The Waiting Land

by Dervla Murphy

At this season cloud hides the Himalayas, and our thirty-five-minute flight to Pokhara was quite tame. As I gazed down at the 4,000- to 8,000-foot hills below us I longed to trek through them instead of merely having a quick, teasing glimpse. Yet this would be a gruelling trek in May, for now the broad, stony riverbeds are mere thirsty trickles and the terraced hillsides a series of dry, brownish undulations, only relieved by the thick green forests that cover the higher ridges. Few villages were visible, for their mud-walled houses blend perfectly with the surrounding earth: but on the highest hills we could see straggling little hamlets set amidst strips of maize, and it was possible to follow for miles the thin connecting thread of porters’ paths, endlessly winding around the mountains.

  We made a perfect landing in this broad valley and stepped down from the plane into a chaos of Nepalese, through which could be glimpsed five conspicuously tall Peace Corps volunteers, struggling through the mob towards their Ambassador and his wife. In every direction swarmed dirty, inquisitive, laughing children, and vigorously-elbowing, barefooted passengers eager to embark for the onward flight to Bhairawa before our cargo had even begun to be unloaded. We were at once surrounded by predatory, dictatorial porters – mainly women, wearing tattered, vivid clothes and heavy, noisy jewels – and by a vast number of interested locals, few of whom have ever flown anywhere or will ever fly anywhere and most of whom have nothing whatever to do with passengers or cargoes. Having disentangled myself from this throng I was at once pursued by a young policeman in creased khaki, armed with a cumbersome ledger in which all arriving foreigners are requested to write down ‘particulars’. For political reasons the country north of Pokhara has recently been made a Restricted Area and one gets the impression that the Government, which only opened its frontiers to foreigners in 1951, would be quite pleased to have an excuse to re-impose restrictions on all tourist travel outside the Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys.

  While I was doing my duty by the ledger a tall, thin Tibetan in European dress came towards us, welcomed me warmly and introduced himself in a mixture of Tibetan and English as Amdo Kessang, the proprietor of The Annapurna Hotel – a new, one-storey, Tibetan-style building which overlooks the airfield from a rise of ground about one hundred yards away. Prayer-flags flutter happily beside the arched gateway and though this establishment is hardly a hotel in our sense of the word, its easy Tibetan friendliness more than compensates for the disadvantages that may strike the passing visitor.

  Kessang next introduced his cousin Chimba, a Lhasa-born trader who has spent some years in India and speaks fluent Chinese, Hindi and Nepali – and adequate English. Chimba is now the Pokhara Refugee Camp interpreter and general dogsbody and it was a relief to have someone to take responsibility for the medical supplies while I went to drink tea with Kessang.

  Twenty minutes later Chimba reappeared and offered to introduce me to Mrs Kay Webb, the infinitely resilient and resourceful English grandmother who has been in sole charge of this camp’s health since last December. For three years Kay worked as doctor-cum-nurse among the thousands of Tibetans in the Mysore settlement and, though she has never had any medical training, apart from a Red Cross course, in certain respects she is the more effective for being untrained; too much conventional knowledge would inhibit one from practising those unorthodox improvisations which are often the only way to achieve results in places like Pokhara.

  It was no more than a ten-minute walk over level common-grazing land to the village of Pardi – a strung-out collection of wood, brick and mud houses situated at the western end of the airstrip. Here Kay lives, on the outskirts of the village, in a two-roomed house with a rickety wooden ‘staircase’, a rat-infested thatched roof and uneven mud floors. She uses the downstairs room as the camp dispensary and upstairs is her bed-sitting-room, where she cooks what little food is available on a tiny oil-stove.

  Kay and I had been talking for less than fifteen minutes when Chimba came rushing back to inform us that the American Ambassador and his wife would like to tour the camp – so we all hurried off down the rough village ‘street’ to that other stretch of level common land where some 500 Tibetans of all ages have been camping since their trek last winter from the northermost part of the Dholpo region of Nepal. Most of these Tibetans belong to the independent nomad tribes who tend flocks of sheep and yak in the Nepalese– Tibetan frontier areas, and they have never been accustomed to discipline or control from any quarter; they do acknowledge some tenuous link with His Holiness as their religious leader, yet they were never within the political sphere of influence of the Lhasa Government or the spiritual sphere of influence of the Potala. In Kathmandu one hears many different versions of the same stories about the intractability of Tibetans in Nepal – depending on the teller’s racial, religious, political, social or personal biases – and it is almost impossible to sift out the truth. But I suspect it is fair to say that in general the Tibetan refugee in Nepal differs considerably from his compatriot in India and is much more difficult to cope with.

