Blue Sky Kingdom

by Bruce Kirkby

  In Lamo’s kitchen, a breakfast feast was readied: curried vegetables, steaming chapatti, a cauldron of thukpa soup, tuktuks (barley dough cooked in a modern sandwich maker), and chemik, a Zanskar-style salsa made with peppers, salt, coriander, carrot, onion and tomato.

  Christine was feeling better, but nonetheless, Lamo dragged me to the village doctor, seeking “head medicine.” We found a slim young woman, wearing cat-eye glasses and a blue head scarf, weeding a potato patch outside a collapsing stone building. Barbed wire was strung across open windows, and a rusty hand-painted sign read in English, MEDICAL AID CENTER, TUNGRI. The immunization records for every village child were posted on the wall inside, along with an Indian government poster warning that non-communicable diseases could be prevented by a healthy lifestyle. It seemed an unnecessary message here. The blue-scarfed woman rummaged through her desk, then held out a cardboard box overflowing with pills in foil wrappers. “You needing?” she asked.

  I flipped through the assortment and took ten acetaminophen tablets, then pulled a fold of rupees from my pocket. The doctor shook her head. “From the government. No price.”

  Back at home, Dorjey was preparing to lead his livestock to pasture. The family owned one immense garmo,III three dzo, two dzomo, a milk cow and two tiny calves—which Dorjey petted as affectionately as one would a dog. While Dorjey hauled the reluctant garmo at the front of the procession, I trotted at the back, whacking the derrière of any animals that paused to nibble grass.

  We navigated a maze of narrow footpaths, and on those crowded trails, everyone we passed gazed upon me with befuddlement. A few shrieked with laughter, and I tried to imagine what they said to Dorjey. Watch out, there is a foreigner following you Can I rent him for a day when you are done?

  Upon reaching previously harvested fields, we pounded wooden stakes into the earth and tethered each animal by a nose ring, allowing them to graze on the nubbins that remained. Then I once again set to work carrying alfalfa.

  As I stumbled back and forth between fields and homestead, I encountered the same villagers over and over, staggering toward their own homesteads beneath immense loads: young mothers, stooped elders, school girls in uniform, a government clerk in suit and tie, an affable trekking guide in a puffy jacket. Many laughed when they spotted me, but it was always a generous, welcoming laughter. Some even greeted me as Mortub, though we’d never been introduced. Others hollered unintelligible questions: Are you lost? Why are you carrying alfalfa? Are you out of your mind?

  “Lama Wangyal,” was my response to all queries, and it appeared to explain everything.

  The women all had their faces covered with shawls, eyes peering through just a thin crack, though not a soul in the village was Muslim. It was for sun protection. Throughout Asia, dark skin is considered unattractive and stigmatized as a sign of labor. I’d seen skin-bleaching creams in the Padum pharmacy, which seemed both sad and ironic, knowing how many light-skinned North Americans lay in the sun for hours, hoping to shade their skin darker. It must be human nature, to yearn for different versions of ourselves.

  By early afternoon I’d finished the alfalfa and set to work rolling freshly cut pea vines into bales. It was sweaty work, but I was not alone, for a gang of masked wagtails followed me: slender birds with black and white plumage that gobbled up insects exposed beneath the shifting crop.

  Christine ambled past the field where I worked. She was feeling better, she told me, and on her way to continue pulling barley.

  At dusk, I heard the voices of our boys. They came skipping along the trail to gather me, Bodi holding Dorjey’s hand, Taj with Lamo. A clattering of rocks revealed goats scampering on nearby cliffs, while above, the first stars had been revealed.

  * * *

  So it continued, one warm autumn day flowing into the next, exhaustion and joy ebbing and swirling.

  On the third morning, a fresh dusting of snow coated the surrounding peaks. Crouched beside an irrigation ditch, splashing icy water on my face, I listened to the hysterical braying of a distant donkey. Plumes of smoke billowed from behind a grove of nearby poplar. Suspecting the smoke indicated that a field was being razed, I took Bodi and Taj to investigate.

