by Bruce Kirkby
There was sunny RamJam, solemn Joray, tall Tsephal, earnest Skarma, square-jawed Nawang, runny-nosed Thurchin, blue-eyed Nima and quiet Sonam. Impish Norgay, who wore the unusual brown robes, was the youngest, at seven years old. The eldest, Changchup, was seventeen. A stocky fourteen-year-old named Norphal spoke the best English, and in the months ahead would become an essential translator.
I glanced at my watch. It was two thirty. I’d been in the classroom for thirty minutes, but it felt like an eternity. What next? I wrote the colors of the rainbow on a blackboard, and tested the boys’ comprehension by pointing to various things: the sky, the carpet, the walls, my backpack.
“What color?” I asked, and the boys leapt over each other in their eagerness to answer.
Two lamas eventually appeared in the doorway. One was Brezhnev, who now introduced himself as Lama Tsering Wang Chuk. The other was a short, smiley lama: Kachen Tenzin Chosang.
Wang Chuk raced around the classroom, snatching pink erasers from students’ hands, whacking a few who refused to let go.
“Eating!” he said angrily, shaking his head in disgust. “No good.”
He held out his palm to show me, and indeed a few of the confiscated erasers had been nibbled down like apple cores.
Then the pair of lamas leaned against the back wall, muttering as they watched me teach. I worried they might not approve of my improvised lesson.
When three o’clock finally arrived, I dismissed the boys, who leapt up at once, dangling satchels across their foreheads and sprinting out the door. I was packing my own backpack when the lamas approached.
“You teaching daily days, one hour?” Chosang asked. “Or two?”
“As you wish,” I replied.
“No, as you wish,” he smiled.
Then the two monks whispered between themselves for some time. “One hour OK,” Chosang finally nodded. I was relieved, for today’s lesson had felt interminable. But Wang Chuk held up a hand, and the pair launched into further discussion. Eventually Chosang reversed his decision. “Two hours better. First English. Then mathematics. OK?”
I agreed, but when I asked if they would be helping, or if they had a curriculum for me to follow, the pair looked confused and shook their heads.
* * *
A green patchwork of fields spread across the plains below the monastery, in the shape of two butterfly wings centered on the small village stream. And that stream emerged from a deep canyon, which cut right through the cliffs upon which Karsha Gompa was perched.
While visiting the village store, I’d spotted an unusual line zigzagging up the sheer walls of the canyon toward the monastery, but it seemed impossible that a trail traversed such steep terrain, so I’d assumed it was just a cleft in the rock—until I spotted a maroon robe floating up the rock face.
“Winter trail,” Lama Wangyal explained when I asked after class.
The path had existed for a thousand years, he told me: since the monastery was established. As a young boy, Lama Wangyal had struggled up and down the steep trail each morning, carrying sloshing buckets of water to and from the kitchen. But just three years ago, PVC piping had been strung to a natural spring, high in the peaks behind the monastery, which filled a cement cistern beside the assembly hall. Ever since, the winter trail had fallen into disuse.
Intrigued, Bodi and I set off to investigate.
Behind the monastery’s ancient granary, we found a faint footpath, which led toward a precipitous drop. We approached the brink cautiously, tiptoeing over loose shale. Below, a catwalk of cantilevered logs and flagstones descended the cliffs in a series of airy switchbacks.
Bodi skipped on, unperturbed. Cognizant of the void beside us, I gripped his hand tightly. Eventually we emerged in the depths of the canyon, beside a jade pool. The air was chilly, and a sliver of silver sky ran overhead, mirroring the creek at our feet.
Downstream, a collection of squat stone buildings lined the banks, each roughly the size of a hot tub. Known as rantok, these tiny mills were used to grind roasted barley into flour. A hollowed log diverted stream water into each, where it turned a gigantic stone.
While Bodi tossed pebbles into the creek, I lay back across a flood-smoothed boulder. A blue butterfly tumbled past on the breeze, and I spotted a dipper flitting upstream, heading deeper into the peaks.
