The Waiting Land (3 page)

Even motoring up the Rajpath gives one a sense of achievement, felt on behalf of those Indian engineers and Nepalese coolies – many coolies were killed on the job – who had the brains and the guts to construct a road in direct defiance of the laws of Nature. Most Nepalese believe that the coolies’ deaths were caused by enraged
mountain-gods
and I can sympathise with this view. The Rajpath is a triumphal example of man’s ingenuity, but it is also an impertinent defacement and naturally the gods would resent having their mountains so humiliatingly brought to the heel of Progress.

We reached the pass at 3.30 and here the air was tinglingly crisp and
keen. To steady our nerves we stopped for tea in a tiny hut near the forest’s edge; a few moments earlier, when toiling around the last hairpin bend, we had missed by inches a grossly overloaded jeep taking the corner at top speed.

Our descent to the Palang Valley was more gradual than the upward climb – though hardly less dangerous, for the truck’s brakes were not of the best. The two-storey farmhouses scattered around the valley floor looked curiously European, with their curly red tiles and brown brick walls, and they were far more skilfully built than the average dwelling of rural India; I noticed that instead of chimneys square apertures were visible in the gable walls. The people were small, sturdy and gay, and groups of children shouted, waved and laughed as we passed; evidently many of the Nepalese are temperamentally closer to the Tibetans than to the Indians. On all sides this valley was guarded by mountains and, despite the encroachment of ‘The Road’, it retained an atmosphere of tranquil ‘lostness’. Looking at the sunny expanse of cleverly terraced young wheat, and at the high-spirited children and bounding flocks of goats, I was very conscious of being in a new and pleasant country.

When the road began to climb again the nearby mountains became bare walls of reddish clay that reflected the slanting evening light like giant uncut jewels. I felt myself getting more and more excited as we passed the new, neat milestones saying ‘Kathmandu 15 miles … 14 miles … 13 miles’ – but then suddenly it was dark, and still we were slowly rounding bend after bend, though we had just passed a notice forbidding vehicles to use the Rajpath by night.

At 8.30 p.m. we stopped near the hamlet of Thankot, six miles from Kathmandu, where a tree-trunk on trestles blocks the road outside a Police-Passport-Customs check-post. Now the spice of melodrama filled the air. Our driver – using what can only be described as a hoarse whisper – instructed us to leave the truck quietly, go through the necessary hoops with officialdom, walk on a quarter of a mile and wait for him to retrieve us. We need take only our passports; everything else could safely be left where it was.

At this point my drab European rationality prompted me to wonder
what the police would make of four Westerners, equipped only with a passport and two legs apiece, appearing out of pitch darkness on the rim of the Kathmandu Valley and producing visas which declared that they had entered the country a mere ten hours earlier. But at once I reproved my rationality for intruding on this first gay day in Nepal.

The checkpoint was enchanting – a tiny bamboo lean-to, containing an affable character arrayed in pyjamas and armed with a revolver. This officer peered briefly at our visas, by the light of a wick floating in a bowl of grease, and then politely made the required assumption that we had come from Rexaul by magic carpet. However, Loo’s native honesty did cause a moment’s tension. On being asked if she had cameras, transistors, tape-recorders or binoculars she admitted to one of each and Pyjamas, looking faintly irritated by such candour at so late an hour, dutifully asked her to produce them – whereupon she saw her indiscretion and stared through the low doorway in wild surmise, while the boys and I giggled cruelly. Our driver was in the adjacent tea-house, having something stronger than tea and stolidly feigning not to be acquainted with us, so any attempt to contact him would have been monumentally tactless. But Pyjamas obviously had a quick understanding and a kind heart for now he gestured grandly, saying ‘These things are not important’ – and immediately we were released, our passports enriched by one more set of convulsed squiggles and solemn seals.

From Thankot the downhill road to Kathmandu was lined with flowering bottle-brush trees, and by the light of the head-lamps their long scarlet blossoms formed glowing curtains of colour on either side. I was a little puzzled not to see, somewhere on the valley floor, that shimmer of light which is to be expected after dark from even the least advanced capital city; but I later discovered that this was one of the not infrequent occasions upon which the urban electricity supply had quietly faded away.

