Blue Sky Kingdom

by Bruce Kirkby

  * * *

  For generations, the emerald fields surrounding Karsha—a fertile blip in a sea of rock and dust—had provided everything five hundred or so local villagers needed to survive.

  Gazing upon the patchwork of crops from a boulder outside Lama Wangyal’s, I was reminded of astronomer Carl Sagan’s words upon viewing an image of Earth from space: “Look again at that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” And so it was with every village in Zanskar—a cosmos unto itself.

  But just how big were those fertile fields?

  Estimating the size of a plot of land is difficult, at least for me, and I’d been contemplating this quandary for weeks when I recalled a simple surveying method that might yield an answer.

  Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game—a classic account of cat-and-mouse confrontations between Russia’s Tsarists and Britain’s Raj across the shadowy lands of Central Asia during the nineteenth century—describes a group of highly capable Indian spies, known as “pundits,” trained in methods of reconnaissance and espionage. Dispatched on foot over the Himalaya by British Intelligence, these brave souls spent years disguised as pilgrims in sensitive borderlands, where if their true purpose was discovered, certain death would follow.

  Among the pundits’ camouflaged survey instruments was a prayer wheel fitted with a hidden compass, a wooden stave concealing a thermometer (altitude was determined by the boiling point of water), cowrie shells filled with liquid mercury (used to set an accurate horizon) and a collapsible sextant hidden beneath the false bottom of a travelling chest. But the most essential tool the pundits carried was a set of mala beads—specially modified to hold one hundred beads instead of 108.

  Each man had been rigorously trained to maintain a precise stride, no matter what terrain was encountered—uphill, downhill, rocky, grass or snow. By slipping a single bead between their fingers every hundred paces, these spies were able to measure great distances with uncanny accuracy.

  Nain Singh, the most famous of this under-recognized cadre, covered more than two thousand kilometers on foot, eventually reaching the Forbidden City, and returning from Tibet with cracked skin, sunken eyes and a scalp ravaged by lice. His measurements of latitude, longitude and altitude pulled back the veil on the high plateau, an act for which he was awarded the Royal Geographic Society’s Gold Medal.

  Sadly, the pundits kept no notes beyond geographic measurements, so little is known of their exploits. But their simple surveying tools remained in my mind, and I realized if I wanted to take a stab at measuring Karsha’s fields, I could walk their perimeter while using my mala beads to record strides. Christine and the boys did not share my enthusiasm—instead they called me a geek—so I set out alone, mala beads in hand, leaving the others to watch over Skarma.

  In the village square, two dilapidated trucks were being loaded with barley. Music played over tinny speakers, and children chased goats. Tsomo, our young friend from the guest house, spotted me and ran to my side. “Hello, Aba,” she said in a husky voice, and I tousled her hair.

  Then I set out, slipping a bead through my fingers with every step—but my fingers couldn’t keep up with my feet. So I started again, this time slipping one bead for every two steps. Soon the noise was behind, and with beads counting strides, my mind was free to wander. Gradually I fell into a sort of meditative trance.

  A redstart accompanied me along the stone walls, skimming ahead, ducking into crevices, then darting out again. We travelled together for some time, heavy-footed human and flitting bird, enjoying the autumn warmth. I passed red-throated skinks warming themselves on rocks, performing what appeared to be countless push-ups. A well-camouflaged family of chukar, a species of partridge, scattered at my passing. At the farthest margins of the village fields, I stooped to pocket a flat green stone inlaid with a cross of quartz—a perfect gift for my Anglican mother. The tang of the decaying poplar leaves came on the wind, transporting me in a flash home to Canada.

  It took an hour to circumambulate the fields, and as I followed the creek back toward the village, I passed women whapping sudsy clothes against smooth boulders. Two naked boys hauled a bleating sheep into the frigid waters. Another group pushed a bicycle rim with sticks. Little feet pattered behind me, and seven-year-old Phuntsok caught up, his face streaked with blood. I asked gently if he was okay, and he nodded. Apparently a sheep had crashed into him.

