Kathmandu is pretty elderly; records go back thousands of years. Its official history has many yawning holes but, thankfully, Hindu/Buddhist legend is on hand to fill them in. Any event in such folklore happens on a cosmic scale – I doubt Shiva could make himself a cup of tea without drowning a continent – and the foundation of Kathmandu is no exception. I guess they need blockbuster birth stories, the cities of Nepal, otherwise everyone would pack up and leave for a holier city. Anyhow, Kathmandu’s story is no slouch:
The Kathmandu Valley was, back in the misty mists of time, a snake infested lake. Ninety-one aeons ago – to be precise – an immaculate lotus flower appeared on the surface, which the gods declared to be Swayambhu (‘Self-Created’), the abstract essence of Buddhahood. When who should rock up but Manjushri, the bodhisattva of knowledge. Drawing a very long sword, he cut a gorge at Chobar, south of Kathmandu, to drain the lake and allow humans to worship Swayambhu. As the lake receded, the lotus settled itself on a hilltop. There, Manjushri built a shrine, before hopping down to rid the valley of snakes and establish its first civilisation. Just like that.
The site of this epic feat of drainage is commemorated by a giant stupa, which sits on the hilltop with a view over all of the Kathmandu Valley. Around it are a fair few temples, guarded by cuddly stone lions. The whole complex, though officially called Swayambhu, is popularly referred to as the ‘monkey temple,’ due to the large amounts of – yes, you guessed it; gold star for you. But this name rather undersells the importance of the site; it’s rather like calling London’s St Paul’s Cathedral the pigeon cathedral. But, then again, monkeys are a bigger crowd-draw than pigeons. Frankly, I can’t fathom why anyone finds monkeys endearing. It is one of life’s greater mysteries, like the murder of JFK or why anyone likes Blackadder. Monkeys are vile, ugly little delinquents, who’d sooner rob you blind than pose for your camera. But they are encouraged in Nepali temples, being living, shitting incarnations of the god Hanuman.
*
On the outskirts of Kathmandu, near the airport, is Pashupatinath – officially Nepal’s most auspicious place to hang out. Something of a shrunken Benares, it’s an ancient – what the fuck isn’t in Nepal? – temple complex that sprawl along ghats (stone terraces) either side of the Bagmati River. As with Benares, these are cremation ghats; dead loved ones are trussed up in patterned cloth, set on a pedestal topped with sandalwood (to flavour the smell) and put to flames while a pandit mumbles Sankrit verses. The ashes are then spilled into the river, to drift into a new body or – if the deceased was an exceptionally diligent Hindu – achieve Moksha (Nirvana). This stretch of the Bagmati River is the best place in the land for your ashes to find themselves; it ups your chances of Moksha immeasurably, even if you’ve spent your lifetime machine-gunning cows. I witnessed a cremation myself. A Nepali woman was crying hysterically and beating her forehead. I tiptoed past awkwardly. And, I must say, for a sacred river the Bagmati is pretty smelly – at that time it was a muddy, rubbish-strewn, pre-monsoon trickle.
From Pashupatinath I walked a leafy route to Boudhanath, second to Swayambhu in Kathmandu’s stringent stupa hierarchy. On the way I passed a temple called Guhyeshwari; the name comes from the Sanskrit: guhya (vagina) and ishwari (goddess). That’s right: the goddess’ vagina. It’s strange, considering the prudery that prevales in both Nepali and Indian society, to come across such naked sexuality in their religion. Shiva, after all, is commonly represented in temples by a chunky, erect phallus. I wanted to get a look at the temple, pay my respects, ring a bell or two, that sort of thing. But a sign at the door sternly declared ‘Entrance only for Hindus.’ So, yes, I was not allowed inside the goddess’ vagina. Such is life.
You’ve probably seen Boudhanath stupa on a postcard somewhere; you know, the one with the painted eyes and prayer flags radiating off the spire into the surrounding square – give it a google. I arrived there in time for evening prayers. The local – mostly Tibetan – community had poured out to pace round the stupa several times, mumbling that ubiquitous Buddhist mantra: om mani padme hum; the jewel is in the lotus, roughly translated. Joining the throng was like being swept up in a whirlpool. We moved clockwise, of course, as you should while walking round any stupa – a law that also applies to spinning prayer wheels. You could climb up to a lowish level of the stupa itself, but a sign near the steps stated a rule: no entering animals. Dunno, maybe it’s a problem round here.
