The Waiting Land (9 page)

I longed to be able to find out how they came to be living in such isolation; it seems likely that they belong to the Siva Bhakti tribe, which was formed of ex-slaves after the abolition of slavery in Nepal on 28 November 1924, and which now constitutes an almost untouchable caste of people who are allowed to marry only among themselves. It is estimated that about 50,000 slaves were freed at that time, their 16,000 owners receiving a cash compensation from the state. The majority of those freed became apprenticed to their previous owners for a seven-year period, eventually settling down as labourers, and this ‘improvement’ in their status often left them worse off than before, since employers were no longer bound to provide food, clothing and shelter. An enterprising minority, however, set up as independent coolies and in time had saved enough money to settle on just such scraps of wasteland as my friends of this afternoon are farming.

Before saying goodbye I made a determined effort to obtain some idea of where Pardi might be and at last the eldest child, a boy of about fourteen, volunteered to show me the track for a fee of one rupee. I
had already paid these unfortunates for their water (as requested) and I certainly didn’t grudge the boy a rupee: yet I couldn’t help contrasting this profiteering attitude towards a stranger in difficulties with the boundless generosity of those equally poor Muslims and Tibetans whom I’ve met elsewhere on my travels.

Leaving the shack we walked away from the river for some half a mile, through dense, knee-high, prickly bushes which tore deep scratches in my legs, to the base of a 500-foot cliff. There the boy pointed towards the sky, said ‘Pardi’, smiled a farewell and briskly trotted off.

Surveying the cliff it seemed to me that I had had a very poor rupee’s worth of guidance; this precipice was completely overgrown with tangled shrubs and looked like a monkey’s playground rather than a route to anywhere. But then, hidden beneath the bushes, I saw what might possibly be described as a track, though it more closely resembled a dried-up watercourse. This ascent would have been strenuous without a bicycle and only by a savage combination of obstinacy and brute force did I finally get Leo over the top and on to the plain. By then every muscle in my body was throbbing from the fearsome contortions involved in heaving both of us over five-foot high boulders, across four-foot-wide crevices and through thick patches of scrub, so I sat down to recover while studying our new horizons – which unfortunately did not look very new. I saw the same identical hills, rising on three sides, and the same gorge – from a different angle – and the same brand of little-used track that tends to expire at a moment’s notice. In fact the only change was overhead, where the sky had suddenly become black with welcome storm-clouds. But as progress in some direction seemed advisable I mounted Leo and bumped off hopefully towards the north-west, which seemed just as good a bet as the south-east.

Twenty minutes later I rounded a hill and saw a village ahead and another river-gorge on my left; and providentially the storm broke only as we reached the outskirts of this village. Normally being exposed to a storm delights me, but now I raced for the nearest shelter – a small Gurung farmhouse – with head bent to protect my face from being lacerated by the hail which a 110 m.p.h. gale was driving horizontally
across the valley. (Later this evening a stranded air-pilot gave me details of the wind’s force and told me that during such storms cattle are occasionally beaten to death by the hail.) Of course this is not what we think of as hail; I measured many of the jagged pieces of ice that came shooting like bullets through the open doorway and several of them were three inches by two and at least an inch thick – extremely effective ammunition for the use of angry mountain-gods!

Certainly some god was very angry today; never have I witnessed anything approaching the ferocity of this storm, either during my previous monsoon among the Himalayas or during my winter months on a North Atlantic island. As I crouched just inside the doorway among an assortment of frightened villagers, for whom this house had been the nearest shelter, I could see my host’s little field of six-foot maize being plastered to the ground within moments – then his one stack of hay was swept off its high platform and went sailing out of sight, twenty feet above the ground, creating a curiously Mary Poppins-like effect. I could sense that my companions’ fear was not merely for the safety of their families, dwellings or crops: they were responding also to the spiritual malevolence which was being conveyed to them through the devastating fury of the elements. My normal reaction to any demonstration of Nature’s power is a simple awe, yet I found it easy today to sympathise with these peasants’ taut perception of some sinister force behind this onslaught.

