'Abdul Wahid Radhu' (1918-2011) was born into a prominent Muslim merchant family of Ladakh, many of whose members were initiated into the Chishti Sufi Order. He was schooled in Srinagar at the Tyndale Biscoe Mission School and graduated from Aligarh Muslim University with a degree in geography. Soon after, he joined the family trading house and was based variously in Lhasa, Kalimpong and Kashmir. However, when the Dalai Lama escaped into exile in 1959, Abdul Wahid worked for a few years rehabilitating Tibetan refugees and ended his professional career with a ten-year stint at the United States' Library of Congress in New Delhi.