Snowfed River wrote above, "magars and thakuris are two distinct elites of nepal warriors. as yakthung said, Hudaon did extensive research and was impressed and set a trend to recruit magar, gurung, rai, limbus. u hardly find tamangs, sherpas, thakuris in the british or indian army. newars, bahuns, chettris occpy different proffesions. it is again about majority - magars and gurungs are the choicest races for gurkha army."

While I agree with your other points, I believe you are wrong on the above remark.  You will find whole lot of Tamangs in the British and Indian Gurkha regiments.  Do keep in mind that one of the thirteen Victoria Cross awardees is a Tamang - Ganju Lama.

Tamangs, like Rai Limbu, were recruited mostly from East Nepal - Dharan's Ghopa Camp.  Now that Dharan Camp is closed and the only recruiting center open is that of Pokhara, obviously you will see mostly Gurungs and Magars among the recruits because they are the locals of central Nepal.

Tamangs, particularly from Darjeeling, are found mostly in Clerical (especially 10GR) and Signals regiments because of they were more educated than their western brethrens.

On a different note, it bugs me to hear from those of us who keep saying, with obvious tinge of jealousy, that the Gurkhas are the mercenaries who are willingly being used for a foreign country.  If that is the case, all of us who work abroad in different professions are mercenaries - whether you call yourself Doctor, Engineer, 7-Eleven Gas Station Operator, or what not.  I_my said, "well we don't die for another country."  Tell that to the kid who got shot in Houston.  Or the hundreds who die anually in Middle-East.  The fact is, in this global economy, we sell our talents.  It just so happened that among martial clans of Nepal, globalization occured 150 years ahead.  They were able to sell their services well ahead of us.  Take it as is.

Anyway, I very much enjoyed the documentary.  Mr. August, thank you for posting it.