*
There is a great deal of toil that goes in to a monthly current affairs magazine, especially when the office is a cosy team of about ten. Overtime is often mandatory, and the weekends are divided up: the two after publication are free, while on the next two we’re asked to sacrifice a day, maybe two. So, with the July edition (go read it) wound up last Tuesday, the coming weekend was an opportunity to escape Kathmandu – to run to the hills, literally (albeit on a clapped-out bus where burnt-out speakers played obnoxious hindi film music; honestly, I’ve tried to like Bollywood music, really I have).
Negotiating the Kathmandu bus station was like drowning in a pit of slime. Asian bus stations are invariably theatres of torment; this one was par for the course. As a monsoon shower beat down, I weaved between revving buses, trailing through mud, fumes blowing in my face, in the hope of finding a bus that might – just might – be headed to Dhulikhel.
Kathmandu spreads in a sweep of bland suburbia to the far reaches of the Kathmandu Valley. But once the bus has gone over a hill or two, the natural beauty of Nepal disrobes itself. Really, it’s a stunner. The land in the central hills is heavily cultivated, defined by those iconic rice-terraces that rise in stacks up steep hillsides – actually a sign of agricultural desperation; a chronic shortage of space. The land is green, very green. Densely populated, too; the hillsides are parcelled up into infinite little allotments, attended to by women and often young children, wading through rice paddies and bending to pluck their crops, wicker baskets on their backs. Picturesque scenes that belie lives of hard, unremitting drudgery. For anything close in Britain, you’d have to turn to Thomas Hardy.
Dhulikhel is a nice sort of town. That’s all that’s really to be said: it’s rather nice. Though the old town has some fine Newari temples, carved window doors and window-frames to go admire. The guest house I stayed in was a charming, rickety little thing, one of those places that exists forever on the verge of collapse. In the evening I got chatting to the owner, a kindly old man in a traditional Nepali waistcoat and cap; both probably hadn’t been washed this century. I rather pompously announced myself as a journalist; it made for better conversation. After a while he showed me a Nepali newspaper from a few years back, with an article about young men who’d gone missing during the ten-year civil war between the Maoists and the state, which ended as recently as 2006. Featured was a montage of photos of missing young men. He pointed at one of them, a boy of about eighteen – his son. No one had seen him in over five years; he was presumed dead. ‘I am one of the many suffering,’ the old man said.
Next day I determined to walk – or, rather, trek – from Dhulikhel to the town of Panauti, passing the stupa of Namobuddha on the way. Towards the beginning I climbed up a hill to a Kali shrine – venerating the cruel destructive aspect of Parvati, Shiva’s consort. It’s supposed to be a viewpoint, with views of the high Himalaya in the far-distance. But with the early-morning monsoon mist, I could only see a few yards in front of me. Nice little shrine, though.
As I walked on the mists parted, revealing some pretty stunning views – I would go in for superlatives, but that would be a naff. I passed many bucolic little villages along the way, where kids seemed to leap out of hedgerows and demand both ‘sweeties’ and ‘one photo, please.’ I declined. There was something about taking pictures of little kids and then handing them sweets that seemed a little, erm…how shall I put it?
The mists returned a few hours later. And then came the rain. Big rain. I got really – really! – wet. Cold, too. I’d left my raincoat in the Himal office in Patan. When I began to fear pneumonia I dived into a low peasant hut to wait things out. A woman sat with a small child on a dirt floor, nodding at me while I shivered.
The rain finished, eventually, and the mists dispersed to allow sweeping views of the countryside. On I went to the Namobuddha stupa – a squat little thing, really. But, for Tibetans, it’s one of the three holiest pilgrimage sites south of the Himalaya. It commemorates the compassion of a young prince who, one fine morning, stumbled across a ravenous tigress about to eat a little child, and offered his own flesh in its place. After spinning a few prayer wheels, I trod on to Panauti, a village at the confluence of the Punyamati and Roshi streams. All such confluences are sacred in a Hindu landscape – Benares being the most famous example – and Panauti boasts stone ghats much like Pashupatinath, where the dead are ritually burnt and swept away.
I caught the bus back to Kathmandu, exhausted, and still a little wet. When I reached my flat a power cut was in action – or rather, inaction. I fumbled in the dark for candles. It had begun to feel like home.
And so ends this week’s post. Bye for now.
