by Ruskin Bond
When I think of Manjari village in Garhwal I see a small river, a tributary of the Ganga, rushing along the bottom of a steep, rocky valley. On the banks of the river and on the terraced hills above, there are small fields of corn, barley, mustard, potatoes, and onions. A few fruit trees grow near the village. Some hillsides are rugged and bare, just masses of quartz or granite. On hills exposed to wind, only grass and small shrubs are able to obtain a foothold.
This landscape is typical of Garhwal, one of India’s most northerly regions with its massive snow ranges bordering on Tibet. Although thinly populated, it does not provide much of a living for its people. Most Garhwali cultivators are poor—some are very poor. “You have beautiful scenery,” I observed after crossing the first range of hills.
“Yes,” said my friend, “but we cannot eat the scenery.”
And yet these are cheerful people, sturdy and with wonderful powers of endurance. Somehow they manage to wrest a precarious living from the unhelpful, calcinated soil. I am their guest for a few days.
My friend Gajadhar has brought me to his home, to his village above the little Nayar River. We took a train into the foothills and then we took a bus and finally, made dizzy by the hairpin bends devised in the last century by a brilliantly diabolical road engineer, we alighted at the small hill station of Lansdowne, chief recruiting center for the Garhwal Regiment.
Lansdowne is just over 6,000 feet high. From there we walked, covering twenty-five miles between sunrise and sunset, until we came to Manjari village, clinging to the terraced slopes of a very proud, very permanent mountain.
And this is my fourth morning in the village.
Other mornings I was woken by the throaty chuckles of the red-billed blue magpies, as they glided between oak trees and medlars; but today the cicada has drowned all birdsong. It is a little out of season for cicadas but perhaps this sudden warm spell in late September has deceived him into thinking it is mating season again.
Early though it is, I am the last to get up. Gajadhar is exercising in the courtyard, going through an odd combination of Swedish exercises and yoga. He has a fine physique with the sturdy legs that most Garhwalis possess. I am sure he will realize his ambition of joining the Indian Army as a cadet. His younger brother Chakradhar, who is slim and fair with high cheekbones, is milking the family’s buffalo. Normally, he would be on his long walk to school, five miles distant; but this is a holiday, so he can stay at home and help with the household chores.
His mother is lighting a fire. She is a handsome woman, even though her ears, weighed down by heavy silver earrings, have lost their natural shape. Garhwali women usually invest their savings in silver ornaments. And at the time of marriage it is the boy’s parents who make a gift of land to the parents of an attractive girl—a dowry system in reverse. There are fewer women than men in the hills and their good looks and sturdy physique give them considerable status among the menfolk.
Chakradhar’s father is a corporal in the Indian Army and is away for most of the year.
When Gajadhar marries, his wife will stay in the village to help his mother and younger brother look after the fields, house, goats, and buffalo. Gajadhar will see her only when he comes home on leave. He prefers it that way; he does not think a simple hill girl should be exposed to the sophisticated temptations of the plains.
The village is far above the river and most of the fields depend on rainfall. But water must be fetched for cooking, washing, and drinking. And so, after a breakfast of hot sweet milk and thick chapattis stuffed with minced radish, the brothers and I set off down the rough track to the river.
The sun has climbed the mountains but it has yet to reach the narrow valley. We bathe in the river. Gajadhar and Chakradhar dive off a massive rock; but I wade in circumspectly, unfamiliar with the river’s depths and currents. The water, a milky blue, has come from the melting snows; it is very cold. I bathe quickly and then dash for a strip of sand where a little sunshine has spilt down the mountainside in warm, golden pools of light. At the same time the song of the whistling thrush emerges like a dark secret from the wooded shadows.
A little later, buckets filled, we toil up the steep mountain. We must go by a better path this time if we are not to come tumbling down with our buckets of water. As we climb we are mocked by a barbet which sits high up in a spruce calling feverishly in its monotonous mournful way.
