by David Pugh
‘Don’t be a blinking ass, I’ll stay at Madge Robinson’s and help out at the Lodge.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘the Guinea Bissau scheme is hopeless; we can’t work with Remus, especially now we have offended his tribal brother. As they keep reminding us, we’ll always be Toubabs.’ (British colonists used to pay Gambian workers a wage of 2 shillings, “two bob”).
‘He’ll behave while I have One Ball Bob’s scrotum around my neck!’ she pulled the gris-gris out from under her shirt.
‘This is not good, he’ll cut your pretty neck to get that back,’ I sighed, ‘I don’t need this extra pressure in my life.’ I was taking too much time away from the comics business, one of my stand-ins would prove better than me one day and I wouldn’t be asked back.
‘All the more reason to jack it in and come over here, make the 4H work for us, you’re good at marketing,’ she challenged me.
‘I’m not convinced that this will work, we need to create a backpacking scene here, only young Dutch people seem to come,’ I pointed out, ‘Besides, I don’t want to keep watching Remus screwing your “little hairless cunt”, you must have been hurt to find he’d been discussing you with One Ball Bob.’
She looked at me pitifully, ‘If it is so little, how come Remus could get that huge penis inside it? And I’m sure Bob is well acquainted with the size of Remus’ penis,’ she was clearly furious, ‘he’s probably had it in his back passage often enough.’
Chapter 16: Away, Away in India
Quite some time had passed, work was slow on the 4H, Remus and his sons were working for free on the project, at least for food and pocket money. One or two young people had stayed in the finished rooms, although there was still no scene in The Gambia for the gap-year crowd. Bob’s Casino & Karaoke Palace was nearly completed, dwarfing the 4H, but there were no problems from him. Bob’s gris-gris was in a secret place, and the rumour had circulated that it was wired to a small incendiary device which could be detonated remotely by a device which Sylvia wore around her neck at all times. It was a scaled-down model of the Happy Hippo statue that guarded the hotel compound’s one entrance, with a large red belly button.
Often Remus had tried to take it off during their naked romps but failed. Sylvia enjoyed the flattery of the big black man’s attentions but was still aware that he was Bob Jatta’s man. During the long hours working in my solitary studio, I replayed the erotic moments I witnessed and shared, until one day it got too much. I needed real excitement rather than drawing it; I needed to be out in the world living the adventure. I liked the idea of seeing all of India but where to start? I’d been a supporter of the Free Tibet movement since I was eight years old, when I had seen the images of the young Dali Lama arriving in India, forced into exile by the Evil Chinee. It had been followed by a documentary about Tibet, and I saw what a beautiful and mysterious land it was. A year later my Uncle Morgan gave me a book in a yellow dust jacket, it was entitled, The World’s Greatest Wonders. Morgan said to me, ‘Jeffrey, I’ve never left this country, go and see as many of these places as you can.’ Now was the time to follow Uncle Morgan’s advice, and Dharamsala, the Indian home of the Dalai Lama, would be a good place to start. Edgar was living away in university; I’d saved enough money to make the break, despite the money pit in The Gambia soaking away our savings.
Trawling the internet for volunteer positions in Dharamsala’s Tibetan community, I read that a graphic designer was wanted to work on Cho magazine, which was a link between the Tibetan refugees, the local Indian community and supporters of the Free Tibet movement worldwide. “Cho” is a Tibetan word describing the underlying nature of the universe. They were based in McLeod Ganj, on the road leading to the Dalai Lama’s temple and residence. I emailed them my CV, within two days I had an invite to come and join them, providing I could stay for two months. I could stay as long as they needed me or at least the length of a six-month visa. A long-time work colleague was looking for a place to live. I handed him the house keys and said the council tax and water have been paid for a year in advance, just pay the gas, electric and telephone. ‘There’s no TV and no sofa, I’ll see you in a year or so,’ and waved him goodbye.
