With the announcement of the end of the Cultural Revolution, people were allowed a little freedom, and Tibetans began to hear, for the first time in decades, their own songs and the famous Gesar epics on Tibetan radio broadcasts.
The man who is considered as the father of modern Tibetan literature: Dhondup Gyal, wrote under the penname of “Rangdrol”, meaning self-liberated.
Dondrub Gyal was born in the water snake year, 1953, in the small village of Gurong in the Nangra district of Amdo. His father’s name was Bante and his mother was called Mingme, a not uncommon name in Amdo which means ‘nameless’.
Bante died not long after Dondrub Gyal was born. They relied on Dondrub Gyal’s uncle, a monk named Sonam Tsering, for protection and support. Later, looking back on his childhood, Dondrub Gyal would tell people, “numerous patches once bloomed like flowers on my clothes.”
From 1960 to 1965 Dondrub Gyal studied in a local school in Nangra. His mother married a second time and effectively deserted him to the care of his uncle, who sent him to a boarding school at the Malho Prefecture Nationalities Teacher Training School in central Rebkong in Amdo.
Graduates from this school were guaranteed a job with the Chinese Communist government. While in school he suffered from a serious illness and had to take a year off from studying. The majority of the students at the school were from agricultural areas.
In 1966, the Cultural Revolution was then at its most violent period. Graduates preferred positions in the nomadic areas as salaries there were higher, the nomads were more respectful of government staff and teachers, and there was better food and meat.
The Qinghai Radio Broadcasting Station selected him just before his graduation in 1969 and took him to Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province. Working at the radio station gave him practical knowledge of Tibetan and Chinese languages which he had not received at school.
In 1976 three top leaders of the Chinese communists – Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De – died.
The culture that Tibetans had always possessed was now permitted to be viewed, heard, and displayed. For Dondrub Gyal, it was an opportunity to not only watch and listen to the works of others, but to launch his own literary career.
During that period, through to 1979, Qinghai Tibetan News published a number of his works under the penname “Radio Victory”. Soon thereafter, other publications began to publish his Tibetan writings. As Dondrub Gyal’s reputation spread throughout Tibet, he began to use the pen name “Rangdrol” meaning “Self-Liberated,” which led some to believe that he was the reincarnation of a lama named Rangdrol. In 1980 and 1981 two Tibetan literary journals were founded: Tibetan Literature in Lhasa, and Light Rain in Xining. Both published modern Tibetan fiction and poetry. Among Dondrub Gyal’s more famous compositions that appeared in these were Yak and Tiger Field, Tulku and The Frost Bitten Flower. Tulku, which criticized the Tibetan custom of identifying reincarnations of famous lamas, was controversial, and he was accused of damaging Buddhism. He received a razor blade in the mail, a not so subtle death threat. In 1983, the second issue of Light Rain published Dondrub Gyel’s poem Waterfall of Youth, written in a new style. The poem, a rousing ode to Tibet that celebrated the vitality of Tibetan youth, had an enormous impact on the landscape of Tibetan literature. It inspired not just writers and intellectuals to read and write poetry, but even many young ordinary Tibetans.
The poet Ju Kelzang remarked on the tremendous spread and impact of this poem: “University students write modern poetry. Middle school students also write modern poetry. The educated write modern poetry. Even the uneducated write modern poetry.”
He wrote the lyrics for the song Oh Blue Lake, for which the famed composer Makye Chopathar wrote the music, as well as the famous essay The Small Footpath. Dondrub Gyal’s poor relationships with the school administration, colleagues and local officials made it difficult for him to stay in Chabcha. In 1985 he informed the director of the school that he planned to transfer to China. The director was so pleased to get rid of him that he offered to continue paying him from the time he left work until he had found a new position.
Dondrub Gyal contacted the Qinghai Education College, the Qinghai Social Science Academy and the Southwest Nationalities Institute in Chengdu but none offered him a position; he was thought to be too difficult, too innovative, and too liberal. He was having problems with Yumkyi, and on November 29th, 1985, after years of enduring beatings, she left him, taking their daughter with her. That night, Dondrub Gyal committed suicide. When the school authorities entered his staff quarters the next morning, they saw that he had died on his bed; next to the bed was an iron stove filled with coal. He had asphyxiated to death. His final letters to his wife and his close friend Dawa were on a desk. As news of Dondrub Gyal’s death spread throughout Amdo, different rumors began to circulate about the cause of his death. Those who valued his #Tibetan ethnic pride said that the Chinese had murdered him.