It takes only a few moments to drive through the ‘suburbs’ of Kathmandu and by half-past nine I was standing in the city centre, beside ‘Bhim’s Folly’ – a cigarette-like white tower erected for no apparent reason by Bhim Sen Thapa, that murderously scheming
nineteenth-century ruler of Nepal who instigated the Prime Ministerial reign. The area around the Folly is the General Truck Terminal, and therefore the scene of much haggling, arguing and general commotion at all hours of the day or night; in fact it seems to provide the only sign of life in the city after dark. Already Loo and Niall had been led away by Jean, who is familiar with Kathmandu, and I now discovered that – as pronounced by me – the address to which I was going conveyed nothing whatever to any of the surrounding Nepalese. But eventually I observed two young men, clad in semi-Western fashion, who spoke some English and soon fixed me up with a cycle-rickshaw.

Half an hour later I was installed in this dingy but – by Asian standards – wildly expensive hotel. The charge is £1 per night for a large, filthy room, containing only a plank-bed and a roll of bug-infested bedding – and no breakfast will be provided. In itself the dirt leaves me unmoved, since I have survived even greater extremes of filth elsewhere, but the excessive charge moves me deeply. I only hope that it is not a reliable guide to the general cost of living in Nepal.

Yesterday began well when I heard after breakfast that Sigrid Arnd – a Swiss friend first met when we were both working in India – is now living here; and last night she most generously invited me to stay in her Jawalkhel home, near Patan, until I leave for Pokhara on 12 May.

Sigrid prefers to live reasonably close to the local level, and she has proved that in this country one can create a very attractive home through an imaginative adaptation of native materials and customs. She rents a two-roomed wing of this three-storey brick house, and the simple living-room – where I’m now sitting – has a low, black, raftered ceiling, whitewashed walls and pale gold matting. Everything in the room is both beautiful and Nepalese, and Sigrid’s four-months-old black and silver mongrel puppy is also both beautiful and Nepalese. His name is Puchare (‘Tail’ in Nepali) and he has an adorable personality, in addition to being a good deal more ornamental than many an effete thoroughbred I’ve known. The household is completed by Donbahadur, a Newari daily servant who shops intelligently in the bazaar and cooks like an angel. (Many Westerners in Kathmandu won’t even walk through the bazaar, much less eat food that has been bought there.) Donbahadur has a bubbling sense of fun, an almost visible integrity and an awe-inspiring but quite effective method of communicating through the medium of Swiss German-cum-English. One senses that the approves Sigrid’s appreciation of things Nepalese, which interests me; in India a Memsahib would almost certainly lose face with the servants if she did not maintain entirely European standards.

A small bathroom (with a cold shower but without a bath) and an even smaller kitchen lead off this living-room, while at the back a narrow wooden staircase, to Sigrid’s bedroom, is concealed by a cupboard-like device. Outside, in the large, haphazard garden, twin giant poplars stand handsomely in one corner, and at the moment I can see Donbahadur in another corner, baking delicious bread in that mud-stove which is his contribution to the establishment’s excellent system of improvisation. Beyond the ten-foot wall enclosing the garden runs a very wavy, very pot-holed and very dusty track, which unfortunately happens to be one of the valley’s main roads, linking Kathmandu, Jawalkhel and Patan. At this season the frequent passage of buses envelops the garden in a veil of yellow, suffocating dust; only the tops of these vehicles are visible as they lurch slowly by, so one has the curious illusion of watching ships on a stormy sea.

Tonight, with Sigrid’s blessing, Puchare and I will curl up together on a Tibetan carpet; I don’t often encounter the perfect hostess who refrains from registering horror at the prospect of a guest sleeping on the floor.

What a lovable little city this is! Each day I enjoy it more, though before coming here I had thought of the place as no more than a stepping-stone to Pokhara. But my vision of the Kathmandu Valley as being only slightly less dire than India was quite false. Of course there are the obvious resemblances – dust, stench, flies, ubiquitous sacred cows and mangy dogs in gutters. Also many of the women now wear either the sari or the
shalwar
and chemise, though the majority of men have retained their distinctive dress of jodhpur-type loose-seated trousers, high-necked tunics flaring out above the knees and jaunty little caps – a reversal of the common pattern in the East, where men are usually the first to abandon the national costume. However, the obvious differences between the two countries are far more important. The ordinary Nepalese seem to be without a trace of the Indians’ servility, or their touchiness, or that excruciating national inferiority complex which masquerades so pathetically as a
superiority complex. In the past the Nepalese suffered more injustice and cruelty under their own corrupt and unscrupulous rulers than the Indians ever did under the British; but at least they were spared that lethal blow to a country’s pride which can be given only by foreign conquerors. All the other Westerners to whom I have spoken during the past few days agree with me that on most levels the Nepalese are far easier to get along with than the Indians – which alone would make the atmosphere of Kathmandu much pleasanter than that of New Delhi.

