by Bruce Kirkby
“We don’t make the decisions here,” the man explained, his voice coming through an unseen speaker.
“Can I talk to the person who made this decision?”
“No.”
“How can I appeal?”
“You can’t.”
“Do you have a phone number for the embassy?”
“No.”
After much badgering, he eventually pushed a confetti-like slip of paper beneath the glass. “Contact,” he said, then waved me off.
I was filled with hope—until I got outside and glanced at the paper, which held the generic email for Canadian Consular Services in Ottawa.
That evening I composed a lengthy email, summarizing the situation and noting the urgency. Minutes after hitting send, my email pinged. My hopes soared again. I’d received a reply. Maybe someone out there actually cared.
But it was only an autoreply, pages of bafflegab that essentially said: You are shit out of luck, because we won’t reply to any query, ever.
The most frustrating part was that Lama Wangyal met all the requirements. He was legitimate. Yet he had been caught by some invisible trap. He would never possess the simple freedoms I took for granted.
Lama Wangyal sat beside me, watching me type. “You fixing, Mortub? You very good fixing man!”
I promised him I wouldn’t give up.
* * *
I awoke unsure of the time. Thick drapes blocked the windows. Only the hum of the air conditioner and the click of the coffee machine broke the unnatural silence. The hotel room, in its utter uniformity, could have been anywhere: Vancouver, Toronto, New York. This was the world I knew, and to which I was returning.
Bodi wanted to go shopping in Delhi’s busy markets; he’d been carefully saving rupees for the occasion. Christine was happy to accompany him. She wanted new pillowcases for home. But the thought of shopping was more than I could bear.
So instead, I took Lama Wangyal and Taj to visit Humayun’s Tomb, the lavish mausoleum of India’s second Mughal emperor—reminiscent of the Taj Mahal. As we shuffled across marble courtyards, assaulted by heat and crowds, little Taj tugged my hand.
“Dad, I’m hungry. Do you have any tsampa?”
Sadly I told him I didn’t have any tsampa balls in my pants pockets. The Himalaya seemed a distant memory.
Just then, a foghorn blew: the deep, rumbling sound of an ocean-going vessel or lighthouse. But there was no harbor nearby, and I wondered aloud what the sound could be.
“Dad!” Taj looked at me like I was crazy. “It was the puja horn.”
* * *
We are not Buddhists, nor are we trying to be, but years after our return to Canada, I continue to meditate, or at least I try to.
And when life rears up, as it often does—waiting in queues, stuck in traffic, dealing with crashed computers, cramming luggage into overhead airline containers—I catch myself instinctively shifting focus to my breath. One breath in. One breath out. It’s astonishingly effective.
Bodi meditates too, as part of his bedtime routine. Every night we listen to a guided practice on the cracked and outdated iPad, and while I’m not convinced Bodi always pays attention, the ritual of breathing undeniably calms our agitated son. And as a stickler for statistics, he remains highly motivated to extend his “run streak,” which now sits at over a year.
Occasionally I catch Taj muttering om mani padme heung while he fiddles with Lego on his bedroom floor. Even more touching for me, as his father, is discovering him watching documentaries about endangered animals or threatened ecosystems as part of his precious screen time. The Buddhist compassion for all sentient beings certainly exists within him—whether that is in part due to our journey is much harder to say.
For her part, Christine tends to view spirituality through a gentler lens. “Formal practice feels less important now,” she admitted recently. “What matters to me is finding ways to make those ideals a part of daily life.”
Lama Wangyal’s four thankas hang in a row above our kitchen table. Tea lights and incense often burn below. We eat barley on occasion, though tsampa is hard to come by in Canada. I still spice my tea with a mixture of cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. (Christine, not so much.) And my aging mother, after a lifetime of living in Toronto, recently bought a nearby house in our tiny mountain town and joined (or rejoined) our paspun.
On a deeper level, my relationship with time has shifted. I pause more frequently, just to breathe or watch light in the clouds, and engage more often with friends, neighbors and strangers, instead of rushing past. Christine and I seem to have found more space for each other as well. We sit together each morning, coffee in hand, and watch the sun rise—over the Rockies instead of the Himalaya. And we frequently stroll through our neighborhood, just for the heck of it: something I would have never considered before.
We both turn work aside as soon as the boys are home from school, not out of obligation, but because it’s how we want to spend our hours. Phones never come to the dinner table, and we always read to the boys for an hour before bed.
Taken individually, these may seem like token efforts, but together I believe they are making a difference.
While Zanskar changed us, in small but enduring ways, it too is changing, now caught in an accelerating vortex of decay. Tragically, much of what we saw is already gone. The yellow digger crossed the Shingo La not long after we departed. Cars, motorbikes and trucks followed the next year. The Chadar will be breached soon. Massive highway tunnels are planned. What will be left a decade from now? Or a century?
In much the same manner that an overburdened society unconsciously tries to bend those on the spectrum (or anyone else who stands out) toward its own mould, so too does it try to bend remote and ancient cultures, and it has for centuries. As the advances of modernity pour in, most everyone is too damn busy to slow down and pay attention, and anything that stands out gets paved over or hammered into place. As homogeneity spreads, we all suffer the loss: of diversity, of ideas, of possibilities.
