I am always amazed at how many times I am moved by a photographic essay.  It is the essence of photography that it enhances and enriches a story and, when well-done, can intensify a personal story beyond the possibility of the written word alone. Today I found a photoessay by AP photographer Tsering Topgyal. When he was 8 years old and living in Tibet, his parents hired a smuggler to take him over the Himalayas. His weeks’ long trek brought him to India.  His story is the story of tens of thousands of Tibetans, who have left Tibet for India since the Dalai Lama fled Chinese rule in 1959. Topgyal has not seen his family for eighteen years and his search has been to understand just why he was sent.

His search has led him to explore with powerful images the stories of other Tibetan exiles, who had to leave their families behind.  One of the people that he interviewed is Tsering Choephel, 26, who left his home in Tibet for Dharamsala, India 23 years ago. His comment is so poignant, and I think represents the tragedy of all refugees from all conflicts. “The great tragedy of my life is not being separated from my family, but being separated from the sensibility of missing them, after living without them for decades.”

Topgyal photographs Pema Lhamo, now eight, demonstrating how she stuffed herself into a box in order to escape, when she was three years old. And he photographs Kalsang, who is now nineteen, posing in the library of her Tibetan college library near Dharamsala.  She escaped Tibet in 2004 and is studying Buddhism.  The volumes behind her offer counterpoint.  Can you really learn your culture from books?