The Waiting Land (5 page)

Afterwards I went to sit among a group of Newari women halfway up a flight of temple steps. Within this ancient square were only mellow brick dwellings, semi-ruined pagoda-style temples, their roofs grass-grown, time-damaged shrines of obscure significance, and ornate, sunken baths, where water came gushing from the mouths of brass serpents into the pitchers of local housewives, who then pushed home through the crowd balancing their gleaming pitchers on their hips. By now the sun was just above the curly-tiled roofs, the golden light was soft and one could sense an increasing excitement. With every moment the crowd grew denser and more colourful, and as the women thronged to Machendranath with their handfuls of rice they seemed to create a splendid tidal wave that was tinted red and black, and green and blue, and gold and white.

When at last the auspicious moment came for the chariots to be drawn forward, and their uneven wheels began to roll slowly over the bumpy ground, I was horrified to see the towers’ incrustations of small boys remaining defiantly in position. Fortunately others shared
my horror, and after a few moments the boys obediently detached themselves and leaped into the crowd.

It now looked as though all the men, women and children of the valley were cramming the narrow streets, filling the overhanging balconies and straddling the roof-tops. Yet as Sigrid and I were directly behind the chariots we could see every detail, including the
creamy-coloured
, bushy yaks’ tails with which Machendranath’s Brahmin attendant was being fanned by his acolytes. The extraordinary technique of moving these colossal contraptions through narrow laneways is to attach to each shaft two steel ropes about one hundred feet long, at which scores of men pull and pull, as in a tug-of-war – though facing away from the god – while a drum and cymbal band plays encouragingly beside them, accompanying that curious chant which the men shout in unison before each straining heave on the rope. When at last the chariot has been induced to progress some twenty or thirty yards (it never gets further without a pause) the whole crowd cheers wildly, and Sigrid and I had by now become so involved that we too yelled triumphantly as the cumbersome float groaningly moved forward. Then, as the floats proceeded on their crazy but curiously dignified way, some hundred yards apart, we noticed with alarm that the front ‘tower’ was becoming more and more unsteady, until it seemed quite likely to go toppling homicidally forward into the crowd. But apparently this threat was familiar, as four men now climbed halfway up the swaying superstructure, from where they released two more ropes, throwing them out behind the float. Another army of men at once manned these and, by hanging on desperately, managed to keep the tower on a comparatively even keel, though the braking effect of this precaution made progress even more difficult.

Now we looked back towards the other chariot and saw that it too was in trouble, of a different sort. One of the gigantic wheels had stuck in a pond of that gluey black mud which is among Kathmandu’s specialities and all the efforts of its team of draught-humans were being of no avail. We began to force our way back to see how this problem would be dealt with, but then our attention was violently recalled to the first chariot, and now we really were alarmed. Here the
ground sloped slightly downwards for some fifty yards, and the chariot, suddenly becoming unnaturally frisky, was pulling the men on the brake-ropes so strongly that they had to run, while the men in front had panicked a little and were plunging into the crowd on either side. A few people fell and were trampled on slightly, but happily the slope levelled out – or Machendranath relented – before this panic spread. I hate to think what a real panic would have meant; as it was we were being pushed around fairly roughly – not out of any discourtesy, but through sheer necessity – and I felt truly
in
Nepal as I was carried along by that compact mass of sweaty little bodies, all shouting and laughing and pushing and shoving and praying and enjoying.

The god’s tour, begun in warm, golden sunlight, ended by the
cloud-filtered
light of a half-moon. Now tiny lamps were being hung outside each unglazed window to honour the passing god, and we could see into first-floor living-rooms where lanterns, hanging from low rafters, illuminated the little shrine-niches set into the walls. Each finely carved balcony was crammed with exuberant family groups, looking down in comfort on the seething gaiety and fervour in the street and throwing their offerings of rice towards the chariot as it drew level.

When Machendranath had reached his resting place for the night – another temple-filled square – the crowd thinned out, and Sigrid and I returned to investigate the second chariot’s situation. We saw at once that it was hopeless: no amount of heaving was going to dislodge the float from its mud-trap, and Donbahadur told us that the astrologers were being severely criticised for having miscalculated the most auspicious moment to begin the procession. He added that perhaps tomorrow a lorry would come to tow the chariot to its companion – a possibility which saddened me, as it seemed to foreshadow the day when the gods would succumb to motor transport.