Monday, 29 June 2009
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Stood up by a living goddess
To appreciate Kathmandu, you have to look past the obvious – the obvious being that it is a third-world city: chaotic, dirty, impoverished, less-than-fragrant. Okay, glad we got that out the way. Because look past this you must, for on display is one of the richest historical and artistic heritages than any world city could hope to boast. It is something of an outdoor museum. Beautiful (and ancient) Hindu and Buddhist temples and statues lurk in the most unassuming of back-alleys; locals light candles to them and clang their bells in the morning and evening. This is no ossified, neatly-packaged culture, like that of much of Europe.
There is a near-impossible amount to take in, and KTM is best attacked in piece-meal skirmishes. The old city is where it’s at, temple-wise, and is the locus of the popular, post-card image of exotic, medieval Kathmandu. Navigating it – or, more likely, getting hopelessly lost – is exhausting. The streets are narrow, dark and winding; the press of people is like the thickest of custards. Pedestrians play a delicate dance with the motorbikes and cars (largely the former) – a million near-misses a minute. My dodging skills improve daily. And there’s animals, farm animals, everywhere.
The old town seems to be crumbling around you – literally, in places. And many of the residents are selling off their antique doors and window-frames to finance new, more comfortable (but hideous) concrete blocks, often in the place of their picturesque, rickety wooden homes. Not that I’m one to begrudge Nepalis self-improvement, but…well, you know. So, people, see it while you can. You heard it from me.
At the heart of the old town – and the heart of the city itself; culturally, at least – is the Durbar Square. A ‘durbar’ is essentially a royal court – its etymology is Persian: the Shah’s noble court. It resembles an epic parade ground, suitable for elephant fights and other such courtly fun. Temples venerating different Hindu deities are dotted about the place: Shiva, Ganesh, Durga, Gorakhnath (the Shah-King lineage deity), all get a look in. A much chuckled-at feature of Nepali temples is their erotic carvings, usually placed somewhere discreet, like the struts supporting the thatched, pagoda-like roofs. There are threesomes, bestially and some truly impressive athletics to ogle at. Many disagree over their meaning: some suggest that sex is being portrayed as a tantric path to enlightenment; the union of bodies as well as of souls, that sort of thing. But a popular native belief is that the goddess of lighting is a chaste virgin, who would shy from striking at such as bawdy building.
Perched in the centre of it all is the old royal palace, the Hanuman Dhoka, much of it built by the Malla Kings in the 17th century. But the royal family relocated to a quieter spot on the outskirts in 1886, where they built an Art-Deco monstrosity. Now, of course, with the recent abolition of the monarchy by the (ironically) now-dissolved Maoist majority government, that too is empty and open to the public. Expect a withering critique of that in a future post
The Hanuman Dhoka is so named after the monkey deity from the Ramayana, who occupies a special place in the hearts of pious Nepalis. My favourite of his many exploits goes a little like this: when his beloved Lord Ram is severely wounded in one of the many, largely indistinguishable battles of the Hindu epic, Hanuman flies from Sri Lanka to the Himalayas in search of a life-restoring herb. Being a little short of time, Hanuman doesn’t waste it browsing the hillsides but simply lifts the Himalayas and flies them back to Sri Lanka. Ram is promptly cured and the two of them make passionate love on a beach. Okay, I may have made the last bit up, but a lot of sweaty homoeroticism goes on between Ram and Hanuman in the course of the tale, I kid you not. They allegedly portray the model master-retainer relationship – rather like Suresh and I – the acceptance of hierarchy and consequent duty being a key facet of Hindu Dharma (law, roughly translated). Or something like that.
The true celebrity of all the buildings in the Durbar Square is the Kurmari Chowk, the gilded temple housing Raj Kumari, the holiest of over a dozen ‘living goddesses’ in the Kathmandu Valley, worshipped as incarnations of the goddess Teluju. The Kumari selection process echoes that of the Dalai Lamas of Tibet – elders interview hundreds of girls from the Shakya Buddhist clan of goldsmiths, all aged three to five, in search of those displaying 32 auspicious signs: a body like a banyan tree, a neck like a conch shell, eyelashes like a cow’s, among other desirables. The shortlisted few are then subjected to a ceremony at midnight in the Durbar Square, where freshly-severed buffalo heads are set about them, and men in demon masks dance around and make sinister noises. The idea is to scare the shit out of them. And the little girl who doesn’t flinch, identifies the belongings of previous Kumaris and whose horoscope doesn’t clash with the King’s, is then rewarded with the privilege of being locked up inside the Kumari Chowk till puberty, only allowed outside a few times a year to be paraded around in Hindu festivals, where her feet are never allowed to touch the ground. The spirit of Teluju deserts her on her first menstruation, and she may retire to normal life. But she will find it a little tricky finding a husband, seeing that there’s a curse that any man who dares marry a Kumari will die young. Honestly, some people just have it all.
