The Waiting Land

by Dervla Murphy

  Finally Dawa set about freeing himself of the god. A motionless, coma-like trance was followed by incantations and music that gradually worked up to the most frenzied crescendo of the evening – then suddenly the bell and drum were dropped and Dawa fell to the ground and lay twitching convulsively and grunting and groaning like a man who is attempting some Herculean feat. Then, after one last horrible gurgle, he relaxed and lay still, his eyes wandering around the hut with the slightly dazed expression of a normally tired man.

  Immediately the spell was broken and the acolyte, reverting to being a servant, began to pour tea for us all. As an excited chattering broke out among the Tibetans Dawa slowly moved back to his seat, politely acknowledging the presence of Kay and myself in the normal Tibetan fashion – though previously he had given us no sign of recognition.

  I can’t say that this display impressed me as a religious rite, though I consider myself fortunate to have seen it. Recently, however, our genuine lamas have been praying a great deal over sick children or adults and these ceremonies are impressive. Usually the lamas improvise a temple in one of their tents, converting an American Surplus Food box into an altar on which they lay as many butter lamps as the patient’s family can afford, and little bowls of cock’s blood and rice and flour, and figures of gods – here made from dough instead of the traditional butter – and the inevitable conical tormas. Then two or three of them sit at right angles to this altar and, fortified by buttered tea, spend all day chanting reverently from the scriptures and producing beautiful, eerie melodies with their drums, bells and human thigh-bone trumpets. These sessions are sometimes concluded by the printing of prayers on the skin of the sufferer, over the affected part, using the wooden printing-blocks with which prayer flags are made.

  However, though Dawa’s activities were hardly edifying they should not be regarded as sheer fraud. His trances were undoubtedly genuine, and what he said during his ‘sermon’ revealed a sincere, if not very sensible concern about the camp’s welfare. Admittedly his medical hokey-pokey had all the hallmarks, to Western eyes, of a blatant fake designed to dominate the people by fear and earn dishonest pennies, but in these contexts it is never wise to assume that what seems self-evident to Western eyes is therefore true. In his book Adventures of the Mind, Dr Arturo Castiglioni observes that ‘the magician’s voice is in reality nothing but the echo of the voice of the hopes and desires of the crowd … their (the magician’s) tricks are employed (tricks that are often necessary to the effect and are sometimes practised even in the most modern medical suggestion) to increase their power and success. But faith is indispensable; only the certainty of accomplishing the desired result … can determine great success. Men with a critical and developed spirit are never true magicians … only confidence in the success deriving from his own personal power, or from the supernatural factors to which he attributes his power, can exercise the spell that compels crowds.’ Therefore those accusations of charlatanism so readily made by foreign observers are hardly fair. Magicians like Dawa do indeed use their special aptitudes to make money; but so do Harley Street specialists, and if the magician is not deliberately deceiving he cannot be censured for claiming a fee which, judging by tonight’s performance, he has certainly earned the hard way.

  3 JULY

  Yesterday I returned from a hectic four-day visit to Kathmandu; it’s difficult to decide which was the more exhausting part of it – the refugee business that took me there, or the excessively alcoholic social whirl that on four consecutive nights marked my return from the wilds.

  After seven weeks in Pokhara the city seemed a good deal more like a capital than when I first arrived, and now that the rains have started the whole fertile valley is lush with new beauty. The weather reminded me of showery, warm midsummer days in Ireland, when light breezes send lots of grey-white cloud moving slowly across a very blue sky. Everything everywhere looked exuberantly green, the people seemed to have an access of vitality and the air was blessedly dust-free. Yet even the rains have their disadvantages, and now the whole city reeks still more odiously of stale urine; but that is an unimportant detail compared with the golden light that comes slanting between clouds on to freshly leafy trees, tumultuously blossoming shrubs, neat, vivid paddy-fields, glowing red-brown houses and the burnished roofs of pagodas by the score.

  I had booked my return seat for 1 July, but that morning the monsoon was going full blast so my forenoon was spent writing and my afternoon strolling about the valley beyond Jawalkhel.

  Here it struck me as paradoxical that the Newars, who created one of Asia’s greatest cultures and who as farmers remain far in advance of most other Nepalese tribes, still do all their tillage with a short-handled, shovel-like iron hoe identical to that used five or six thousand years ago. Yet that oxen-drawn wooden plough used so skilfully by the hill-farmers would be perfectly suited to the broad, flat fields of the Kathmandu Valley. Hardly less extraordinary is the cultivation in the valley of virtually every kind of vegetable and fruit known in temperate and sub-tropical zones, while throughout the rest of Nepal, even in similarly favoured areas, almost none of these foods is produced.

  I arrived back here early yesterday morning, and after lunch decided to re-establish communications with Tashi. Then reasoning that she merits refugee status, being the daughter of bona fide exiles from Tibet, I took the rest of the day off to help this particular refugee to adjust to her new environment. She spent most of the time on my lap while I wrote letters, and hours passed before her look of puzzled distress began to fade. Then, towards evening, the hoped-for happened and she wagged her tail. Admittedly it was a brief and doubtful wag, but a wag’s a wag for all that, and this manifestation of dawning contentment enchanted me.

