Instant Karma

She was a squat, canny, flat-faced woman, heavily pregnant, from Rebkong, a Tibetan town in northern Amdo known for turning out writers and free-thinkers, most famously the mercurial, opium-smoking monk Gendun Chophel, who was known to have debated publicly with eight different people at the same time, like a grand master playing simultaneous chess. (On being arrested in Lhasa in 1947 he was found to be in possession of a subversive history of Tibet, revolutionary pamphlets and a rubber woman.)
From Patrick French's 'must read' Tibet, Tibet. Soundtrack is Philip Glass' score for Martin Scorsese's Kundun. The film, which Patrick French describes as "a beautifully crafted piece of Dalaidolatory", shares its screenwriter Melissa Mathison with E.T. More on Kundun here.

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