  Instead, we found a gang of road workers from southern India, faces hidden behind rags, melting tar over a bonfire. They were paving the dirt track that led into town.

  The next morning, the road workers had disappeared, leaving behind their rusty drum caked with tar. Lamo hurriedly dragged it home. She would use the barrel, she explained, for milking the dzos.

  “I can’t imagine any positive benefits for the family’s health coming from this,” Christine whispered. But she held her tongue.

  Generally Zanskaris waste nothing, and there is no such thing as a garbage can in their homes. That which cannot be eaten is fed to animals. Or used as fertilizer. Dishwater is either drunk by livestock or splashed across gardens. Cans, jars, shampoo bottles and even juice boxes become domestic organizers, holding everything from toothbrushes to seeds and spices. Apricot kernels are crushed, and the resulting oil used for lubricating prayer wheels. The rotten grains of barley found floating atop chang are dried and saved for snacks. Even old T-shirts, too threadbare for another patch, will be filled with earth and used to reinforce slumping irrigation channels.

  While it is easy to romanticize traditional village life, I think it is fair to say the people of Tungri seemed, by and large, content. They certainly appeared happier than those living in Padum, just twenty kilometers away—a place of business, and busyness, where one found fewer smiles and more stress, where for the first time in memory, the unemployed loitered on street corners, already left behind by the false promises of a modern world that had no place for them.

  * * *

  Later that night, with the boys snoring beside us, Christine and I held a hushed discussion. It may have been the exhaustion speaking. Or perhaps our imminent return to Canada—now less than a month away. Regardless, we both knew the time had come to discuss autism with Bodi.

  Somewhere on the other side of the world, a team of film editors and producers was sifting through thousands of hours of footage detailing our family’s journey. Whatever story they cobbled together, it would undoubtedly include Bodi’s diagnosis. And neither of us wanted Bodi to learn about autism for the first time while watching the television series.

  “What do we say? And how do we say it?” Christine moaned. “I feel so ill-prepared.”

  We both wanted to ensure Bodi’s introduction to autism was positive. It had taken us years to digest the implications. How would our precious seven-year-old absorb such news? How could we tilt the scales away from shame and embarrassment, toward acceptance and pride?

  Our counsellor had advised against any formal Son, we need to talk moment. No stilted diatribe, like the time my father had awkwardly explained the use of condoms before I left for university. Instead, she suggested we simply begin touching on the subject of autism in our conversations, gently and repeatedly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “Best to keep it simple the first time,” I reminded Christine, suspecting academic explanations were already churning in her head.

  “Easier said than done.”

  “I can try,” I offered, then added, “You should be there of course.”

  We lay in silence for some time. Christine’s breathing slowed, and I thought she’d drifted to sleep, when she abruptly said, “I don’t want to wait anymore. Let’s have the discussion as soon as we return to the monastery.”

  * * *

  On the fifth morning, I rose to find Lamo frying dough in a pan of sizzling ghee. She handed me a glass of hot water, for Zanskaris, like many Asian cultures, hold great faith in its restorative effects, and the sight of our boys guzzling cool water from their bottles was a horror.

  What would the day hold? Would we carry more peas? Pull more barley?

  After nibbling on fried bread, Dorjey handed me a set of lassos, and we were he
aded out when Lama Wangyal appeared in the doorway, backpack slung over his shoulder.

  “Bye-bye now,” he announced.

  A flash of disappointment shot through me. So soon?

  The simple life we had glimpsed felt oddly familiar, as if I had lived it before, and some part of me wondered if I could have been content to stay here forever. But the truck was waiting. So Christine and I hurriedly stuffed clothes and sleeping bags into the duffel. Dorjey lifted both our boys at once, holding one in each arm. Lamo placed khata scarves around our necks.

  “Tujay-chey, tujay-chey,” she whispered again and again. “Thank you, thank you.”

  It had ended so abruptly—work left undone, the rushed goodbyes. As I stooped under the low doorway, I glanced back one last time. Silent tears spilled down Lamo’s cheeks.