  Another night of whimpering would have been excusable, yet when I lay on my straw mat Tashi came toddling along and climbed, with an effort, on to my stomach where she curled up matily and went fast asleep. Unmistakably I had been accepted, and it was not directly her fault that I failed to sleep equally soundly last night.

  Before Tashi’s advent the rats had not disturbed me more than once or twice a night, but in the small hours of this morning I came to the morbid conclusion that they would regard a plump pup as a nice change of diet and from then on it seemed my inescapable duty to remain at least semi-alert for rescue purposes. So it seems unlikely that I will enjoy another night’s sleep until Tashi has at least attained rat-size.

  As yet she is much too young and insecure to be left alone in new surroundings; this morning she wailed piteously when I went out to the field for three minutes so, taking the hint, I carried her everywhere today in that cloth shoulder-bag which is habitually worn by all inhabitants of Nepal. The effect delights both camp and village – a minute black-and-tan head and a pair of very bright eyes peering out of a pouch at navel level. When I called on Kay and said, ‘I feel like a kangaroo today,’ she promptly replied, ‘You look like one too.’

  6 JULY

  Yesterday the whole camp was in a ferment of preparation for today’s celebrations of His Holiness’s thirtieth birthday: and ferment is very much the mot juste as half the work consisted of making chang, which normally is not available in this camp. It had been horribly humid and overcast since morning – the first such day of the season – and at four o’clock the rain came bucketing down. This was wretchedly bad luck, as already an enormous photograph of His Holiness had been brought from the Khamba headquarters in the bazaar to The Annapurna, and in the intervals of supervising chang-fermentation everyone dressed up and went to pray before it.

  This morning the heavy rain continued until after ten o’clock. Our ceremonies had been due to start at 7 a.m. but when I went to the camp at 6.30, to see how the new huts were withstanding their first real test, the preparations – interrupted by rain yesterday – were not half completed.

  Along the cart-track that bisects the camp two rows of carefully-laid white stones marked the route down which His Holiness’s picture would be carr
ied from The Annapurna, and small cairns of stones had been built to support the platters upon which incense would smoulder as the picture passed; but the two big tents, rented from the Indian Army camp to serve as temple and kitchen, were not yet erected. However, cooking had already begun in the biggest of our remaining camp tents and I passed a few giant cauldrons of boiling cotton-seed oil, into which hundreds of circular Tibetan pastries were being dropped, allowed to simmer for a few minutes, and then fished out on the end of forked sticks, which various dogs licked with relish in between fishing operations.

  When the heavy rain eased off the entire camp went marching up the length of Pardi Bazaar. An hour later they came marching back behind the four camp chiefs, who were carrying the palanquin – made from tea chests – that contained the gaudily coloured photograph of His Holiness under a canopy of traditional orange cloth. (It is a fortunate coincidence that the recent Japanese expedition used canvas of the exact hue prescribed by the Mahayana School for such ceremonies.) No attempt had been made to reproduce the Tibetan flag – which has an extremely involved pattern – but a tattered standard of red, blue and yellow was being borne on a bamboo pole at the head of the procession; and it was an oddly moving sight to see the camp marching along behind, all out of step, and to hear them singing their stirring National Anthem, all out of tune.

  As we entered the camp clouds of incense came towards us – the more pungent because of the muggy, windless air – and I made some remark to Kay on the pleasantness of this aroma; but she replied curtly that she hated it. And then it struck me how much easier it is for anyone who has been brought up a Catholic to ‘take’ Tibetan ritual, which for so many non-Catholic Christians is merely a revolting mess of incense-burning, bead-telling, genuflecting, incomprehensible chanting, and all sorts of crude superstitions like throwing blessed water around and lighting joss-sticks in front of religious pictures. Watching Buddhist ceremonies makes one realise how close Catholicism has remained to the East – which means that in this era of religious ‘getting together’ the Catholic Church has a shorter journey ahead of her, on one level, than some other Christian denominations. It seems odd that the majority of northern European Christians have felt compelled to turn Christianity into a bleak, sterilised affair, with a high resistance to the germs of mystery and of awe. And often people who have been brought up in this tradition of ‘common-sense Christianity’ become uneasy at ceremonies that allow for those unknown and ‘un-guess-atable’ elements which lie at the heart of every religion. Yet their brisk scorn of ‘all this nonsense’ seems to betray an unadmitted fear that the whole thing may be more complex than they would like to think.

