"I don't really like this kind of tea," says the 60-year-old as he adds two teaspoons of sugar to a glass of milky Indian-style tea for a customer in his shop.

As a television set blares out Hindi movie songs and two Indians sip "chai," Amdo recalls the brew he drank in his Tibetan homeland that he fled as a refugee for this northern Indian town.

"Our tea is salty, with butter. This stuff is sweet, but whatever our customers want is fine with me," said Amdo, as he poured a cup.

Like thousands of refugees who fled Chinese rule for India, Amdo has adapted to this land, but yearns for home.

"Amdo Cafe" started in Dharamshala with a loan from the Tibetan government in exile, led by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader who left his homeland in 1959 to set up base in the Himalayan town to fight Chinese rule in Tibet.

PERILOUS JOURNEY FOR HOPE AND SURVIVAL

Frying dumplings and making tea is not what Amdo set out to do. A farmer for 30 years, he abandoned his land in the Tibetan province also called Amdo in 1993 after a series of poor harvests.

Taking his wife and son on the perilous overland journey to India, he lost even more.

"The border guards in Nepal took everything to let us across into Nepal. They have a good business. I arrived in Dharamshala without shoes," Amdo says. His face breaks out into a grin.

The tea vendor's dumplings are vegetarian, unlike the ones he had in Tibet. A lot else has changed. He now serves southern Indian style rice pancakes in addition to the sweet tea.

And the weather is not what it was on the other side of the Himalayas.

"Sometimes I am surprised we are still alive. In Tibet everyone thinks India is too hot for Tibetans, and that we will quickly die of disease, but coming here was better than starving," he said.

China annexed Tibet in 1950. The Dalai Lama led an estimated 80,000 refugees when he fled to India in March 1959. More than 100,000 Tibetans now live in at least 50 settlements spread across India.

A VIRTUAL GOVERNMENT FAR FROM HOME

The Tibetan government in exile, which has about 3,000 administrators and advisers, does everything from arranging housing for recent arrivals to providing loans for Tibetan businesses.

Tibetan activists run their show like any government.

"We tax every Tibetan in India and other parts of the world by issuing a green registration book. If you pay the tax, then you are a bona fide refugee," says Thubten Samphel, director of information for the Tibetan Central Administration, the name for the Tibetan government in exile.

"Most Tibetans do it voluntarily," he said.

The exile government also runs a chain of hotels and restaurants and a successful carpet-making industry in Nepal.

In India's delicate balance of ethnic groups and religions, refugee communities often become embroiled in controversy.

But despite their numbers and presence in major Indian cities, Tibetans have been an exception.

"Right from the beginning, our stand was that we should not be involved in local politics because we are refugees," the Dalai Lama, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1989, told Reuters in mid-February.

"We have had some close calls, a problem with some Tibetans in the Indian state of Sikkim once, but that was quietly settled."

The Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since fleeing Chinese rule in Tibet, has stayed clear of India's often sticky politics since being invited to stay by India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

DEMOCRACY, HOSPITALITY PROVIDE COMFORT

"When I visit different parts of India, local politicians ask for me to help them get more powers from the Indian central (federal) government. Of course I can't do this, but their efforts are quite inspiring," the Dalai Lama said.

Ever wary of his guest status, the Dalai Lama is careful not to criticise the Indian government, even when discussing the Tibetan issue.

"Sometimes I call their policy towards Tibet one of overactive restraint," he said.

"India is a huge country, with a democratically elected government; three-hundred and sixty-five days a year, there are problems. But there has been no coup d'etat for 50 years, and democracy seems to go down to the lowest level," the Dalai Lama said.

"I think it's wonderful."

"In China the newspapers make the country look nice, but underneath there are many problems. In India the papers look pretty horrible, but judging from my last 40 years here things are pretty good," he said.

Although life at the Amdo Cafe is providing very well for Tashi Amdo and his family, he and his children wonder how much longer they will be guests in a foreign land.

"We would like to go back, to be free in our home country. My grandchildren have never seen Tibet," Amdo says. He points to his three-year-old grandson sitting on his lap.

"I hope it will be more than a dream for them."

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Last updated: 2-Mar-99