Another of my misconceptions concerned the influence of tourism on the valley. I had pictured it as having been already spoiled by and for tourists, but despite the fact that ‘everyone’ now comes here, in much the same way as ‘everyone’ leaves London during the summer, it would be ridiculous, at present, to describe Kathmandu as a Tourist Centre. However, in its outward aspect it is already far less ‘exotic and romantic’ than one has been led to believe; there are almost as many petrol-pumps as temples, and ugly new buildings are going up everywhere. No one could call it a lovely city, yet there is an abundance of beauty to be found here, and the friendly gaiety and inconsequential craziness of the atmosphere have completely captivated me. This craziness is repeatedly manifested in various Gilbertian ways. When I moved from the hotel to the labyrinthine Youth Hostel at Jawalkhel – one of the many tasteless ex-Rana palaces that litter the valley – I found a multitude of h. and c. taps and some very imposing Western flushes above Eastern latrines; but the nearest water was in the nearest well. Also there is an intriguing urban telephone system, installed by the Americans a few years ago in the fond hope that local activities might thus be speeded up, and to date this innovation has made several quite important contributions to the national muddle. On some days it works only in some areas and on other days it works only in other areas, so the consequent alarms and excursions create far more tension than would ever have to be endured if life were philosophically geared to an absence of telephonic communication. Then there are the foibles of the electricity system. These include switches that have been humorously hidden in the most unlikely corners – at floor or ceiling
level, or behind window shutters – and that function, if at all, only after prolonged and highly dangerous manipulation. Because of the current’s ‘erraticism’ everyone keeps a supply of candles at the ready, and this evening, at a meeting of Father Moran’s Tibetan Refugee Committee in The Royal Hotel, I noted with joy that amidst so much ornate splendour our conference was being illuminated by two candles stuck on saucers.

Since Nepal was opened to foreigners in 1951 The Royal Hotel has been the centre of what passes for social life in Kathmandu. Officially it is a ‘luxury hotel’ and as such not at all my line of country; but one soon discovers that here even ‘luxury hotels’ are purged of their uniformity, and in fact The Royal is as outrageously individual as all other local phenomena. Partly this is due to a ludicrous magnificence, both in the building itself (another ex-Rana palace) and in the Grand Opera décor, which is so gorgeously ‘un-with-it’ that one is immediately charmed into forgiving its excesses. But mainly the uniqueness of The Royal is due to the personality of Boris, that legendary Russian whom I had already met with delight in so many books and whom I met today, with even greater delight, in person. Undoubtedly Boris belongs to that corps of larger-than-life cosmopolitan eccentrics who have been born to redeem this conforming age, yet to me the most impressive thing about him is his simple kindness. He seems essentially a benevolent rural inn-keeper, rather than the owner-manager of an international hotel, and on his account I fear the more ruthless and practical hoteliers who are now beginning to invade Kathmandu.

At The Royal I was also introduced to Peter Aufschneider and Sir Edmund Hillary. Sir Edmund looks and behaves exactly as one would expect a conqueror of Everest to look and behave, and on shaking hands with him I got a positively schoolgirlish thrill – though it is to be hoped that this was not apparent, since the unfortunate man must be bored almost to extinction by thrilled females. Peter Aufschneider (Heinrich Harrer’s companion in Tibet) lives permanently in Kathmandu and now works for the Nepalese Government. He is very shy, modest and likeable – but unfortunately I’m invariably struck
dumb on first meeting people who have long been admired from afar, so as a conversational unit we never really got off the ground.

Inevitably The Royal forms a hollow into which all Kathmandu gossip finally trickles and, as much of this gossip concerns the sex-life of various Nepalese royal personages, or of prominent foreign residents, the resulting pond is depressingly murky. But more interesting subjects are occasionally discussed, and here I heard that it is now very difficult to obtain a trekking permit for Northern Nepal. Apparently a certain writer recently took unfair advantage of having been granted such a permit, went to or beyond the Tibetan frontier, took a film of various odd happenings there, wrote about his exploits in European newspapers and generally so upset the Nepalese that they are now thwarting innocent travellers who wish to explore Nepal from no motive other than wanderlust. Personally I know only too well how forbidden frontiers tempt one’s juvenile devilry and I have once been guilty of succumbing to their lure; yet out of common politeness to the Governments concerned and for the sake of other travellers one should surely refrain from writing up such incidents – especially in a justifiably jittery country like Nepal. No doubt these regrettable activities near the Tibetan frontier are also partly responsible for the Nepalese Government’s ban on further Himalayan expeditions.

