by Smith, Skye
Five miles further into Nepal they found the hotel that Marique had given her the name of, and the driver pulled up outside. Immediately a line up started to form at the gas station on the corner. The driver laughed and told Nawang something. He translated.
"There is fuel rationing and a major shortage of petrol in Nepal. The townsfolk think that this truck is delivering to their station. They will now line up for hours hoping for their allowed four gallons of petrol."
Maya looked nervously at her pack in the truck, but Nawang waved away her fears and told her, "Go, go and find your friends. We will wait."
She showed a lot of leg stretching it up to the very high curb, and then dashed into the hotel. She was back from the doorway within a minute, reading a letter. She jumped down from the curb and got back into the truck. "They've gone to Katmandu. They are driving some women that work for some organization called Maiti back home."
"Ah, it all makes sense then," Nawang said. "Maiti is a women’s organization that tries to rescue kidnapped Nepali children. Hah, my captain will already be under attack by their representatives in India."
"I don't want to go to Katmandu," Maya made a snap decision. "I need to go to a place called Kaagbeni. Do you know it?"
"Of course. It is north of Jomsom, the other side of Pokhara."
The driver heard the word Pokhara and immediately began to complain. "He says his petrol is for Katmandu and that we must find another ride." The two men argued for a minute. "He has agreed to take us to the big fork in the river where the main road branches up to Katmandu." His next words were obliterated by the crash of gears and the roar of the old diesel.
"No, not yet." Maya pleaded. "The hotel has offered me the use of Marique's room with a shower to get cleaned up in. I need it and so do both of you." She listened as Nawang explained to the truck driver. The driver sniffed his pits and agreed.
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MAYA'S AURA - Goa to Nepal by Skye Smith
Chapter 18 - The Wedding Elephant
The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different. - Mahatma Gandhi
The highway ran through jungle and bush along a plain until it came to a broad river and then it went north following the river into higher and higher land. Nawang sat in the middle on the bench seat and she dozed against his shoulder. On the corners she was jerked awake by the lurch of the truck, and on the straights she was jerked awake by the blast of horns from the minivan-come-buses that were the main traffic other than the slow moving trucks.
Sometimes she would be brave enough to look down into the heightening gorge from a hairpin curve and each time, far below, she would see a skeleton of a vehicle, often a bus, that hadn't made the curve. She would close her eyes tight and try not to think of the tragedy that each bus skeleton marked, and snooze until the next klaxton sounded.
Once when she cried out because they narrowly missed a head-on collision with an overtaking minivan, Nawang calmed her by saying. "Because of the petrol rationing the drivers of Nepal have become much calmer. They drive more calmly so they don't have to use the brakes. Braking is a waste of petrol."
The words did not reassure her on this ever more mountainous road. Great. The drivers are trying not to use their brakes.
She was dozing when they reached the big bridge and the big fork in the road. She just caught sight of a highway sign and realized that the driver had missed his turn to Katmandu. She thought she must be mistaken in her sleepiness, but sure enough, the sign on their road now said Pokhara.
She grabbed her companion's arm, but he shook it off. She looked down. He was holding his wickedly long knife to the side of the driver. He hissed at her urgently. "Shush girl, and pull my jacket back over the knife before we reach the police checkpoint."
"No," she said as she hid the knife. "This isn't necessary. I have money enough. We can flag down a minivan."
"Shush. This gasoline is my present to my cousin's wedding. All the gas gets sent to Katmandu and the farm towns are left with empty tanks. Well, not today. Today my town's gas station will be pumping petrol to encourage everyone to come to the wedding."
He continued talking to the driver in Nepali, and the driver nodded. "I just told him that he would be paid for the petrol by the town's gas station. More, he will be an honored guest at the wedding, and he will be kept warm at night by one of our widows. He has agreed to keep quiet at the checkpoint."
"Then take the knife out of his ribs."
"Once we are through the checkpoint, girl, once we are through the checkpoint."
They needn't have worried about the checkpoint. The corporal in charge was a Gurkha and he nodded and did a token salute to the commando. For his politeness he was invited to the wedding. The truck was waved on. The driver said nothing. In this valley the Gurkhas were all related.
Nawang made a phone call on his cell while they were still close to the cell tower at the crossroads. She went back to dozing between hairpins and minivans. About a half hour later a taxi filled with men lurched out of a side road and pulled in front of them. Another taxi lurched in behind them.
"What are those idiots in the taxis doing?" she called out in a panic.
"The two taxi drivers are cousins of mine," he answered. "They intercepted us to guard us on this stretch of road. It is a very dangerous road for gasoline trucks. The local townsfolk tend to hijack them." He laughed and then translated for the driver and they both laughed until they were breathless and in tears.
With about thirty miles still to go to Pokhara, they turned off the highway at a cross road with a gas station. The driver started to pull into the station but he was told not to and instead crawled up a steep hill in low low gear following a taxi. The taxi led them to a barn-like building and they parked the truck behind it out of sight of the road.
