From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is KCRW's program of stories and original documentaries. It's a part of KCRW's independent producer project,

a laboratory for independent radio producers, writers and performers.

And today on the program, a story of escape, refuge, and fire.

So many questions are coming in my mind.

I feel like powerless, totally powerless.

So I decided now I have to do something which may hurt me but not hurt others.

There are these places, sometimes just dots on the map, where people driven to travel by some

kind of life necessity seem to end up.

Sometimes that place is just somewhere to hunker down and let something blow over.

Sometimes it's a place where you just hope you'll finally have some life-changing revelation

that will let you settle down, come back home, and lead a normal life.

Sometimes it's a place far enough from home that you can completely remake yourself

out of view of the people who know you from before, or a place where you could finally

be the person you secretly knew you were all alone.

We know them from books and movies, these places that have become safe havens for reinvention.

Tanger's, Maui, Casablanca, Los Angeles, New York, Santiago, Darham Sala.

Darham Sala.

Darham Sala, in northern India, is where independent producer Leah Tao found today's story.

It's also the location of the Tibetan government in exile and the home of the Delilama who fled

Tibet in 1959.

This town also has a potent mix of political refugees fleeing persecution and the other kind of refugees I just mentioned

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