  The six camp lamas – between them representing the Nyingmapas, Gelugpas and Sakyapas – received the palanquin into the temple tent with music and chanting. Then the photograph was placed on its altar and Kessang offered it a volume of scripture, a bowl of rice, a massive torma and a bell surmounted by a statue of Dorje. Next Kay and I were given little handfuls of raw rice to throw at the picture, and then the lamas, the other guests and finally every man, woman and child came to lay a white scarf before it, each bowing low after their presentation. Obviously none of our nomads had ever before taken part in such formal ceremonies and, though there was no lack of devotion, their etiquette simply wasn’t equal to the occasion. I pitied Kessang who, as Master of Ceremonies, was responsible for maintaining some semblance of order and reverent behaviour. Most of the men attempted their obeisances while wearing bearskin or wide cowboy-type hats – a faux pas in itself, and one which was made almost intolerable for Kessang by the gales of laughter that greeted the frequent falling off of hats at the crucial moment. Then, when the women’s turn came, many of them attempted to obtain special blessings for their infants by placing them on the pile of scarves that now lay in front of the photograph, from where they could touch the image of His Holiness. But Kessang was more lenient about this breach of etiquette and merely made disapproving noises, without taking action. Then came the best sight of all – scores of tiny Tiblets marching up with their scarves and, having presented them, folding their hands and bowing solemnly before turning away.

  During this long drawn-out rite the six lamas and four monks (including our magician Dawa) were continuously chanting prayers while beating drums, blowing conches and ringing bells. Occasionally one of them would stop to swallow some tea or eat a mouthful of the boiled, sweetened rice that was among today’s rather alarming delicacies; but only when the scarf presentations had been completed did they down instruments and really get to work on the banquet – of which even my ascetic lodger partook, though with more restraint than the rest. And all this time Tashi lay silent in her bag, so it seems reasonable to deduce that her appreciation of music is maturing faster than her body.

  After lunch wooden jars of chang appeared, their brass ornamentation highly polished for the occasion, and this development prompted Kay to make her excuses and retire with dignity. A couple of hours later I also retired, without dignity, but feeling very happy indeed after four or five pints of what James Morris has so aptly called ‘that species of alcoholic porridge’.

  During the afternoon the drizzle turned to another downpour that has not yet eased off; but when I went on my evening tour of the camp I found everyone happily dicing for Tibetan currency, so they are enjoying themselves after all.

  12 JULY

  Kay’s medical statistics are certainly proving the unsuitability of this climate for Tibetans; between 1 January and 27 May there were only three deaths, but since then there have been eighteen, the majority from dysentery.

  Today one baby died while its parents were bringing it to the Shining Hospital. They at once returned here with the tiny corpse and stood weeping in the middle of the road beneath my window; when I went to them the mother was still holding the infant to her bare breast in the frantic hope that after all it wasn’t really dead. I had to emphasise that it was and gently force her to cover the little face from the swarming flies – whereupon the father threw himself full length on the muddy road and began to sob his heart out. I then took them up to my room and gave them neat whiskey, which merely made them choke and seemed to do no good; yet perhaps it did help them over the shock. This baby was the youngest of a family of five, but they couldn’t have been more grieved if it were their only one. However, it’s likely that their grief will soon fade; most of these primitive Tibetans feel such things intensely for a brief period and then recover overnight.

  The general decline in camp health during these past weeks has been most depressing. Even the toughest are now afflicted with rheumatism, dysentery, boils, abscesses, scurvy (vitamin C deficiency), swollen legs (vitamin B deficiency) and a variety of worms. Nor am I immune; what I had imagined to be two septic bed-bug bites on my right leg are in fact scurvy sores and I have an impressive cluster of five boils on my behind – all small, but not conducive to comfort.

  This morning when I cycled – painfully – to the Military Hospital, I saw the most harrowing sight of a lifetime – a two-year-old Gurung girl at such an advanced stage of malnutrition that she simply didn’t look human. Her mother has had mastitis for the past five months, and apparently no attempt was made to wean the child. The family lives four days’ walk away, and this morning mother and daughter arrived at the hospital in a large dokar, having been carried down to the valley on father’s back. The woman’s breasts were in an appalling condition; it’s impossible to understand why she didn’t come for treatment months ago. And the little creature’s skin was like that of a nonagenarian – yellow, dry, creased and just hanging on the sharp bones, while enormous glazed eyes stared without seeing from the tiny skull. One had the nightmare feeling that the child had already been dead a long time, though it was still capable of small, feeble movements. The idea of euthanasia repels me, yet today I found myself involuntarily longing to suffocate this little girl.

  One notices quite a number of drunks around here, many lying senseless by the wa
yside, almost visibly enveloped in rakshi fumes. Often too they are to be seen swaying and stumbling along the streets, provoking angry frowns from the orthodox Brahmins and good-humoured jeers from the more tolerant masses.

  At the hospital today the doctor told me that stomach ulcers caused by over-indulgence in rakshi are among the commonest local complaints. Personally I would have thought mere indulgence sufficient to ulcerate any stomach, since this Nepalese potion is even fouler than my ‘refined’ Pineapple Wine, against which the doctor also warned me, saying that it tends to produce sudden, total blindness.

  Tonight the monsoon is being positively hysterical; coming home from supper at Kay’s I was wading knee-deep through rushing water, in pitch darkness. On such nights umbrellas are just a nuisance and in any case mine, being an Indian model, leaks fluently, while my storm lantern (also an Indian model) goes out within seconds of encountering a storm. I only hope my roof doesn’t spring too many new leaks. At present rain is coming through in just three or four places, which constitutes a manageable situation.