Monika: Today I am meeting a fascinating woman. Veronique Renard is a Dutch painter and writer, Buddhist, and pro-Tibet activist, the author of "The Tibetan Freedom Struggle trilogy, and her autobiographical book titled "Pholomolo - No Man No Woman". Her full name is Véronique Françoise Caroline Renard. Inspired by the meeting with the Dalai Lama in India in 2000, she adopted the name of Pantau.
She is the great-granddaughter of the renowned French painter Paul Renard. Veronique lived and worked in the Indian Himalayas, Kerala, and Bangkok. In 2000, she established the Pantau Foundation with a view to raising funds and helping Tibetan refugee children living in exile in India. Hello Veronique!
Veronique: Namaste Monika, thank you so much for contacting me. I hope my contribution to your website will be helpful to many people.
Monika: What are you doing these days?
Veronique: I am still working on my next novel, Comrades of the Cut Sleeve, a story about a closeted gay Chinese military general who is in the process of liberating himself. These days all my books are about how to find happiness, enlightenment, I suppose.
Monika: You are one of the few people that met the Dalai Lama in person. What impact did the meeting have on you?
Veronique: Meeting him first time was very interesting. However, he didn’t mean that much to me at that time. I kind of accidentally met him.
