Women have travelled a long way from the kitchen. Now it seems that middle-aged ladies are taking over the world. Take the two Athenas who have recently blazed a trail across South Asia, leaving lines of fawning officials in their wake: Joanna Lumley and Hillary Clinton.
First off, Hillary’s heavenly descent – sorry, visit – to India earlier this month. The sour-faced hag gifted Hindustan a full four days of her time. She reassured the grateful nation that the new, ever so progressive administration of Barack Obama – the first African-American President (!!!), in case you hadn’t been told by the BBC – was committed to building on the bilateral (what a ghastly word) relations successfully established during the dark and evil Bush years. Most of all in nuclear and defence ‘cooperation’ – by which read ‘baying poodle status’ – but also in the lesser areas of education, agriculture, healthcare and women’s rights.
Later on, as a parting treat, she hectored the developing country on their obligation to cooperate in the fight against climate change – or rather, bankrupt themselves in meeting Obama’s draconian new carbon reduction targets. But, perhaps due to its historic experience of colonialism, India has refused to take this eco-imperialism lying down. The Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, bluntly stated that India would accept no binding emission cuts, because they would interfere with its development goals. (For all the Bright New India propaganda you hear in the West, India still has more desperately poor people – living on less than 1.25 US dollars a day – than exist in the entire African continent.)
Industrialisation, urbanisation, increased mobility, and all else that led to the levels of wealth we (still) enjoy in the West, are, of course, anathema to fighting global warming. It is therefore the unspoken wish of the Al Gore Army – fed on romantic notions of nature-attuned self-sufficiency; erring rather too close to Pol Pot, something of a proto-Green himself – that people-heavy nations such as India remain backward, immobile and overwhelmingly rural. For them, the sight of sky-scrapers shooting up in Bombay spells imminent ecological doom, rather than increased prosperity. The misanthropy behind this view of human progress seems to be entirely lost on the Western liberal press.
But I digress; now on to Kathmandu, which last week played host to the infinitely more delectable Joanna Lumley. The English national treasure arrived last Sunday to be received by hundreds of Gurkhas and general enthusiasts at the Tribhuvan international airport, wielding signs reading ‘Joanna Lumley, daughter of Nepal’ and ‘here comes goddess Joanna.’ Nothing like a patrician white lady to get the natives excited.
To this spirited welcome she retorted with the Gurkha battle cry – Ayo Gurkhali! – and then delivered a speech filled with such tender sentiments as, ‘My friends of Nepal, I am your family, coming to Nepal for the first time.’ Next she did tea successively with the prime minister, the president and the foreign minister, before venturing on to Pokhara to meet with some notable Gurkha chums or somesuch. Photos of her on arrival, draped in garlands and spouting forth, were lavished over the front page of every paper – although Himal, being a highbrow monthly magazine for deeply serious persons, has deigned not to take note. Nonetheless, her campaign was rather remarkable: her victory – that all Gurkha veterans with four years' service can now settle in the UK – was snatched right from the jaws of a belligerent government. It was certainly a pleasure to witness a husky blonde woman socking it to that dour fat man, Gordon Brown.
Now, I hate to be a bitch about the whole thing – really I do – but something’s been left out of the Gurkha debate in Britain: Nepal itself. Let’s take a little look at history; see what happens. The Gurkhas were co-opted into the Indian Army – the British-run forces in India, the vast majority of which were Indians drawn from the warrior castes – after their defeat in the Anglo-Gurhka Wars of the early nineteenth century. The British may have won, and the Gurkhas did lose substantial territory to the east and west of present day Nepal – for instance, the still highly anglicised hill-stations of Shimla and Darjeeling and their surrounding hills. But the campaign was long and grueling; the British seriously underestimated the courage and ferocity of their opponents. And so impressed were the British that, afterwards, they offered the Gurkhas generous pay to join their forces in the subcontinent. So, from former enemies the British were to gain one of their most formidable allies – just like the Sikhs after them.
But, faced with its bravest and greatest leaving for lucrative foreign employment, Nepal only allowed this co-option on the principle of mutual benefit. It was understood that both Nepal and British India would be enriched by the process. For, after a lifetime of loyal service to the British, the Gurkhas would return to their villages with their army pensions. These villages would receive a sudden injection of wealth; the veterans would use their pensions to buy books and chairs for the local school, facilitate a clean water supply, repair the village temple, and generally better their communities. In a country where the government has next to no presence in the remote villages – from which they have historically been recruited, and often from the most impoverished ethnic groups – retired Gurkhas are an invaluable asset. Mothers are often only willing to let their young sons leave for far off lands to serve, with the possibility that they will never see them again, because they know it will benefit their communities in the long run. If the new settlement option is taken up in a big way, rural Nepal stands to lose out – massively. A wealth drain, no less, guaranteeing further impoverishment. The principle of mutual benefit has effectively been buried.
Now, I’m not suggesting for a moment that Lumley is wrong in asserting the right of retired Gurkhas to settle in Britain. It is unfair that the Gurkhas were denied a retirement option handed to any Commonwealth soldier. That much is clear; and Lumley’s victory over the British government is heroic in its own way. She is still an excellent human being and all that – one I think we’d all be glad to have a gin and tonic with. But the issue is infinitely more complex than the British press has painted it. And that the interest of Nepal has been ignored – studiously or otherwise – is all too typical of our coverage of third world countries; take the adoption fad in Africa. Also unfortunate, and just as unnoticed, is the shift that the Gurkhas have undergone in the public imagination: from fearless fighters, they have now become frail old men, desperately in need of ‘our’ help.
