by Jamie Zeppa
“I don’t want to go home at Christmas,” I say suddenly.
“So don’t go,” Tony shrugs, adjusting his lens. He is trying to get a shot of Gangkhar Puensoom, the highest mountain in Bhutan.
Don’t go. But if I don’t go home at Christmas, that will be the end of my relationship with Robert. There will be no way to reconnect after two years.
Exactly, says another voice. It’s not that you don’t want to go home at Christmas ...
Everything about my relationship with Robert, in fact everything about the life I left behind, seems small and narrow in comparison with where I am now. Everything I imagine in that life is repulsive to me: a house in an affordable suburb, a car that I will hate because it is too big, sprinklers keeping the lawn green in the summer while we sit in air-conditioned rooms inside, sealed off from the elements, safe and smug. Part of me knows this is unfair to Robert but the rest of me doesn’t want to hear it. I can see only what I have now, this view, and the dark, bright world below, with its stories of kings and curses and guardian deities, flying tigers and thunder dragons, religious scrolls hidden in rocks and valleys hidden in mountains by magic or Buddhism or both, and yetis and ghosts and the levitating lama in the temple on the ridge the sun rises over each morning, and all the places I haven’t been to, and the stories I haven’t yet heard, all the things I haven’t figured out, like the Situation. Even with the Situation, and the frustration of being in it but apart from it, and the whispers and fear, I want to stay. I can’t go home yet.
The sun begins to set, and a few stars chisel their way out of the pale sky. “It’s only an hour down,” Tony says, but by now we know what this means. We finish the last of our water and chocolate and follow Tony along a tenuous muddy track through dense bamboo. The shadows around us thicken, and Tony urges us to hurry. “This trail breaks off at some point, and if we take the wrong path, we’ll end up in a nightmare of a bamboo forest above Khaling with no way down.”
We hurry but the bamboo does not thin out, and the trail grows steadily worse. I am so tired I want to cry. We have been walking since seven this morning. The track is now the merest memory of a path. I know we are lost, and I know it is superstitious and silly but it is all because of that piece of paper I was tempted to leave at the lake. Tony stops abruptly. “I think we’re lost,” he says. “We should be able to see the lights of Khaling by now.” It is completely dark, and we have one slim flashlight between the four of us.
I explain about the piece of paper. The others listen without comment, but Tony says, “That is just about the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
Then we notice a lustrous sheen low in the sky, the rising moon. The light grows brighter and the moon appears, rising quickly, a full pretty silver face, rising higher and higher, throwing down armfuls of light. We walk single file along the path, which climbs out of the mire and joins another wider trail. When we come to the long edge of a dry grassy slope, I sit and slide down the hill, toward the steady yellow lights of Khaling.
Back in Kanglung, I sit on my doorstep, looking at Brangzung-La. A chill lays over the campus now until the sun is quite high above the ridge. More green has seeped out of the fields and hills, and outside my door, one cold white lily opens amidst the burnished marigolds.
I have just written two letters. One is a message for the field office in Thimphu, canceling my flight reservations. The other is a long, winding letter to Robert, full of my love for Bhutan, if he could only understand, I just cannot come home, and I cannot marry him because Bhutan has changed me, and I don’t want the same things anymore. I add apologies and excuses, secondary reasons and supporting material, sign it and seal the envelope. I take it straight to the post office before I can change my mind.
Winter Break
The days in December are thin, empty, short. The students have left for the winter vacation, returning to their homes across the country, and the college bus took the Indian staff, including Shakuntala, to the nearest Indian town several days ago. The college will not reopen until February. After one year of service, the WUSC field office in Thimphu gives us a travel grant for a holiday in the region; I will go to Thimphu with the other Canadian teachers when their teaching terms finish next week, and decide where to spend the winter.
I sweep the floors, sort through clothes, preparing to go, and in the evenings, huddle in front of an electric heater that throws as much warmth as a Bic lighter. The staff houses were designed for India, with concrete ledges fixed above the windows to keep out the scorching sun, and a breezeway in the back hall to let in monsoon-cooled wind. I wish for a traditional Bhutanese house, with thick mud and stone walls against the cold.
When the power goes out, as it frequently does, I go to bed. Sometimes, I am in bed for the night at six p.m., under two woolen blankets, a sleeping bag and quilt, and all of my kiras. I cannot move, but finally I am warm.
I pack a rucksack for the winter holiday, and then repack, getting rid of all the extras in case of this, in case of that. I think of all those things I brought with me from Canada, my bags stuffed with things I didn’t actually need. I could not have learned this freedom in Canada. But the feeling of lightness is counterbalanced by the worry that sits in my stomach. Several southern students swore they would not come back to the college in the spring because of the Problem, and some northerners went around boasting about what they would do if “these people” try anything. People do not become “we” and “they” overnight. This is a problem with a history behind it, and I feel desperate to understand it.