When someone slips her ‘handlers’ enough rupees, she is known to appear at one of the first floor windows, draped in auspicious red, her forehead painted red with a ‘third eye’ in the middle. This is quite a karma top-up for all involved, and the mere look on her face is alleged to answer the unspoken questions of any who gaze on her. But I, being full of unspoken questions, was not so lucky that time; and besides, there was something of the zoo about the whole thing – the windows even have grills on them. But I’m here till September, and I’m bound to catch a wave at some point – possibly even a blown kiss. Just don’t expect ant photos of the girl; it is expressly forbidden, as with the idols in the inner-sanctums of temples. For a statuette of a god, no matter how crude, is as unique as any human, and attributed with special powers of its own. Hence why they are often treated as living people: brahmins bathe them daily, feed them, even put them to bed in the evenings. To reproduce their image, through photography or otherwise, robs them of their uniqueness and so degrades their power – or so the logic goes.
Thamel, a little below the neighbourhood where I sleep, is the backpacker ghetto. It used to be Jhochhe, a.k.a. Freak Street, one of the slacker capitals of the seventies, back when it was a stop on the over-land ‘hippy-trail’ from Europe to South-east Asia. It thrived on an abundance of near-legal weed, among other things. But a government clampdown changed that, and Thamel took up the mantle. Thamel has its counterparts in most Asian capitals – Paharganj in Delhi; Sudder Street in Calcutta; Jalan Jaksa in Jakarta; and, unholiest and unholies, Bangkok’s Khao San Road – like one extended, burger-chomping family. As with its siblings, the proprietors of the Thamel’s restaurants and guest houses work on the logic that most backpackers don’t actually want to be in a foreign country. So, they have created a haven where whities can drink, eat pizza, and listen to live bands warble out Beatles songs – all the above richly deserving an inverted comma or two. After Joe-backpacker has finished his ‘steak,’ he can score some weed off one of the multitude – actually, make that ‘swarm’ – of touts, then browse shoe-box shops for pirated films, tie-dye bandanas, Buddha figurines, t-shirts with yaks on them, and other assorted shite. As the sharper of you may have grasped by now, I am not terribly enamoured of Thamel.
*
I’ve done my first week with Himal. It is wonderful to work with such intelligent, interesting people – such a change from the illiterate droids I’ve had to work with in past jobs. Things are really coming to a head with the July issue going to the printers on Tuesday. So far, I’ve been doing rather a lot of fact checking – assessing whether three or three-and-a-half million Pakistanis have been displaced in Swat, or whether So-and-So Patel is actually the Health Minister of Gujarat – which is just as much fun as it sounds. At this, I have excelled. I am really quite the fact-checker. Writers, beware.
The office is in Patan, Kathmandu’s sister city, also known by its modest Sanskrit name, Lalitpur (city of beauty), as well as its rather less delicate Newari name, Yala, meaning god-knows-what. Once upon a time it was a separate city state, with its own King and courtly culture. It has its own Durbar Square – smaller, less bustling, but more refined than Kathmandu’s. But, Kathmandu’s burgeoning suburban sprawl being what it is, Patan is now merely a borough of Greater Kathmandu. Yet it has retained a distinct identity: quieter, more Buddhist, with an even denser concentration of temples and stupas. It has always been a city of artisans; loud tapping and filing still dominates the soundscape. Some label it Kathmandu’s left-bank. It has also become Nepal’s foreign aid capital, with the UN and multiple well-meaning NGOs setting up shop.
If the calendar is to be believed, the monsoon is supposed to be well underway here. The start date is conventionally 10 June, give or take a couple of days. But odd weather in the Bay of Bengal has held the rain-clouds up, now said to be hovering over Sikkim, slowly making their way east. For now, it’s simply hot – very hot. Not Indian-plains hot, but close. However, a short, intense shower hit us on Friday; I was out on my lunch break, and had to run into a temple for shelter. This is not poncy British rain, I assure you.
All goes well with Suresh the servant boy. We continue to have our non-conversations, where I speak and he merely nods his head and says, ‘yes yes, very good.’ (Might be handy to pick up a few words of Nepali at some point.) But that kid is a master-cook in the making. He made me a mean chilli-chicken the other day. Might just have to take him home with me.
