by Bruce Kirkby
Tomorrow we planned to visit Padum together, making a final attempt to complete the application form. If we failed, I’d arranged for a filmmaker in Delhi to help the old monk fill out the forms by hand.
Either way, he needed to begin the long southward journey within days.
* * *
Lama Wangyal hollered into a flip phone as we scampered down the steep paths toward Karsha village at dawn. A white jeep waited for us beside the prayer wheel. Five teenage girls in blue school uniforms crammed onto the rear bench beside me, smelling like flowery soap. After six months of wearing the same shirt and pants, I leaned away in embarrassment.
On Padum’s busy streets, passersby shouted greetings to Lama Wangyal. Many rushed over and reached for his hand, and he received all with affection. Lama Wangyal barked at a teen, and the youth straightened his sideways baseball cap. Later, an elderly Muslim man approached, and the pair stood close, hands clasped and noses almost touching.
In the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, a crowd was pressed against the wickets, waving white slips of paper overhead, but Lama Wangyal ducked into the bank manager’s office. Another crowd had gathered there, pressed around the poor man’s desk, waving white slips before his eyes. The manager waved off some, and several customers stormed out in frustration. Others crammed thick wads of cash into sun-bleached backpacks.
When Lama Wangyal was called forward, I explained we required a bank draft for five thousand rupees (one hundred US dollars), payable to the receiver general for Canada. Much head scratching and whispering followed. Eventually we were told it was possible, but would take hours.
To pass the time, we visited a stationery store, printing letters of support for the visa application. One came from me personally, guaranteeing Lama Wangyal all financial assistance, including lodging, food and plane tickets. The second, which I’d drafted, was a message from the Head Lama, confirming that Lama Wangyal was a senior monk in good standing at Karsha Gompa and noting he would assume the prestigious position of Labrang manager upon his return from Canada. I signed my letter, then Lama Wangyal grabbed the pen and prepared to sign the Head Lama’s letter. I stopped him.
“It’s from the Head Lama. Better if he signs?”
“Same same,” Lama Wangyal waved off my concerns. “Buddhist.”
It was unclear whether he meant that Buddhists were able to sign for each other, or that no one in the Canadian embassy could tell the difference in the Tibetan script. Either way, I was beginning to suspect no one at the monastery knew of Lama Wangyal’s travel plans.
Not surprisingly, the Mont Blanc Cyber Cafe was closed, and my hope of completing the visa application evaporated. After a bowl of chicken curry at a roadside stand, we returned to the bank. The crowd around the manager’s desk had dissipated, replaced by a gaggle of tellers. One young man wore a handkerchief tied across his face, bearing amusing resemblance to a cartoon bank robber. A blank draft had been found, but the men were struggling to feed it into a printer. Finally, they just filled the damn thing out by hand.
On the way out of town, I paused at the bakery to buy twenty-five cream-filled horns—a treat for the novices on the final day of class. When I mentioned my Internet frustrations, the baker suggested I visit Lamdon Private School, funded by French philanthropists and sitting on the rocky plains outside Pipiting.
Lama Wangyal caught a ride back to Karsha Gompa while I trudged toward the distant white buildings. Hordes of children milled outside, wearing green and white uniforms. Some danced to American hip hop. Others played cricket. A few lived in Karsha village and shouted “Jullay, Mortub!” at my approach.
The principal welcomed me warmly. Unlocking the thick wooden door to the staff room, he flicked on the school’s sole computer. With a few keystrokes, the web page for Global Affairs Canada flashed up. Fifteen minutes later, I had completed the five-page visa form. Everything was now set for Lama Wangyal’s impending departure.
* * *
I was brewing tea in the dark kitchen at dawn when an unusual scratching sound caught my attention. A thousand tiny claws? Mice? Bats? The sound stopped, and then it started again, and as it did, something moved outside the kitchen’s opaque skylight.
Scrambling up the ladder, I discovered Lama Wangyal sitting cross-legged on the roof, surrounded by a pile of cream-colored fabric. His hand-cranked sewing machine made a clacking noise as the flywheel spun, remarkably similar to the gnashing of teeth.