In my last days, I flip through old Kuensels and history books, hoping to find the missing pieces. Nepali immigration into Bhutan began as early as the end of the last century when laborers from the lowlands were recruited for timber and stone extraction; the laborers eventually cleared plots of land in the malaria-infested jungles of the south and settled there. Similar patterns of migration were occurring throughout northeast India, especially in Sikkim, where the British tea plantations and roads offered plenty of jobs. According to Nari Rustomji’s Sikkim: A Himalayan Tragedy, the immigrants were an energetic group, hungry for land and extremely mobile. Because there was plenty of land, however, the indigenous tribal Lepchas, and the Bhutias of Tibetan origin, did not feel threatened, even when the immigrant population began to grow. “The Nepalese made no attempt to assimilate themselves with the inhabitants of their host country. Due to the rigidities of the Hindu caste system, they could not inter-marry freely with the Lepchas and Bhutias.... Few Nepalese cared to learn the languages of the land....” Under the Buddhist monarchy, which had been established in 1641, the Nepalese felt they were being treated as second-class citizens; though they were now a majority, they were not in a position to aspire to the true political power under the existing system. Their calls for democracy in the 1960s and 1970s were an attempt to establish a government that would reflect the demographic balance and promote their own interests. Relations between India and China were still tense, and increasing political unrest gave India the opportunity to absorb the kingdom under the “sensitive border area” excuse. In 1975, the 334-year rule of the Sikkimese Buddhist kings came to an end.
In Bhutan, the 1958 Citizenship Act gave citizenship to anyone who had lived in Bhutan for at least ten years and owned land. With the implementation of the country’s first economic development plan in 1962, there was plenty of work to be found building roads, schools and hospitals, and Nepali immigrants continued to move into the country. Integration did not seem to be a concern; apparently, travel to northern Bhutan was restricted for the southern Bhutanese until sometime in the 1970s. South was south, north was north.
The south became an issue in 1988, when census records indicated a disproportionate increase in the population in the southern districts. In the neighboring Indian states of Meghalaya and Assam, Nepali immigrants were being evicted. No room, no room, the state governments insisted. Go back home. We can’t help it if there is no room for you there either
. You are not our problem. At the same time, the Gorkha National Liberation Front in Darjeeling began calling for the establishment of Gorkhaland, which would spread across northeastern India, including parts of southern Bhutan.
A new exhaustive census was ordered, and local officials in the south were accused of allowing large numbers of illegal immigrants to enter Bhutan and register themselves as Bhutanese citizens. There was mention of unhappiness and dissatisfaction felt in the south over the harshness with which the census was being conducted, but these feelings were put down to rumors.
I don’t know if I am any closer to understanding the Situation. I can see why Bhutan, living in the dark shadow of an annexed Sikkim and Tibet, must be concerned about demographics and sovereignty. But I can also see why the southern Bhutanese feel harassed and afraid. I close up the history books. The historical backdrop does nothing to alleviate the anxiety I feel for my individual students. If anything, it makes it worse.
On my last day, I lock up my house and take my rucksack to the college gate to wait for the vehicle. At Pala’s, Amala calls me over. Her short straight hair is wrapped around pink sponge curlers, and she is carrying a trowel and a bucket of wet cement to repair a wall at the back of the restaurant. I have just eaten lunch, but she insists on feeding me again, and we drink tea out of shot glasses and talk about Amala’s plans for the winter. She will go to her ancestral home, in Sakteng, on the eastern border of Bhutan, where her late father was once a high lama. His reincarnation has not been found, and his temple and house in Sakteng stand empty, except for a caretaker.
“Listen,” Amala says. “Vehicle.” It is my ride, a hi-lux packed full of Tony and Leon and several of their students. I thank Amala and climb in. Amala waves her trowel at me, and I begin the reverse journey, back across the country to Thimphu.
We arrive three days later, turning a corner in the dark to see the net of lights spread out in the valley below. “But it’s enormous,” Sasha says, and Lorna breaks into a chorus of “New York, New York.”
We spend several bewildering days in the capital sorting out travel plans and visas, stumbling along the main road alarmed at the traffic and the number of streets, surprised by our sudden anonymity in shops and restaurants, feeling shabby in our monsoon-streaked, sun-bleached clothes. Our field director takes us for lunch at the elegant Druk Hotel, and we giggle and fiddle with the silverware and knock over the salt and pepper shakers. Hefty expatriate consultants in dark suits and polished shoes raise their eyebrows at us. The shops are full of so many things: paper clips, wall clocks, air freshener, plastic coasters shaped like fish. There are three video shops on the main road now, and “Fancy Shop” sells greeting cards and black high-top trainers.
A poster in a travel agency announces that Bhutan is the Last Shangri-La. There seem to be more tourists in Thimphu this winter, and we scoff at their heavy camcorders and expensive travel clothes. Thinking about it later, I hear the ugly, arrogant tone in our voices. Ugh—foreigners’ As if we were not. Bhutan is so difficult to get into, such an unusual and desirable location, that I have become swollen with pride, as if my being in Bhutan were a great personal achievement and not simply a matter of luck. It is one of the dangers of being associated with Bhutan. At first you cannot believe your good fortune, and then you begin to think it has something to do with you. Look at me, look where I am! Bhutan is special, and I am in Bhutan, therefore I must be special too. Travel should make us more humble, not more proud. We are all tourists, I think. Whether we stay for two weeks or two years, we are still outsiders, passing through.
