An ongoing documentary project

After China invaded Tibet in 1962, thousands of Tibetan refugees in India joined a covert paramilitary force — the Special Frontier Force — believing it was their chance to one day reclaim their homeland. That dream never came. They fought for a country not their own, and the world never knew their names.

This project is personal. My father Tsering served in the SFF. My late aunt guarded the Dalai Lama from the same regiment. I grew up with their stories, and I felt the weight of what was left unspoken.

These photographs put faces to an invisible history — the men who fought in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, the women who served in silence, the elders now scattered across the Tibetan diaspora in India, Canada, and the United States, carrying their sacrificed youth and their longing for home.