*
Last weekend I took to the bicycle. Why hadn’t I done so before? It is an excellent way to see the Kathmandu Valley – quite possibly the best. On Saturday, I rented a yellow beast with all the right gears from the centre of Thamel – and off I peddled to the far horizon. I tried to enter the Nagargunj forest reserve, just north of the city; I was informed by a gruff army officer – with barely disguised pleasure – that it had just shut for the day. So, not overly put out, I headed further north into the wooded hills. I intended to visit the village of Kakani, but missed the turning and kept heading on the road north. Eventually I turned back, concluding that I wouldn’t reach Tibet by nightfall. So, I didn’t really reach or visit anywhere, but all way the scenery was – how shall put it – sublime.
On Sunday, after Suresh-the-servant-boy’s morning visit, I headed straight back to the bike-rental stand, and set out to explore the southern valley. I tried being clever – rarely a good idea – and took the winding backroads in leaving the city, ingeniously avoiding the main arteries with their honking buses and smoke-belching lorries. But to little success. My sense of direction died soon after I got caught up in the narrow lanes of Patan. Time and time again I ended up back on the ring road; I couldn’t escape the hideous thing – I think there’s a life lesson here. Eventually, after asking a kindly old man with an excellent moustache in a corner shop, I figured out which way was south and got the hell out of the city.
The relief on entering the countryside, with its marshy paddy fields and bent-backed peasants, was immediate. The steep hillsides greeted me like old chums. I got as far as Bungamati, a pretty village whose plentiful hammer-and-sickle graffiti betrayed an allegiance to the Maoists. A mighty chili harvest had clearly just taken place. The locals were busy threading them together with strands of hemp for drying; they dangled from windowsills like long lines of scarlet seaweed. The local school had just ended for the day, and I narrowly avoided mowing down a procession of smartly dressed schoolkids as I threaded the stone alleyways. From Bungamati I crossed the Bagmati River on a sagging bridge and, after a trial-by-fire of disintegrated pathways, joined a tarmac road (!) that led me back to Kathmandu. All told, a fine day in the country.
So, see you lot again in (about) a week.
Friday, 31 July 2009
Thursday, 23 July 2009
Valley blues
On Saturday, I at last got round to visiting the (now-vacated) Royal Palace, which happens to sit rather near my flat – nice area, don’t you know. It’s been only a few months since the Shah royal family upped sticks and went god-knows-where. Having been kept at the gates and thrown scraps of meat in the decades beforehand, Nepalis are now rocking up in hordes to get a look to get a look at the home of their former masters. There was a huge snaking queue when I got there but, being a whitie foreigner, I was ushered in through a side-entrance, where I had to pay substantially more for a ticket than the native punter.
From the outside, it looks like a blown-up Thunderbirds set. Oversized, bright-pink – yes, pink – ‘futuristic,’ child-like. An earnest exercise in Art Deco vulgarity. (Disclaimer: Art Deco can be excellent, but Asian stabs at it tend to be shit; see also the modern palace of the Maharajah of Jodhpur in Rajasthan.) Inside, the kitsch continues – but in a fun, less obnoxious way. Tiger skins, jewelled sewing machines, oversized portraits of past Kings in military regalia, precious odds and sods from around the world. It’s rather like the underground lair of a villain in a 60s Bond movie, only without the piranha pool under the dining room (although that might explain a few of the political ‘disappearances’ in recent years).
You can also poke around the palace grounds. Here, the most interesting/disquieting ‘attraction’ is the foundations of a former palace hall, now demolished – the venue of a certain royal gathering in 2001. Yes, the Royal Massacre. At a family bash on 1st June that year, all was going merrily, when Crown Prince Dipendra suddenly grew faint and retired to his bedroom. A little while later he returned in camouflage fatigues and, machine gun in each hand, opened fire on his immediate family, targeting and killing the King first, then others. Running out into the garden, he shot his mother (the Queen) and, finally, himself. Little white signposts now mark the death-spots of the royal victims, gunned down one by one. There’s still something creepy about the place.
It’s hard to fathom the national trauma that followed. For Nepali Hindus, the King is regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu; and the Royal family is inextricably bound with the birth of Nepal as a nation, what with the Gurkha invasions that unified Nepal as we know it. It is still something of a whispered subject in Nepal, but speculations abound. Many put it down to Dipendra’s frustration at not being able to marry Devyani Rana, the woman he loved, through the callous obstruction of his mother.
But that the palace was made immune to investigation swiftly after the incident, with all evidence destroyed or compromised, has stoked wild conspiracy theories. Some point to the fact that the later King, Gyandra, was alone among the immediate family in being away that evening – and his son, Paras, who was present, escaped unscathed. It certainly ensured Gyandra’s coronation soon after, unlikely to have ever happened otherwise. Others blame it on the revolutionary Maoists, for obvious reasons. The Maoists in turn point to the CIA and its Indian counterpart. Others maintain that whoever was behind it bumped off Dipendra beforehand and planted a stand-in wearing a life-like mask in his place – which would at least account for why Dipendra (allegedly) remained silent and expressionless throughout. But, as the wilder theories suggest, the public has been left firmly in the dark, with only tawdry white sign-posts to go by.