Chapter 17: Vanaprastha
Jeffrey’s Journal
Here was a true fresh start for me, Jeffrey Dharma, not parent or husband of Sylvia or co-owner of the Happy Hippo Hostel Hotel. I’d just been told by Baba Jan Singh, the Paharganj, Delhi’s Main Bazaar soothsayer, that I was going to live until I’m eighty-nine, so I thought I’d better start planning the rest of my life. I started this journal in the Gem Bar, where the food was good, the beer strong and the company lively. A video of “Laila, O Laila” by Amit Kumar was playing repeatedly, creating a time loop, encouraging one to drink more and enjoy the 1980 vibe of the song. I reached Dharamsala fairly easily, despite a six-hour bus ride with just one comfort stop. The conductor pointed me toward the Himachal Pradesh State Bus to McLeod Ganj. I checked into the Loling Monastery Guesthouse, 100 rupees for a clean but small room, with a padlocked hot shower; 10 rupees would get you the key but strictly no sharing.
My first morning brought a day of endless rain, and I bought a new purple umbrella; Baba Jan Singh had told me that green and purple were my new lucky colours, I was feeling pretty confident. I met with the people at Cho and was introduced to my co-worker on the Cho newsletter, Tashi Lobsang. Lobsang is a lovely man, he’s been here in exile for seventeen years and had not seen his parents since he was twenty. After work I went with him to pick up his three-year-old daughter from nursery school, he then found me a great apartment; bedroom studio, kitchen and Western-style bathroom, which had hot water and all for 150 rupees a night. It’s in stark contrast to Lobsang’s damp two-roomed place with shared toilet, as he later pointed out, you can’t get much on a 200 rupee a day salary. Apart from the continual rain the only downside was that my new lucky purple umbrella was stolen from the stairway of the Cho office. Actually, there was a twist of fate in the umbrella loss, when a beautiful young Tibetan lady lent me hers. It was to be the beginning of a long and complicated relationship.
Tuesday morning brought sunshine and saw me move into my new home, in the afternoon I did some work at the Cho office, transferring files onto my laptop and doing an hour’s conversational English with some newly arrived refugees. This whole town is owned by the Indian Forestry Commission, who hope one day to return McLeod Ganj to the trees. The Tibetans hope that if they can have their autonomy, they can let the trees take over again. However, I do suspect that quite a few of the refugees are very happy with their new life here, as many have quite a comfortable living and more importantly, freedom of speech.
Chapter 18: The Long Walk to India
Journal, McLeod Ganj
Easter Monday and the internet went down, Lobsang wanted a chat. His story is quite remarkable, he spent two years as a monk, at the age of eighteen he was strolling along with a young fellow monk and was overheard cursing the Chinese police. His actual words were, ‘Chinese cunts!’ they were both immediately arrested, given a severe beating and left without food and water for a day. Fortunately, his compatriot’s father owned the local brewery and was able to bribe the police with a case of beer; the power of a brew is an international language. He was actually told by the police that he was lucky he’d only called them, ‘Chinese cunts!’ if he’d shouted, ’Free Tibet!’ he’d have been looking at an indefinite prison sentence. Even so, he was harried and bullied by them for the next two years and decided to take the long walk to India.
Twenty-seven of them left on a cold February night, in deep snow and travelling only through the hours of darkness; thirty-three nights walking across the Himalayas. Their highly paid guide had given them no warning as to how difficult the journey would be, so most were completely unprepared for the extreme weather conditions. The guide’s excuse, when they later confronted him about the lack of preparation, was that large bags would have drawn attention to themselves. Lobsang was wise enough t
o bring two pairs of shoes, one to walk in and one pair to sleep in. Those who only brought the one pair had to sleep in them and so suffered severe frostbite, three of the party lost all their toes as a result. Lobsang had brought a pair of sunglasses, which he lost when he slipped crossing a ridge; this fall would result in days of snow blindness. The trip should have taken thirty days but the snow was so bad that they had to shelter in a shepherd’s hut for three days, who really exploited them by charging what he liked for food. The whole party was suffering from hunger and by the third week all were becoming very frail; the stragglers were being left further and further behind. One was lost and never to be seen again, another they went back for was so weak that he couldn’t go on any further, so they clubbed him on the head and left him to die in peace, they hoped. Years earlier I had taken the nineteen-hour bus ride across the Himalaya from Manali to Leh; I can’t imagine walking that distance in the middle of winter and then doing the same distance again, over even higher mountains.