“We call it the mewli bird,” says Gajadhar. “There is a story about it. People say that the souls of men who have suffered injuries in the law courts of the plains and who have died of their disappointments transmigrate into the mewli birds. That is why the birds are always crying un-nee-ow, un-nee-ow, which means ‘injustice, injustice!’”
The path leads us past a primary school, a small temple, and a single shop in which it is possible to buy salt, soap and a few other necessities. It is also the post office. And today it is serving as a lock-up.
The villagers have apprehended a local thief, who specializes in stealing jewelery from women while they are working in the fields. He is awaiting escort to the Lansdowne police station, and the shop-keeper-cum-postmaster-cum-constable brings him out for us to inspect. He is a mild-looking fellow, clearly shy of the small crowd that has gathered round him. I wonder how he manages to deprive the strong hill women of their jewelery; it could not be by force! In any case, crimes of violence are rare in Garhwal; and robbery too, is uncommon, for the simple reason that there is very little to rob.
The thief is rather glad of my presence, as it distracts attention from him. Strangers seldom come to Manjari. The crowd leaves him, runs to me, eager to catch a glimpse of the stranger in its midst. The children exclaim, point at me with delight, chatter among themselves. I might be a visitor from another planet instead of just an itinerant writer…
The postman has yet to arrive. The mail is brought in relays from Lansdowne. The Manjari postman, who has to cover eight miles and delivers letters at several small villages on his route, should arrive around noon. He also serves as a newspaper, bringing the villagers news of the outside world. Over the years he has acquired a reputation for being highly inventive, sometimes creating his own news—so much so that when he told the villagers that men had landed on the moon, no one believed him. There are still a few skeptics.
Gajadhar has been walking out of the village every day, anxious to meet the postman. He is expecting a letter giving the results of his army entrance examination. If he is successful he will be called for an interview. And then, if he is accepted, he will be trained as an officer-cadet. After two years he will become a second lieutenant. His father, after twelve years in the army, is still only a corporal. But his father never went to school. There were no schools in the hills during the father’s youth.
The Manjari school is only up to Class 5 and it has about forty pupils. If these children (most of them boys) want to study any further, then, like Chakradhar, they must walk the five miles to the high school in the next big village.
“Don’t you get tired walking ten miles every day?” I ask Chakradhar.
“I am used to it,” he says. “I like walking.”
I know that he has only two meals a day—one at seven in the morning when he leaves home and the other at six or seven in the evening when he returns from school—and I ask him if he does not get hungry on the way.
“There is always the wild fruit,” he replies.
It appears that he is an expert on wild fruit: the purple berries of the thorny bilberry bushes ripening in May and June; wild strawberries like drops of blood on the dark green monsoon grass; small sour cherries and tough medlars in the winter months. Chakradhar’s strong teeth and probing tongue extract whatever tang or sweetness lies hidden in them. And in March there are the rhododendron flowers. His mother makes them into jam. But Chakradhar likes them as they are: he places the petals on his tongue and chews till the sweet juice trickles down his throat.
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He has never been ill.
“But what happens when someone is ill?” I ask, knowing that in Manjari there are no medicines, no dispensary or hospital.
“He goes to bed until he is better,” says Gajadhar. “We have a few home remedies. But if someone is very sick, we carry the person to the hospital at Lansdowne.” He pauses as though wondering how much he should say, then shrugs and says: “Last year my uncle was very ill. He had a terrible pain in his stomach. For two days he cried out with the pain. So we made a litter and started out for Lansdowne. We had already carried him fifteen miles when he died. And then we had to carry him back again.”
Some of the villages have dispensaries managed by compounders but the remoter areas of Garhwal are completely without medical aid. To the outsider, life in the Garhwal hills may seem idyllic and the people simple. But the Garhwali is far from being simple and his life is one long struggle, especially if he happens to be living in a high-altitude village snowbound for four months of the year, with cultivation coming to a standstill and people having to manage with the food gathered and stored during the summer months.