But still, some opaque hope remains.
In eerily prescient words, the great Buddhist reformer Guru Rinpoche predicted a millennium ago that, “when the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the face of the earth.”
I like to imagine we are now part of that scattering, carrying in our own humble way a tiny sliver of Zanskar’s ancient knowledge—a seed of difference.
* * *
Diwali, the great Hindu festival of lights, was approaching, and with five days until our flights to Canada, we escaped the noise and crowds of Delhi and headed to Rajasthan, a day’s drive southwest of the capital.
The six-lane highway was crowded with holidaymakers. Tuk-tuks screamed past like lawn mowers, overflowing with passengers, others perched precariously on rear bumpers. Entire families travelled by moped: two or three youngsters between Dad’s arms, Mom riding behind, sidesaddle. Bony cows ambled the wrong way through traffic. Gigantic trucks followed, sending cars spilling into the ditch. No one seemed concerned.
On the outskirts of Jaipur, camels and elephants wandered amongst tent cities. Cows and pigs—stained with festive purple dye for the holidays—rooted through smouldering piles of garbage.
We’d reserved two rooms at the glassy new Fortune hotel: one for Christine and Bodi, the other for Lama Wangyal, Taj and me. Lama Wangyal gasped when I swiped our plastic room card.
“Key?” he asked, trying it himself several times, marvelling as the lock clicked.
The room offered endless discoveries. Curtains could be raised and lowered with a remote control. A miniature fridge full of booze. Light switches responded to touch.
“This bigger money than Delhi hotel?” Lama Wangyal asked, but I shook my head.
The old monk hopped on a digital scale in the bathroom, registering seventy kilograms—remarkably svelte for his towering height. Afterward, I weighed myself and stared at the results in disbelief. I’d lost ten kilos at Ka
rsha Gompa and weighed less than I had in high school.
When I tossed a cloth bag that once carried apples into the garbage, Lama Wangyal retrieved it and deftly fashioned an odd-looking red hat. Nothing went to waste, even here.
The boys splashed with Christine and me in a rooftop pool, but we couldn’t persuade Lama Wangyal to join us. He had never swum before. Instead he sat on a deck chair under a green and white umbrella, wearing monk’s robes and his new red hat. When a pigeon crashed headfirst into a nearby window, flapping uselessly across the deck with wings askew, Lama Wangyal corralled the bird and carefully carried it to the chair beside him, where despite his ongoing care, it died.
As the sun set, fireworks shattered the evening.
“Jaipur very good city,” Lama Wangyal smiled, leaning against the railings.
“Why?” I asked.
He pointed toward distant hills. “Delhi too flat. This reminding me of Zanskar.”
* * *
“Mortub, what is that light?” Lama Wangyal asked as we lay awake in the king bed. It was the smoke alarm, blinking on the ceiling above us, and I explained its purpose to him.
Silence.
Then Lama Wangyal spoke again. “Mortub, I no lucky man.”
I’d tried everything I could to turn the tide on his visa application. I’d canvassed friends in Canada to write letters of support. I’d dispatched email after email to Consular Services. Left voice mail after voice mail. I’d submitted further proof of my finances. But there had been no reply. And in my heart, I knew one would never come.
In the meantime, Lama Wangyal had grown progressively withdrawn. I sensed a storm brewing.
* * *
I awoke sometime later to the sound of chanting.
Lama Wangyal sat silhouetted before the hotel window, and I was overcome with profound grief. I knew he was retreating to the clear blue skies of his home. Our farewell was approaching.
It was now a national holiday. There was no way a visa would be issued in time for Lama Wangyal to board our flight tomorrow. Instead, his ticket to Canada would go unused, and I would buy him a seat on a plane bound for Leh.
Making matters worse, he had declared that if he couldn’t come to Canada now, with us, then he never wanted to come. Travelling alone, halfway around the world, was more than the old monk was willing to contemplate.
Quietly I tiptoed over and sat beside him, struggling to bridge the divide. Lama Wangyal continued chanting, refusing to look at me, only breaking his rhythm to occasionally dispute my words, then returning to scripture.
He was angry. Angry at me and other foreign friends for not trying hard enough. I imagined how powerless he must feel, playing a game he didn’t understand, on a tilted field with opaque rules, his ambitions thwarted by a system he couldn’t recognize.
For the first time, he called me Bruce instead of Mortub, and something broke inside me. I stood to leave, but he called me back, arms open. We stood silently together, both in tears, the old man holding my cheek.
* * *
We returned to the Maidens in Delhi and packed our duffels one final time.
I felt guilty: guilty that I’d failed to get Lama Wangyal a visa; guilty for my excitement at returning home; guilty for the comforts I would soon enjoy.