“Dad! Look at this quartz. Can I keep it?”
Bodi held out a dirty rock the size of a baseball, and reluctantly I crammed it into my pocket. His rock collection was growing at a frantic rate, and I suspected the future might hold a surreptitious culling.
Later we tossed pebbles at a flotilla of sticks Bodi had launched. As we dug for ammunition along the banks, I paused to marvel at the patterns adorning each stone.
What a rare feeling, with nothing calling.
At home, the pace of life was growing faster with each passing year, my days crammed with phone calls, appointments, emails, business travel, house chores, writing assignments and fitness. The boys too had piano lessons, soccer practices and even homework (already?). And for Bodi, there were hours and hours of additional therapy. If we didn’t make time for trips like this, I wondered how many simple wonders we’d forget: the scent of damp earth, a tadpole in the palm, the iridescence of a dragonfly’s wings.
An hour later, we scrambled back up the winter trail, and voices floated down from above. Two lamas were silhouetted against the sky. The men reached for Bodi’s hand as we crested the final rise, pulling him close and stroking his hair.
“Norbu?” they asked, old and toothless. “Tashi?”
Word of our arrival was spreading.
I. Three bows or prostrations are meant to show reverence for Buddhism’s Three Jewels: Buddha, the dharma (his teachings) and the sangha (spiritual community).
II. Known as phor-pa, these shallow wooden bowls are carried inside the robes of monks and the coats of villagers, always on hand for drinking tea or mixing barley porridge.
7 EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
The next morning, a novice stumbled from the hobbit door at sunrise. I was sitting nearby on a boulder, sipping tea, and watched as the boy—who I recognized from class—went to the rusty barrel, peeled off his robes and began scrubbing face, arms and gaunt torso with frigid water. Three other boys had soon joined him.
It seemed inconceivable that four novice monks shared Lama Wangyal’s squat house with us. How had we not noticed them before?
“Yes,” Lama Wangyal insisted when I asked after puja, leading me up the rickety ladder to the low attic. A single candle stood on a metal trunk, overlooking a scattering of paper and books that appeared to be homework. A nest of blankets on the rough plank floor revealed where the boys slept, huddled close.
Next, Lama Wangyal showed me where he slept, in a tiny room (secured with a padlock) no larger than a double closet. Beside a foam mattress sat brass chimes, a pile of books and a pink highlighter.
That evening Lama Wangyal marched the novices into our room. I recognized them all from the classroom. First came seven-year-old Tashi Topden, the age of Bodi and the size of Taj. Dark skinned, with generous eyebrows and a bewildered look, he reminded me of a young Mr. Bean.
“Mother dead,” Lama Wangyal said. “Father too poor. So giving boy to me.”
Next came Paljor, a slender fourteen-year-old who gazed at his feet as he mumbled, “Jullay.” Then Jigmet. Thirteen years old with almond eyes, unblemished skin and full lips, he could have been a magazine model. Finally, a seventeen-year-old poked his head through the door. Rinchen wore a red hoodie over his robes. Having recently graduated from the monastery school, he now belonged to a shadowy crew of monastic teenagers that we would come to call the Lost Boys.
* * *
After I described the boisterous schoolroom to Christine, we decided rather than her facing the class alone, it would be better to teach side by side and split the novices in half.
This meant Bodi and Taj would have to tag along, but it wouldn’t hurt for
them to join in the lessons, and more importantly, it would provide them with an opportunity to interact with the novice monks, who thus far had proven elusive.
“I’m so glad we are doing this,” Christine said, as all four of us traipsed uphill. “You love an audience, Bruce, but I’ve been stressing about this for months. Standing in front of a classroom was going to be way out of my comfort zone.”
We arrived to find bedlam. Red-cheeked novices threw rocks, books and pens at each other. One small boy arrived carrying the still-twitching tail of a skink.
“Frog,” he announced proudly, handing it to me.
Taj watched with fascination as the tail wiggled in my palm.
Bodi burst into tears. “He killed it! Dad, he killed it!”