  I. Across the Himalaya, yaks are routinely crossbred with domestic cattle, producing hybrids that are larger, stronger and more productive in both milk and meat. The male offspring of such pairings are known as dzo, and female dzomo.

  II. Nicknamed the “Snow Tigers,” the Ladakh Scouts are among the Indian Army’s most decorated units, specializing in high-altitude mountain warfare. Tasked with patrolling the sensitive borders with Pakistan and China, the regiment has been deployed in every major combat operation since the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.

  III. The male offspring of cow-yak hybridizations, known as dzo, are sterile. But the female offspring, dzomo, are not. And when dzomo are hybridized, a complex lineage emerges, with each variant holding specific values to a Tibetan farmer. A dzomo-yak crossbreed yields gar (male) and garmo (female). A garmo-yak crossbreed produces gir (male) and girmo (female). Girmo-yak crossbreeding gives rise to lok (male) and lokmo (female). And the cycle stretches on for several more generations.

  17 NATURE’S SMUDGED LINES

  The monk boys spotted us as we climbed the steep pathway leading toward the monastery, and came tumbling to greet us, screaming our names. After rubbing peach-fuzz heads, we climbed back up together, hand in hand, sharing news. At lunch, Tashi Tsering winked and ladled extra rice into our bowls. In class, Wang Chuk squeezed my shoulder with a grin. It was wonderful to be home.

  Snatches of distant drumming floated through the classroom window, so after class I scrambled down to the village to explore.

  The fields were teeming. Women, many with infants in arm, sat on yak-hair blankets, sharing food. Men leaned against stone fences, drinking chang while children scampered underfoot. Teams of yaks waited patiently, harnessed seven abreast to central poles in the flat mud pans, while sweating paspun members— elders, children, men, women, teenagers—heaped sheaves of barley around them.

  Finally, with a whistle from their driver and the snap of his stick, the enormous animals surged forward. Saliva streamed from nostrils as they thundered in circles around the pole. The driver trotted behind, singing a harvest song and holding a small wicker basket, ready to catch any falling dung before it hit the grain.

  Occasionally the ropes connecting nose rings became tangled, and the yaks were called to a halt while the mess was sorted. Then, with another snap of the stick, they were off again, around and around. More and more barley was tossed beneath hooves, until it lay belly deep. At intervals, the great yak teams were led aside and the crumpled stalks were swept away, leaving behind a precious residue of grain.

  After it was swept and shovelled into waist-deep piles, women hurled the golden grain skyward using wooden rakes, a warm wind separating chaff from grain in plumes that drifted downwind.

  * * *

  The next morning, as puja horns sounded, Lama Wangyal announced he was leaving for Leh on monastery business. He would be away for a week, perhaps more. And then he was gone.

  Soon after, Jigmet raced past our doorway, gleefully declaring, “No you teaching today!”

  “Why?” I shouted as he scampered down the earthen passageway.

  “Lady in Karsha dead,” he yelled back. “Today burning.”

  Then the hobbit door slammed, and I heard his feet galloping off, down trails.

  We decided to follow. Led by the sound of chanting, our family shuffled tentatively down the cliffs toward the dusty village, where a splash of crimson stood out—a rooftop packed with monks. We didn’t want to intrude, but Wang Chuk spotted us and began waving frantically. Scaling an unsteady ladder, we found a celebration underway.

  More than fifty monks, novices and nuns were seated on one side of the clay roof, and opposite them was a group of farmers, short men with tanned faces and calloused hands—members of the deceased’s paspun. All were simultaneously reading different pages from Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, their words offering guidance to the departed soul, urging her not to fear the demons she would meet in the afterlife, but instead to turn toward the pure white light.

  We tried to slip toward the back of the gathering, but Wang Chuk would have none of it, and motioned for our family to sit at the very front. Seating at any public gathering in Zanskar reflects status, and guests are inevitably encouraged to accept excessively prestigious positions. I pointed toward the back again. Wang Chuk looked horrified, indicating we belonged at the front. Everyone seemed to enjoy our lighthearted dispute. Eventually a compromise was reached, and our family settled amongst the novices.