What topped the day for me was Lobsang confirming a story that I’d heard on BBC Radio 4’s‘From Our Own Correspondent’ programme. The journalist had known a Tibetan family who were charged for the two bullets needed to execute their son, as the first bullet hadn’t killed him. This is common policy, the execution and burial of dissidents must be paid for by their immediate family. The officer, who brought the bill, did apologise that the extra bullet was required on this occasion and the executioner had been reprimanded for wasting valuable resources. Hopefully, China will get its act together one day, the country we now see as our trading partner is still very young and run by young people, albeit under the eye of a nasty authoritarian regime. The Tibetans will probably never get their original huge country back, but let us hope they will have more say and more freedom in the Tibetan Autonomous Republic. The Tibet we know today is only about a third of its original size; the old states of Amdo, Kham and Deqin have been absorbed into the People’s Republic.
Chapter 19: Love Calls You by Your Name
I’d been doing some artwork for Cho, while my delightful Tibetan co-worker, Rinzen Choden, was frying some papadums in the kitchen. As I’m touching up a sentence, I hear a scream, ‘Oh my God; she’s dropped the pan of hot oil on herself!’ No, a large monkey had reached through the open window for a banana, ripening on the sill. Rinzen screamed in hope of scaring it off; it worked, the monkey left without the banana and I was left in near cardiac arrest. The evening had now settled down to the usual cacophony of monkeys provoking the stray dogs, another peaceful evening on Tipa Road. You may be asking why a very pretty Tibetan lady was cooking papadums in my kitchen. Well, she came around a couple of times a week for a hot shower, as she only had cold bucket showers in a toilet outside her one-room apartment.’Aye, aye,’ you might be saying, ’Dharma has scored! I’ll say ‘I wish!’ I was hopelessly in love with this slim, elegant and so beautiful young woman and she knew it.
You may recall me mentioning that a pretty young lady had lent me an umbrella on my first day at Cho. It was about two weeks until I saw her again; she worked in the farthest reaches of the opposite corridor. ‘Jeffrey?’ she said, ‘My name is Rinzen, I wish to start a Computer Art class here but I know very little of Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, I only know In-Design, can you teach me?’ It might have been the way the Himalayan sun illuminated her face, but she looked radiant, her long dark hair had a copper tinge. I was in love at second sight.
‘It’s good you know In-Design, because I have never used it but I can help out with the other two,’ I smiled.
‘I am free every morning between 9 and 10; Lobsang can spare you and we’ll have the computer room to ourselves,’ she smiled back at me. I struggled to sleep that night, I knew Tibetan women had a reputation for being very moral but the idea of being alone with this lovely lady for five to six hours a week fuelled my fantasies.
Those mornings at the beginning of the Himalayan summer were blissful. The computer screen illuminated the joy on Rinzen’s face as she learned to master a new Photoshop trick. Now and then she’d pause to spit into a handkerchief; she was also drinking endless cups of Tibetan chai, far denser and richer with masala spices than the Indian milky tea. ‘Good for my belly,’ she announced.
‘You’re spitting stomach acid,’ I said.
‘It nothing, I don’t get good food.’
‘Listen, I’ve had a stomach ulcer, I’m certain you are infected with Helicobacter Pylori, it’s causing you pain, isn’t it?’
‘All the time I have pain, what is Helicopter Pillar?’ she questioned.
‘My mother was born into a somewhat primitive village in Wales in 1926; the water there was infected with bacteria. It lived inside her and she passed it to me through her blood.’
‘Dirty water?’ Rinzen grimaced, ‘I was born in Orthok, Lithang County in Kham, plenty dirty water there, polluted by Chinese! I take Tibetan medicine, it soon go.’
‘You need a two week course of antibiotics, and you’ll be cured forever, like me,’ I insisted, ‘I felt like a new man after my cure, it allowed me to be able to travel without the need to find food every three hours. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the Indian doctor who treats us tourists.’
This I did under protest from her, as I seemed to be questioning the power of traditional Tibetan medicine. The doctor was a bit impatient,
‘I’m not going to test her for HP, I’m certain she has it along with 80 percent of the Indian population. Treat one we’d have to treat the bloody lot of them and bankrupt the whole Indian health system. Send her to Delhi, to this hospital, they’ll treat her privately,’ he scribbled an address. She went, got cured and cost me about 9,500 rupees, around £100, but she looked at me with new respect.