We hear the story behind the British teachers who fled. They not only fled, they contacted Amnesty International, and their involvement, we are told, was viewed “most seriously” by the government. Aid agencies were reminded that it is strictly forbidden for foreigners to become involved in Bhutanese politics. I tell the field director about the videotape at the college gate. He makes notes grimly and says he will have to make inquiries. He reminds us to do nothing and say nothing and stay out of it. “We all came within centimeters of getting turfed out,” he says. Even he seems infected with the Fear of Talk. “Don’t ask questions and don’t discuss it with the Bhutanese,” he tells us, lowering his voice and glancing over his shoulder. In another context, it would seem laughable, a spy-novel spoof. No one is laughing, though, as we whisper nervously about upheaval and ethnic conflict in the Last Shangri-La.
Leon, Tony, Lorna and several others go to Thailand for the winter, and they urge me to come along. I want to see Nepal, though, and fly to Kathmandu with Jane from Tsebar. From there, we travel overland to Delhi. Northern India is exhausting. Along the way we are stared at, glared at, honked at, swerved around, groped, grabbed, pinched, poked, fondled, bullied, propositioned, lied to, proposed to, and sang to. It is a relief when we finally reach Shakuntala’s book-lined flat in Delhi. Jane returns to England, and I continue on alone to Kovalum Beach in Kerala, where I spend my days swimming and reading and walking from one end of the beach to the other, eating yogurt, fish, pineapples and coconut. The three-day train journey back to northern India is warm and intimate. We pass through cool morning forests, hot midday plains and hills turning purple in evening shadows, and the Indian families in the compartment share their food with me, aloo dum and paratha and an assortment of homemade pickles, sweet basmati rice and chickpeas in tangy sauce. I have nothing to offer in return, but buy fruit drinks and ice cream for the kids, and we make stars and boats and flowers out of the back pages of my journal.
By the time I reach Calcutta, I am longing to see the mountains again. All winter, my thoughts have never been far from Bhutan. The bus from Calcutta to Phuntsholing barrels over a deeply gouged and rutted highway. The air becomes suddenly cooler, and I look up: ahead, without a prologue of knolls or hills, the mountains rise straight up. I feel a familiar surge of happiness. I am back home.
Involvement
And if you hit upon the idea that this or
that country is safe, prosperous, or
fortunate, give it up, my friend... for you
ought to know that the world is ablaze with
the fires of some faults or others. There is
certain to be some suffering... and a
wholly fortunate country does not exist
anywhere. Whether it be excessive cold or
heat, sickness or danger, something always
afflicts people everywhere; no safe refuge
can thus be found in the world.
—Buddhist Scriptures
We the Lecturers
The college is awash in mid-morning sunlight when I step off the Comet from Tashigang. I unlock my house and fling open all the windows. Mrs. Chatterji calls down to me, asking about my trip to India. She is very beautiful, with large brown eyes and pale skin and a fall of straight dark hair. Over her flowery sari, she wears two thick handknit sweaters against the cold, but when I suggest that she comes out into the sun, she shakes her head. “Bad for the complexion,” she says, and points to the broom in my hand. “So today you are doing spring cleaning?” Actually, I was only going to sweep off the front step so that I could sit on it, but I nod. After living below her for six months, I know that housework is her entire day. She begins as soon as her husband leaves for class in the morning—sweep the floors, beat the rugs, tend the garden, do the laundry, cook the meals, wash the dishes. “She needs a child,” Mrs. Matthew once whispered to me.
“Or a job,” I whispered back. Mrs. Chatterji has a master’s degree, but when I asked Mr. Chatterji why she didn’t teach, he laughed. “My wife does not have to work. She is happy at home.” But I do not believe it. In the late afternoon, waiting for her husband to return, she descends the stairs and paces back and forth along one wall of the house. I have never seen her go farther than this by herself, and I cannot imagine how long that stretch of time is between the last thing cleaned and folded and put away and the sound of her husband’s footsteps on the stairs.
I change the subject. “It’s so quiet without the students, isn’t it?”
“Quiet is good,” Mr. Matthew says. “You know, we were talking about you just before our winter holidays.”
“Who was?”
“We, the lecturers. You are becoming too familiar with the students. This is not good. They will be taking advantage.”
“I haven’t had any—”
“You must not lower yourself to their level. You are a lecturer, not one of them, isn’t it. Lecturers cannot be friendly with the students.”
“It’s all right, really—”
“No,” he says. “It is not all right. I hope you will improve yourself this year.”
I sit in the sun on my front step all afternoon, reading and drinking in the view, and in the evening go out to the tap in the backyard to wash my journey-stained clothes. Mrs. Matthew stops on her way upstairs. “Washing your clothes at night?” She is aghast.
“It was too nice a day to do laundry,” I say.
“In the dark?” She goes clucking loudly up the stairs to her apartment, where she and Mr. Matthew will discuss the errors of my ways, and they will be legion.