Fortunately, the clear mountain air and the simple diet keep the Garhwalis free from most diseases, and help them recover from the more common ailments. The greatest dangers come from unexpected disasters, such as an accident with an ax or scythe, or an attack by a wild animal. A few years back, several Manjari children and old women were killed by a man-eating leopard. The leopard was finally killed by the villagers who hunted it down with spears and axes. But the leopard that sometimes prowls round the village at night looking for a stray dog or goat slinks away at the approach of a human.
I do not see the leopard but at night I am woken by a rumbling and thumping on the roof. I wake Gajadhar and ask him what is happening.
“It is only a bear,” he says.
“Is it trying to get in?”
“No, it’s been in the cornfield and now it’s after the pumpkins on the roof.”
A little later, when we look out of the small window, we see a black bear making off like a thief in the night, a large pumpkin held securely to his chest.
At the approach of winter when snow covers the higher mountains the brown and black Himalayan bears descend to lower altitudes in search of food. Because they are short-sighted and suspicious of anything that moves, they can be dangerous; but, like most wild animals, they will avoid men if they can and are aggressive only when accompanied by their cubs.
Gajadhar advises me to run downhill if chased by a bear. He says that bears find it easier to run uphill than downhill.
I am not interested in being chased by a bear, but the following night Gajadhar and I stay up to try and prevent the bear from depleting his cornfield. We take up our position on a highway promontory of rock, which gives us a clear view of the moonlit field.
A little after midnight, the bear comes down to the edge of the field but he is suspicious and has probably smelt us. He is, however, hungry; and so, after standing up as high as possible on his hind legs and peering about to see if the field is empty, he comes cautiously out of the forest and makes his way toward the corn.
When about halfway, his attention is suddenly attracted by some Buddhist prayer flags which have been strung up recently between two small trees by a band of wandering Tibetans. On spotting the flags the bear gives a little grunt of disapproval and begins to move back into the forest; but the fluttering of the little flags is a puzzle that he feels he must make out (for a bear is one of the most inquisitive animals); so after a few backward steps, he again stops and watches them.
Not satisfied with this, he stands on his hind legs looking at the flags, first at one side and then at the other. Then seeing that they do not attack him and so not appear dangerous, he makes his way right up to the flags taking only two or three steps at a time and having a good look before each advance. Eventually, he moves confidently up to the flags and pulls them all down. Then, after careful examination of the flags, he moves into the field of corn.
But Gajadhar has decided that he is not going to lose any more corn, so he starts shouting, and the rest of the village wakes up and people come out of their houses beating drums and empty kerosene tins.
Deprived of his dinner, the bear makes off in a bad temper. He runs downhill and at a good speed too; and I am glad that I am not in his path just then. Uphill or downhill, an angry bear is best given a very wide berth.
For Gajadhar, impatient to know the result of his army entrance examination, the following day is a trial of his patience.
First, we hear that there has been a landslide and that the postman cannot reach us. Then we hear that although there has been a landslide, the postman has already passed the spot in safety. Another alarming rumor has it that the postman disappeared with the landslide. This is soon denied. The postman is safe. It was only the mailbag that disappeared.
And then, at two in the afternoon, the postman turns up. He tells us that there was indeed a landslide but that it took place on someone else’s route. Apparently, a mischievous urchin who passed him on the way was responsible for all the rumors. But we suspect the postman of having something to do with them…
Gajadhar has passed his examination and will leave with me in the morning. We have to be up early in order to reach Lansdowne before dark. But Gajadhar’s mother insists on celebrating her son’s success by feasting her friends and neighbors. There is a partridge (a present from a neighbor who has decided that Gajadhar will make a fine husband for his daughter), and two chickens—rich fare for folk whose normal diet consists mostly of lentils, potatoes, and onions.