And another thing: power cuts. They happen every day, multiple times, though most noticeably in the evenings, when Kathmandu is plunged into a medieval darkness. Still, Kathmandu-wallahs can count themselves lucky to be among the 15% of Nepalis who have access to electricity at all. Me: I have truly discovered candles. To put it mildly, they are fucking excellent.
Ta-ta for now.
There is a near-impossible amount to take in, and KTM is best attacked in piece-meal skirmishes. The old city is where it’s at, temple-wise, and is the locus of the popular, post-card image of exotic, medieval Kathmandu. Navigating it – or, more likely, getting hopelessly lost – is exhausting. The streets are narrow, dark and winding; the press of people is like the thickest of custards. Pedestrians play a delicate dance with the motorbikes and cars (largely the former) – a million near-misses a minute. My dodging skills improve daily. And there’s animals, farm animals, everywhere.
The old town seems to be crumbling around you – literally, in places. And many of the residents are selling off their antique doors and window-frames to finance new, more comfortable (but hideous) concrete blocks, often in the place of their picturesque, rickety wooden homes. Not that I’m one to begrudge Nepalis self-improvement, but…well, you know. So, people, see it while you can. You heard it from me.
At the heart of the old town – and the heart of the city itself; culturally, at least – is the Durbar Square. A ‘durbar’ is essentially a royal court – its etymology is Persian: the Shah’s noble court. It resembles an epic parade ground, suitable for elephant fights and other such courtly fun. Temples venerating different Hindu deities are dotted about the place: Shiva, Ganesh, Durga, Gorakhnath (the Shah-King lineage deity), all get a look in. A much chuckled-at feature of Nepali temples is their erotic carvings, usually placed somewhere discreet, like the struts supporting the thatched, pagoda-like roofs. There are threesomes, bestially and some truly impressive athletics to ogle at. Many disagree over their meaning: some suggest that sex is being portrayed as a tantric path to enlightenment; the union of bodies as well as of souls, that sort of thing. But a popular native belief is that the goddess of lighting is a chaste virgin, who would shy from striking at such as bawdy building.
Perched in the centre of it all is the old royal palace, the Hanuman Dhoka, much of it built by the Malla Kings in the 17th century. But the royal family relocated to a quieter spot on the outskirts in 1886, where they built an Art-Deco monstrosity. Now, of course, with the recent abolition of the monarchy by the (ironically) now-dissolved Maoist majority government, that too is empty and open to the public. Expect a withering critique of that in a future post
The Hanuman Dhoka is so named after the monkey deity from the Ramayana, who occupies a special place in the hearts of pious Nepalis. My favourite of his many exploits goes a little like this: when his beloved Lord Ram is severely wounded in one of the many, largely indistinguishable battles of the Hindu epic, Hanuman flies from Sri Lanka to the Himalayas in search of a life-restoring herb. Being a little short of time, Hanuman doesn’t waste it browsing the hillsides but simply lifts the Himalayas and flies them back to Sri Lanka. Ram is promptly cured and the two of them make passionate love on a beach. Okay, I may have made the last bit up, but a lot of sweaty homoeroticism goes on between Ram and Hanuman in the course of the tale, I kid you not. They allegedly portray the model master-retainer relationship – rather like Suresh and I – the acceptance of hierarchy and consequent duty being a key facet of Hindu Dharma (law, roughly translated). Or something like that.
The true celebrity of all the buildings in the Durbar Square is the Kurmari Chowk, the gilded temple housing Raj Kumari, the holiest of over a dozen ‘living goddesses’ in the Kathmandu Valley, worshipped as incarnations of the goddess Teluju. The Kumari selection process echoes that of the Dalai Lamas of Tibet – elders interview hundreds of girls from the Shakya Buddhist clan of goldsmiths, all aged three to five, in search of those displaying 32 auspicious signs: a body like a banyan tree, a neck like a conch shell, eyelashes like a cow’s, among other desirables. The shortlisted few are then subjected to a ceremony at midnight in the Durbar Square, where freshly-severed buffalo heads are set about them, and men in demon masks dance around and make sinister noises. The idea is to scare the shit out of them. And the little girl who doesn’t flinch, identifies the belongings of previous Kumaris and whose horoscope doesn’t clash with the King’s, is then rewarded with the privilege of being locked up inside the Kumari Chowk till puberty, only allowed outside a few times a year to be paraded around in Hindu festivals, where her feet are never allowed to touch the ground. The spirit of Teluju deserts her on her first menstruation, and she may retire to normal life. But she will find it a little tricky finding a husband, seeing that there’s a curse that any man who dares marry a Kumari will die young. Honestly, some people just have it all.