  Immediately a young man rushed over, wearing jeans and a neon T-shirt emblazoned with the words YOU LOOK GOOD TODAY, serving us milky tea and deep-fried bread. The novices had been served earlier, but were now empty-handed, so I ripped the bread into pieces and passed it down the line of novice boys. They refused of course, but two could play the game, and soon all were munching happily.

  The midday sun was hot, and Christine eventually slipped away, taking the boys with her, to wade in the village stream. I understood, but chose to stay, oddly enthusiastic about sitting cross-legged and doing nothing.

  Beside me, young Nawang draped a corner of his robes over the top of my head to protect it. Prayer wheels spun. Mala beads slipped through fingers. Colored flags snapped in the wind.

  An hour later, four stocky men in tattered jackets clambered up the ladder, with thick wads of cash in their hands. Payment for the funeral rites was quickly distributed amongst the monks and nuns, using the mala bead method. After much haggling, cries for change and a steady shuffling of bills, everyone appeared satisfied.

  Platters of rice, dal and curried veggies were then distributed. YOU LOOK GOOD TODAY followed with a blistering chili sauce, refusing to take “no” for an answer. Young Norgay, the tulku, elicited a great cheer when he requested a second dollop. Chanting resumed, and I focused on my breath, letting mala beads slip through my fingers.

  Sometime later, Lama Sundup tapped my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  The rooftop was emptying quickly as monks streamed down the ladder. In the narrow laneway below, the deceased lay atop a litter of wood, wrapped in linen. For three days following death, the body had remained in the family home, while female members of the paspun washed it and carefully prepared it for cremation.

  Now, as lamas chanted, the Head Lama sprinkled saffron water over the shrouds while weeping nuns draped khata scarves. Five women, daughters of the deceased, emerged from the homestead, prostrating themselves before the enshrouded body, touching the shoulders and head. “Tussi loma, tussi loma,” they cried. (“Like falling autumn leaves, the leaves of time.”)

  The disciplinarian gently pushed them toward the house. “Tserka macha.” Don’t be sad. But they slipped past him, placing more khatas on the body before finally tearing themselves away, fingers reaching behind them as they left.

  Then a group of men hoisted the litter to their shoulders and set out on a dirt track leading away from the village, toward rocky plains in the east. A long procession of monks and nuns followed, forming a crimson river that wound across the barren land. At the end came a white pickup truck, piled with wood.

  Waves of heat rose from the plains, and dust swirled. Christine and the
boys had probably returned to the monastery by now, and I momentarily wondered about going to get them, but decided against it, for the sun was still crippling.

  Half an hour later, out of sight of the village, the procession halted before a barren hillside, blackened in places by fire. Gathering an armful of firewood from the truck, I followed monks and villagers uphill, along a trail strewn with charcoal and fragments of bleached bone.

  Burial is impractical in the arid Himalayan landscape, where graves are difficult to dig and nothing decomposes. So Tibetan Buddhists have long relied on other rituals for disposing of their dead—all of which represent the return of the body to the essential elements of fire, water, earth or wind. Sky burial—dismembering of a corpse upon a mountaintop; scraps left for carrion birds—is frequently depicted in popular media, but only rarely practiced, in isolated regions. In exceptional circumstances, the dead may be wrapped in linen, weighted down with stones and tossed in a river. But cremation, or “burning” as the monks called it, remains the most common method of committing a body across the Himalaya—even in Zanskar where wood is rare.

  As the litter was hoisted atop a pyre, the monks chanted. Conch horns blasted. A storm of rice was hurled skyward. Then, without another word, everyone turned and began walking back to the village, leaving the men of the paspun to tend to their business in private.

  An hour later, as I climbed the steep steps toward Lama Wangyal’s house, I spotted a column of blue smoke rising in the east, dissolving into the endless blue.

  * * *

  Our family sat together in our small room, sunlight flooding in the windows. I played with the words over and over. What should I say? How could I start? Finally, I just blurted it out.