*
Next day, I took a shitty-cramped mini-van to Kirtipur, a town in the Kathmandu Valley. Weird Place. Rather eerie. Demonic-looking children stared at me from dilapidated houses, murmuring curses as I passed – as it seemed. Old men sat about on the pavements in traditional Newari costume – black waistcoat, earrings, that ubiquitous multi-coloured cloth hat – doing precisely nothing. Time seemed to have stood still in Kirtipur; certainly a step or two behind the rest of the valley in ‘development.’ And half a world away from the bouncy, enterprising (ish) capital. But it is overshadowed by one of the more sinister episodes in Nepali history:
Kirtipur was established back in the twelfth century, as a westerly outpost of Patan city state. But it had achieved a nominal independence by the time Prithvi Narayan Shah and his Gurkha hordes began their final conquest of the Kathmandu Valley in 1767. Prithvi Narayan – himself born and bred in Kirtipur – was hell bent on winning this highly strategic hill-top fortress. After one failed Gurkha assault and a later six-month siege, Kirtipur surrendered on the expectation of merciful treatment. But the Gurkha King wasn’t having that: instead, he ordered his men to hack off the nose and lips of every man and boy, sparing only musicians who played wind instruments. Eighty pounds worth of noses and lips were dumped in front of Prithvi Narayan as ‘proof.’
This historic hurt is still felt by Kirtipur’s impoverished denizens; to this day the Queen and King – directly descended from Prithvi Narayan Shah – are forbidden from setting foot in the town. As a memorial, the swords and machetes of the men who defended Kirtipur in the six-month siege still dangle from the roof of the Bagh Bharaib temple in the town centre.
Afterwards, I walked – or rather, threaded my way delicately through rice paddies – to the Chobar gorge. Not much of a gorge, as gorges go, but it’s a star player in Nepal’s folklore. It was created by one slice of the sword of the bodhisattva Manjushri, back in the aeons when the Kathmandu Valley was one great lake full of poisonous snakes. This epic sword-hack drained the valley of the water and nasty snakes – and civilisation began promptly. (See my third blog post for a more fleshed-out take on the story.) Now, this bit of myth doesn’t lean too heavily on science or anything, but archaeological research suggests it isn’t complete fancy: the Kathmandu Valley really was a lake, back in the day; and the Chobar gorge – the exit-point of the Bagmati river – is the obvious drainage site in the valley. That said, archaeologists have yet to stumble across a giant, pre-historic sword.
A wobbly suspension bridge affords a shit-scary view, but most interesting was a plaque on the bridge itself: Made in Aberdeen. From there I trekked up a steep path to Chobar village – definitely the most picturesque village I’ve seen in the valley; prime post-card material. In what is becoming a routine for me on entering Nepali villages, chirpy kids bounced out of doorways and demanded ‘one pen, one pen, one pen.’ Dunno, maybe there’s a chronic pen shortage in the Kathmandu Valley; maybe a heavy pen-tax makes them unaffordable. In any case – and this may come as a surprise – I don’t march around Nepal with a selection of pens in my pockets. Perhaps I should; give something back and all that.
Chobar village falls gently down a hill; at the crest is the idiosyncratic Adinath temple, whose outer walls are smothered with pots, pans, jugs and the like. Local tradition has it that offering kitchen utensils to Lokeshwar, the temple’s deity, guarantees a long-lasting, happy marriage for newlyweds. Let’s just hope all the crockery pays off.
It was around seven when I climbed back down to the highway, just in time to watch the last bus of the day pull up and go – well within shrieking and furious-waving distance. Balls. I stood there, mournfully, until a Nepali chap heading in vaguely the right direction took pity and offered to take me on the back of his motorbike to Kathmandu’s outskirts, from where I took a cab back to my flat. Just like that.
*
In the evenings, on the balcony of my Kathmandu penthouse – okay, fourth-storey flat – everything begins to make sense, fall into place, become real – and so on till the clichés run out. It is a kingly view; I am lord of all I survey. Steep hillsides sweep the city fringes, darkening into cut-out silhouettes as the night comes. Paper kites float above a patchwork of concrete rooftops, giving way to rice-paddies on the valley edges. Matchbox vegetable gardens stretch right to the city centre. There is a mess of sounds: shrieking kids, dogs, crows, car-horn; a city out of balance. I take a swig of a large bottle of Gorkha beer, and think of England.
And so the novel would begin – if it were a novel; which, I’ve decided, it isn’t quite.
From the outside, it looks like a blown-up Thunderbirds set. Oversized, bright-pink – yes, pink – ‘futuristic,’ child-like. An earnest exercise in Art Deco vulgarity. (Disclaimer: Art Deco can be excellent, but Asian stabs at it tend to be shit; see also the modern palace of the Maharajah of Jodhpur in Rajasthan.) Inside, the kitsch continues – but in a fun, less obnoxious way. Tiger skins, jewelled sewing machines, oversized portraits of past Kings in military regalia, precious odds and sods from around the world. It’s rather like the underground lair of a villain in a 60s Bond movie, only without the piranha pool under the dining room (although that might explain a few of the political ‘disappearances’ in recent years).
You can also poke around the palace grounds. Here, the most interesting/disquieting ‘attraction’ is the foundations of a former palace hall, now demolished – the venue of a certain royal gathering in 2001. Yes, the Royal Massacre. At a family bash on 1st June that year, all was going merrily, when Crown Prince Dipendra suddenly grew faint and retired to his bedroom. A little while later he returned in camouflage fatigues and, machine gun in each hand, opened fire on his immediate family, targeting and killing the King first, then others. Running out into the garden, he shot his mother (the Queen) and, finally, himself. Little white signposts now mark the death-spots of the royal victims, gunned down one by one. There’s still something creepy about the place.
It’s hard to fathom the national trauma that followed. For Nepali Hindus, the King is regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu; and the Royal family is inextricably bound with the birth of Nepal as a nation, what with the Gurkha invasions that unified Nepal as we know it. It is still something of a whispered subject in Nepal, but speculations abound. Many put it down to Dipendra’s frustration at not being able to marry Devyani Rana, the woman he loved, through the callous obstruction of his mother.