When someone slips her ‘handlers’ enough rupees, she is known to appear at one of the first floor windows, draped in auspicious red, her forehead painted red with a ‘third eye’ in the middle. This is quite a karma top-up for all involved, and the mere look on her face is alleged to answer the unspoken questions of any who gaze on her. But I, being full of unspoken questions, was not so lucky that time; and besides, there was something of the zoo about the whole thing – the windows even have grills on them. But I’m here till September, and I’m bound to catch a wave at some point – possibly even a blown kiss. Just don’t expect ant photos of the girl; it is expressly forbidden, as with the idols in the inner-sanctums of temples. For a statuette of a god, no matter how crude, is as unique as any human, and attributed with special powers of its own. Hence why they are often treated as living people: brahmins bathe them daily, feed them, even put them to bed in the evenings. To reproduce their image, through photography or otherwise, robs them of their uniqueness and so degrades their power – or so the logic goes.
Thamel, a little below the neighbourhood where I sleep, is the backpacker ghetto. It used to be Jhochhe, a.k.a. Freak Street, one of the slacker capitals of the seventies, back when it was a stop on the over-land ‘hippy-trail’ from Europe to South-east Asia. It thrived on an abundance of near-legal weed, among other things. But a government clampdown changed that, and Thamel took up the mantle. Thamel has its counterparts in most Asian capitals – Paharganj in Delhi; Sudder Street in Calcutta; Jalan Jaksa in Jakarta; and, unholiest and unholies, Bangkok’s Khao San Road – like one extended, burger-chomping family. As with its siblings, the proprietors of the Thamel’s restaurants and guest houses work on the logic that most backpackers don’t actually want to be in a foreign country. So, they have created a haven where whities can drink, eat pizza, and listen to live bands warble out Beatles songs – all the above richly deserving an inverted comma or two. After Joe-backpacker has finished his ‘steak,’ he can score some weed off one of the multitude – actually, make that ‘swarm’ – of touts, then browse shoe-box shops for pirated films, tie-dye bandanas, Buddha figurines, t-shirts with yaks on them, and other assorted shite. As the sharper of you may have grasped by now, I am not terribly enamoured of Thamel.
*
I’ve done my first week with Himal. It is wonderful to work with such intelligent, interesting people – such a change from the illiterate droids I’ve had to work with in past jobs. Things are really coming to a head with the July issue going to the printers on Tuesday. So far, I’ve been doing rather a lot of fact checking – assessing whether three or three-and-a-half million Pakistanis have been displaced in Swat, or whether So-and-So Patel is actually the Health Minister of Gujarat – which is just as much fun as it sounds. At this, I have excelled. I am really quite the fact-checker. Writers, beware.
The office is in Patan, Kathmandu’s sister city, also known by its modest Sanskrit name, Lalitpur (city of beauty), as well as its rather less delicate Newari name, Yala, meaning god-knows-what. Once upon a time it was a separate city state, with its own King and courtly culture. It has its own Durbar Square – smaller, less bustling, but more refined than Kathmandu’s. But, Kathmandu’s burgeoning suburban sprawl being what it is, Patan is now merely a borough of Greater Kathmandu. Yet it has retained a distinct identity: quieter, more Buddhist, with an even denser concentration of temples and stupas. It has always been a city of artisans; loud tapping and filing still dominates the soundscape. Some label it Kathmandu’s left-bank. It has also become Nepal’s foreign aid capital, with the UN and multiple well-meaning NGOs setting up shop.
If the calendar is to be believed, the monsoon is supposed to be well underway here. The start date is conventionally 10 June, give or take a couple of days. But odd weather in the Bay of Bengal has held the rain-clouds up, now said to be hovering over Sikkim, slowly making their way east. For now, it’s simply hot – very hot. Not Indian-plains hot, but close. However, a short, intense shower hit us on Friday; I was out on my lunch break, and had to run into a temple for shelter. This is not poncy British rain, I assure you.
All goes well with Suresh the servant boy. We continue to have our non-conversations, where I speak and he merely nods his head and says, ‘yes yes, very good.’ (Might be handy to pick up a few words of Nepali at some point.) But that kid is a master-cook in the making. He made me a mean chilli-chicken the other day. Might just have to take him home with me.