Earlier that afternoon, Lama Wangyal had picked up a white envelope that slid under the door. It was the bill for our one-night stay: more than the average Zanskari would earn in a year. Now the old monk asked for money, to pay for this and that, which we gave. He suggested we sponsor the Labrang temple, and we promised to wire more money. He demanded we ask friends at home to sponsor the temple as well. I just wanted to fly away.
Our flight departed after midnight so, following dinner, we tucked the boys in for a short sleep. Then Christine and I collapsed in our king bed. She cuddled close, an arm draped across my shoulders, and drifted off. I lay awake, watching the blinking smoke alarm.
Lama Wangyal sat on a sofa nearby, chanting.
Earlier that day, I’d booked his ticket home. He would come to the airport with us, where we’d drop him at Domestic Departures before checking in for our international flight. Christine had prepared a pullout bed for the lama to sleep in, but instead he crawled into the king bed beside me.
“What time we leave hotel, Mortub?”
“Eleven,” I told him. Carefully, he set the alarm on his watch.
“Om mani padme heung, om mani padme heung,” he whispered over and over.
Then he rolled to face me. If someone had looked down on us at that moment, we would have appeared like a pair of brackets—open and closed—with a void between us. And across the expanse of that white sheet, Lama Wangyal reached for my hand.
Bruce, Taj, Christine, and Bodi (clockwise from bottom).
Departing from their home in Kimberley, British Columbia (First image), the Kirkby family canoe down the Columbia River (Second image) to the town of Golden, where they catch a train bound for the coast (Third image).
The Hanjin Ottawa container ship passes beneath the Lions Gate Bridge while departing Vancouver, bound for Asia.
Bodi at the helm with Captain Klugscheisser.
After a seventeen-day sea voyage, the ship makes landfall in Busan, South Korea.
The family explores a fish market in Busan.
Awaiting an overnight ferry to China, alongside the two heavy duffel bags, in Incheon, South Korea.
Pilgrims surround the energetic boys in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.
Christine and Taj below the north face of Mount Everest.
Bodi enjoys an elephant ride in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, while the television crew shoots from an adjacent elephant.
A fleeting visit to the Taj Mahal during India’s hot season.
Henna tattoos at a Delhi market.
A narrow-gauge railway carries the family up into the Himalayan foothills, toward Shimla.
A ten-day trek over the Great Himalaya Range. Bodi riding a pack horse.
An oasis of wildflowers.
The route followed ancient footpaths, carved into precipitous canyon walls.
Karsha Gompa, a thousand-year-old Buddhist monastery in the Zanskar valley, where the family’s hundred-day journey ended.
Lama Wangyal, the former Head Lama of Karsha Gompa, took the family in.
Bodi on the day of arrival at the monastery, gazing out across Zanskar’s central plains.
Taj in Lama Wangyal’s rudimentary kitchen.
Bodi, Nawang and Taj at play.
Lama Wangyal in ceremonial attire during a jin-sek, or fire ceremony.
Strong winds buffet the courtyard, scattering novice monks, as the jin-sek reaches its crescendo.
Lama Wangyal and Taj.
Norgay, the young tulku, believed to be a reincarnated lama, peers from an abandoned monastery rooftop.
Novice monks in the classroom.
A communal meal in the courtyard.
Monks painstakingly creating an intricate mandala, or sand painting.
Lama Wangyal, wearing a headlamp, stands on the roof of his house.
Novice monks mill in the courtyard after class while Taj rides on Wang Chuk’s back and Bodi shares his work.
Bodi leaves an offering on a chorten outside Karsha village.
Christine treats Tsephal’s warts.
Bodi and Christine sit in the village fields.
Christine teaches mathematics to the junior boys.
The view of Zanskar valley from outside Lama Wangyal’s hobbit door.
Dorjey, Lamo and Lama Wangyal in Tungri during harvest, with prayer wheels spinning in the foreground.
Lamo tutors Christine in the art of pulling barley.
Bodi, Christine and Taj in the family bedroom.
A team of yaks threshes barley in the fields of Karsha, with the monastery beyond.
A procession of lamas carries the remnants of the mandala down the winter trail, into the gorge, where it will be tossed in the village stream.
A nun prepares chai and chapatti in the nunnery kitchen.
Puja, or ritual prayers, in Karsha Gompa’s ancient Labrang temple.
Bodi, Norgay, Thurchin, Taj and Joray.
Christine shares yarn with Skarma and Joray, while the rest of the novices heave lines of wool over the parapet of the abandoned rooftop, gleefully “sky fishing”.
Using a hand-cranked machine, Lama Wangyal sews traditional Zanskari coats for Bodi and Taj.
The coats are presented before the long trek home and fitted with colorful sashes.
Bodi and Christine add a khata scarf to the offerings on the summit of the Sisar La pass.
Ascending one of fifteen passes on the long trek homewards.
Bruce and Taj are happy to return to lower elevations after the passing of a bitterly cold snow squall.
Bodi and Christine navigate the deep Shilla Gorge.
A family portrait on the final day of the journey.
Lama Wangyal and Taj in Delhi, while awaiting a visa that would allow the senior lama to accompany the family on a visit to Canada.
Do not try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist;