by Ning Cai
“That is very nice, Ning, but that is not Kalarippayattu.”
I froze in mid spin. “What?”
“Maybe Chinese martial arts, but definitely not Kerala martial arts,” Mereena giggled at my confused expression. I grinned sheepishly.
“Sorry, I was on auto-pilot. Please teach me the basics, I’ll have to learn from scratch,” I humbly apologised. In the same nurturing manner as how she had earlier adjusted the red kacha of a new student who kept struggling with his drooping loin belt, Mereena guided me in spinning the long staff – the Kalarippayattu way. Her patience and femininity certainly camouflaged the strong warrior within her.
Time flew by and before I knew it, the students were paying their respects to both Aswani and Mereena and leaving because it was getting late. As per tradition, they bent and touched the feet of their guru before stepping out of the kalari. We had exchanged contact details and Aswani, who had already said his goodbyes, was now starting his customary evening prayers and meditation to end the day.
“Come back to Kerala, Ning, and spend at least two weeks here with us,” Mereena squeezed my hand fondly as she walked us out to where our tuk tuk driver was waiting.
“I’d really like that Mereena. Thank you,” I smiled as I gave my new friend a big hug. Waving back to her until she disappeared into a speck as our tuk tuk rode away, I knew I would see our modern-day Unniyarcha again really soon.
27
ashes to ashes
Kathmandu . November 2011
PAM
I couldn’t take my eyes off the yellow crackling flames hungrily devouring a thick pile of wood and dried straw, creating an upward spiral of dark grey smoke into the evening sky. Lying atop the blazing heap was a human body covered in robes of white, yellow and red.
Ning and I found a spot on the stone steps just across the river from the burning bodies and settled gingerly on the cool, damp ground to watch. The sun was setting over Nepal, and temperatures were dipping. We pulled on our jackets and huddled close together, side by side, on the steps.
It had a been a long day of exploring the city of Kathmandu, from soaking in the aura of the ancient cities that have now been declared UNESCO World Heritage sites, to visiting Buddhist thangka (Tibetan scroll paintings) schools around Nepal’s most famous Swayambhunath Stupa, and shopping for trekking gear at bustling Thamel. This was our last stop for the day.
Pashupatinath Temple.
Our Nepalese guide Buddhi had led us to the banks of the Bagmati River, the holiest river in Nepal, to witness a Hindu public cremation.
“The Bagmati River is considered holy by both the Hindus and Buddhists in Nepal,” Buddhi had explained to us, as we trudged along the riverbank towards the temple. “Before they burn the body, they have to purify it with water from this river.”
The BFF and I were unusually sombre as we walked alongside our guide. Before we reached the public cremation area, we had stopped by a quieter stretch of the river upstream, by a stately row of stupas. We climbed a bridge across the river and stood there to soak in the sacredness of the place. There was an air of solemnity... and of Death.
As I rested my chin in my palms, my gaze settled on the form of human body lying on a bamboo ladder a short distance away. He was wrapped in white linen and made to lie at a 45-degree angle downward towards the river. I was half afraid he would slide right into the water.
“They are preparing the body for burning. In the Nepalese Hindu tradition, the body has to be dipped three times in the river before cremation,” Buddhi explained in a low, hushed tone, almost out of respect for the dead. “It’s to purify the person spiritually.”
Quietly, I took out my camera, wanting to capture the wrapped body lying there, yet also gripped by fear. There are certain countries and cultures in which spirituality is so infused in the people’s belief systems and daily rituals that it makes me feel like I have one foot in the physical realm and another in the spiritual. It’s as if an invisible world is superimposed on the physical, and I am wandering in both at the same time.
With shaking hands, I zoomed in on the dead body with my camera till I could see the corpse’s face. It made me shudder because the corpse was so human, so freshly dead, that I half expected it to turn its head and its eyes to flutter and stare straight into my camera.
“Freaky!” Ning exclaimed beside me, causing me to jump.
There was just so much Death in the air that it made me extremely nervous. One funeral is psychologically manageable, but Pashupatinath sees an average of 30 to 35 public cremations a day. I even read online that there was a white building nearby where people brought their dying family members in the morning so that when they died in the evening, their bodies could simply be carried out to be burnt.
I wondered which building it was. I’m sure it’s one of the most haunted buildings in Nepal.
We had walked on from the temple to the public cremation area downstream. Buddhi explained the Hindu customs and rituals along the way.
“Usually, the eldest son will light the fire,” he said, as we watched the simultaneous burning of several dead bodies across the river, each at a different stage of incineration. As the eldest in the family, I could not imagine myself setting my father or mother on fire. I think I would be traumatised and dysfunctional for the rest of my life.
I later watched a YouTube video of the burning bodies of Nepal and those images traumatised me even more because they were close-ups. The image that’s still seared in my mind is of a dead man – with a painted red face – being set ablaze. The first flame is lit at the corpse’s mouth. And when the flames consumed his face, I could hear women wailing in anguish in the background. The sound of their eerie weeping and the image of the burning human head chilled me so much that I dared not be alone for a few nights.
I am a big, fat, whimpering wuss. And now you know.
