Phuntsok Chomphel, 26
A gentle bespectacled youngster, Phuntsok Chomphel is the sort you never expect to catch in the midst of an argument. But mention Tibet to PC, as he is fondly called by friends, and you will see a different man.
This postgraduate in history from M S University in Baroda, had always wanted to be a teacher until he got involved with the Tibet cause. So now he is earning his bread as an employee of an NGO called ‘Choice HIV AIDS Initiative’, but getting his raison de etre from his role as an executive member of the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress.
Tibet for him is a dream that is nearing realisation. “I am glad the native Tibetans decided to rise against the Chinese. We can’t expect the world to help us, we have to help ourselves,” he thunders, making a café his stage.
PC says he is deeply confident of Tibet’s liberation from the Chinese. “I always wonder why our people lavish lakhs on buildings and monasteries here. Don’t they know that they have to leave for Tibet eventually. We should spend on health and education, not on buildings that we will leave behind,” he argues, adjusting his specs.
His faith in the free Tibet is blind, so are hisconstructs.
These are busy days for PC, who shuttles between his office and the protest venue outside the gates of the main temple. It’s members like him who are keeping the hunger strike going. “Every day we have to mobilise 40 to 50 people for the strike besides organising avolunteers in shifts to ensure things go smoothly,” he says.
Such is his preoccupation with the protests that he hasn’t been able to give any time to his guilty passion—Hindi movies. Shah Rukh Khan is his screensaver.
No, he doesn’t think China is invincible. “For breaking a wall, we only need a crack. And that crack has appeared with the local Tibetans rising in protest.”

... contd.