This morning I paid my third visit to the Swiss-run Tibetan camp here at Jawalkhel, where about four hundred refugees live in
one-roomed
mud huts roofed with straw. Most of the adults are employed in the Self-Help Handicraft Centre where they make – mainly for export to the West – carpets, coats, sweaters and boots in modified versions of the traditional Tibetan style. Both adults and children appear to be in reasonably good health, despite this relatively low altitude of 4,500 feet, and it does one good to see the families still united, instead of being split up as so often happens in India.  

Yet it is becoming obvious to me that all is not well in this Nepalese province of Tibland. Since my arrival I have repeatedly noticed how uneasy is the relationship between helpers and helped – and indeed I had some forewarning of this last month in Dharamsala, where I met hundreds of Tibetans who had recently, and illegally, crossed the frontier from Nepal because of extreme dissatisfaction with conditions here. It seems clear enough that some of their grievances are genuine and that the various relief agencies operating in Nepal have not always avoided those pitfalls which everywhere await workers among the Tibetans. But unfortunately it is equally clear that a ‘taking-help-
for-granted
’ attitude is now being developed by many Tibetan leaders, in direct opposition to His Holiness’s strongly-expressed wish that the refugees should strive increasingly for independence. One finds among these leaders a spoiled-child petulance if they don’t always get what they want – though often their demands are quite unreasonable – and this development is something I foresaw and dreaded more than a year ago. Such an attitude was no part of the Tibland scene as I knew it in India, yet it did seem likely to evolve as a result of the pampering policies adopted by so many relief agencies, and of the deep affection and admiration which the ordinary refugee inspires in his Western helpers – including myself. It was inevitable that the totally unsophisticated Tibetans would eventually be to some extent demoralised by our well-meant but ill-judged mixture of lavishness
and adulation; so now we are finding it necessary to use clumsily harsh methods in an attempt to remedy our own mistakes, much as a badly brought-up child might be sent by despairing parents to an extra-strict school. And – understandably – the Tibetans don’t quite know what this is all about.

At the Handicraft Centre I met an English-speaking Tibetan youth whom I’d known in India, and after lunch he borrowed a bicycle to accompany me to Bodhanath as my interpreter on an official visit to the Tibetan monastery there. Bodhanath is four miles east of Kathmandu and we stopped for a few moments
en route
, on finding ourselves outside the Pashupatinath Temple – a site which rivals Benares as a place of Hindu pilgrimage. My copy of
Nepal in a Nutshell
had informed me that ‘only Hindus are allowed to go inside the courtyard of the Temple’, so we stood and stared from the arched entrance at the giant statue of the Golden Bull, who naturally has his back turned on non-Hindus, giving them a splendid view of his
world-famous
behind – which displays such disproportionately massive testicles that one is tempted irreverently to diagnose mumps. Just to test Pasang’s reaction I innocently asked if Christians were allowed to enter Buddhist temples, and looking deeply shocked he said, ‘Of course!
Anyone
can enter our temples!’ He then asked the man who sat outside the gate, in charge of worshippers’ shoes, if Buddhists could enter this Temple: and in defiance of my little guidebook, but in harmony with the liberal traditions of Nepal, the reply was, ‘Yes, but only Tibetan Buddhists. Not Chinese’ – which seemed to me a very revealing confusion of politics with theology. I rather like the idea that we Westerners, so often condescending, should occasionally be slapped down by Hindu prejudices; yet there seems to be a flat contradiction between the Hindu philosophers’ teaching on the Oneness of the Universe and this priestly ban on non-Hindus entering certain temples.

The Bodhanath stupa – on which are painted four pairs of enormous eyes, gazing gravely in the four cardinal directions – is one of the highest Buddhist stupas in the world; one sees it first from afar, across the flat fields, and unlike most religious buildings here it is freshly painted and in good repair. Pasang told me that it is more than 2,000 years old;
but one keeps an open mind on the dates, measurements and general statistics quoted by either Tibetans or Nepalese – though this date may well be accurate enough, since Professor Tucci thinks it possible that Nepal formed part of Asoka’s empire in the third century
BC
.

Bodhanath is now chiefly associated in foreign minds with the rich and influential Chine Lama, a prominent character who is sometimes erroneously described as the Dalai Lama’s representative in Nepal – a position that in fact is held at present by a Khampa layman named Sergay. I can think of no two men who are less alike than the Dalai and Chine Lamas; yet foreigners accept him as a bona fide example of a Tibetan lama – which error might be funny were it not so unfair to many thousands of genuine lamas. As Pasang and I cycled towards the monastery around the base of the stupa, past scores of giant copper prayer-wheels set in the circular wall, we saw a Tourist Office
minibus
decanting some dozen wide-eyed visitors outside the Chine Lama’s house. Pasang then asked me if I too would like to meet him; but I declined with thanks.