  We climbed back toward the monastery in silence, holding hands, until Phuntsok spotted a green ball lying on the rocky slopes and dashed off to retrieve it. It was a toilet float, and he held it quizzically toward me. How it ended up on the slopes of Karsha Gompa I couldn’t imagine, but as I struggled to explain how the contraption worked, I realized Phuntsok had likely never seen a flush toilet before. Growing bored, Phuntsok heaved the ball back down the slopes.

  Later that evening I did the math.

  A counter string on my mala beads revealed I’d completed 17.25 rotations of the rosary, meaning I’d taken 3,726 strides and traveled a distance of 2.9 kilometers.I Simple arithmetic revealed that the village fields covered roughly one hundred hectares (250 acres), a trifling amount of arable land.

  In North America, the standard diet requires 3.25 acres of land per person, meaning those fragile green fields could feed just thirty souls. But for centuries, here in Karsha, a population of five hundred had sustained itself on nothing else.

  * * *

  Lama Wangyal returned four days later. I heard him fumbling at the hobbit door and quickly yanked the headphones off Skarma.

  “Lama Wangyal,” I whispered. “Look sick!”

  The old monk strode in, and after hugging the family, headed directly to Skarma’s bed. He tore the blankets aside, but Skarma was a good actor and now appeared to be on death’s doorstep. After prodding his belly and yelling questions, Lama Wangyal threw the blankets back over him. He returned with a bowl of apples.

  “For Skarma?” Christine asked.

  “No!” Lama Wangyal said, looking appalled. “For Tashi and Norbu.”

  I was often saddened by the contrast between how the Karsha monks treated our boys and how they treated the novices. As we munched on the bounty, I glanced down at the pallet beside me. One of Skarma’s eyes was peering out from under the blanket. I winked. It winked back.

  Later, I managed to sneak a precious apple from the kitchen. But when I brought it to Skarma’s bed, he’d vanished.

  * * *

  Lama Wangyal had been away visiting his youngest sister, Lamo, in the village of Tungri, some ten kilometers distant. He returned from her farm with two turnips the size of footballs, a bucket of yogurt, a rotting leg of yak and a sack of tsampa.

  “Very, very good tsampa,” he declared.

  It had been milled that morning, by stone rather than machine, and he urged me to sample it. I did, finding the dough to be velvety, nuttier and richer than anything I’d tasted before. I made a second bowl, then a third, amused by the idea that I might be becoming a tsampa connoisseur.

  Before departing for evening prayers, Lama Wangyal instructed our family to eat the yogurt he’d brought back for dinner. And by that, he meant the entire bucket.

  At home, the idea of consuming twenty liters of yogurt in a single sitting would be abhorrent. Even if we had that much yoghurt in our fridge, we would ration it slowly over days, eating some for breakfast, putting a dash in salad dressings, using it for smoothies, perhaps mixing in a spoonful with berries for dessert. In the end, we’d probably throw some away. But Zanskaris operate differently. In the absence of refrigeration, they’d eat yogurt to the exclusion of everything else, in grotesque, stomach-stretching quantities, until it was all gone.

  Apprehensively, I cracked open the bucket. A pungent whiff of fermentation wafted out, and a layer of yellowish whey floated atop the thick yogurt. There was no way we could eat it all, certainly not at once. But
over the coming days, we did the best we could, adding the tangy mixture to cereal, feeding it to the boys for snacks, and even eating it with jam before bed. Still, we hardly made a dent.

  When Lama Wangyal discovered the bucket tucked in a dark corner of the kitchen, still half full and starting to spoil, he charged into our room, shaking the evidence before my face. “You no eat? Why? I told you, eating!”

  I had no answer.

  The following evening, Lama Wangyal declared he was going to prepare a special dinner: yak momos, or steamed dumplings.

  I was delighted. Since our arrival seven weeks earlier, we’d subsisted on an entirely vegetarian diet—apart from meager meat in communal lunches—and I was beginning to wonder if my perpetual sense of fatigue might be due to a lack of iron and not the high altitude. But my enthusiasm for the meal diminished when I saw the flank of yak, hanging from a nail in the earthen kitchen. Covered in bloody hair, it looked mummified and smelled rancid.

  “Dead six months,” Lama Wangyal beamed.