After dinner, there are songs, and Gajadhar’s mother sings of the homesickness of those who are separated from their loved ones and their home in the hills. It is an old Garhwali folk song:
Oh, mountain-swift, you are from my father’s home;
Speak, oh speak, in the courtyard of my parents,
My mother will hear you; she will send my brother to fetch me.
A grain of rice alone in the cooking pot cries,
“I wish I could get out!”
Likewise I wonder: “Will I ever reach my father’s house?”
The hookah is passed round and stories are told. Tales of ghosts and demons mingle with legends of ancient kings and heroes. It is almost midnight by the time the last guest has gone. Chakradhar approaches me as I am about to retire for the night.
“Will you come again?” he asks.
“Yes, I’ll come again,” I reply. “If not next year, then the year after. How many years are left before you finish school?”
“Four.”
“Four years. If you walk ten miles a day for four years, how many miles will that make?”
“Four thousand six hundred miles,” says Chakradhar after a moment’s thought, “but we have two months’ holiday each year. That means I’ll walk about 12,000 miles in four years.”
The moon has not yet risen. Lanterns swing in the dark.
The lanterns flit silently over the hillside and go out one by one. This Garhwali day, which is just like any other day in the hills, slips quietly into the silence of the mountains.
I stretch myself out on my cot. Outside the small window the sky is brilliant with stars. As I close my eyes, someone brushes against the lime tree, brushing its leaves; and the fresh fragrance of limes comes to me on the night air, making the moment memorable for all time.
* * *
THREE SPRINGS*1
Jemima Diki Sherpa
When there are gatherings in our valley, the women sit with the women and the men sit with the men, and the children tear about evading adult arms that reach out to obstruct their fun. The men form a long line on low benches along the front wall of the house, patriarchs sitting at the end closest to the fireplace with the wide-legged weariness of aging masculinity, down through the establi
shed householders with their roars of laughter, past the young fathers bouncing sticky toddlers on their laps, through the self-conscious new and prospective grooms, to the awkward youths who cram together and snicker and mutter and jostle each other.
Everyone wears down jackets.
In such a line as this, a gambler would have good odds that any man, picked at random, has stood atop Everest; chances better still that he has been partway up the mountain a dozen times only to return to Base Camp, collect another load, and head off to cross the treacherous icefall again. What elsewhere is extraordinary—the raw material that can be spun into charitable foundations, movie rights, pub boasts, and motivational speaking tours—is quotidian in the villages of Thame Valley. Even our monks shed their deep-red robes in spring and come back snow-burnt, the marks of sun goggles etched pale across their cheekbones and their lips chapped flaking white with bleeding crimson cracks.
When I finished high school and left Kathmandu for university in New Zealand, I was conditioned for the reactions my last name would elicit. “They ask how many kilos you can carry,” says every Sherpa who has ever traveled abroad. But I was caught by a more common response: “Shuuurpa,” in the muted antipodean accent, “Seriously? That’s AWESOME!”
It is something to behold, the open-hearted enthusiasm that the Sherpa name elicits in the Western mind. It is (as every random company that has capitalized on it well knows) the branding mother lode—stimulating a vague positive association founded on six-odd decades of mountaineering myth-building. I wondered what deep, subconscious connections, what snippets of information, what flashes of imagery were being evoked.
“Awesome” how? I came to ask myself. More importantly, “awesome” for whom? Uncharitably, I imagined them imagining themselves as conquering heroes, assisted by a legion of faithful Sherpa ready—and cheerful—to lay down sweat and lives in service for arduous, but ultimately noble and glorious, personal successes. Still, it is undeniable that, in “post”-colonial democracies where ethnic minorities carry the burden of insidious and vicious prejudices at every turn, Sherpas are fortunate. Everyone loves us, everyone trusts us, and everyone wants their own collectable one of us. Internet listsicles call us “badass” and we have a very large, very coveted piece of real estate in our backyard. It is a stereotype, sure, but a positive one.