Within moments of the storm breaking the temperature had dropped so abruptly that soon everyone was shivering. Forty minutes passed before the gale suddenly died and allowed us all to proceed, through almost solid sheets of rain, to our respective destinations. For the duration of the gale rain had been as continuous as hail and now all tracks were rivers, flowing between piles of greyish, unmelted ice-bullets. Then, cycling against the current through a foot of water, I realised that we had passed this village quite early in the day, which meant that though I still had no idea how to find Pardi I could at least try to retrace our original route from Pokhara Bazaar.

The whole valley – this morning parched and quivering silently in the heat – was now an ocean of noisy brown water, rapidly moving
on every side as the fields are so designed that the rains pour from one to another before finally reaching river-level. Very soon cycling became impossible; I simply walked through a sort of submarine world in which the cold rain falling around me seemed no less in volume than the knee-deep, earth-warmed torrent through which Leo was being dragged. At one point we had to re-cross a river – for all I know the ubiquitous Seti again – that earlier had been
ankle-deep
but was now breast-high and positively dangerous. Then, incredibly, from a slight hill I saw through the curtain of falling water an aeroplane parked under a tree; and that vision could only mean that I had – as might have been predicted – lost the Pokhara track and inadvertently found Pardi. But between us and the airfield lay wide, flooded paddy-fields of such soft mud that I sank in to my knees at every step and could not possibly get Leo through. I was determined to make for that aeroplane in a straight line, lest we might find ourselves behind one more low, green hill, so I painfully carried Leo along half a mile of the narrow, slippery ditches that intersect paddy-fields, frequently falling into three feet of muddy water and feeling rather like a drunken tightrope walker. Then, as we crossed the airfield at 6.15 p.m., the rain stopped and a startling gleam of sunshine lightened the valley.

I went direct to the camp, dreading what I might find. Inevitably it is in a shambles: most of the tents have been torn to shreds and four have been blown away, including the chief lama’s. From the airfield sheets of water raced across the whole site, and to enter the camp one had to wade across a twenty-foot wide, four-foot deep torrent in which one of the children had nearly been drowned a few minutes before my arrival. All clothing, bedding and firewood are saturated and the little cooking-holes in the ground will be unusable for the next twelve hours; so these unfortunates cannot even console themselves with a hot drink, much less change into dry clothes as I have now done. When I arrived some of the torn tents were already being moved to less flooded spots, and piles of drenched possessions were stacked on the high firewood heaps all over the camp. Many families had begun frantically to dig drains, using spoons, knives, hands and feet in an attempt to get the water away more
quickly. The sodden remains of those prized cardboard US milk cartons, which are used as domestic altars, were floating off rapidly in every direction and most families’ weekly grain ration was soaked through. Tiny children stood shivering beside their collapsed tents, and
stiff-jointed
grandparents searched in vain for a dry spot on which to sit.

The whole heart-rending picture would have made a real tearjerker had it been filmed, but for one detail which ruined it all – the unconquerable good humour of the Tibetans. Wherever I looked I saw people roaring with laughter as they waded around through the flood, and it was plain that the majority regarded this whole performance as the funniest thing to have happened in years. So I gave up feeling guilty about my own good fortune in having a roof over my head and came back here to enjoy it.

I had often wondered why all the local lanes and streets look like dried-up riverbeds and now I know – they
are
dried-up riverbeds. On the way to my house a knee-deep torrent was swirling furiously between the buildings – which, as in Kathmandu, are almost all raised some three or four feet above the ground – and three dead hens and a dead puppy were swept past me as I waded home.

As usual I had left my window open and the room had been thoroughly blitzed: on the floor lay rice and onions and smashed eggs, sodden papers and books, and a broken lantern and spilled kerosene. I swept up the rice, which is in any case filthy when one buys it, and lifted a neighbour’s dog up the ladder to dispose of the eggs, and now I’m writing by torchlight, pending the replacement of the lantern. Luckily my ‘cellar’ escaped so I’m not deprived of spiritual consolation. At the moment this consolation consists of a brew distilled in Kathmandu, sold at seven shillings per pint bottle and imaginatively described on the label as ‘Pineapple Wine’. Somehow such a description conjures up pictures of elderly ladies (retired missionary type) daringly sipping a beverage made from great-grand-mamma’s recipe and containing .001% alcohol: yet here this coy name disguises a spirit that would make hair grow on an egg. (A recent visitor of mine went so far as to claim that the stuff could propel a steamroller up Mount Everest, but I feel this may be a slight exaggeration.) Most certainly ‘Pineapple
Wine’ is
not
wine and I doubt if pineapples play any part in its production – at a guess I’d say that it’s pure poteen, coloured green. For even the best heads two tablespoonfuls produce the desired effect, and it is probable that three tablespoonfuls would result in macabre hallucinations, quickly followed by death. What it does to one’s inside, when taken regularly, I hate to think – but time will tell.

As from today I’m living with a lama – the untented one, who presented himself on my doorstep this morning and said, ‘Please may I come and live with you?’ or words to that effect. At first I had some misgivings, not for the conventional reasons that might operate in Europe, but because it is against the rules for any refugee living outside the camp to draw rations. However, a lama is a lama, so after a moment’s hesitation I said, ‘Very well, come right in – but you must give me your ration-card and every Friday morning I’ll bring you your supplies.’ A big grin then spread over his face, and after many expressions of gratitude he hurried off to collect his possessions.

Half an hour later I beheld a brigade of twenty-two small boys marching towards my door, each child carrying five enormous
cloth-bound
volumes – except the last, who was carrying only three. I then did some simple mental arithmetic and realised that this was the full Buddhist Canon – all one hundred and eight volumes of it – arriving as item number one of the lama’s luggage. Mercifully the other items were less impressive – an incense burner, a prayer-wheel, a
prayer-drum
, a
dorje
, a prayer-bell, a small photograph of His Holiness, eleven tiny silver butter-lamps to burn before it and (as non-religious goods) a dented kettle, a wooden, silver-rimmed bowl to drink from and an uncured, stinking yak-skin to sleep on. The little room downstairs (or down-ladder) has now been transformed into a miniature temple, from which the exquisite scent of incense comes wafting up, and my life is further brightened by ecclesiastical music; I find the sweet melody of drum and bell so absolutely enchanting that when it starts I simply drop everything and listen.

This afternoon we had another violent storm – not as devastating as
yesterday’s cyclone, but a passable imitation of it. These storms are not to be confused with the monsoon, which isn’t due for another week or ten days, but I’m told that they herald it annually in this region. Tonight the room temperature is down to a blissful seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit and, as my body is now free of heat-rash for the first time in weeks, I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

Famous Last Words! I’ve discovered that living with a lama has its limitations, the chief of which is His Reverence’s predilection for praying – with full instrumental support – from 3 a.m. onwards. Unhappily this is an hour at which the very sweetest of melodies leaves me quite unmoved so perhaps I’d be justified in asking him to postpone his Matins until 5.30 a.m. But somehow this seems slightly disrespectful, though as he doesn’t conclude his devotions until 11 p.m. it might be good for his health to force him to sleep a little longer. The unfortunate thing is that these advanced lamas seem to have long since transcended our frail needs for regular meals and eight hours’ sleep, and His Reverence is capable of praying non-stop for six hours without moving a muscle.

This evening I learned quite a lot about my exalted guest, when he invited Thupten Tashi and me to supper. Armed with our own dishes, spoons and salt, we joined him downstairs at seven o’clock – by which time I am always ravenously hungry, having eaten very little since breakfast-time – but the meal did not start until half-past nine. However, it was preceded by much interesting conversation and nine or ten cups of buttered tea (about five cups too many for the average Western stomach) so I’m not really complaining.

Thupten Tashi is by far the best Tibetan interpreter I’ve ever known, and with his assistance the lama briefly recounted his own life-story. Though he had always wanted to enter a Gelugpa monastery as the only son of a rich farming family he was forced into marriage with a neighbouring farmer’s daughter at the age of eighteen; but bringing a
horse to the water doesn’t necessarily make him drink and bringing Lama Ongyal to his bride’s bed did not make him consummate the marriage. Then, after two years of domestic celibacy, he renounced his inheritance and ran away to a monastery in Kham – no doubt to the considerable relief of his still virgin bride, who was now considered free to seek a more practical mate. In Kham he studied for sixteen years under a very learned Rimpoche, before spending three years as a hermit in a Himalayan cave at an altitude of 18,000 feet. Next he returned to his monastery, did his final examinations and moved on to be a tutor or
guru
at Drepung Monastery – from which he fled to Dholpo in 1959.