The Bodhanath Tibetan monastery was built about thirty years ago and now houses some forty monks and lamas, ranging in age from a charming sixty-five-year-old Rimpoche to several Incarnate Lamas of eight or nine, who when we arrived were happily scampering around the courtyard in their long, ragged maroon robes. I visited the temple first, with some excitement, being conscious that it was the nearest I’m ever likely to get to a genuine Tibetan temple of the traditional style. And indeed it was as genuinely Tibetan as could be – filthy and magnificent and untidy and awe-inspiring, with gross, ferocious effigies of gods and goddesses lurking in the gloom, swathed in ceremonial white scarves and presiding over the hundreds of
tormas
and wispily luminous butterlamps that had been laid before them. The monks’ praying-seats lined the aisle in front of the ‘High Altar’, facing each other. Some had incongruous tins labelled Farex Baby Food or Andrews’ Liver Salts beside them, containing roasted flour for making that
tsampa
on which the monks somehow survive during their long chantings from the scriptures – and when there are a hundred and eight thick tomes to be chanted aloud quite a lot of flour must be required.

Each member of this community has his own cell, and from the temple Pasang and I were conducted to the Rimpoche’s quarters – a tiny cupboard of a room, some ten feet by four, with a plank bed, one thin blanket and a miniature shrine where eleven butter-lamps burned before a picture of the Lord Buddha. Here we each consumed five cups of heavily buttered tea – a smiling young lama stood beside us throughout with poised kettle – and reluctantly ate the damp but very expensive Indian biscuits which, despite this monastery’s evident poverty, were produced from a tin trunk under the bed.

Here one soon sensed a concentration of all that is best in Tibetan Buddhism – simple, ardent piety, cheerful courage, gentleness, instinctive courtesy and a quick sense of fun. Then, as we talked with the Rimpoche and the four other lamas who had squeezed into his cell, I became painfully aware that now I was glimpsing part of the last act in the drama of a civilisation’s history. By the time the young Incarnate Lamas of this community have grown to manhood only a shell will be left of that unique tradition which bred them.

Among the friends I’ve made here during the past ten days is a
nine-year
-old schoolboy with one of those beautiful young faces that misleadingly denote an extreme degree of virtue. He is a pupil at St Xavier’s College, the big boys’ school run by American Jesuits for Nepalese students, and he speaks quite fluent English – as do an astonishing number of middle-class youths in the valley. I first met Rambahadur outside the GPO, where he loiters daily to contact his clients – those foreigners who wish to change money or travellers’ cheques on the black market. He came sauntering up to me and said – naturally out of the corner of his mouth – ‘Want to change?’ and when I replied ‘Yes, but not today’, he took my hand in his, showing a touching childishness rather at variance with his spare-time profession, and off we went to have a cup of tea together and make mutually convenient arrangements. At his age the ability to conduct shrewd financial transactions has a certain charm, and the necessity to do so a certain poignancy; we quickly became friends when I noticed that he
was not a scrounger, but simply worked to earn honest, if illegal, commission, and I arranged to meet him this morning to cash a £50 cheque. However, when I arrived at our New Road rendezvous I found not only Rambahadur but
four
others – two men and two youths – all waiting to capture my custom. Rambahadur looked small, forlorn and scared; but he was evidently going to stand his ground like a good little Gurkha and secretly I had no intention of deserting him. Yet this was my chance to hold an auction and secure a better rate, so I played the five off against each other until, in desperation, Rambahadur promised me Rs. 32/-N.C. to the pound. One of the men (a nasty-looking character) said that he too could get me Rs. 32/- and when I shook my head and held out my hand to Rambahadur the boy was at once knocked into the gutter by a savage blow from his rival. At this I lost my temper and gave the bully a box on the ear, whereupon all four vanished, leaving me to retrieve a sobbing Rambahadur from the gutter. And before my business could be transacted the negotiator had to be consoled and cuddled and mopped up. This incident struck me as typically Eastern: at one moment Rambahadur was a tough man-of-the-underworld, all set to do nefarious deeds down a back-alley, and the next moment he was sobbing in my arms, a big baby with a painful shoulder.