But that the palace was made immune to investigation swiftly after the incident, with all evidence destroyed or compromised, has stoked wild conspiracy theories. Some point to the fact that the later King, Gyandra, was alone among the immediate family in being away that evening – and his son, Paras, who was present, escaped unscathed. It certainly ensured Gyandra’s coronation soon after, unlikely to have ever happened otherwise. Others blame it on the revolutionary Maoists, for obvious reasons. The Maoists in turn point to the CIA and its Indian counterpart. Others maintain that whoever was behind it bumped off Dipendra beforehand and planted a stand-in wearing a life-like mask in his place – which would at least account for why Dipendra (allegedly) remained silent and expressionless throughout. But, as the wilder theories suggest, the public has been left firmly in the dark, with only tawdry white sign-posts to go by.
*
Next day, I took a shitty-cramped mini-van to Kirtipur, a town in the Kathmandu Valley. Weird Place. Rather eerie. Demonic-looking children stared at me from dilapidated houses, murmuring curses as I passed – as it seemed. Old men sat about on the pavements in traditional Newari costume – black waistcoat, earrings, that ubiquitous multi-coloured cloth hat – doing precisely nothing. Time seemed to have stood still in Kirtipur; certainly a step or two behind the rest of the valley in ‘development.’ And half a world away from the bouncy, enterprising (ish) capital. But it is overshadowed by one of the more sinister episodes in Nepali history:
Kirtipur was established back in the twelfth century, as a westerly outpost of Patan city state. But it had achieved a nominal independence by the time Prithvi Narayan Shah and his Gurkha hordes began their final conquest of the Kathmandu Valley in 1767. Prithvi Narayan – himself born and bred in Kirtipur – was hell bent on winning this highly strategic hill-top fortress. After one failed Gurkha assault and a later six-month siege, Kirtipur surrendered on the expectation of merciful treatment. But the Gurkha King wasn’t having that: instead, he ordered his men to hack off the nose and lips of every man and boy, sparing only musicians who played wind instruments. Eighty pounds worth of noses and lips were dumped in front of Prithvi Narayan as ‘proof.’
This historic hurt is still felt by Kirtipur’s impoverished denizens; to this day the Queen and King – directly descended from Prithvi Narayan Shah – are forbidden from setting foot in the town. As a memorial, the swords and machetes of the men who defended Kirtipur in the six-month siege still dangle from the roof of the Bagh Bharaib temple in the town centre.
Afterwards, I walked – or rather, threaded my way delicately through rice paddies – to the Chobar gorge. Not much of a gorge, as gorges go, but it’s a star player in Nepal’s folklore. It was created by one slice of the sword of the bodhisattva Manjushri, back in the aeons when the Kathmandu Valley was one great lake full of poisonous snakes. This epic sword-hack drained the valley of the water and nasty snakes – and civilisation began promptly. (See my third blog post for a more fleshed-out take on the story.) Now, this bit of myth doesn’t lean too heavily on science or anything, but archaeological research suggests it isn’t complete fancy: the Kathmandu Valley really was a lake, back in the day; and the Chobar gorge – the exit-point of the Bagmati river – is the obvious drainage site in the valley. That said, archaeologists have yet to stumble across a giant, pre-historic sword.
A wobbly suspension bridge affords a shit-scary view, but most interesting was a plaque on the bridge itself: Made in Aberdeen. From there I trekked up a steep path to Chobar village – definitely the most picturesque village I’ve seen in the valley; prime post-card material. In what is becoming a routine for me on entering Nepali villages, chirpy kids bounced out of doorways and demanded ‘one pen, one pen, one pen.’ Dunno, maybe there’s a chronic pen shortage in the Kathmandu Valley; maybe a heavy pen-tax makes them unaffordable. In any case – and this may come as a surprise – I don’t march around Nepal with a selection of pens in my pockets. Perhaps I should; give something back and all that.
Chobar village falls gently down a hill; at the crest is the idiosyncratic Adinath temple, whose outer walls are smothered with pots, pans, jugs and the like. Local tradition has it that offering kitchen utensils to Lokeshwar, the temple’s deity, guarantees a long-lasting, happy marriage for newlyweds. Let’s just hope all the crockery pays off.
It was around seven when I climbed back down to the highway, just in time to watch the last bus of the day pull up and go – well within shrieking and furious-waving distance. Balls. I stood there, mournfully, until a Nepali chap heading in vaguely the right direction took pity and offered to take me on the back of his motorbike to Kathmandu’s outskirts, from where I took a cab back to my flat. Just like that.
*
In the evenings, on the balcony of my Kathmandu penthouse – okay, fourth-storey flat – everything begins to make sense, fall into place, become real – and so on till the clichés run out. It is a kingly view; I am lord of all I survey. Steep hillsides sweep the city fringes, darkening into cut-out silhouettes as the night comes. Paper kites float above a patchwork of concrete rooftops, giving way to rice-paddies on the valley edges. Matchbox vegetable gardens stretch right to the city centre. There is a mess of sounds: shrieking kids, dogs, crows, car-horn; a city out of balance. I take a swig of a large bottle of Gorkha beer, and think of England.
And so the novel would begin – if it were a novel; which, I’ve decided, it isn’t quite.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
The tanned man’s burden
It’s a common disease of the tropics, on a par with malaria and dengue fever. ‘If I’ syndrome. It isn’t deadly – as far as I’ve heard – but infection among well-meaning whites is a nigh-on certainty. You don’t notice it at first; it just creeps up on you. But, with forewarning, you can spot it in its early stages.