"We won't deliver the gas to the station until tomorrow," explained Nawang, "else the wedding guests will skip the wedding in order to queue for fuel." It was all he had time to say before he was swamped by a flood of people coming out of the big building. They were obviously relatives because they were hugging him and kissing him and shaking his hand.
The driver immediately had a woman on each arm leading him away or awry. Nawang broke loose from the crowd around him to return to help her with her pack, but he needn't have bothered. One of the women had taken Maya in hand and was already yelling orders to some young boys.
"You will celebrate the wedding with us tonight, and tomorrow we will go by taxi to Kaagbeni," he yelled to her retreating form. She was now surrounded by Nepali women who were herding her away from all the men. The men were more interested in swapping stories around the gas truck than what was happening to the ferengi woman.
She was led into a two-storey house. She had to duck through the low doorway, the Nepali standard for door heights being five foot six, not six foot six. Her eyes accustomed to the gloom. There was the bride, all in crimson and gold, as was usual.
The women around her were pulling at Maya's clothing and their meaning was obvious. She could not attend a wedding in clothes covered with road dust and who knows what else. An old woman helped her out of her skirt and tut tutted at some blood stains and nodded and wagged her head wisely and she called out and the skirt disappeared from the main room.
Maya allowed herself to be washed all over, and anointed in perfumed oils that reminded her of growing up with her hippy dippy mother. When it came time to dress her, the bride took charge and yelled orders to her sisters or cousins who disappeared and returned with lengths of willow green fabric with a gold border.
They had just finished wrapping and tucking her up in willow green when a cacophony of sound came in from outside. It was time for the kidnapping. All the women funneled outside with Maya kept close to the bride, and once outside they were surrounded by the married women to save them from the sinful leers of men.
Up the street came a procession led by a band playing variations of clarinets and
drums, in bare feet, and wearing military uniforms not seen since Sergeant Pepper last taught the band to play. The sound was mostly like a Jewish Klezmer band, meaning it was loud and insistent and slightly discordant, but played with lots of energy.
Behind the band was a man riding on an elephant. Not just any elephant, but a very small and weak looking desperado as far as elephants went. Its head and trunk were covered in yellow and crimson dust and it looked completely bored, as if this was its third wedding this week, which it probably was. The man dressed in a suit on his neck was obviously the groom and was completely unsure of himself as he swayed back and forth so high off the ground.
Alongside the elephant walked the groomsmen, all waving their wicked Gurkha knives and yelling challenges to all the bride's men around them. The groom's men and the bride's men fell on each other with such ferocity that for a moment Maya was stunned and fearful, until she realized that these men were such experts with their long knives that no harm was being done.
Eventually the men tired of the mock fight, and got thirsty for more of the homemade chang beer. Finally they took interest in the dazzlingly decorated women of the audience, and the fight broke up and the bride was seized and pushed up to sit behind her groom on the elephant.
Maya was pulled along to follow the procession down the main, the only, street of the town. She soon learned to lift her sari out of the puddles, and to walk on the edges and not in the wake of the elephant who tended to lay down fertilizer in great piles.
The street led along a ridge above the big river valley and between each building there were fantastic views of high Himalayas nestled between glaciers and white clouds. A man in an ill-fitting brown suit grabbed her by the hand and it took her a moment to recognize Nawang without his commando garb.
"Come quickly," he said and pulled her along. "Since we brought the gasoline, we are honored guests. We should be at the front of the procession calming the mother of the abducted bride." When they reached the mother, she did not look in need of calming. Her eyes and mouth, her entire face, was all smiles, and her sun-darkened face crinkled at all the corners in a display of happiness.
Would that the bride and groom were so happy. Sitting high on the swaying neck of the pachyderm, they looked positively green with sea sickness. They held on and held back their sickness as they swayed passed the temple. A temple was, after all, just a building built by mere men. The vows would be taken underneath the gigantic peepul tree just beyond the temple. It was a bodhi tree, a holy tree, decorated by prayer flags. Its great canopy was the cavernous ceiling created by the gods.
The bridal couple was so thankful to be helped down from the elephant that they almost forgot their theatric roles. The vows were taken, and then the procession turned to follow them back to the big building where the gas truck was parked, for the party. They both refused to climb back aboard the giant mammal.
"It's paid for anyway," Nawang said to Maya. "Do you want to ride it with me?" Without waiting for an answer he scrambled up the foot and leg that the elephant was hold out to help with mounting, and once on the neck he reach down and pulled Maya up the same way.
She immediately understood why the bride and groom had seemed so green around the gills. Though it looked like a small elephant from the ground, from its neck the size of the animal was more obvious. Its neck was far higher than the top of any man's head, and that is where they sat, on the neck and shoulders.
In typical animal fashion to check out their scent, the great beast swung its trunk around to smell their feet . She, for it was a she, began to walk, ponderously, following the band, who were still playing frantically and slightly off key. From this height they could see directly into the second story windows of all the houses. Each window was filled with women and children busily showering the procession in the petals of wild rhododendron trees, those gigantic trees that splashed the mountain trails with color in the late spring.
