While I was indulging in this tomfoolery, River had befriended a homeless man and was having an intense discussion with him on national identity. I have no clue why River told him that we were Canadians and that Vancouver was the worst city on this planet to live in. It’s not true, of course, but it was very comforting for the man to hear that maybe he was better off than some of these white-skinned travellers from wealthy foreign lands. And really when you think about it, being a hobo in the third world isn’t half as bad as being one in the first world; at least there aren’t as many tall skyscrapers to make you feel so deprived.
However, the one person who truly took the cake was a French lady we encountered at a reggae bar. Neither River nor I are big fans of reggae and we would have never gone into this place if we hadn’t heard the band playing a rousing cover of Cream’s classic song Crossroads. They followed it up with equally solid versions of Roadhouse Blues, My Generation and then went onto everything Hendrix. They were superb. An old man behind us was losing his marbles over the music. The first time I saw him writhing on the floor, I assumed that he was having an epileptic fit, but it turned out that he was only dancing. Then I really wanted to find out what drugs he was on, because those must’ve been some epic pills.
It was during my third mojito that the woman sitting right in front of the stage started heckling the band in her whiny French accent. She was determined to get her fix of reggae no matter what.
“Excusez-moi? Butt vat abut rheggae? This is rheggae bar, non?”
The band was gracious enough to attempt a horrible version ofJammin just to pacify her, but she wasn’t satisfied.
“Okay, better, butt still non rheggae. The guitar non good, the singer, très blues. Take it un peu slow this time, s’il vouz plait? Un octave low?”
She attempted to conduct the band like some OCD reggae maniac. I couldn’t believe that nobody in the band, consisting of virile young men, knew how to say ‘shut the fuck up, woman’. They continued to make fools of themselves by trying to play the real reggae according to her directions when they were clearly a blues band. This woman had annoyed almost everyone in the bar; even the old dancing man had disappeared. I couldn’t take it anymore, so every time she said to the guitarist, “butt vat abut rheggae?” I took to screaming, “fuck reggae! No reggae!”
This went on for a few minutes till the band finally decided to ignore both of us and play some Nepali songs. At this point, the woman turned around and smiled at me in a friendly way. I was getting ready for some hair pulling but she had taken the high road. How disappointing!
After this night’s fiasco though, I actually took a liking to the phrase, “butt vat abut rheggae?” Even now, sometimes I email River just to say, “butt vat abut rheggae?” I’ve also walked up to strangers and enquired in my excellent French accent, “butt vat abut rheggae?” And as they walk away quickly, clutching their valuables, I howl with laughter, then get on with my day.
* * *
It is indeed a miracle that despite all these close encounters of the fourth kind, we managed to spend an afternoon at the Hanuman Dhoka Square. This world heritage site is one of the many grand squares that were built in all the major cities of Nepal. In Kathmandu, this square consists of the old royal palace, several temples and even the residence of the Bal Kumari. Again, what intrigued me the most was the sight of all these locals lounging on the steps of the temples as though they were teenagers hanging out at their favourite video game parlour. Lazy and content, the weight of history doesn’t seem to affect the Nepalis much.
The only indication of this plaza’s cultural significance was the ubiquitous presence of annoying tour guides, getting away from whom was a task in itself. They all had these notebooks with them, full of testimonies by other travellers. Yes, he speaks very good English. Yes, he is very informative. Yes, he is very nice. Yes, he is very helpful. The declarations were so terse that it seemed like the tourists had scribbled them down at gunpoint. We pretended that we spoke only in Afrikaans, which was one of the very few languages that the guides didn’t know.
The palace was the first thing in our line of vision and we drifted towards it naturally. It was impressive, as all palaces are. However, on the eastern side, among the earthen pagodas, a white gleaming neoclassical building stuck out like a sixth finger on an otherwise even hand. The idol worship of the British in India fails miserably when compared to this. Nowhere around the palaces of Rajasthan, Mysore or anywhere else have I ever seen such a misplaced extension of Greek columns and renaissance arches. And Nepal was never even directly under the British rule, so I failed to see the logic behind ruining the symmetry of a perfectly magnificent and unique square with a substandard European building.
Regrettably, entry inside the palace was prohibited and we were directed along the periphery towards the residence of the Bal Kumari, who is also known as ‘the living goddess’. She is considered the reincarnation of the Hindu deity Durga. To my relief, this four-storeyed building had no modern flourishes and all the miniature wooden doors and windows had retained their traditional carvings. We stooped through the door as well as a short dark passage and emerged into a rectangular sunlit courtyard, consisting of an engraved stone column with images of both Buddha and Goddess Laxmi on alternate sides. A guide in the purlieu put it quite aptly when he described the column as the literal convergence of Hinduism and Buddhism.
This enclosure was the waiting area for the devotees who wanted to catch a glimpse of the Kumari, waving through the bay window on the floor above. There are a lot of Chinese whispers regarding how and why this custom of Bal Kumaris came into existence. Some books say that one Nepali king had a vision, in which he saw the goddess in the form of a girl child; so he decided to find that girl and put her in a temple. Others say that this king was a paedophile and to atone for his sins, he ordained the young girl as a goddess. But once these girl-goddesses start menstruating, they are no longer considered holy and are replaced by the next candidate.
The selection procedure for these Kumaris is similar to the way the Dalai Lamas are picked. The child has to come from the Shakya clan, she has to have the right stars in her natal chart and has to go through some tests to prove her divinity. My favourite test is where she has to sit in a completely dark room locked from the outside, while a number of men in scary masks dance around her. If she flinches or starts crying, she is disqualified and the search goes on till a girl with basically no survival instincts is found. I assume the ideology behind such tests is that if a girl can live through this horror, she would most certainly make it to puberty in saintly confinement.
But before I could start feeling sorry for these children, our flautist hotel manager told me that this saintly confinement was not all work and drudgery. In fact, inside her private temple/ castle, the Kumari is provided with all the luxuries of the world. She has priestesses, servants, and playmates at her disposal. Plus, she gets a hefty compensation when she retires. So not only the Kumaris, but even their families never have to worry about money for the rest of their lives.
The only catch in this situation is the fact that marrying an ex-Kumari is considered very unlucky in Nepal. Therefore, most of these girls never get to have a family of their own. But then again, since most women in third world countries get married and stay married for financial reasons to begin with, the Kumaris probably get to enjoy the kind of freedom that others can only dream about.
We wanted to wait for the child goddess to show up with her jewelled head and painted eyes, but there were far too many people in the small space. It was only going to get worse, so we bailed. I also really wanted to see the Taleju temple, which is the highest building in the chowk and also the most beautiful. But according to our brochures, the temple was ultra-sacrosanct and open to public only once a year during Dashain. So, that didn’t happen either and we had to settle for the gargantuan stone slab carved with the terrifying image of Kal Bhairav, an angry manifestation of Lord Shiva. A few decades ago, crimina
ls were brought to this carving and forced to admit the truth or incur Kal Bhairav’s terrible wrath.
After taking in sufficient lessons on history and culture, we retired to one of the many great roof top cafés encompassing the square. They are the perfect spots to be in at sunset, when the skyline looks like it’s going down in flames. Coffee in one hand and a joint in the other, we spent the short hour before nightfall gazing at the birds perched on top of the pagodas. As the last rays of light drained from the sky, they all took off in a v-formation to return to their nests.
It Don’t Mean a Thing, If It Ain’t Got that Swing
Sometimes I can’t decide which is a bigger threat to my life – coffee or alcohol. In Kathmandu, I indulged in both, but it was the unlimited refills of caffeine at breakfasts that left me feelingjittery and nauseous. Every day, we had to smoke a post-breakfast spliff just to ease the stomach and get on with our lives. As the days went by, this early afternoon slump became my favourite time to read. The only book I had brought along, without much thought, was Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, but it kept me occupied till the last leg of the journey and turned out to be exactly the right kind of antidote to our mostly religious outings.
In the outside world, all I saw were monasteries, temples and pilgrims prostrating themselves in front of their beloved idols. Then I’d come back to my room, open this book and be thrown into the subversive, evil and darkly comic world of Satan wrecking havoc in Soviet Russia with his talking cat and his multi-coloured eyes. I could only get through a few paragraphs everyday, while River meticulously rolled the hash into thin strings and laid them down on a bed of tobacco and hemp paper.
Once the joint was lit, all books were closed and I turned towards my share of the sky, visible from the window next to the bed. The clouds in Kathmandu were always in such a hurry. They changed their shape, colour and size every few seconds. I pictured them floating by like a white wrinkled scarf tied to a young girl’s long pale neck. I could never see her face, only the side of her head. Some days I thought of her as a Sherpa, on other days an ex-Kumari. And then I wondered if these Kumaris ever had naughty thoughts in their heads; did they cheat in scrabble and invent new words because they were goddesses? Were they also denied access to chocolate before bedtime? How does a child or any person really live with the knowledge that he or she is divine? When Jesus Christ first claimed that he was the Son of God, did he not stop for a moment and ask himself, “oh dear, aren’t I being a bit insolent?” And now since we know for a fact that evolution is real, what do we make of these messiahs and prophets?
In Nepal, River tried writing to his parents several times but he always threw his pen aside in frustration after a few minutes.
“It’s impossible! So much has happened. How do I put it all into five concise sentences on this postcard?”
It was true; I didn’t even bother to attempt it. Instead, I just lay in bed with fingers in my hair and my feet up on the windowsill, humming an old song.
Our last day in this exciting city was supposed to be two days ago. We had packed our bags, paid our bills and said goodbye to our homeless friends. But before we could leave, River came down with the flu and we had to stay back. I went out for breakfast by myself at a German bakery, which had an excellent art gallery next door. Thamel is full of quirky little galleries that sell some excellent work by local artists and students. And almost all of them are run by old smiling men wearing fish-eyed glasses, I don’t quite know why. At this place, I absolutely fell in love with one canvas. It depicted a man whose legs were tied to a post and nailed into the earth as his body tried to stretch out into the sky, where the clouds were waiting to devour his head. I stared at it for a long time till I had finished my hearty meal of coffee, coffee, some more coffee and perhaps a cinnamon roll.
River was feeling well enough by the afternoon to join me on the street where we were followed by a gang of sarangi sellers. They insisted that they could teach us to play the instrument in under an hour. The more politely we tried to decline their offer, the more beautifully they played their folk songs. So we walked down the crowded alley with a symphony of sarangis behind us while the people passing by us couldn’t help but smile. I felt like royalty travelling with my own entourage of musicians.
A while later, as we were sitting cross-legged and elbow deep in our hotchpotch of dal-bhaat and vegetables, dinner was already on our minds. And the question, ‘what should we do tonight?’ became a rather existential question. There are innumerable bars in Thamel, so when you realize that you’ve been to almost all of them, it’s probably a good indication that you need a change of place. River declared that he was going to repack his stuff and sleep early. I, on the other hand, wanted to have my last batch of mojitos and be done with them for the rest of my life. We had almost agreed to split for the evening when River spotted a café advertising a live jazz act in the evening. And that was it; fairies could take care of his packing.
* * *
At quarter to eight, we returned to the ancient-looking building with a dark wobbly staircase, where the warm, comforting smell of beer and tobacco had settled permanently in between the coarse grains of wood. As I went up, I could not shake off the feeling that we were entering a medieval tavern inside the hollow trunk of a colossal redwood tree. Even our tables were made out of tree stubs, as was the bar. An acoustic guitar, a drum kit and a cello were leaning against the tiny stage, waiting for their players to arrive. The waiters moved about silently while lighting candles in fancy glass jars at every table. We were already stoned, so the slightest flicker of the candle flame was an event to behold.