And another thing: power cuts. They happen every day, multiple times, though most noticeably in the evenings, when Kathmandu is plunged into a medieval darkness. Still, Kathmandu-wallahs can count themselves lucky to be among the 15% of Nepalis who have access to electricity at all. Me: I have truly discovered candles. To put it mildly, they are fucking excellent.
Ta-ta for now.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Dispatch One
Now, before I attempt to be interesting or insightful – patience, people – I shall outline the what, where and why of my stay in Nepal, from 12 June till 12 September.
I landed an internship in the Kathmandu office of Himal Southasia magazine. The landing process was a puzzlement to many back home. How did it happen to me? It frankly wasn’t the done thing, like working for the local paper or, at a stretch, corrupting – sorry, teaching – little kids in Malawi. Well, it all happened very quickly. I got home one evening and there it was, the internship, perched on my doorstep, staring dolefully at me. I had to accept it. Okay…so I spotted an add on the Himal website and responded with one of those ‘I would kill a baby to work for you’ emails. Easy as that; go try it.
Himal Southasia is a high-brow, English-language, political-cultural, awesome-excellent magazine, covering the entire South Asia region, whether the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Naxalism in India, Maoism in Nepal, or whatever is actually happening in the Maldives. Himal has an ideological basis: regional unity, and the integrity of South Asia as a cultural and geo-political unit. You can improve yourself by reading their articles. Here’s a nice link: http://www.himalmag.com/. Click on it.
Now, before I get into the blog proper, I must state that I am here in Nepal to nurture my mind, not my soul. I abhor hippies; I think men wearing beads should be shot; I shall embrace neither Hinduism nor Buddhism; I consider yoga to be a singularly vile activity; and I have no intention of finding myself whatsoever.
And the blog’s title, for those who wondered, echoes the words the first modern-era Nepali King, Prithvi Narayan Shah, during the 18th century: ‘Nepal exists as a yam between two boulders,’ referring to Nepal’s age-old vulnerability, being wedged against the two ‘empires’ of India and China. An elaboration on the cultural and geopolitical implications of this vegetable metaphor will be delivered in a future post.
*
The flight from London: not much of interest here. The transfer at Delhi was, however, bizarre. In most national airports, getting your boarding bass for onward travel is simply a matter of rocking up to a desk and presenting your passport. In India, you have to earn the privilege. In Indira Gandhi airport I fell victim to the national sport, bureaucratic ping-pong: I was bounced from one clueless official to the next, and waited in a succession of rooms, with the vague hope that I’d eventually end up on an aeroplane. I got chatting to one of my co-sufferers – a Nepali journalist, it turned out, connected to a Nepali-language tabloid in Kathmandu. He gave me his card. So, there I was, scoring contacts before I’d even arrived.
The Kathmandu airport is the quaintest I’ve ever seen; a tiny, largely empty red-brick thing, resembling a high-school gym. No duty free shopping here. It sees no more than a couple of dozen international flights in-out each day, and locals graze livestock on nearby grassy patches, animals occasionally ambling on to the runway. Karma was waiting outside, waving a sheet of paper reading ‘Been’ – me. Karma is a friend of Ben Ayers, the chap whose apartment I’d be renting during my time in Kathmandu. Ben, according to the Porters’ Progress website, is ‘a writer, activist, amateur climber, performance artist, conservationist, part-time farmhand and founder of Porters’ Progress, a Nepali NGO dedicated to improving the lives of trekking porters.’ Quite a fellow. But I’ve never him; we got in touch through a friend of a friend of my mother’s.
The flat is rather a coup. Basic, certainly, but with a roof-top balcony and a million-dollar view over Kathmandu and the misty hills beyond. Suresh was there to meet me – my servant boy. I’ve always been a colonial fantasist – my wet-dream is to be warped back and made a tea plantation owner in the West Bengal Hills circa 1920, replete with baggy shorts and a pith helmet – so being cooked for and attended to by a cheery native more than fitted the bill. He explained, in limited English and with the help of Karma, that he’d be around twice a week – Sundays and Wednesdays – to cook, shop for me, gather my laundry and clean the flat. After Karma left, Suresh told me a little about himself: ‘I come from village, in hills. My family very low. We have no so much land. I am first to leave and come Kathmandu and try get education.’ He had another job as a cook in a guest house, I just about gathered, and learnt English at some college in the evenings. He’s twenty, like me, and possibly the sweetest man I’ve ever met. We shall get along famously.