I promised Bodi the skink was still alive, probably darting among the monastery’s stone walls, its detachable tail an evolutionary adaption allowing it to escape predators. Then I ducked inside.
“HELLO, HELLO!”
The ruckus faded and the boys settled on cushions, staring at the strangers by the door.
“Hello, class.”
“Hello, Mr. Bruce,” the monk boys replied in unison.
“This is Angmo,” I said, motioning for Christine to come forward.
“Angmo! Angmo! Jullay, Angmo!” The boys shouted a tidal wave of welcome, apparently elated that a foreign woman held a Zanskari name.
Next, I introduced Norbu (Bodi) and Tashi (Taj).
“Jullay, Norbu! Jullay, Tashi!” the novices screamed. To my amazement, Bodi and Taj walked up and down the line of seated novices without prompting, bowing low and shaking every boy’s hand.
I recognized awkward Tashi Topden, shy Paljor and striking Jigmet from Lama Wangyal’s home, but the other names would take time.
Neither Christine nor I had any background in education, so over the coming days, we would blindly fumble forward, focusing first on learning names and then gauging abilities. In time the monk boys’ individual personalities began to shine through. Some were gregarious. Others were timid, reminding me of injured birds. Some studious. Some social. Some earnest. Some impetuous. Many were rambunctious.
What struck me was that there appeared to be no outcasts in their midst, no cool group within the group. Removed from parental affection at a young age, and living amongst gruff lamas, the boys seemed to have closed ranks. They huddled together at puja, roamed the monastery in packs—holding hands, or arms wrapped around shoulders—and nestled close during the frigid nights. While occasionally appearing callous toward the suffering of peers—I suspected these boys gauged physical and emotional discomfort on a scale different than the one I was accustomed to—their genuine affection for one another rarely faltered in the months ahead.
But the spread in their scholastic abilities was shocking.
At fourteen, wispy Tsephal had attended the monastery longer than anyone else (six years), but he still couldn’t add single digits. On the other hand, ten-year-old Lakdan—a studious boy who had recently arrived at the monastery—could solve three-digit multiplication problems.
The most accomplished mathematician was tall, butter-cheeked Sonam. But at the age of fourteen, he was only enrolled in Second Standard (the equivalent of North American grade two). When I asked why, he explained he had already completed Fifth Standard, but Karsha Gompa didn’t have textbooks for higher levels, so Wang Chuk had started him over at the beginning.
* * *
Bodi and Taj were reading quietly when Jigmet appeared at the door of our room. The teenage boy leapt onto the pallet beside Taj and began tickling the youngster. Meanwhile, Bodi watched furtively from the other side of the room, occasionally making silly sounds.
“It is so clear that he wants to join in,” Christine whispered, leaning against me. “But he doesn’t know how. It’s heartbreaking.”
Despite not speaking the same language, Jigmet and Taj shared some intangible connection. Perhaps it was the way Taj turned toward Jigmet when he spoke, or how he smiled in response to certain words.
Most of us take the skills of human engagement for granted, effortlessly interpreting complex social cues while navigating hundreds of daily interactions: high-fiving a passing friend, nodding at a stranger who holds the door, waiting at a discreet distance while others argue. For neurotypicals, such moments pass unnoticed, allowing us to harvest the magic of companionship instinctively and easily. But for those on the spectrum, such apparently simple interactions can pose severe challenges. I once attended a support group for spectrum kids alongside Bodi, staggered by the roadmap the children were given for even the most basic playground interactions.
“As you approach a group, listen to the tone of voices. And scan faces for expressions. Are they excited? Happy? Sad? Maybe you can guess. How are they standing? With arms crossed? If so, they might be angry. Slouched could mean they are bored. Before talking, listen to what the others are already talking about…”
How could any child remember all that, and apply it in every single daily interaction? It seemed impossible. Most days, I can’t even remember where I’ve left the car keys.
