The agony of Amika burned life long like the fire of a wrecked US airplane in Bhutan.

.26 Aug.18 Schipol. Born at the time and place an American Second World War fighter airplane crashed in Dagana, Bhutan; Amika has the war tainted fate crashing time and again.  Her struggle to begin a second life like other 80 000 exiled Lhotshampa ethnic minority Bhutanese in America ended half way in The Netherlands. Today only at the age of 76 she made a kick off to America.

Amika Dhahal- Forced to The Netherlands

Although forcibly exiled by the Royal government of Bhutan in the year 1991, as part of its ethnic cleansing or to reduce the population of the ethnic minority Lhotshampas, she did not feel the transition to refugee life in Nepal miserable.  It’s because she was there along with the entire villagers of Tanju who are always at her side to help her out whatever she would ask for. She has two sons and three daughters. For this single mother, to nurture five children, all of them very young when they lost their father is much an uphill task in the refugee camps in Nepal as in Bhutan because of being always under the poverty line. Yet she was happy in one way or the other because of the unbroken and lovable family circle. But this state of happiness and joy of being together in every unusual and vile circumstance broke as soon as they were forced to move further; from this forcible exile to forced migration, far away to the other side of the world.

Because Bhutan government denied to take back the exiled refugees and the international organizations failed to repatriate them, 3^rd country resettlement began under the initiative of UNHCR in 2008. Amika along with more than 100,000 Bhutanese refugees living in the camps in Nepal were in compulsion to choose one of the Six countries in the West to get resettled. The Dutch government accepted about 350 Bhutanese refugees. Largest mass of refugees were taken to USA.  Amika has chosen America but her choice was turned down tactfully by her daughter-in-law’s family Ghimiray, who were already settled in The Netherlands. “ I feel much in misery now than when I was widowed’ says Amika, tears rolling below her sunken eyes. She once lost her hope to be again with those beloved ones of her village who always cared not to let her feel the absence of her spouse.

Amika, the calling name of her, denoting ‘ America’ in the spoken language given after that incident proved critical even today. One of the causes of her agony, according to her and the eldest son Tul is that, instead of America she was compelled to choose The Netherlands where her daughter-in-law Sabitra Ghimere’s maternal parents are resettled. Amika feels remorse in The Netherlands being alien and away from her beloved villagers.

A grand son Bises was born from her youngest son Gopi and Sabitra two months after their arrival in The Netherlands in November 2011. But within few years, in June 2015,  Bises was severed from his father Gopi since the mother left home to live nearby her own parents. This deprived the child the love and care of the father. This separation added fuel into the fire of Amika’s agony. A very long nasty family drama is continuing still today. Only Amika could understand what it meant for a child to grow without father, because Bisas father Gopi was brought up as orphant who cannot imagine how a father could be.

Amika cried so hard for several months that due to the drainage of tears she lost the sight of her one eye. She denied undergoing right eye operation. When her left eye was also affected the doctor contacted this Platform for Bhutanese and Vedic Cultural Integration. Upon successful communication approaches this platform convinced her to undergo eye operation recently.

Based on her ill health the Dutch government kindly blessed Amika with the Dutch citizenship without undergoing rigorous integration program. Just within a week after receiving the Dutch passport Amika left for America. Although she could envision America only with one eye now, she will be leaving her heart there even if she returns to the Netherlands for the rest of her life.