“Cold coming soon, Mortub,” the old monk said without glancing up. “Me making Tashi and Norbu Zanskari coats.”
The previous evening, he had slipped down to the village and bought a roll of heavy piled wool. Working through the night, he had cut an array of panels—arms, shoulders, cuffs, collar, chest and back—for two vastly different-sized boys, all without the aid of a pattern. Now, as scissors flashed and the sewing machine clattered, two robes slowly emerged.
Winter was approaching, and with it came the chance of snow and ferocious cold. In recent weeks, many monks had begun expressing concern about our family’s imminent trek over the mountains. So great was Lama Wangyal’s unease that he refused to depart for Delhi without first fashioning these thick traditional robes for our boys.
When the sun broke the horizon, Himalayan summits were drenched with merlot and orange. Lama Wangyal grunted and waved for a cup of tea. I brought him a Thermos, along with a plate of flatbread. Then I left him in peace, and the old man sewed without pause through the day.
More than twelve hours later, Christine and I were watching the Milky Way rise when Lama Wangyal finally clambered down from the roof and staggered over to the boulder where we sat, slumping across my lap in exhaustion.
We said nothing for a time, and I watched him as he stared at the stars. Did he feel the same infinite wonder?
After a long silence, he finally asked, “Is there a moon in Canada?”
“Yes,” Christine replied.
“The same moon?”
“Yes.”
“And mountains?”
“Yes.”
Then she added that the mountains in Canada were not as big as these. “The tallest we can see from our house is just ten thousand feet.”
Lama Wangyal looked confused. I suspected he’d never encountered the notion of elevation before. I held out my watch, which measured altitude, and showed Lama Wangyal we were currently sitting 12,294 feet above the distant sea. And Zanskar’s snowcapped peaks soared to nineteen thousand feet, I told him.
He could hardly believe it, and wanted to know the elevation of everything in the valley: the assembly hall, the guest house, Pipiting Monastery. On impulse I handed him the watch, which had been a trusted companion on many expeditions. The solar-powered device would be perfect in Zanskar, never needing new batteries.
Lama Wangyal appeared genuinely pleased and ambled back toward the house, watch held close to his face, beeping noisily as he pressed buttons. He might inadvertently reprogram the thing, change time zones or turn on all the alarms, but it should last for decades.
* * *
Lama Wangyal appeared at our doorway the next morning, holding two cream-colored robes. Both boys leapt from their sleeping bags and slipped on the thick coats, which were adorned with chocolate piping and golden baubles. The old monk wrapped sashes around their waists—blue for Taj, red for Bodi—and warned the pair never to let the fabric touch the ground, for it bore Buddhist scripture, which should never pass underfoot. Then we sat back to admire. They looked magnificent.
Soon afterward, Lama Wangyal departed.
Ahead lay an exhausting journey: overnight bus to Jammu, followed by a forty-eight-hour train ride. In Delhi he would stay in a Tibetan refugee camp, and three weeks later, if all went as planned, he would board an airplane bound for Canada, alongside our family.
I watched as he strode down the trail leading away from Karsha Gompa, dust rising from his feet. All he carried was a small red tote, no bigger than a grocery bag.
I. In the fi
fth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the primary authority for psychiatric diagnosis), published in May 2013, Asperger’s syndrome (AS) was removed as a separate diagnosis and placed under the larger umbrella of Autism spectrum disorder. The move was controversial, and the World Health Organization still recognizes AS.
II. While retrodiagnosis is not possible, many great historical thinkers are now posthumously recognized as displaying classic ASD indicators, including Einstein, Tesla, Jefferson, and Michelangelo.
III. Asperger was long viewed as a hero in the autism community. However, recent evidence has emerged showing that the Austrian pediatrician referred patients to child euthanasia programs of the Third Reich, a revelation that has cast a shadow on his legacy and ignited a fiery debate about any future use of the term Asperger’s.
18 SKY FISHING
I awoke to a nudge. A steaming cup of instant coffee drifted below my nose.
“Happy anniversary,” said Christine, kissing me softly.
Shit! It was September 23. In this land beyond newspapers, cellphones, and calendars, I’d completely forgotten. A wave of guilt washed over me.
“Don’t go changing,” Christine laughed, unperturbed, cheeks flushed, and golden hair tousled.
The time away had brought forward the best of our bonds, as it always does. Somehow, on the road, instead of staking territory, we operate as one. We need each other and are unquestionably on the same team—or paspun. It was a way of being that I hoped to carry home.
Holding a finger to her lips, Christine hauled me from my sleeping bag and we slipped outside, leaving the boys sleeping as we cuddled together on the cliffs, gazing down upon the waking valley that had become our home—and that we would leave in just one week.
This was it. Finito. This blessedly simple life was about to evaporate, along with the web of human connections we’d built. While we might return someday—I certainly hoped we would—what we found would never be the same. The novice monks would be gone. The faces in puja would be different. And the great valley itself, soon to be pierced by a highway, would surely have shifted beyond recognition.
It was Sunday, and with no class to teach, we took the boys to the guest house for a final sponge bath. Christine packed a small bag of gifts for Tsomo: hair clips, elastics, pencils, erasers and a pair of warm socks for her baby brother. But the young girl was nowhere to be found, and it was not until we were locking up that she appeared. Christine handed her the bag, and as she dug through the gifts it appeared as though she might cry.
“Thank you, Aba; thank you, Ama,” she whispered. “Bye-bye.”
My instinct was to hug her, but I wasn’t sure if such physical contact would be welcomed by a girl her age, so I shook her hand instead, feeling ridiculous.
* * *
“Hey, big Lego dude,” Taj yelled across the room to Bodi. “Can I come to your bed and play?”
“Sure, little Lego dude.”
Bodi cleared a space on his pallet, and Taj tumbled across the room.
“I’m a good guy,” Taj announced. “I fight bad guys. Kinda like meditating.”
Christine wandered over and sat beside me on my pallet. “This is a turning point,” she said quietly. “Had we not done this trip, I’m not sure they ever would have played together this way.”
Taj had always exhibited affinity for his older brother, but prior to leaving home, Bodi rarely reciprocated. It wasn’t that the boys fought or bickered, but they seemed to exist on different planes. Seeing Taj as a disruptive force, Bodi often chose to pass the days alone in his room, where he kept curtains closed (he finds bright light unsettling) and windows open (even in mid-winter, he runs hot).
But the journey to Zanskar had stretched Bodi in unexpected ways. He’d stopped asking Christine for help getting dressed. His social skills were blossoming, and I often spotted him on the trails, gabbing with lamas. If he grew bored in puja, he was happy to walk home alone, something he never would have previously considered. But most staggering was how he’d learned to play with Taj—and truly enjoy his company.
Now, as Christine and I watched, Bodi began creating “superhero gadgets” for Taj: scraps of paper, covered with crude pencil crayon designs. Soon a Spider-Man logo was pinned to his chest, a magic watch was taped around his wrist and Iron Man blasters were taped to the palms of his tiny hands. As Taj ran in circles, beaming as he leapt from bed to bed, Bodi basked in our praise.
“You are growing into such a kind and handsome young man,” Christine gushed. “You are going to be a hot commodity.”
“Mom! Yesterday you said I was cool. Make up your mind.”
“Yeah, well, they kinda mean the same thing.”
“No they don’t! They are opposites.”
Before Christine could explain further, the pair dashed out the hobbit door, shouting in unison, “We stick together in any weather.”
“Where on earth did that come from?” I asked.
“No idea,” Christine shook her head. “But it’s their new anthem. All I can say is thank goodness the iPad battery ran out.”
That afternoon we went for a stroll together, following a dirt road being carved into the mountainside that would soon allow bus groups direct access to the upper temples. Modern tourists, it seemed, were either unable or unwilling to climb the steep paths.
Bodi skipped ahead in golden light, tall and lanky. Taj raced after, flaxen hair flying in the sun. He appeared constantly on the verge of a fall, although he was still so short that his tumbles were more of a roll than a collapse. Christine and I walked behind, hand in hand.
