Govinda wrote powerfully about what it meant to be forced out. He wrote movingly about the last time he saw his Amai, and about the torture and death of a dear friend and classmate, Khadka Bahadur Magar, whose family was tricked into signing forms that made it seem as though he was already sick (pp. 102-103). He describes the slow impoverishment of his family in Lodrai, with no income and no ability to plow the fields. When his family left, he describes how the family plot was taken from him, and he was made landless and homeless. In one of the most emotive moments of the book, Govinda describes managing to cross back into Bhutan during the AMCC marches. I quote at length here, because Govinda’s words demonstrate the tension and hope that so many young Bhutanese must have felt about exile and the potential promise of return.
Bhutan Watch
Critical Appreciation – Constructive Criticism