The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong recounts the contradictory twists and turns in the desperate last-ditch efforts by Tibet to survive as a culture and people. The story is told by Gyalo Thondup, the older brother of the Dalai Lama and a key figure in the Tibetan struggle. The story covers the three major phases of the struggle: armed resistance to Chinese rule, raising the issue of Tibet at the UN, and compromise and dialogue with Beijing. In each of these turns in policy, Gyalo Thondup played a major role. His account of the Tibetan struggle is a welcome contribution to the growing body of Tibetan resistance literature and on the CIA’s involvement.
Some of the background to the events he recounts has never been told before. The only other Tibetan to tell the whole story is the late Lhamo Tsering in his exhaustive work, Resistance, and his son Tenzing Sonam in his compelling documentary, The Shadow Circus: the CIA in Tibet. Apart from these, this aspect of Tibet’s struggle for survival has been mainly hogged by CIA operatives or by American writers drawn to the subject. Gyalo Thondup’s perspective on the cloak-and-dagger game Tibet briefly played with the CIA will remain the authoritative Tibetan account of this episode of the Tibetan struggle.[Source]