- Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal

Those of you who are above the age of thirty will probably remember Kalimpong’s lonely warrior Mr. Tharchin, who was more popularly known as Tharchin Babu. For those who do not know him I hope the following essay will fill up, to some extent, the inadequacy.

The Centenary volume of SUMITE in referring to “those predecessors who have left behind their footprints (labour, signs of service) to the people of this region” lists sixteen great souls of our region, and tucked away at the center, at number 8, is written: “Rev. G. Tharchin - Author of Tibetan English Dictionary and Tibetan Readers, and Editor of (the) first Tibetan Newspaper in India.” It was very kind and thoughtful of the folks at SUMI to remember this remarkable man. He was a thoroughly likable character, peculiar in many ways, and one oddity that was immediately noticeable was his attire which put him in the order of what is referred to in the western world as a ‘westernized oriental gentleman’, or in the less respectable language – a wog. He almost always wore a shabby, ill-fitting suit, complete with a watch chain and he topped all that with a greasy felt hat that he never failed to doff repeatedly to his acquaintances. His scraggy neck, stained teeth and bristly gray eyebrows more or less complemented the scruffy clothes he wore.

However, Tharchin, a Ladakh-born Tibetan who made Kalimpong his home is remembered not for the way he dressed or looked but for a journal he wrote. Like Suresh Chandra Jain, who is remembered not for his soaring height or his portly appearance but for bringing out the only weekly, Himalayan Times that served Bhutan, Darjeeling, Dooars, Sikkim and Tibet; Tharchin Babu is and will forever be reminisced for Tibet Mirror which was the only Tibetan language journal ‘in the whole world’. It was read from the grand monasteries of Lhasa to the Oriental departments of esteemed European universities, and it was eagerly awaited upon by the foreign offices of Washington, Peking (Beijing), London, Moscow and New Delhi. When the Chinese presence in Lhasa intensified Tibet Mirror responded with salvos of anti Chinese, anti communist and anti Mao Tse Tung articles. The magazine, besides underscoring Tibet’s cause did much to, in no uncertain terms, balm the angst and hurt the local Tibetans carried against him for forsaking Buddhism in favour of Christianity.

Besides the uniqueness of a Tharchin Babu’s clothing, that of him becoming a Christian, and his journal being the only Tibetan language tabloid, we must also include another exclusivity: he was the editor, proprietor, compositor, printer, publisher and the selling agent of Tibet Mirror. The journal being a one-man show it would come out as and when he had the time, the inclination, and the inspiration to sit and write and most of all when he had the money to meet the printing cost. Consequently, its publication was extremely erratic and sometimes there was no Tibet Mirror for months and at other times even for a year or two. Because of the indeterminate duration one might have had to endure in waiting for the next issue, every time the tabloid came out it became a major event in the Tibetan-speaking world. He however made up for this inconsistency at a later period. When the Chinese communist army occupied Lhasa, Tharchin Babu was so enraged that he responded with double issues a month containing a greater barrage of anti-communist articles with Chairman Mao Tse Tung always receiving the author’s full contempt.

But besides the Tibet Mirror Tharchin Babu also published Bible texts and religious tracts for the Church of Scotland Mission and occasionally did some print-works for the local businessmen. He also was a teacher in great demand: his knowledge of classical and colloquial Tibetan was excellent and to tap this gift numerous Europeans Tibetologists came to study Tibetan grammar under him. Foreigners frequently sought him out as a guide and when on that job he would be away from Kalimpong for weeks and months, this being one amongst the several contributory factors for the irregular issues of his journal. Tharchin Babu, in summary, was an indefatigable man and whenever the opportunity presented itself he capped his busy schedule as a lay preacher for the Church of Scotland Mission.

He is no more with us, the Tibet Mirror is gone and his house from where the Tibet Mirror Press functioned at the Tenth Mile is but a ramshackle shed awaiting demolition and the rise of a multi-storied concrete structure. but he still lives on in our memories as a man who single-handedly and unflaggingly, despite knowing that it was a lost cause, took on the might of the Chinese communists from his small dingy wooden house at Kalimpong.

George Dorje Tshering Tharchin, alias Khunu Tharchin, was without a shade of doubt our ‘Lonely Warrior’.