You arrive in a third world country, you check the place out, go for a walk or whatever. And then it happens. You look at the mess around you – the badly behaved traffic, the sincere lack of dustbins, the dirt-caked street urchins, the emaciated pariah dogs – and a monologue comes to life in your head. ‘If I was in charge, I would do….I would introduce…I would ban…I would round up and shoot…’ It’s a high-pitched, cut-glass voice which clears its throat and starts up whenever you step outside; and it refuses to pipe down. If it wore a hat, it would be a pith helmet. A colonial hangover, a nannying impulse, the irrepressible conviction – embarrassing though it may be to the liberal mindset – that it is precisely you and your expertise, gleaned from a first world upbringing, that this benighted country needs in order to do things ‘correctly.’ The very same voice must have plagued the British East India Company, when they first decided that extending their dominion beyond the banks of the Hoogly wasn’t such a terribly bad idea. It is, ultimately, a refusal to accept things for how they are.
I thought I’d eradicated my (particularly virulent) strand of ‘If I’ syndrome during my seventh months travelling in Asia in 2007 – and this took long enough. But it was merely laying dormant, ready to erupt as soon as I stepped off the plane in Kathmandu. Like syphilis, you think it’s gone, but then it comes back and fucks up your brain. But, after a month, I think I’ve managed to tame it. This is largely through talking to Nepali people; who, you soon discover, are just as aware of the country’s problems as you are – often painfully so. You are no longer a long voice in the wilderness, but simply one of many observers. Humbling, but also reassuring.
*
The internet has speeded up our lives in many ways, from shopping for DVDs to organising international terrorism. But it has also turned procrastination into an art form. I think we can all attest to this, students especially. With unfettered internet access comes unfettered dithering. And this is a major part of the work I do for Himal, with occasional breaks to fact check articles and write up briefs on South Asian geopolitics. But I like to think my procrastination is more refined than that of the average desk monkey. I don’t surf for Russian brides, football scores or humorous videos featuring anthropomorphic cats.
My vice is internet media – news, commentary, and the like. I try to keep abreast of world events and trends, in an effort to be more informed than everyone else. Frankly, it’s a losing game. The more you read about ethnic grievances in the Nepali Tarai or cargo cults in the Solomon Islands, the more ignorant and helpless you feel. It’s like being one step behind a fat giant, picking up the biscuit crumbs he drops behind and pretending to be satiated. Seriously, you will never be ‘on top’ of world affairs. The world is too big and your brain is too small.
However, I have become something of a connoisseur regarding internet news outlets. This, people, is the future of journalism. The bloggers shall inherit the earth – unless the newspapers and magazines continue to pump money into their websites. And some of them are looking very sleek indeed; top prize has to go to the Guardian, even if their commentariat is a ghastly coven of bunny-huggers, eco-fascists and shrill feminist hags, whom you read at your peril. Anyhow, Himal has begun to grasp the importance of the ‘hits’ made to its website, and is busy trying to sex the thing up. Indeed, most of the ‘briefs’ I write for Himal are intended solely for the website. By all means take a look:
http://www.himalmag.com/Himal-s-take-on-cross-border-news-from-northern-Southasia-for-the-week-of-July-10_dnwc83.html
*
I took another weekend in the country. Fresh air seemed like a good idea. So, I caught a bus from Ratna Park station – oh, how I will miss it – to a one-horse village called Sangkhu. From there I trekked up to a temple on top of a hill (where temples often find themselves). On the way up I met an English couple who were spending a few months teaching English in a village school nearby. With their loose clothes and bangles they had tried earnestly to ‘go native’ – the man even had a tika on his forehead – which, as with all such attempts, only emphasized their whiteness.
Once back down, I determined to walk the steep dirt-road to Nagarkot, a hill-station at 2000 metres. Half-way I wimped out and caught a bus heading up – the last one of the day – quite a human sandwich. The mist began to close in as the bus negotiated the potholes. By the time arrived I could barely see a few metres in front of me.
I got chatting to a shop owner about places to stay. After giving me his spin on the village economy – apparently men come up regularly from Kathmandu with prostitutes, to ‘have quick fuck’ in one of Nagarkot’s many ropey hotels – he suggested I stay with his family ‘not too far away.’ Well, first came a rather lengthy ride on the back of his motorbike, and then he dropped me off at a muddy trail head, where his two five-year-old-ish sons lead me for what seemed like rather a lot of minutes to their farmstead – by which time it was pitch dark. It was very much a ‘traditional’ dwelling, made entirely of mud and wood; the animals (six goats and a buffalo) slept downstairs, the family upstairs – along with me. Before bed we gathered around the stove as the housewife knocked us up some daal bhaat (rice and dhal, the Nepali staple). Yes, all very bucolic.
The next day I took the bus down to Bhaktapur, what used to be one of the three independent city states of the Kathmandu Valley – along with Patan and Kathmandu itself – before the Gurkha invasions of the eighteenth century, led by the Prithvi Narayan Shah (still highly revered as the father of Nepal), which led to the unification of Nepal as we know it. It’s a beautiful place; a rabbit-warren of wooden temples and winding back-alleys. But it rained all day, in a slow drizzle that never broke into a satisfying tantrum. My umbrella truly came into its own. From now on, it remains beside me, no matter what – my take on the Gurkha kukri knife.
I got back to the flat to receive an angry note from Suresh the servant boy. I hadn’t told him I’d be away that Sunday; I didn’t know I had the whole weekend off till Friday evening. Well, the note appeared angry; I really couldn’t read the thing. Give it a try yourself: ‘Been eat food this is I am not see list look not fine why ary you aways in Nagarkot Ben. I worke is bed why what not good food I try ok writ this coy note book.’ And so it went. It’s times like these that remind me of how very crap I am in failing to attempt the Nepali language. No excuse, really.
All for now.
You arrive in a third world country, you check the place out, go for a walk or whatever. And then it happens. You look at the mess around you – the badly behaved traffic, the sincere lack of dustbins, the dirt-caked street urchins, the emaciated pariah dogs – and a monologue comes to life in your head. ‘If I was in charge, I would do….I would introduce…I would ban…I would round up and shoot…’ It’s a high-pitched, cut-glass voice which clears its throat and starts up whenever you step outside; and it refuses to pipe down. If it wore a hat, it would be a pith helmet. A colonial hangover, a nannying impulse, the irrepressible conviction – embarrassing though it may be to the liberal mindset – that it is precisely you and your expertise, gleaned from a first world upbringing, that this benighted country needs in order to do things ‘correctly.’ The very same voice must have plagued the British East India Company, when they first decided that extending their dominion beyond the banks of the Hoogly wasn’t such a terribly bad idea. It is, ultimately, a refusal to accept things for how they are.
I thought I’d eradicated my (particularly virulent) strand of ‘If I’ syndrome during my seventh months travelling in Asia in 2007 – and this took long enough. But it was merely laying dormant, ready to erupt as soon as I stepped off the plane in Kathmandu. Like syphilis, you think it’s gone, but then it comes back and fucks up your brain. But, after a month, I think I’ve managed to tame it. This is largely through talking to Nepali people; who, you soon discover, are just as aware of the country’s problems as you are – often painfully so. You are no longer a long voice in the wilderness, but simply one of many observers. Humbling, but also reassuring.
*
The internet has speeded up our lives in many ways, from shopping for DVDs to organising international terrorism. But it has also turned procrastination into an art form. I think we can all attest to this, students especially. With unfettered internet access comes unfettered dithering. And this is a major part of the work I do for Himal, with occasional breaks to fact check articles and write up briefs on South Asian geopolitics. But I like to think my procrastination is more refined than that of the average desk monkey. I don’t surf for Russian brides, football scores or humorous videos featuring anthropomorphic cats.
My vice is internet media – news, commentary, and the like. I try to keep abreast of world events and trends, in an effort to be more informed than everyone else. Frankly, it’s a losing game. The more you read about ethnic grievances in the Nepali Tarai or cargo cults in the Solomon Islands, the more ignorant and helpless you feel. It’s like being one step behind a fat giant, picking up the biscuit crumbs he drops behind and pretending to be satiated. Seriously, you will never be ‘on top’ of world affairs. The world is too big and your brain is too small.
However, I have become something of a connoisseur regarding internet news outlets. This, people, is the future of journalism. The bloggers shall inherit the earth – unless the newspapers and magazines continue to pump money into their websites. And some of them are looking very sleek indeed; top prize has to go to the Guardian, even if their commentariat is a ghastly coven of bunny-huggers, eco-fascists and shrill feminist hags, whom you read at your peril. Anyhow, Himal has begun to grasp the importance of the ‘hits’ made to its website, and is busy trying to sex the thing up. Indeed, most of the ‘briefs’ I write for Himal are intended solely for the website. By all means take a look:
http://www.himalmag.com/Himal-s-take-on-cross-border-news-from-northern-Southasia-for-the-week-of-July-10_dnwc83.html
*
I took another weekend in the country. Fresh air seemed like a good idea. So, I caught a bus from Ratna Park station – oh, how I will miss it – to a one-horse village called Sangkhu. From there I trekked up to a temple on top of a hill (where temples often find themselves). On the way up I met an English couple who were spending a few months teaching English in a village school nearby. With their loose clothes and bangles they had tried earnestly to ‘go native’ – the man even had a tika on his forehead – which, as with all such attempts, only emphasized their whiteness.
Once back down, I determined to walk the steep dirt-road to Nagarkot, a hill-station at 2000 metres. Half-way I wimped out and caught a bus heading up – the last one of the day – quite a human sandwich. The mist began to close in as the bus negotiated the potholes. By the time arrived I could barely see a few metres in front of me.
I got chatting to a shop owner about places to stay. After giving me his spin on the village economy – apparently men come up regularly from Kathmandu with prostitutes, to ‘have quick fuck’ in one of Nagarkot’s many ropey hotels – he suggested I stay with his family ‘not too far away.’ Well, first came a rather lengthy ride on the back of his motorbike, and then he dropped me off at a muddy trail head, where his two five-year-old-ish sons lead me for what seemed like rather a lot of minutes to their farmstead – by which time it was pitch dark. It was very much a ‘traditional’ dwelling, made entirely of mud and wood; the animals (six goats and a buffalo) slept downstairs, the family upstairs – along with me. Before bed we gathered around the stove as the housewife knocked us up some daal bhaat (rice and dhal, the Nepali staple). Yes, all very bucolic.
The next day I took the bus down to Bhaktapur, what used to be one of the three independent city states of the Kathmandu Valley – along with Patan and Kathmandu itself – before the Gurkha invasions of the eighteenth century, led by the Prithvi Narayan Shah (still highly revered as the father of Nepal), which led to the unification of Nepal as we know it. It’s a beautiful place; a rabbit-warren of wooden temples and winding back-alleys. But it rained all day, in a slow drizzle that never broke into a satisfying tantrum. My umbrella truly came into its own. From now on, it remains beside me, no matter what – my take on the Gurkha kukri knife.
