Return to Gandhi Road recounts the powerful story of renowned Tibetan master Kangyur Rinpoche. In the 1950s, under instruction from the Dalai Lama, the Rinpoche braved a hazardous route, by foot, over the Himalayas to India—fleeing the imminent danger of China’s Cultural Revolution. He took with him his young family and two tons of endangered Buddhist texts. The Rinpoche’s journey extended over three years and was punctuated—each time money for his 200 porters ran out—by stops to set up farms and wait for their crops to yield.
Once in Darjeeling, the Rinpoche built Orgyen Kunsang Chokhorling monastery, at 54 Gandhi Road. His family immediately began duplicating the rescued texts by hand and, with the arrival of Western travellers, the Rinpoche took the opportunity to have them translated into European languages. The visitors’ meetings with the Rinpoche—who died in 1975—directly contributed to Buddhism’s spread across the Western world.
New Zealand director Yeshe Hegan’s film is told through the eyes of her father Kim—one of said Westerners, who subsequently lost his Buddhist faith—and through the heartfelt accounts of the Rinpoche’s family and students.