Another news item concerned the voluntary return to Tibet, within recent months, of an unspecified number of refugees who had been squatting in Eastern Nepal for the last two years. My informant on this matter was as reliable – within the limitations of the subject – as anyone could be, so I was greatly interested to hear that the uncommitted traders who still travel between Lhasa and Namche Bazaar are bringing reassuring verbal messages from those who returned to their friends in Nepal. The messages say that these ex-refugees find themselves a lot better off in present-day Tibet than they ever were in Nepal and that the Chinese, having secured a firm grip on the country, are now relaxing their first savage pressure. Possibly this news simply represents another victory for Chinese propaganda. The Communists badly need more labourers and I remember hearing, about eighteen months ago, of the Lhasa-printed leaflets then being
circulated in India and Nepal, urging the refugees to return to Tibet and guaranteeing them a ‘pardon’ for their flight into exile. Yet it does seem psychologically probable that the Chinese regime is now evolving from its initial fiercely repressive stage, and I can’t help wondering if a return home might not be the happiest solution for many of the Tibetans in Nepal. Whether they are living under the Chinese or in exile it is going to be impossible for them to preserve their ancient religious and social traditions, and in Tibet they would at least enjoy a suitable climate and altitude. I suspect that many Westerners, being unprepared to concede that the Chinese are human beings, would be enraged by this suggestion; yet it does seem a pity to let ideological biases confuse humanitarian issues.

Bicycles are among the main ingredients of Kathmandu traffic, and now I must confess that yesterday I was unfaithful to Roz. I had been advised to buy a bicycle for use in Pokhara (it would of course have to be flown there, as not even a mule-track connects the two valleys), but at first I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the idea, having only seen Indian models here and knowing from previous experience how difficult it is to come to terms with these parodies. Then yesterday morning, while wandering through the bazaar, I spotted a
likely-looking
second-hand Russian cycle, tried it, found it congenial and bought it for £10.16
s
.8
d
. (Leo, a brother for Roz). Leo is sky-blue and at least twice as heavy as Roz, but he is beautifully balanced and very comfortable on rough tracks, with his huge, well-sprung saddle and broad tyres. He has a bewildering multiplicity of accessories. None of my previous cycles sported a mirror, foot-brake, milometer,
toolcase
, carrier, front-wheel dynamo, automatic stand and built-in lock with two keys – in addition to the statutory bell and pump. At present the foot-brake is a menace as I am in the habit of casually back-pedalling when going downhill – but I’ll soon get adjusted; and this is only one of the many hazards of cycling in Kathmandu.

The traffic here is predictably unpredictable; trucks suddenly begin to back on top of you without warning, buses simply pretend you aren’t there, taxis shave your elbow just for the hell of it, brakeless
fellow-cyclists charge you at right angles and jogging porters, carrying pairs of laden baskets on yokes, enjoy abruptly changing course to send their loads swinging into your front wheel. All things considered it seems reasonable to deduce that the Nepalese are a people not yet ‘switched on’ to wheeled traffic; when I ring my bell before overtaking pedestrians, as likely as not they respond to the warning by joyously bounding across the road without looking left or right. Yet another hazard is the umbrella, which at this season is used as a sunshade. Your Nepalese pedestrian, strolling along with a friend, tends to gesture extravagantly with his umbrella just as one is pedalling past and so far these antics have twice unseated me – indeed, were I not wearing sunglasses I’d probably have lost an eye by now.

Today I realised that for cycling very slowly through crowded bazaars a heavy cycle is undoubtedly best. Roz was not built to move at the pace of meandering cattle, and on her slim tyres one has to dismount repeatedly or fall off; but one can sit on Leo when he’s almost stationary, while waiting for the sacred cow and her sacred calf to deign to move out of the way – it’s the difference between taking a cart-horse and a thoroughbred through city streets. Naturally I wouldn’t exchange Roz for half-a-dozen Leos, but in his way he’s sound enough and will keep me happy in Pokhara.

This evening I have a lump like a football on the top of my head; the height of the average Nepalese is five foot three, and local doorways are made accordingly.