I often imagined Bodi’s social challenges as akin to sitting in a noisy pub, able to see people’s lips moving, but struggling to catch a word of the conversation. Frustratingly, no one else at the bar appears to have a problem hearing. And some tend to grow annoyed when you can’t understand them.
That’s a lonely place to be, alone in a crowded bar.
* * *
The temples and dormitories of Karsha Gompa had been built from the only raw materials available in Zanskar: stone, mud and logs. Crafted by hand rather than machine, nothing was perfectly square or plumb. Walls and pillars leaned. Ceilings slumped. Shelves, windows and doorways stood slightly askew. The overall effect was a sense of looseness that echoed the natural world and appealed to me immensely.
But the Achilles heel of these buildings was their flat rooftops. Created by spreading mud across a twig thatch—which dried hard as kiln-baked pottery in the parched air—these roofs were not waterproof. And sitting in the rain shadow of the Himalaya, that hadn’t mattered for millennia.
But things were now changing.
In recent years, storms had begun descending on Zanskar with disastrous results. Even a light drizzle often seeped into temples and dormitories, destroying ancient frescoes and books of scripture. Downpours brought the threat of collapse, and buildings that had stood for centuries were being washed away with grim regularity.
Every day, on the way to and from school, we were reminded of the monastery’s fragility. On the slopes below the assembly hall, a centuries-old dormitory had caved in with spring rains, and a new residence was being constructed atop the ruins.
I knew at a glance that the crew of dark-skinned workers—packing mud and straw into brick molds—came from Nepal.
“Namaste daju bhais!” I shouted the first time our family approached, bastardizing a colloquial Nepali greeting that roughly translates to “I salute you, older brothers, younger brothers.”
Leaping to their feet, the men replied in unison, “Namaste daju bhai! Namaste didi!” (“We salute you older brother! We salute you older sister!”)
Pulling aside soiled face masks, they gathered around us. The men hailed from the Kathmandu Valley and would stay at Karsha Gompa until snow fell. Their scant wages were paid not by the monks, but rather by the Indian government as part of a program to refurbish deteriorating monasteries in the northern provinces. They spoke staggeringly good English—once again a reminder of my own linguistic shortcomings.
In 1997—just months after one of my many visits to Nepal—a Maoist insurrection boiled over, ravaging the economy and leaving the already impoverished nation among the world’s very poorest. Today, as a result of unchecked population growth, an estimated 2.2 million Nepalis (or 10 percent of the domestic workforce) must seek work abroad, and the money these migrant workers send home accounts for a staggering one-third of Nepal’s GDP. From Dar
jeeling in the east to Kashmir in the west, Nepalis have become the hard laborers of the Himalaya, paid miserable wages to perform menial jobs—breaking rocks by hand, melting tarmac in barrels, carrying heavy loads on bent backs. Yet despite such hardships, I am always struck by the defining lightness of Nepalese culture.
As we talked, the men laughed and smiled and reached out to tousle our boys’ hair. When we pulled ourselves away, their happy calls followed us down the trail.
In the months ahead, I would watch this bony crew splitting hardwood logs with hammers, staggering beneath immense loads of stone and excavating foundations by hand. Through it all, they appeared to find pleasure in each other’s company, and to perform the most menial work with pride. I felt a deep admiration for them and whenever our paths crossed, we always exchanged a hearty round of “Namaste daju bhai!”
I noticed with sadness that the lamas seemed to pass these laborers without so much as a second glance.
* * *
Another empty building—the abandoned shell of a half-constructed dormitory—was perched on steep cliffs below Lama Wangyal’s residence. Its flat roof was easy to step onto from above, and offered a commanding view of the valley’s broad central plains. The novice monks often played here in the golden hours before sunset, when the day’s unforgiving heat had broken. Senior lamas lingered too, standing with hands clasped behind backs, gazing toward distant peaks.
Our family began joining these impromptu, late-afternoon gatherings. Occasionally our boys sketched in journals or shared Lego mini-figures with curious monk boys. But most days we stood together, balanced together against the parapet, delighting in watching the monastery’s squadron of resident choughs as they patrolled the cliffs below.