turn back midway to fetch his stuff from home. He often proclaimed that he continued consuming khaini even during his sojourn in the USA and UK. He was also very casual about his dresses, putting on kurta and pajama at some conferences, typical of an intellectual. Needless to say, his unassuming behaviour was liked by most of his contemporary academicians.
Late Prof. Dawa Norbu
In the course of our conversation, I came to know that Dawa was born in 1948 (though official records show his date of birth as 1 July 1949) in Sakya of Tibet, and that he along with his family had escaped to India when he was 10. He was the son of Thubkey Choephel and Akyi. We come to know about his family’s struggle with the occupying Chinese forces from his book Tibet: The Road Ahead (HarperCollins, India, 1997). Dawa did his B.A.(Honours) in English literature from the St. Stephens College in 1973. He did his M.A. in history from Delhi University in 1975, and later M.A. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1977. From this university, he received his Ph.D. degree in political sociology in 1982. He was a visiting professor at the University of Durham, UK. In 1992, he was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Dawa had been authoring books since his student days in Delhi University.
After my acquaintance with him, he came to know that I had been to China for higher studies, 1986-1988, and that I was teaching Chinese in JNU. I had also told him that in 1987 I could not enter Tibet since the Chinese Security Bureau did not allow foreigners to witness the pro-independence demonstrations in Lhasa. A Chinese security personnel told me that “a riot was going on in Lhasa, and that India was responsible for all these trouble since it was India that had sheltered the Dalai Lama.” So, I being an Indian was to be blamed for the “sin” that my country had committed by rescuing the Tibetan culture.
Dawa became doubly eager to know the pronunciation pattern of the Chinese Romanized Alphabet (Pinyin). While authoring his later books, Dawa used to sit with me and get the entire list of Chinese names transcribed in Pinyin. During our academic discourse, I found that he had a deep understanding of different political cultures vis-à-vis the traditional cultures. He highly appreciated the Bengali intellect, speaking in glowing terms about the Bengal Renaissance and the making of rationale in the enlightened Bengali mind. Due to his long association with Darjeeling, Kalimpong and the rest of Bengal, he loved Bengali food, art and aesthetics. And even prominent figures like Amartya Sen.
Though Dawa had come to India as a ‘helpless refugee’ but he did not have a refugee mentality that is typical of the Indian subcontinental syndrome, especially observed in Delhi with an uncouth tendency to snatch whatever one can lay hands on. Dawa was not an overtly nationalistic character. He was rather rationalistic in his basic approach. His western education took him away from the pious Tibetan devotees’ worldview, much to the chagrin of his kith and kin. He was indeed unlike his fellow Tibetans. After knowing my academic association with Chinese language and culture, most of the Tibetans in India, especially the educated ones, reveal their conservative mindset, overtly manifesting their dislike for anyone associated with China, simply refusing to realize that I am an Indian after all. But Dawa had no such inhibition or outwardly dislike for Chinese or people associated with Chinese studies like me. He was a man of good reason. He knew how to strike a balance between two extremities—a true adherent of “The Middle Path.”
Our mutual appreciation developed into an academic partnership. In 1993, I enrolled myself under his supervision for my doctoral research. But Dawa was so humble that he refused to accept the phrase “under his supervision.” He told others that I was “doing research with him.” The sense of any subordination did not surface in his mind. My doctoral theme was about a comparative analysis of Chinese and Tibetan folk literature. Dawa provided me with many useful books, journals and reprints regarding Tibetan culture including his own book entitled Khache Phalu’s Advice on the Art of Living (LTWA, 1987). He wrote a letter to Mr. Lotsawa Tenzing Dorjee of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamshala. In May 1993, I met Mr. Dorjee who provided me with a humble accommodation within Gangchen Kyishong. During my two-week long self-sponsored research trip to Dharamshala, Ms. Tsering Norzom and Ms. Pema Khangsar helped me with a lot of material. Dawa’s critical perusal of my chapters helped me to establish my arguments with irrefutable objectivity.
I narrated to Dawa how I caught cold in Dharamshala and had a chest congestion that did not let me sleep at night. So, I climbed my way to MacLeod Ganj and went straight to the clinic of Yeshe Dhonden, who had long been a personal physician to the Dalai Lama. His most unconventional, archaic yet effective methods of diagnosis, and four packets of bitter herbal pills cured me within two days. Dawa was quite astonished and equally elated to hear about the diagnostic methods that did not make use of any stethoscope or sample-testing laboratory. It just involved the olfactory, auditory and tactile senses of the physician to get to the ailment of the patient.
Going back to our first meeting, I recall that in early 1990, when Dawa’s elder son Rinchen Jamyang was just a little baby, he used to be so restless that Dawa’s wife Rinchen Lhamo kept him fastened to the window with a rope tied around his waist. The baby tried his best to break the ‘bondage’. At that moment I had taken his photo and later presented it to Dawa. He inspired me to learn Tibetan by giving me books. I did start learning but could not continue due to various preoccupation. However, I picked up a few tit-bits of Tibetan: Tashi delek; Thujiche; Khaliphe, etc. I also found that Tibetan, Kashmiri and Chinese—all have certain sounds in common, such as the ts sound in ‘tsampa’, and the ts΄ sound in ‘Ts΄ering’ in Tibetan are quite identical with the sounds in other two languages.
I used to greet Dawa and his wife during Losar (the Tibetan New Year). Sometimes we used to relish momos and thukpa at their place. It was the time when both of our families were staying in close vicinity in the same wing of our two-room apartments. After completing my doctorate, my wife and I had invited Dawa’s family for dinner. I remember that Dawa was hesitating to chew the chicken bones in his plate though he intended to do so. I assured him of our informal cordial relations and asked him to go ahead. He relished the bone marrow to the host’s delight. Around the year 2000, Dawa’s younger son Longchen was born. Dawa could no longer carry him on his shoulder as he did with the elder one.
While talking to me, he often expressed his wishes to revisit his homeland, the snowy heights of Tibet. But at the same time he expressed his apprehension that the Chinese authorities might harm him over his views on Tibet. On the wall of his room, he kept a traditionally-painted map of undivided Tibet, showing the Amdo region (now Qinghai province) and Kham region (now a part of Sichuan province) as integral parts of Tibet. Dawa used to point at the map and say with nostalgia that this was the original map of Tibet—which very much resembled a west-facing bovine skull. His nostalgia was not hard for me to realise since I knew the agony of millions of people rendered homeless following the dismemberment of Bengal and Punjab. The pain that Britain had inflicted upon millions by partitioning India could easily be felt with what later China did to the peaceful Tibetans forcing them to flee to India.
In 1999, when my book entitled Chinese and Tibetan Societies through Folk Literature (Lancers Books) was published, Dawa wrote an appraisal for the book. Meanwhile he became a professor in the School of International Studies, JNU—a long overdue for a scholar like him. However, lately something went wrong after he came back from the US. He was not keeping well. No one knows what caused him such an ailment. And then on 28 May 2006, we heard that Dawa had left the earthly abode around noon that very day. It was a shocking news! Death denied Dawa’s return to Tibet. To this day, his wishes remain unfulfilled…!
*Professor Priyadarshi Mukherji is a Professor in Chinese and Sinological Studies at the Department of East Asian Studies in the Delhi University. He was formerly the Chairman of the Centre for Chinese Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
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