But despite being a wuss, I am – unfortunately – a journalist. And I often find myself in situations where I’m too scared to look, but at the same time, too compelled to look away. In fact, I often feel compelled to document things that scare the shit out of me. The scarier they are, the more I must.
I picked up my Lumix LX-5, set it to video-recording mode, and zoomed in on the flaming corpse in front of us. I looked through the viewing screen, letting it be the physical and emotional barrier between myself and the burning body – very much like how I coped with the terror of watching our boatman slaughter our chickens in Madagascar.
With my camera, I followed the billows of thick black smoke up into the orange evening sky. Then with a wide panning shot – from left to right – I captured the other dead bodies being cremated by the riverbank. My video had been recording smoothly for about three minutes, and I framed my closing shot: a charred corpse, which had probably been burning for four hours or more. All that was left was a black pile of smoldering ash.
Just as I was patting myself on the back for filming a perfect video to be uploaded on our Adventures of 2 Girls Facebook wall, I heard a voice over my right shoulder.
“Don’t you think it smells like bakwa?”
“NING!!!” I screamed, dropping my camera on my lap, and glaring at the BFF in disbelief. “Just one more second!”
“Oops!” Ning laughed sheepishly. “But it does smell like bakwa... no?”
I could have strangled the BFF for spoiling my short documentary with her BBQ pork comment. But honestly, I really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She is such an irreverent dork!
I jabbed her in the ribs, causing her to shriek melodramatically. I laughed at her stupidity and threw aside my camera in resignation, deciding that I was done being journalist for the day.
I stretched my legs out in front of me and leant back on my palms. Ning and I were silent for a while as we watched a young man amble up to the cremation platform with a broom. Respectfully, but without emotion, he proceeded to sweep the pile of ashes into the holy river.
Swish, swish swish... we heard the
scraping of the broom against the concrete floor, and before long, the platform where the funeral pyre had once stood was bare. It was as if nothing had ever happened there. Lowering his head, the young man shuffled away.
“That’s it?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Now what?” The BFF muttered absent-mindedly beside me. “They don’t keep the ashes?”
In our culture, we either bury our loved ones in the cemetery with a tombstone, or cremate them and keep their precious ashes in an urn. There is always a final resting place for them; a place where we can visit and pay our respects. Here in Nepal, the dead were burnt and the ashes swept into the river. And that was it.
“Is there a tombstone somewhere?” I asked Buddhi, as we were walking back to the car in the dark. The sun had set over Kathmandu, and we had finally called it a day.
“There is no tombstone.”
“And the families don’t keep their loved ones’ ashes?” Ning added incredulously.
“No. It’s all swept into the holy river.”
“Then how are the dead remembered?” I wailed, unable to accept the fact that a human being could be completely erased, just like that. “What is left of them?”
“Nothing,” Buddhi said, with a shrug. “They live on in our hearts, maybe.”
“There is nothing left behind at all?” Ning frowned. “How can that be?”
“Nothing. We are born into the world, and then we die,” Buddhi said, matter-of-factly. “We Hindus believe that you’ll be reborn or reincarnated, depending on karma.”
I pondered the finality of those words. And I found wisdom in them. Why is there a need to cling on to remnants? When a loved one is still alive and physically with us, that is when we must make the most of our time together. When it’s time to part, then let the parting be clean. There is freedom in completely letting go.
Public cremations in Kathmandu – they do about 30 a day here. Once the bodies are burnt, the ashes are swept from the platform into the river and that’s that. The end. No trace.
28
sex, sex, snap!
Bhutan . November 2011
NING
“Oh wow, would you just look at that fat cock with the hairy balls!” I raised an appreciative eyebrow at the huge penis in front of us.
“Mmmmm, that one’s bigger,” Pam licked her lips, pointing to a phallus close to her. “See that long curved dick over there?”
“Not bad... ooh, how about this nice big one?” I murmured huskily as I grabbed the BFF’s arm. “That’s pretty juicy.”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Pam squealed in excitement as she ran over to take a picture with the ginormous uncircumcised penis that was shooting out sperm. Closing her eyes, the BFF bent over and opened her mouth at the right angle.
SNAP!
“Got it!” I gleefully showed her the picture on my iPhone. “Maybe you should use this for your new Facebook profile, eh?”
Pam stuck out her tongue.
“Having fun?” An amused voice interrupted our girly fits of giggles. It was Sonam, our Wind Horse tour guide assigned to us by our tour agency in Nepal.
The good-looking Bhutanese man was smartly dressed in a traditional Bhutanese gho and had his hands clasped behind him as he walked towards us. “I see that you admire the Divine Madman’s Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, which he uses to strike down evil demons.”
I completely cracked up at this point, which earned me a hard elbow jab from the BFF. “Behave!”
Sonam is just a bit older than me, in his late 20s, but the earnest Bhutanese was very traditional and extremely respectful about all things spiritual. It’s easy to wave it off as just dumb superstition but our passionate guide always had his reasons for believing and he would share them with us whenever Pam or I had any questions.
“His Chimi Lhakhang monastry is just up ahead,” Sonam added, as he turned his handsome face towards the old building up the hill. I couldn’t help but swoon because our tall guide looked like a manly, athletic version of the Taiwanese actor, Chang Chen.