  Soon a thudding reverberated through the house. Lama Wangyal sat on his haunches in the kitchen, raising a cannonball-sized rock overhead and then slamming it down upon gristle, tendon and bone, over and over and over. Eventually the yak dust was mixed with water, butter and curry to form a paste.

  Next, Lama Wangyal rolled out a layer of crepe-thin dough, cutting circles using the lip of a cup. After popping a dab of meat into each, Lama Wangyal deftly pinched the edges together. Within minutes, he had produced a hundred or more identical dumplings, which he piled inside a five-level aluminum steamer.

  Soon, a plate of momos arrived in our room. Lama Wangyal watched as I popped the first one in my mouth. It smelled like roadkill at the height of summer and tasted no better. I gave a hesitant thumbs-up. Lama Wangyal beamed, then turned to the watch the others.

  “Ketchup might help,” I coughed.

  Christine retrieved the precious bottle we’d brought from Manali. Dousing a momo in ketchup, she took a nibble and gagged.

  “Very good, Lama Wangyal!” she smiled, unconvincingly.

  “What do you mean!” Bodi screamed, spitting out his. “It tastes disgusting.”

  “Shhhh,” Christine and I hissed.

  “The momos taste disgusting. You know they do.”

  He didn’t intend to be rude, but unaware of implications, his truth was always searing.

  “Good, Norbu!” Lama Wangyal clapped, clearly not understanding. “Zo! Zo!” (Eat! Eat!)

  Then he left to cook more momos. Immediately Christine dumped her bowl onto mine, followed by Bodi and Taj’s. I stared at the pile in resignation.

  Lama Wangyal returned, and seeing the three empty bowls, laughed. “Good, Angmo! Good, Tashi! Good, Norbu!” But he was not as impressed with my efforts. “Mortub bad eating man. Zo! Zo! Mortub.”

  Soon another steaming load of yak dumplings arrived.

  “Momo, momo!” Lama Wangyal clapped, heaping more in all our bowls.

  My eating marathon continued into darkness. Christine and the boys watched merrily from the sidelines, snacking on concealed crackers and apples.

  * * *

  The sound of rock striking bone sent a wave of resignation through me.

  We had been eating yak for days, in soups, curries and dumplings. Shards of bone and gristle crunched between teeth, and the rancid tang was so pervasive that it drowned out every other flavor. By now the odor oozed from my pores and permeated our clothing.

  Brimming bowls of thukpa (or “local soup” as Lama Wangyal called it) arrived. It was the second batch of the day, and no one was hungry. We stared dejectedly at the bowls. I gagged down a spoonful, which left fat congealed on my stubble. When Lama Wangyal sat beside Taj, the tiny boy farted. Christine looked mortified, but Lama Wangyal clapped.

  “Good, Tashi! Good brrr, brrr.” The passing of gas appeared to have enlivened the old monk.

  “No thukpa in Canada, no brrr, brrr. Now much Zanskar food eating. And much brrr, brrr coming.”

  While Christine and I choked down our soup, the boys serenaded us with a joyful chorus of “Brrr, brrr Brrr, brrr.”

  When the soup was finished, Lama Wangyal dashed off toward the kitchen.

  “Now I momo making. And everyone much brrr, brrr.”

  I. The accuracy of the pundits’ method was confirmed upon my return to Canada, when a satellite image yielded 2.92 kilometers as the circumference of the village fields.

  14 THE GREAT SINS

  Discipline in the classroom was a constant challenge. Our lessons often disintegrated into chaos, the monk boys shouting and shoving, stealing pencils from classmates and throwing textbooks over the cliffs outside. Christine was more tolerant of such behavior, confident we were still having a positive impact on the lives of the novices despite the bedlam. But as the weeks passed, I grew increasingly frustrated.

  One particularly bad afternoon, I had had enough. Gathering the boys around the blackboard, I furiously scratched out a list of rules:

  MR. BRUCE’S RULES

  No Hitting

  No Throwing

  No Yelling

  The novices diligently copied the list into their notebooks. Years of monastic schooling had made them excellent copiers. Of course, they didn’t understand a word, so slowly and methodically, I explained each rule.