Chapter 20: Light as the Breeze
The first Saturday morning in the month Cho closed. This particular Saturday I was heading down to the temple, longing to bump into Rinzen and hopefully spend the holiday with her. I’d only gone about twenty metres from the house when I nearly walked past her. ‘What’s the matter, Jeffrey, don’t you recognise me, it’s me, Rinzen?’ she smiled.
‘I was heading down to the temple, hoping I’d bump into you,’ I replied, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I went to the temple very early, look,’ producing her laptop from her bag, ‘I want extra lessons, let’s go your rooms.’
‘Sure!’ not believing my luck, I’d dreamed of something like this, ‘Is it all right for you to be alone with me?’
‘It’s Tibetan house, I tell them you are my teacher okay,’ she smiled.
I couldn’t concentrate on lessons; Rinzen was in my room, just feet away from my bed. She bounced around the small apartment, examining everything.
‘You have two-ring burner and oh, oh, you have hot water!’ looking in awe at my electric water heater, ‘Can I have hot shower?’
‘Now?’ I gulped. ’Please God let her say yes,’ I prayed.
‘No, I come back later, you give me shower and I cook you meal.’
‘I give you a shower, yes?’ I stammered.
‘No, bad English,’ she corrected herself with a giggle, ‘you let me have hot shower, I cook you and me meal.’
Agonising days passed and she didn’t come around, I could hardly suggest that she needed a shower, she always smelled wonderful. Our classes had begun and we were both busy. Then one Tuesday as we were locking the computer room, she said, ‘I have my towel, let’s go to your place, we buy food on way.’ My legs were like jelly walking with her up Tipa Road and the four flights of stairs to my rooms. She ducked her head into the family’s room and nonchalantly announced in Tibetan that she was going to have a shower in sensei’s room and cook them both supper; all the ladies smiled their approval.
‘Do you want me to stay on the terrace?’ I hoped not.
‘No, no come in,’ years of communal living had helped her perfect a way of undressing discreetly but first she just slipped out of her jeans. I was on the point of gasping
when I remembered that Tibetan ladies wear those long underpants, under everything year round. She made a tent of her towel, let all her clothes slip to the floor and popped into the bathroom, locking the door. I was wishing I had thought of boring a spy hole in the door. Instead, I’m ashamed to say, I sniffed her rather child-like floral panties, and she smelled divine.
The days were getting warmer; Rinzen normally wore a rather traditional style shirt with short sleeves and elasticised arms. Today in class she was wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt. She stretched her arms up during a short break and for the first time I saw her armpits. The sight was extremely sexy, thin straight brown hair, the top layer growing straight up, the bottom layer growing down, with a thin strip of bare flesh in the middle. She caught me staring at her and immediately hid herself with a blush. Yet again I struggled to concentrate on the lesson; I desperately wanted to see the hair down below. She was coming around for her shower that evening; could I dare risk the rapport we had, possibly resulting in me having to leave Cho and she losing her reputation in the community? That evening she came out of the shower, dressed as usual in her tent-like towel, ready to dress. ‘Could you stop one moment, I have something I want to say,’ I said in a shaky voice.
‘You want to sleep with me,’ she pre-empted me, ‘I like you very much,’ she continued, ‘you are an attractive man and no you are not too old for me, fifty-five is still young. Don’t say anything,’ holding a finger to her mouth, ’I have not told this story to anyone before, it is painful but I need to share it with you. I was nineteen years old, the youngest of seven nomad children. The family had almost no money; it was my place to find a job. I was told I had an uncle who owned a restaurant in Lhasa, and I was put on a bus. The restaurant was not much more than a drinking house with a brothel upstairs. Uncle expected me to work as a prostitute; I was shocked, I’d worked so hard as a child, I had never had any sexual experience, I was a virgin. Uncle put me in charge of the barley beer, Chhaang, (Semi-fermented seeds of millet are stuffed in a barrel of bamboo called a dhungro. Boiling water is then poured in, and it’s sipped through a narrow-bore bamboo tube called a pipsing). It was on every table and drunk along with Snow Beer. I was to dress as a traditional Tibetan single woman in the long chuba, no apron, that’s only for married women. Uncle despised me, treating me like a commodity he couldn’t sell. He made me sleep in a room next to the toilet.