Buttertea at Sunrise (33 page)

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B U T T E R T E A A T S U N R I S E

I firmly resist all offers of arra, my buttertea is generously refilled after every sip.

After a while the arra takes effect, loosens the tongue and chases away all shyness. Bikul strikes up the notes to his favourite song, ‘Etho Metho’. The lyrics are for both a boy and a girl and, with a shy smile, Pema joins in.

‘Lay-la gooh-cho au-san bo-rang ga,

Etho metho leg-pu pho-g pa la,

Metho photnee nan gaa tsham thong gaa,

Leg-pu chot-pay mi wa cha…’

Everyone listens intently, their faces expressing the popular lines. At first, a boy asks his sweetheart to look at a flower: ‘This rhododendron, I want to put it in your hair. You would be so pretty.’ The girl answers: ‘No, I do not need this flower. Please do not pluck it; let it bloom.

It looks much more beautiful in the forest.’ The boy again praises his love: ‘You are the most beautiful amongst all the girls. Let me take you to my home and give you a nice kira.’

Again, the girl pleads for him to listen: ‘I have many kiras, there is no need. If you want to give me something, please give me your love.’

Bikul finishes and looks at me with a broad smile until I feel myself blush. Luckily, at this moment, Ama and her daughters join to sing another love song. Ama’s face crinkles into many fine lines while the arra heats her cheeks. At the end of the song, the girls are overcome by happy giggling.

Meme Monk takes out his little bamboo flute and toots a few notes. The instrument squeaks and squeals in protest.

The old man nods in sympathy, picks up his bowl, and starts feeding the flute hot liquor. With a twinkle in his eyes, he tells us the secret to good music. ‘You’ve got to take care of your friend. He might be hungry too.’

When Meme has quenched both his and the flute’s thirst, Bikul takes the cymbals off the wall, and together, he and Meme make noise as well as they can.

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L O S A R N E W Y E A R

The children are sent to fetch the real trumpets and horns, and when the orchestra assembles it is an impressive one.

Meme is on his flute, Bikul alternates between the cymbals and another long bamboo flute while Larjap lopon and Kinley play the trumpets and Karma a long horn. There seems to be only one common goal in the merriness: to be heard as far and wide as possible, in tune or out. The noise they produce is awesome. Ama laughs and claps her hands; Chimmi bounces excitedly up and down; Nima, holding Abi’s hands, sways his body either to dance or due to mild intoxication. And Meme monk interrupts his playing a few times to refresh both him and the flute with a wet little something.

Leaning towards me in order to make herself heard over the enthusiastic orchestra, Pema asks ‘When you reach Canada, you will be coming back again?’

Surprised, I look at my friend. Although her body is rocking in rhythm to the music, her eyes are downcast and perhaps even a little sad.

‘I hope so, Pema.’ My answer is honest, but at the same time, I cannot help but wonder how long it will be.

‘Please write to us.’ Now Pema’s voice is urgent.

‘I promise.’

I meet Pema’s suddenly anxious eyes. ‘And will you send some information for Nima?’

Again I nod, and we both look at the little boy whose body still sways gently back and forth while his fingers roll his lower lips in tiny circles.

Then Bikul sets down his cymbals. ‘Why are you two looking so sad over there? Why don’t you sing with us?’

Once more, he launches into his favourite Sharchhop song, completely out of tune with the orchestra. Pema grins. ‘You are singing very nice, Dr. Bikul. I think you are feeling in love!’ And satisfied to see Bikul blushing deeply, she turns 253

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B U T T E R T E A A T S U N R I S E

to me and says, ‘You must also learn the words. I will teach you before you go.’

Hours later, we reluctantly bid our friends farewell. In front of the old farmhouse everyone gathers for a picture, and the goodbyes are long and heartfelt. Larjap lopon invites us to visit him at his monastery. Abi holds my hands for a long, long time, and Meme Monk calls me for a picture of the two of us. Chimmi shouts loudly ‘Goodbye Auntie!’

while Pema takes Nima’s hand and together they wave.

The two younger monks, Kinley and Larjap lopon, lead us in a small procession to the chorten at the village entrance.

Ama and her sister-in-law follow us with buttertea and arra.

On the chorten’s base, we sit down one last time to drink, eat and play music. Finally, when the sky darkens and the rain sets in, the horns accompany our descent. Shouts hail through the air. Losar farewell.

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C H A P T E R

T W E N T Y  E I G H T

The Sound of a

Conch

As my departure date nears, I start to count the days with a sinking heart. Every encounter becomes

like another goodbye. Phuntshok shows up on our

doorstep and decides to stay until I leave. He too seems to feel the enormity of my decision. Through Phuntshok, we ask Lam Neten if Bikul and I may offer a puja at the dzong, a way to wish farewell to Mongar. Lam Neten immediately agrees. He is happy about our timing. He himself will leave Mongar in a few weeks in order to return to his meditation at Sangpu Gompa, a remote monastery where he will spend the next few years in retreat. Tomorrow, he tells us, is one of the most auspicious days in the Bhutanese calendar, tomorrow would be a good day for us to hold a puja. Tomorrow, on Friday the thirteenth of March, the monks will gather to perform the Sangay puja, a prayer to Lord Buddha.

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B U T T E R T E A A T S U N R I S E

Lam Neten smiles throughout our unofficial preparations for a farewell. He confidently reassures us that we will meet again, if not in this life, then sometime in another reincarnation. I so much want to believe that he is right.

In the late afternoon, Sangay, one of Bikul’s monk friends, accompanies us to town to buy food for the puja. We pay for the rice, butter, biscuits, some vegetables, milk powder, sugar and tea, all of which Sangay takes back to the dzong.

Meanwhile Bikul and I add a few more items to our

shopping bag: incense sticks, Dalda for the butterlamps, two white ceremonial scarves, and a yellow fleece sweater as a present for Lam Neten.

‘Let’s bake chocolate cakes for the monks!’ We are in high spirits, and it is out of our overboiling excitement that this ridiculous idea is born. Bikul makes the suggestion and promises to help. ‘How many monks are there?’ I ask.

‘Oh, maybe seventy-five.’ That means eight cakes! Bikul reassures me that it will be no problem.

By the time we reach home, it is past 7 p.m.; there is no electricity, only candlelight, and then, of course, no oven, only my doddering woodstove bukhari. I take out my big aluminium pot, which is lined with stones, and measure the diameter. Only one smaller pot containing the cake dough will fit into the interior. The whole construction will then have to heat up on top of the bukhari until the stones inside the large pot create enough heat to bake my cake.

The whole procedure can take over an hour, so somehow I have to manage to construct two ovens and bake two cakes at once.

My kitchen turns into an assembly line of wet dough, aluminium pots and Bikul scuttling back and forth between the bukhari and the sink. The first two cakes burn and refuse to come out of the pots. Though my baking crew of Bikul, Phuntshok and his friend is eager and willing, 256

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they are quite useless. They do not even smell the charcoal when smoke starts rising from the bukhari!

It is madness. Bikul is sent to the kitchen to scrub pots while I stand at the dining table trying to peel burned paper off the bottom of the next two cakes. More and more cakes follow the fate of the first two, ending up in larger and smaller chunks with crusty bottoms. By midnight, when we shove the last two cakes onto the bukhari, Phuntshok and his friend are fast asleep, and I collapse on the bed.

Bikul reassures me that he will manage the rest.

Nothing can go wrong now, I think to myself before sleep overtakes me.

I was mistaken. The clock shows 3.45 a.m. when Bikul finally comes to bed. ‘What took you so long?’ I ask drowsily. Bikul does not answer, he has already passed out beside me. We are supposed to be at the temple by 5 a.m., but Bikul is sound asleep.

Finally, at 5.30 a.m., still drowsy, we stumble up to the dzong carrying huge pots of what should have been chocolate cake. At the entrance to the Sangay lhakhang, by the light of my head-torch, I try my best to cut my work of wonder and package it into individual papers. At first, I am told that there is no rush, but then all of a sudden, it cannot go fast enough. Consequently, Lam Neten does end up with the biggest piece, but also with the only one that still has paper stuck to its bottom.

I join the puja and take my seat of honour beside Bikul and Phuntshok. After a while, though, our motionless position proves to be more painful than I had anticipated.

As the minutes pass, my hips start to burn as if they will fall out of joint, and the hard wooden floor seems to push my anklebones deep into my tender flesh. My back starts aching, and leaning against the wall behind me, I can feel every single one of my vertebrae outlined against the wooden pillars.

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Even the prayer starts to sound somewhat disjointed.

Although I know that all the monks are praying the same words, I cannot shake the impression that everyone is doing his own thing. Some speak loudly, some low, some deep, others high. And many a time, a little monk will join in way off cue and quickly stutter his lines to catch up with the others.

Yet, listening to the enthusiastic voices of the small monks, I travel back to my own childhood, baffled at how different my upbringing was to theirs. For better or for worse, these little fellows are beginning a life of prayer and ritual. Not just today, not just this night, but for years and a lifetime to come. They will chant sacred words; they will devote their days to the Buddha’s teachings. They will meditate in seclusion; some of them might achieve great skills and become honoured masters. Their world lies within the walls of a monastery, though their minds might yearn to travel. They will learn about truth and suffering, about abstinence and desire. And some day, ordinary folks will come to them to seek their blessings.

Today, however, the naughty little boys in them are not quite subdued yet, and daringly they make balls out of the cake paper and throw them at each other. Jokes are whispered at the chance of being discovered by the kudung, the temptation proving just too delicious.

At about 6.30 a.m. we all get up for a break. The only girl amongst the red robes, I have to trudge all the way up the Mongar’s guesthouse to find a private spot. Although I run, my trip takes a long time. Back in the temple, Jigme ushers me past a group of monks into the lhakhang. There, before Lam Neten’s quiet eyes, Jigme asks Bikul and me to light the butterlamps.

‘This is a really great honour,’ Bikul whispers excitedly, and I realise that all of the monks have filed into the doorframe, watching us and smiling. The lhakhang is still 258

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empty, only Lam Neten, Jigme and the two of us. When the last wick has been lit, I look at the sea of lamps, and I wish that there were more lamps to light, a longer time to stand beside Bikul and take part in this time-old tradition.

Phuntshok joins us, and together we return to our seats.

The monks stream in and within moments, the puja is underway again. The low drone of the long horns and the thumping of metal rods on leather drums gently lead my mind to places and times centuries ago, to the ancient rituals of pure belief, of enlightened beings and wrathful deities, and of the power to rise beyond our mortal understanding.

Time ceases to exist, loses itself in the steady drums of history.

Finally even the horns hush and the voices of the monks slow down and become quiet.

An expectant silence settles. Phuntshok pokes me gently in the side. ‘You go to Lam Neten,’ he whispers and we walk with bowed heads past the altar to the middle of the room.

‘What is happening?’ I ask Bikul, but he only shrugs his shoulders. The monks are all grinning. Standing with our backs to the altar, we prostrate to Lam Neten. Jigme pours a little holy water on our right palm and we sip at it before spreading it over our heads. Then we present Lam Neten with our white ceremonial scarves. Jigme motions us to sit, and we kneel facing the great lama, while the room becomes so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.

His gaze fixed upon us, Lam Neten starts to speak. I have never heard him by himself, quietly intoning the powerful words of a sermon. Still my mind flits to somewhere else.

How should I kneel? If I copy Bikul, I will be taller than Bikul, which is what I would like to avoid, but surely it cannot be appropriate to sit back comfortably on my heels.