We were approaching the village when a pickup truck appeared on the distant plains, racing toward us, raising plumes of dust. As it neared, we saw it was packed with the novice monks from our class. It looked like a scene from Mad Max, with some boys leaning from open windows and others perched precariously on running boards. A horde stood in the back, surrounding Wang Chuk. As the pickup bounced past, Bodi and I held out our hands for high-fives and a flurry of tiny hands reached back.
Later, we found the novices milling outside Labrang temple. Wang Chuk told us that yarne, the season of seclusion, had ended, and to celebrate, Padum villagers hosted a luncheon for the novices. The monk boys eagerly recounted the day’s glories: a buffet of peas, potatoes and lamb, followed by an ice cream cone and topped off with a rare treat—visiting Padum’s markets.
They had returned with a bounty of junk plastic: toy airplanes, model cars, bouncy balls and water pistols. Purbu had bought a pair of shiny soccer cleats—but these offered no purchase on the monastery’s pathways, and he skittered like a deer on a frozen pond. Sonam the math whiz clutched a poster tube, which I worried might hold a photo of a bikini-clad woman. Instead, he proudly unfurled a pastoral Swiss mountain scene, with a small cabin and snowcapped peaks. It could have been Zanskar—and perhaps that was why he bought it.
Norphal showed me a Che Guevara lighter, and I wondered if he’d taken up smoking, but before I could ask, he explained, “For incense.”
“Do you know who that is?” I asked, pointing to Che.
“Bob Marley,” he said proudly.
* * *
Bodi returned to our room with a mustard-colored ball of yarn, which he had discovered on the rocky slopes below the assembly hall. Now he wanted to take his bounty to the abandoned roof. To play. Could Taj come too? Please?
Christine nodded, and the pair dashed out. After cleaning the dishes, we followed, finding the boys lowering a Lego mini-figure over the parapet on a makeshift yarn climbing rope.
A shout from below caught our attention. It was Purbu, standing on a distant rooftop. We waved. He waved back. Soon he was charging uphill toward us, scrambling over cliff bands. His happy shouts gained the attention of Joray, Lichten and Nawang, who were doing chores nearby, and they too joined us. Shortly after, Tashi Topden appeared, wandering the paths alone, suffering from a raging fever. Next a group of novices came trundling u
p the winter trail carrying loads of laundry. Upon spotting us, they dropped their clothes and ran to the abandoned rooftop. Within fifteen minutes, all twenty-one boys from our class stood beside us.
As each novice breathlessly arrived, Christine tore a strand of wool from Bodi’s tangled ball—he was insistent that everyone get a piece of line—which they accepted with bowed heads. Lined up along the edge of the precipice, the boys coiled up their yarn, then cast it outward, and as the wool unravelled, it billowed aloft, caught in updrafts, drifting in snakes and plumes toward the flame-blue sky.
Everyone wanted us to watch. “Look, Angmo! Look, Mr. Bruce!”
When the lines tangled, as they inevitably did, we tried to separate them, but some had to be torn. Some boys lost their lines altogether, the mustard strands floating upward like spider webs, disappearing into an indigo ocean. But there was always someone else willing to split what remained in their hands.
Then at once, all the boys became Spider-Man. Gripping one end of their yarn with a curled finger—in the universal web-slinging position—strands of mustard wool shot out before them, carried on the breeze. Leaping, screaming, running and vaulting over mud bricks in flimsy sandals, they chased each other with outstretched hands.
All except little Norgay the tulku, who stood alone, hands stuffed in the pockets of his brown robes. Was such play foreign to him? Did he too struggle with social cues? Then Nawang accidentally bumped the young incarnate, and it was as if a switch were thrown. Norgay leapt after his classmate, and the two tumbled across the dusty roof, laughing and tussling, entangled in yarn.
Bodi himself was lost in the frenzy, giggling, dancing and striking odd poses, revelling in such unstructured play where language had no role.
An hour later, the monk boys began to drift away.
Only Sonam and Skarma remained, building makeshift kites from the yarn and a sheaf of paper they’d discovered on the slopes. To my amazement, the kites flew extraordinarily well.