“I went there with my wife to seek fertility blessings a year ago and we were given a traditional name of a girl. Not too long after, we were bestowed with a daughter so we gave her that name,” Sonam smiled with fatherly pride as he showed us a picture of his adorable baby girl.
We made our way up the grassy slope towards the infamous fertility temple, passing a local Bhutanese man practicing archery. I noticed some village children playing nearby, laughing the way only children can, as their parents sang and worked in the paddy fields behind us. I tilted my face towards the sun, relishing this beautiful day in Bhutan. A flock of black birds flew in perfect formation and disappeared into the horizon.
“Sonam, please tell us about this... Divine Madman,” Pam laughed. “Why the name?”
“Ah, his real name is Lama Drupka Kunley and he was born in Tibet but lived here in Bhutan during the 15th century. He is infamous for his unorthodox ways of spreading Buddhism to the people.
“They call him the Divine Madman because of his foul mouth and he would go around naked, consume alcohol and have sex with virgins. But while not many can understand his eccentric ways, the saint certainly was a master of very strong magic and he used his powers to help people.”
“By using his Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom?” I quipped, still amazed by how many Bhutanese houses in the area had huge murals of orgasmic hairy penises painted on their façade. Pam giggled beside me and our guide laughed too.
“Yes, the Divine Madman’s Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom is a very powerful amulet against evil forces. There are written records of his teachings and deeds. The Divine Madman used his penis, the Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, to subdue demons and they’re all very afraid of him.”
“Do you know of Harry Potter’s Thunderbolt and Nimbus 2000?” I asked Sonam with a straight face. “There are books and movies about it.”
Pam rolled her eyes. “So when did the Divine Madman die? And how?”
“Ah,” Sonam stroked his moustache, a thoughtful expression on his tanned face. “He never died.”
“What do you mean?” the BFF egged him on, being the journalist she is.
“Records say that the Divine Madman travelled back to Tibet and spent his final days in a monastery that had a huge Buddha. The statue opened its mouth and the Divine Madman stepped into it, saying he would return only when the people needed him. The mouth closed and that was the last people saw of the holy saint.”
Pam and I exchanged looks but Sonam seemed completely serious.
“Ah! You remember Bhutan’s national animal?” Sonam’s eyes went wide with excitement. “The takin?”
Pam and I nodded. Sonam had brought us to a national park earlier to see the weird-looking creature. Native to Bhutan, the takin (in my opinion) looks like a funky Dr Seuss character that was birthed after a wild drunken party where its cow mum and goat daddy met. But unlike Singapore’s Merlion, the takin is actually real. Unless I was feeding an apparition.
“The Divine Madman had been meditating for weeks and when he finally woke up, he was hungry! Demanding food from the people, he ate an entire cow and goat. The locals asked to be shown a miracle and that was when the Divine Madman took the head of the goat he had eaten and fixed it on the body of the dead cow. With his magic, the animal came to life, and that is how Bhutan has the takin. You cannot find this unique creature anywhere else in the world.”
We had finally reached the top of the hill and Pam and I paused to catch our breath. Motioning for me to stand next to a tall black stupa, Pam whipped out her camera for a picture.
“There is a powerful demoness buried right under that chorten,” Our guide frowned, pointing to the old stupa next to me. “The Divine Madman was hunting her down and she changed her form into that of a black dog to escape him, but he could see that it was not a normal dog but the man-eating demoness! He subdued the demoness dog and after killing her, buried her under this black chorten.”
; “Okaaay,” Pam backed off and hastily kept her camera.
“The Divine Madman chose this hill because he said it looks like a young woman’s breast. After burying the evil demoness, he made a prophecy to the people that a temple would be built here sometime in future, on this very spot.”
I sighed, thinking about the dead dog that was buried under the stone structure, and followed them into the monastery. Now, I’m sorry if I sound judgemental or cynical, but as an animal lover and a magician entrusted with books of magic and secrets, I am extremely sensitive about so-called miracle workers because most of the time it is all serious bullshit.
Use of sleight of hand, knowledge in cold reading, a keen sense of intuition, a gift of the gab... these are some things that con men and women have used throughout the ages. I’m not the kind to put down someone’s beliefs or religion, but there are times when my sense of rational logic screams at the nutty things people say, or worse, believe.
Several young novice monks were playing outside, throwing sandals up on the roof. They looked about ten years of age or younger, and despite the religious robes they wore, they were still little boys. I gave the gleeful novices the candy I had in my pockets.
Inside the dimly-lit temple, childless local couples were praying to be blessed with fertility magic. On the wall, faded murals of the infamous saint told various stories of his adventures. We later found out that the Divine Madman had several relatives and it was a cousin of his who built this temple, coincidentally fulfilling the saint’s prediction.
“Do you want to receive a blessing?” Sonam whispered, as we stood before a robed monk next to the grand altar. The Catholic BFF shook her head and I shrugged, figuring that since I was already there, I might as well enjoy the experience. Dropping a few notes into the alms bowl, I followed our guide and bowed respectfully, with my eyes closed.