I got back to the flat to receive an angry note from Suresh the servant boy. I hadn’t told him I’d be away that Sunday; I didn’t know I had the whole weekend off till Friday evening. Well, the note appeared angry; I really couldn’t read the thing. Give it a try yourself: ‘Been eat food this is I am not see list look not fine why ary you aways in Nagarkot Ben. I worke is bed why what not good food I try ok writ this coy note book.’ And so it went. It’s times like these that remind me of how very crap I am in failing to attempt the Nepali language. No excuse, really.
All for now.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
The umbrella and the Maoist
Rain. Not sure what I think of it. And there’s a fuck of a lot of it here, right now. It’s different from the rain back home – the sombre drizzle that shoves grey over the place. Here it’s something else. You get really, really wet. And quickly. You reach saturation point after a few minutes, but dry soon enough afterwards in the heat. I bought an umbrella the other day on the way to Ratna Park bus station, from an old man with deformed hands. I take it with my everywhere now; it sits in my multi-coloured Nepali bag, next to my glasses case. I’m learning to cope, I suppose. Underrated, umbrellas.
The monsoon is the only season in Nepal when the rural folk can laugh at the Kathmandu-wallahs. For most of the year, country people have to face dire poverty, state neglect, malnutrition – among other nuisances. Most of them dream of one day packing up and moving to the bright lights (power-cuts permitting) of the capital, where the cracked pavements are lined with rupees and jobs flow out of the open sewers. It must all look pretty peachy from the hills, what with the buildings and everything.
But, come the rains, Kathmandu’s streets become brown, heaving canals. Take my journey to work this morning: I took one of those Noddy-sized mini-vans, where as many people as possible – a surprising amount, in the case of Nepalis – are shoved inside before the thing starts moving; and where I must perform some pretty painful gymnastics. Yes, undignified – just a little bit – but I felt pretty smug looking through the window at the people outside. They were wading – yes, wading – through muddy water, just to get from A to B. But I had to join them at one stage, when the Noddy-van met a road closed by the police; some high-spirited students had set a few tyres alight, right after looting and burning the office of a university professor they happened to disagree with. Now, I’m no expert vandal, but I thought that the idea behind tyre-burning was spectacle – setting up a big stack of them before lighting up; that sort of thing. As it was, there were just a few scattered, solitary burning tyres about the road; they looked rather sad and pathetic. Anyhow, I arrived at work with my lower half muddy. It’s enough to make you run away and become a rice picker.
*
When most student-types go to third world countries, they do something Worthwhile. Teach little kids, build wells, save pandas from certain extinction, all that jazz. I, on the other hand, sit in an office and fact-check documents, write briefs on South Asian geopolitics, upload job advertisements to the website, occasionally journey to the water cooler; and so the day goes. I won’t be curing AIDS any time soon, and probably won’t get to go to Heaven, achieve Nirvana, or whatever other terribly nice things await terribly nice people. I’ll have to settle for the shitty alternatives.
But journalism is a noble cause in Nepal. As it is any country, I believe. But in Nepal it takes on a more heroic guise – a sort of tights and cape profession. Intimidation of journalists is something of an organised sport here. They are considered fair game by much of the political class, particularly the thuggish Maoist ex-guerrillas, handed power by an optimistic electorate in the post-conflict spring elections.
The Maoists may now find themselves in opposition to the ruling UML-led coalition, due to the resignation of top-cadre Prachanda (‘the fierce one’) from office over the ‘unconstitutional’ sacking of the conservative army chief, but they can still bring Nepal to a standstill at the click of their fingers – as they prove with the endless bandas (strikes), now more numerous than Hindu festivals. They may now have entered the ‘democratic process,’ but they wear political office like a child stomping about the house in his daddy’s shoes. It’s all just a fun little game; and their sport is to stick it to the baddies. The baddies, of course, are anyone who happens to disagree with them. In this respect, journalists are not their friends.
This is a fairly typical news item: on 1 June, the day of another enforced strike in Kathmandu, cadres of the Newar Autonomous State routinely halted vehicles bearing press logos, smashed the windows, took the keys and beat up the journalists. All to stop them reporting the hardships endured by many ordinary citizens when the city was forced to a standstill by a political group most had little sympathy with. Rocking up to cover a strike – or any other kind of political incident; a rally, for instance – is dealt with as insubordination.
But, worst of all in these cases, no one is punished, the victims go uncompensated, and groups like the Youth Communist League – the militant arm of the Maoists – only grow in strength. More pressing than corruption in Nepal is impunity – Nepal is ranked 8th on CPJ’s Impunity Index, as a country ‘where journalists are murdered on a recurring basis and governments are unable or unwilling to prosecute the killers.’ In all this, the police are little more than smartly-dressed spectators. As the YCL beats up another of their ‘class enemies,’ they merely stand by, wagging their fingers like disapproving nannies. Oh gosh, they must say to each other, just look at those rascals: at it again, beating up another innocent press-officer; what are they like?
It doesn’t help that few of the media laws that exist in Britain, defining the limits with which politicians and press can attack each other, are in place in Nepal. Neither knows how far they should go – in the absence of libel laws or anything similar – and so both play a dangerous game, taking what they can and crying foul at the slightest affront. The press is no angel either: there is rather a lot ‘yellow’ journalism among the smaller, Nepali-language papers – namely, blackmailing businessmen for hefty donations under the threat of smear campaigns. It all comes down to a question of respect, and none of this is conducive to a healthy public life in Nepal – something it so badly needs in this transitional period, where the Maoist refusal join the coalition continues the bleed the government of legitimacy. So, here I am, helping to fight the good fight. A hero of Nepal, no less.
*
An excellent female I know – who shall not be named because it would flatter her too much – suggested I should allow a little introspection into my blog. Less of the worldly, interesting stuff about Nepali history and culture; more about my feelings, or whatever. Although my instinct was to reject the idea as selling out to the current, me-centric brand of travel writing, I thought I’d give it a pop, for what it’s worth.