“Hey, do you reckon Buddhist monks ever light candles?” River asked me out of the blue.
“I guess, they must do sometimes.”
“But what about the moths?”
“What about them?”
“Isn’t that intentional killing?”
It was a good question; where did the Buddha stand on moths? And then what about germs and parasites? But I didn’t want to dwell on such morbid thoughts. Instead, I diverted my mind to sex, which is all you can think about really when you look at the impassioned faces of jazz musicians as they descend into frenzied syncopated madness.
Our food had just been served when a middle-aged white man climbed up on stage and tightened the strings of his cello. He was followed by two Nepali boys, who came in laughing and shook hands with the barman before picking up the guitar and adjusting the drum kit. To be honest, I wasn’t hoping for anything spectacular, but as soon as the confident bass notes reverberated through the room, I had to sit up and pay attention.
For the next two hours, the trio improvised non-stop and I don’t remember ever taking my eyes off them. The cellist had thrown his entire body into the performance. He picked the strings with his fingers, kept time with his feet and accentuated the vibrato with his head. In quieter moments, he closed his eyes and smiled with his head thrown back like he hadjust experienced an orgasm in all the 11 dimensions of space. It’s always a thrilling moment to witness a consummate musician begin to enjoy the music while it’s in the making. They all suddenly turn into skilled gymnasts, flying through the air, their minds free from the concerns of making a safe landing.
It was a real pity that the band ended their set at ten. We were still buzzing and euphoric; going back to the hotel was not an option. While wandering around for our next fix, I heard the faint chorus of My Sharona coming from this bar a few metres ahead and we happily skipped towards it. The song ended soon after we stepped in, but something else compelled us to stay on. The same extraordinary old man who was busting out his ribs at the reggae bar a few nights ago was sitting at a table next to the band. Today he was wearing a smart black gurkha cap on his head, which was fashionably cocked to the left. When the singer came back to the microphone after a short break, he announced, “this next song is dedicated to my dear friend right here, Jimmy, who is forever young at heart"
There was a loud a
pplause and as the song began, everyone in the bar urged Jimmy to get up and dance. “Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy!” The chants got louder and louder till the old man shook his head in a way, which probably meant, ‘oh these people! But what to do? I am fabulous.’ We thumped our tables and he slowly got up from his chair, rocking his shoulders up and down along with his head. People moved out of the way with their chairs and he immediately executed a somersault on the floor.
What I had seen at the Reggae bar the other day had been nothing but a trailer for the wide variety of mind-boggling tricks this man could perform. And that too without ever dropping the cap from his head. If he hadn’t taken it off at the end of the song to do a dizzying head spin, I would’ve assumed that it was glued on. Much like Jimmy (from the iconic Bollywood film, Disco Dancer) who managed to rock the world in his white bell- bottomed trousers without ever plugging his electric guitar into a socket.
Oddly, despite spending such eventful days in Kathmandu, our departure was as anticlimactic as it could be; no tears were shed, no ceremonious goodbyes were exchanged. In fact, the only human we saw on the way out was the manager of our guesthouse.
“Leaving already? Oh, so sad. Hope you enjoyed Kathmandu.”
“Yes, very much. We almost don’t want to leave.”
“No problem. Go back home, earn lots of money and come back. Simple.”
Coming from him, I really believed that life could be that simple; all I had to do was come back.
“Sure we will. And hopefully by next time, you would’ve learnt how to play the flute!”
I said this in the nicest way possible, but no one laughed and we quietly boarded a taxi at the crack of dawn to catch a bus heading towards Pokhara.
Three Gentle People on a Boat
Special Lassi Page 14