Do you know many highways in India were built by the Tibetan refugees?

Escaping from Tibet in 1959, many Tibetan refugees worked as road construction laborers in India in the 1960’s, the initial days of exile life.

Dispatched in Chamba, Dalhousie, Kullu Manali and Shimla, they became part of the many new road construction projects of the state of Himachal Pradesh. As they settled near the places they worked, Tibetan refugee camp in Manali is one of the settlements, where many former road laborers still survive.

This documentary traces some former road laborers, who revisit the roads they build and recount those hard and risky days. Having to deal with the unfamiliar hot weather, having to sleep in tents and cooking by sharing utensils, giving birth to child at work on the dusty roadside, this generation of Tibetans had the hardest experience in exile, many of them died in construction related accidents.

The film has many rare archival photos and footage of the road construction days.

TTV is an online TV of the Central Tibetan Administration.