  “No hitting,” I said, then pretended to bonk little RamJam on the noggin, which elicited a round of laughter. “None of this. Understand?” The class nodded.

  Then I threw a piece of chalk, which rattled off a wall. “None of this either!” The boys nodded. A few shifted nervously.

  Yelling was harder to clarify, for I was already yelling, and even trusty Norphal seemed unable to translate the word. Eventually I screamed at the top of my lungs, “NONE OF THIS!” Twenty-one pairs of wide eyes stared at me in shock. It might have been the first time I had the entire class’s undivided attention.

  If anyone broke these rules, I explained, they would sit alone on the pathway outside for five minutes. But even as I turned back to the blackboard, I saw Tashi Topden crack Nawang over the head with a ruler. So off Tashi Topden traipsed to sit alone on the trail. It was going to be a long road.

  Every day, we started class by reviewing these rules, and after just a week, we added a fourth.

  It came when I witnessed Purbu spearing Phuntsok in the stomach with a pen, causing him to collapse. I knew there was a good chance Phuntsok had struck Purbu first, or stolen his books, for the young boy often antagonized classmates, but regardless, the incident saddened me. In this quasi–Lord of the Flies environment, cast adrift from parental love, constantly cold and hungry, these boys needed each other. Besides, they were supposed to be training as bloody Buddhists. So I gathered them around the blackboard again and solemnly added a fourth classroom commandment:

  Be Nice

  Then I gave an impassioned lecture about the importance of caring for each other. Flooded with emotion, I explained they were beautiful boys, every single one of them, and they were in this journey together, and they needed to watch out for each other, to help each other, to love each other.

  I don’t think anyone understood a word.

  * * *

  A week later, Wang Chuk swooped into the classroom carrying a fragrant pot of sticky rice seasoned with coconut, apricot, cashews, almonds and dates. The novices quickly aligned themselves on the carpets with cupped hands held before them, and the gruff monk packed a snowball-sized lump into each. After devouring the treat, the boys raced out and dragged us with them, explaining an important puja was about to begin.

  In the assembly hall, we found the lamas seated in silent rows, wearing their tall, ceremonial yellow hats. The Lost Boys wandered amongst them, distributing brass cymbals and silver bells. Two enormous skin drums had been hung from the ceiling, and a row of tsampa statues adorned the altar: colorful demons, deities and an unusual portrayal of Buddha himself.

  Earlier in the week, a village elder had underg
one stomach surgery in New Delhi, and now a puja was required to bless the man’s recovery. After consulting astrological calendars, today had been deemed the most auspicious date.

  Glancing around, I saw everyone was present: the lamas, the novices, the cooks. Even the Nepali laborers, who all had white khata scarves tied across their mouths. At the end of the ceremony, these men would carry the tsampa statues outside, and the khata scarves were to prevent anyone from accidentally breathing on Buddha.

  Wang Chuk quarrelled good-heartedly with a plump lama beside him about whether cymbals should be held horizontally or vertically. Norgay the tulku caught my eye and waved. Butter tea was served. Drummers tested mallets. I took a deep breath and focused on the flow of air through my nostrils—in and out, in and out. Ta’han swung a silver box that billowed juniper smoke. A yellow banner flapped beside an open window.

  Then the chant master led off.

  Crooked sticks pounded on skin drums, and cymbals crashed. Chanting filled the room. As the astonishing throat singing of Lama Sundup soared above all, the instruments and voices seemed to meld into a single wondrous throbbing, as eternal as the mountains.

  Suddenly the heavy fabric covering the door was thrown aside and light flooded the room. A group of tourists staggered in. “We haven’t missed anything, have we?” demanded a curly-haired woman in oversized sunglasses.

  During our months at Karsha Gompa, we’d occasionally encountered tourists on the monastery paths, but for the most part they arrived by bus, took a hurried peek around and then vanished again.

  With nowhere to sit, this group crowded into the central aisle. A young German man pulled a camera from his pack and began taking close-up photographs. Lama Sundup waved him off, but to my amazement, the man ignored him. Another woman held an iPad close to Lama Ishay’s face, without even acknowledging the ancient lazur’s presence.