So, how do I FEEL? Well, there are times…in the evening, during a power cut, with candles set about me, the yellow lights of Kathmandu dotting the window pane, the sound of barking dogs rising from the pavements below; when I look to myself and think, stroking my stubble and loosing a sigh…. Okay, enough of this introspective crap. I’ll just have to work on it. END.
The monsoon is the only season in Nepal when the rural folk can laugh at the Kathmandu-wallahs. For most of the year, country people have to face dire poverty, state neglect, malnutrition – among other nuisances. Most of them dream of one day packing up and moving to the bright lights (power-cuts permitting) of the capital, where the cracked pavements are lined with rupees and jobs flow out of the open sewers. It must all look pretty peachy from the hills, what with the buildings and everything.
But, come the rains, Kathmandu’s streets become brown, heaving canals. Take my journey to work this morning: I took one of those Noddy-sized mini-vans, where as many people as possible – a surprising amount, in the case of Nepalis – are shoved inside before the thing starts moving; and where I must perform some pretty painful gymnastics. Yes, undignified – just a little bit – but I felt pretty smug looking through the window at the people outside. They were wading – yes, wading – through muddy water, just to get from A to B. But I had to join them at one stage, when the Noddy-van met a road closed by the police; some high-spirited students had set a few tyres alight, right after looting and burning the office of a university professor they happened to disagree with. Now, I’m no expert vandal, but I thought that the idea behind tyre-burning was spectacle – setting up a big stack of them before lighting up; that sort of thing. As it was, there were just a few scattered, solitary burning tyres about the road; they looked rather sad and pathetic. Anyhow, I arrived at work with my lower half muddy. It’s enough to make you run away and become a rice picker.
*
When most student-types go to third world countries, they do something Worthwhile. Teach little kids, build wells, save pandas from certain extinction, all that jazz. I, on the other hand, sit in an office and fact-check documents, write briefs on South Asian geopolitics, upload job advertisements to the website, occasionally journey to the water cooler; and so the day goes. I won’t be curing AIDS any time soon, and probably won’t get to go to Heaven, achieve Nirvana, or whatever other terribly nice things await terribly nice people. I’ll have to settle for the shitty alternatives.
But journalism is a noble cause in Nepal. As it is any country, I believe. But in Nepal it takes on a more heroic guise – a sort of tights and cape profession. Intimidation of journalists is something of an organised sport here. They are considered fair game by much of the political class, particularly the thuggish Maoist ex-guerrillas, handed power by an optimistic electorate in the post-conflict spring elections.
The Maoists may now find themselves in opposition to the ruling UML-led coalition, due to the resignation of top-cadre Prachanda (‘the fierce one’) from office over the ‘unconstitutional’ sacking of the conservative army chief, but they can still bring Nepal to a standstill at the click of their fingers – as they prove with the endless bandas (strikes), now more numerous than Hindu festivals. They may now have entered the ‘democratic process,’ but they wear political office like a child stomping about the house in his daddy’s shoes. It’s all just a fun little game; and their sport is to stick it to the baddies. The baddies, of course, are anyone who happens to disagree with them. In this respect, journalists are not their friends.
This is a fairly typical news item: on 1 June, the day of another enforced strike in Kathmandu, cadres of the Newar Autonomous State routinely halted vehicles bearing press logos, smashed the windows, took the keys and beat up the journalists. All to stop them reporting the hardships endured by many ordinary citizens when the city was forced to a standstill by a political group most had little sympathy with. Rocking up to cover a strike – or any other kind of political incident; a rally, for instance – is dealt with as insubordination.
But, worst of all in these cases, no one is punished, the victims go uncompensated, and groups like the Youth Communist League – the militant arm of the Maoists – only grow in strength. More pressing than corruption in Nepal is impunity – Nepal is ranked 8th on CPJ’s Impunity Index, as a country ‘where journalists are murdered on a recurring basis and governments are unable or unwilling to prosecute the killers.’ In all this, the police are little more than smartly-dressed spectators. As the YCL beats up another of their ‘class enemies,’ they merely stand by, wagging their fingers like disapproving nannies. Oh gosh, they must say to each other, just look at those rascals: at it again, beating up another innocent press-officer; what are they like?
It doesn’t help that few of the media laws that exist in Britain, defining the limits with which politicians and press can attack each other, are in place in Nepal. Neither knows how far they should go – in the absence of libel laws or anything similar – and so both play a dangerous game, taking what they can and crying foul at the slightest affront. The press is no angel either: there is rather a lot ‘yellow’ journalism among the smaller, Nepali-language papers – namely, blackmailing businessmen for hefty donations under the threat of smear campaigns. It all comes down to a question of respect, and none of this is conducive to a healthy public life in Nepal – something it so badly needs in this transitional period, where the Maoist refusal join the coalition continues the bleed the government of legitimacy. So, here I am, helping to fight the good fight. A hero of Nepal, no less.
*
An excellent female I know – who shall not be named because it would flatter her too much – suggested I should allow a little introspection into my blog. Less of the worldly, interesting stuff about Nepali history and culture; more about my feelings, or whatever. Although my instinct was to reject the idea as selling out to the current, me-centric brand of travel writing, I thought I’d give it a pop, for what it’s worth.
So, how do I FEEL? Well, there are times…in the evening, during a power cut, with candles set about me, the yellow lights of Kathmandu dotting the window pane, the sound of barking dogs rising from the pavements below; when I look to myself and think, stroking my stubble and loosing a sigh…. Okay, enough of this introspective crap. I’ll just have to work on it. END.
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