ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the ongoing processes through which individuals, feeling marked by the displacement of the nation to which they belong, realize their Tibetan attributes in the context(s) they in varied ways perceive as ‘Indian’. It explores the quotidian experiences of ‘in exile’ specific to a subgroup of Tibetans in Dharamsala, north India, who have for a couple of decades at least described themselves as the ‘India-born’. The chapter describes the sensory realm of Tibetans’ everyday lives in Dharamsala was earlier derived from the methodological decisions made to suit a very noticeable ethos in the Tibetan community there. In Dharamsala where Indians, Tibetans and many other nationalities live side by side, ‘India-born’ is by and large a self-description of the Tibetans whose upbringing is grounded in its South Asian context. The government decided from the very beginning that the modern and secular education received by children among the refugee population must be simultaneously ‘Tibetan.