At one point two young girls, perhaps as old as ten, scurried down a metal rooftop and stepped onto the back of the moving elephant and squatted behind Maya. This started a rouse of cheers from all the windows from all the young girls who wished they had been so brave.
The mahout elephant driver pulled the beast to one side before the procession stopped. He had a place all set up with feed and the elephant instantly knew it was meal time and hurried his step, overtaking the mahout for the last ten strides, elephant strides, to the pile of green branches.
Nawang slipped down the shoulder of the great beast and then helped Maya and the two hitchhikers down. The three Nepalis immediately turned to rush towards the party, but Maya stayed beside the beast. She was amazed by it. It seemed to be in such complete control of its own great bulk to the point where little children were not afraid to walk close to it during the procession.
She waved Nawang and the girls on. He had pressing duties at the reception. The Mahout finished chaining one giant leg to the shade tree where the beast's food was piled, and then unexpectedly left her alone with the beast and followed the others to the reception.
After swallowing some fear, she calmed her mind and went to the space in her mind that she had found while tripping on mushrooms. The gentle space that somehow encouraged butterflies to land on her, and birds to hop around her. Carefully she raised her right hand and hovered it just above the thick skin of the beast's long face.
The beast did not mind. She just munched away on leaves and watched the young woman out of one eye. Maya withdrew her hand and prayed to raise her aura and then hovered her hand again. She pulled her hand back in shock.
She had sensed two things. She hovered her hand again to make sure. This elephant had an aura. This elephant was deeply sad. She sensed both again. The elephant had stopped chewing. She dropped her trunk low and moved it through the grass until it was beside Maya's shoes and it took a deep sniff.
Maya didn't know what to do. She decided to do what she would have done to a horse and stroke the upper nose. The elephant allowed it, enjoyed it, and nudged her hand for more when she stopped.
For their few minutes alone together, she hovered her hand over face, and neck, and shoulders. Her aura sensed no disease, just sadness. Eventually the mahout returned with a banana leaf piled with food and stood watching her with his elephant.
"Why is she so sad?" she asked.
The mahout did not reply. He did not have enough English to understand the questions. She tried again, this time with pantomime. This time he understood and put his banana leaf down well out of reach of the beast and fished inside his shirt for something. He showed her a dirty and cracked photo. It was of this elephant and a baby one. He pointed to the baby and pantomimed a slit throat.
"How sad, I'm so sorry," she said to the great beast. She was sure the elephant blinked and nodded in understanding. The mahout had picked his food up again and was gesturing her to go and get some. She stroked the nose again, and bowed her leave to the great beast and scurried away with tears in her eyes.
The street was now blocked by many rowdy men drinking free chang beer from a great vat. There were no other women in the crowd, so she retreated and went the back way to reach the reception. She waved at the two men sitting guard at the still full gasoline truck. Neither were the driver, but she recognized both of them from the taxis that had escorted them here.
As she entered the reception and took off her sunglasses, she had her reservations about the food she was seeing people eat. In India she had refused their wonderful hospitality with diet excuses because she did not like to share common bowls. Even at home she would eat sparingly and carefully at pot lucks.
Her fears of getting sick from uncleanliness, bad water, flies, under cooking, and communal fingers were out of place in a Gurkha village. There were no communal serving bowls, no sweets covered in flies, no double-dipped dirty digits. The food was being served hot from gigantic woks and tubs that were steaming over gas burners and attended by a crew of very efficient women with their long bra
ided hair tied up and covered.
After a quick application of hand sanitizer to her own hands and her own spoon, she joined the line of people being handed banana leaves by one of the women who had helped her to dress. Maya, as a woman and a special guest, was immediately pulled out of the queue that was mostly men, and was pushed forward by all around her to the front to be served immediately.
The food was plain but tasty. It was mostly recipes of rice or barley or beans or lentils or potatoes. Most dishes were too spicy for her and she needed to mix them with copious quantities of white rice to be able to eat. That is, until she discovered the young girls doling out chutney. Fresh chutney made from the varieties of fruits and vegetables of the valleys around them. Her favorite was apricot, that is, after the green mango and green pear.
She tried all the types of home made beers, which were thick and sweet and frothy, and then was introduced to the local rakshi, which could have been used instead of gasoline. Luckily there was bottled water. There was also dancing, though no mixed sex dancing.
Between dancing with the young women in the heat, and drinking water to cool herself, she eventually worked off much of the alcohol and stepped outside to breath the cool and refreshing air.
The street scene had become a drunk for all the men who were not part of either wedding party. More and more the party was separating by sex. Women and children inside, men outside. She was shocked that it was already night, a night lit by weak electrical bulbs and smoking torches.
The company outside was drunk, unruly and slobbering. Inside was hot and noisy and smelled of cooking and crowds. Time for some more elephant company, she thought. Again she routed herself the back way, away from the rowdy men of main street. She had a mug of spiked chang with her and decided to give it to the guards at the truck.
No one seemed to be guarding the truck now, or at least not that she could see. She wondered if they were leaning against it on the other side. Rather than walk all the way around on dark and unfamiliar ground, she ducked her head low to see if she could spot any legs on the other side by looking under the truck.