*
Now, I haven’t taken you quite up to the present. And I have described virtually nothing of Kathmandu. But the evening wears on and I grow weary. Suffice to stay, I’ve started at Himal and explored Kathmandu a little further. All is well and good, and I’m negotiating the power-cuts like a man. Expect an update soon.
All the best.
I landed an internship in the Kathmandu office of Himal Southasia magazine. The landing process was a puzzlement to many back home. How did it happen to me? It frankly wasn’t the done thing, like working for the local paper or, at a stretch, corrupting – sorry, teaching – little kids in Malawi. Well, it all happened very quickly. I got home one evening and there it was, the internship, perched on my doorstep, staring dolefully at me. I had to accept it. Okay…so I spotted an add on the Himal website and responded with one of those ‘I would kill a baby to work for you’ emails. Easy as that; go try it.
Himal Southasia is a high-brow, English-language, political-cultural, awesome-excellent magazine, covering the entire South Asia region, whether the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Naxalism in India, Maoism in Nepal, or whatever is actually happening in the Maldives. Himal has an ideological basis: regional unity, and the integrity of South Asia as a cultural and geo-political unit. You can improve yourself by reading their articles. Here’s a nice link: http://www.himalmag.com/. Click on it.
Now, before I get into the blog proper, I must state that I am here in Nepal to nurture my mind, not my soul. I abhor hippies; I think men wearing beads should be shot; I shall embrace neither Hinduism nor Buddhism; I consider yoga to be a singularly vile activity; and I have no intention of finding myself whatsoever.
And the blog’s title, for those who wondered, echoes the words the first modern-era Nepali King, Prithvi Narayan Shah, during the 18th century: ‘Nepal exists as a yam between two boulders,’ referring to Nepal’s age-old vulnerability, being wedged against the two ‘empires’ of India and China. An elaboration on the cultural and geopolitical implications of this vegetable metaphor will be delivered in a future post.
*
The flight from London: not much of interest here. The transfer at Delhi was, however, bizarre. In most national airports, getting your boarding bass for onward travel is simply a matter of rocking up to a desk and presenting your passport. In India, you have to earn the privilege. In Indira Gandhi airport I fell victim to the national sport, bureaucratic ping-pong: I was bounced from one clueless official to the next, and waited in a succession of rooms, with the vague hope that I’d eventually end up on an aeroplane. I got chatting to one of my co-sufferers – a Nepali journalist, it turned out, connected to a Nepali-language tabloid in Kathmandu. He gave me his card. So, there I was, scoring contacts before I’d even arrived.
The Kathmandu airport is the quaintest I’ve ever seen; a tiny, largely empty red-brick thing, resembling a high-school gym. No duty free shopping here. It sees no more than a couple of dozen international flights in-out each day, and locals graze livestock on nearby grassy patches, animals occasionally ambling on to the runway. Karma was waiting outside, waving a sheet of paper reading ‘Been’ – me. Karma is a friend of Ben Ayers, the chap whose apartment I’d be renting during my time in Kathmandu. Ben, according to the Porters’ Progress website, is ‘a writer, activist, amateur climber, performance artist, conservationist, part-time farmhand and founder of Porters’ Progress, a Nepali NGO dedicated to improving the lives of trekking porters.’ Quite a fellow. But I’ve never him; we got in touch through a friend of a friend of my mother’s.
The flat is rather a coup. Basic, certainly, but with a roof-top balcony and a million-dollar view over Kathmandu and the misty hills beyond. Suresh was there to meet me – my servant boy. I’ve always been a colonial fantasist – my wet-dream is to be warped back and made a tea plantation owner in the West Bengal Hills circa 1920, replete with baggy shorts and a pith helmet – so being cooked for and attended to by a cheery native more than fitted the bill. He explained, in limited English and with the help of Karma, that he’d be around twice a week – Sundays and Wednesdays – to cook, shop for me, gather my laundry and clean the flat. After Karma left, Suresh told me a little about himself: ‘I come from village, in hills. My family very low. We have no so much land. I am first to leave and come Kathmandu and try get education.’ He had another job as a cook in a guest house, I just about gathered, and learnt English at some college in the evenings. He’s twenty, like me, and possibly the sweetest man I’ve ever met. We shall get along famously.
*
Now, I haven’t taken you quite up to the present. And I have described virtually nothing of Kathmandu. But the evening wears on and I grow weary. Suffice to stay, I’ve started at Himal and explored Kathmandu a little further. All is well and good, and I’m negotiating the power-cuts like a man. Expect an update soon.
All the best.
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