At Beirut she expressed the need for a grassy spot – and promptly disappeared into the blackness of the night. However, we were already without hope of arriving punctually in London, having been delayed three hours in Bombay because of engine trouble, so the Captain asked the passengers if they would be good enough to forgive another slight delay while Miss Murphy pursued her dog. Fortunately the pursuit did not take long and I soon staggered into the cabin clutching a trembling Tashi, who apparently hadn’t much liked what she’d seen of the Lebanon.
At Prague I kept her on her chain, lest she might have anti-Communist prejudices; and at London, feeling bleakly traitorous, I roped her in her basket and handed her over to the waiting RSPCA van which ferried her across to our Aer Lingus plane, where she was ruthlessly consigned to the terrors of the luggage-compartment, despite my pleas that she should be allowed to travel in her basket beside me.
At Dublin Airport I might have been a lion-tamer importing a troupe of man-eaters. Uniformed officials of obscure significance were falling over each other in their anxiety to ensure that the infinitesimal Tashi did not break loose and overnight turn the nation rabid. An absurdly large van stood waiting to transport the basket to the State Quarantine Kennels ten miles north of Dublin, and I was firmly refused permission to accompany Tashi on her journey into the unfamiliar cold wetness of an Irish winter night. However, the kennels are excellently run and, during her long imprisonment, Tashi remained in perfect condition, growing a little more and suffering none of the possible ill-effects of quarantine. On the day of her release she obeyed commands as promptly and took life as calmly as she had ever done – perhaps because I had visited her regularly, taking a book and sitting for a few hours on the straw in her kennel, while she untied my shoe-laces for Auld Lang Syne. She always greeted my visits with joy, but accepted my departures with composure – and at last came the day when she departed too, into the breezy green fields and bright June sunshine. Nor can the joy she then showed at racing free have been any greater than my own on seeing that little black body again unfurling its ridiculous brown tail in the wind.
A seven months’ visit is too brief for the development of a real understanding of any country as alien and complex as Nepal; but it is quite long enough for the visitor to come to love what has been experienced of both the virtues and the faults of this improbable little Kingdom. I am often asked, ‘Did you like Nepal?’ – to which I usually reply, ‘Yes’ and leave it at that. But no one merely ‘likes’ Nepal; Nepal weaves a net out of splendour and pettiness, squalor and colour, wisdom and innocence, tranquillity and gaiety, complacence and discontent, indolence and energy, generosity and cunning, freedom and bondage – and in this bewildering mesh foreign hearts are trapped, often to their own dismay.
There is much to be censured in the Kingdom, and there are many institutions that do need reforming; but to reform them in the image and likeness of the West would be a subtle genocide, for there is much, too, that should be cherished, rather than thrown to the Lions of Progress. However, it is of no avail to think or write thus. The West has arrived in Nepal, bubbling over with good intentions (though the fire that keeps them bubbling may be fed on expediency), and soon our insensitivity to simple elegance, to the proud work of individual craftsmen, and to all the fine strands that go to make up a traditional culture will have spread material ugliness and moral uncertainty like plagues through the land. Already our forward-looking, past-despising ‘experts’ are striving to help Nepal ‘to make up for lost time’ by discarding the sound values that lie, half-hidden but still active, beneath ‘pagan superstition’ – and that would provide a firmer foundation on which to build the new Nepal than our own mass production code, which makes a virtue of unnecessary earning for the sake of unnecessary spending.
Perhaps nowhere in Asia is the contrast between a dignified, decaying past and a brash, effervescent present as violent as in Nepal; and one knows that here too, eventually, the present will have its shoddy triumph. Yet even when the Nepalese way of life has been annihilated the Himalayas will remain, occasionally being invaded by high-powered expeditions but preserving an inviolable beauty to the end of time.
The Royal Hotel, Kathmandu; formerly a Rana palace
An old Palace, Patan; these sculptured gods become personal friends when one sees them every day
Children in the streets of Kathmandu: a young vendor in front of the Hanuman Dhoka temple
Patan Police Station
In most regions of Nepal the children are happy, healthy and friendly
Among young Tibetans in Kathmandu an intelligent child sometimes voluteers to teach his contemporaries
Main Street, Pokhara; here the Nepalese atmosphere matters more than the shops
At Pokhara airport planes are merely tolerated
The locals never tire of gathering on the airfield
The sort of bridge one prefers not to cross
Kaski River, Pokhara
Pokhara from the Kaski Ridge
The truly religious old lamas accept their exile with dignity and cheerful courage
Leaving a high village at dawn is always one of the day’s best moments
Surviving many rides along Pokhara’s main street was a good test for my Russian bicycle
In these mountain farmhouses a warm welcome usually makes up for lack of comfort
Tashi in Ireland, June 1967
Copyright
First published in England by John Murray in 1967
First published by Eland Publishing Limited
61 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QL in 2010
This ebook edition first published in 2011
All rights reserved
© Dervla Murphy, 1967
The right of Dervla Murphy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–1–906011–77–2
Cover Image:
Kathmandu, Nepal, 1980 by Steve McCurry
© Steve McCurry/Magnum Photos
The Waiting Land Page 25