Syamukapu is a personal account about Bhajuratna and his son Gyan Jyoti. The book stretches over a perios of 122 years, from 1882 to 2004 and unfolds in Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Lhasa and Kathmandu. Within this span is a period when Buddhist monks were persecuted in Nepal in 1926 and 1944. The story is about a flourishing trade era between Tibet and Nepal carried out by the quiet but determined Newars of Kathmandu under difficult circumstances. It was a period of trade which is little known to the rest of the world. The centuries old trade route over northern Nepal came to a standstill with the opening of the Jewlepla or the Younghusband Pass for the British India in 1904. This resulted in the Newars choosing the newly opened pass not far from Kalimpong for thir trade to Tibet. The period of prosperity for the Lhasa Newars and for Kalimpong came to an end with the Indian Chinese war of 1962.

Syamukapu, D.S. Kansakar Hilker, Vajra Publications, Paperback, 252 pp, $12.95

Deb Shova Kansakar Hilker was born in 1951 and grew up in Kalimpong India, where she went to a missionary school run by the Sisters of St. Joseph's of Cluny. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the Tribhuvan University of Kathmandu. Married in 1995 to a German, she lives with her husband in Germany.