  At present these Tibetans are being issued with a weekly ration of US Surplus Food – Bulgar wheat, cotton-seed oil and dried skimmed milk – and they are living in 120 ragged cotton tents; but we hope to provide better shelter for them before the monsoon breaks in mid-June.

  During our tour of the camp I made an impulsive purchase. As we walked between the tents my attention was distracted from what His Excellency had to say by an object lying on the palm of a Tibetan’s hand. The object in question was very small, very black and very vocal; its piercing squeaks fatally attracted me to Ngawang Pema’s side and a moment later I had done a deal and one twelve-day-old Tibetan mongrel bitch was promised to me for all of ten-and-sixpence. I wonder what the astrologists would make of the fact that this pup and I entered Nepal on the same date – the first of May.

  Penjung, the camp leader, had just invited us all to drink tea in his tent when a rainstorm broke and the Ambassador’s Peace Corps escort decided that he and Mrs Stebbins had better be transported at once to the comparatively luxurious Peace Corps house some four miles away in Pokhara Bazaar. So Penjung hurriedly produced a pair of white scarves and draped them around the Stebbinses’ necks before the rattling Tourist Department jeep arrived to rescue the visitors.

  Kay and I then had tea with Penjung and his wife and four daughters. The rain was cascading down both outside and inside their flimsy tent, where we sat cross-legged on filthy bamboo matting while chickens pecked around us, and Penjung’s wife coughed incessantly, and a baby with dysentery whimpered in one corner; yet Tibetans are never as gloomy as their conditions might warrant and my happiness at being back among these people was undiminished by the surrounding squalor.

  When the downpour temporarily ceased we slopped our way back to the village through slippery, ankle-deep mud – and there we found a broken-down jeep, with which two mortified Peace Corps boys were frantically fiddling while the Stebbinses sat on wooden benches in a bazaar-stall, looking blissfully happy. (At the time this happiness seemed to be a brilliant exercise in diplomacy, but later I discovered that both are quite capable of enjoying such misadventures.) Kay immediately invited them to her room, where we talked – above the roar of the wind, the crash of thunder and the rattle of hail – until seven o’clock, by which time it had become evident that the jeep was very severely incapacitated. However, the Stebbinses are unusually adaptable Americans who genuinely love Nepal, having now been here seven years, and they adjusted without difficulty to the prospect of dining and sleeping in The Annapurna. When we had been joined there by four sheepishly apologetic PC boys, Kessang produced a quite elaborate Tibetan banquet – which astonished everyone, for food is scarce at this season and most things have to be imported from India. In the end we had quite a party, enlivened by ambassadorial gin, Nepalese rakshi, Tibetan chang and Irish whiskey – a combination which may reasonably be expected to produce some rather interesting variations on the hangover theme.

  Apart from these PC boys the only o
ther Westerners in the valley are the three medical missionaries in the Leper Colony beyond the airfield, the eight medical missionaries in the Shining Hospital north of the main bazaar and the MacWilliamses, a young New Zealand couple (he is a sheep-breeding expert with FAO) who live on the outskirts of Pokhara Bazaar.

  Before retiring I went out to the field and from there saw a vision of such supreme beauty that momentarily I wondered if it could be real. To the north, under a clear sky and a high-sailing moon, the whole Annapurna range stretched in one massive white tumult and, dominating the range – seemingly dominating the world – was the sharp-peaked, austere and infinitely lovely Machhapuchhare, home of Pokhara’s tutelary deity. One should not try to trap such splendour in mere words, but beneath the moon, in the utter stillness of the valley, all those silver snows burned coldly with an overwhelming, undeniable life and spirit of their own. This silent, vital grandeur almost compelled me to kneel down and worship; and perhaps if no inbred self-consciousness intervened and it were possible to do so I would be all the better for it.

  13 MAY

  I awoke at 5.30 to hear the familiar, soothing hum of Tibetans saying their morning prayers, and when I went to wash at the tap in the field the eastern sky was orange and the sun’s first rays were firing the tip of Machhapuchhare. Then the new light spread rapidly over the entire range, tingeing the snows with nameless colours – to gaze on these mountains almost lifts one off the ground with joy.

  This valley, which lies only 2,500 feet above sea-level, is considerably hotter than Kathmandu. Its population is estimated to be between 12,000 and 15,000, and apart from Kathmandu it is the only level stretch of land north of the Terai. Being at the converging point of most routes from central and west Nepal to India it has a certain importance as a trading centre, yet it does not seem nearly as prosperous as the more fertile Kathmandu Valley.

  From Pardi the valley opens out to the south-east and low foothills are visible in the distance; to the south-west the hills are near and covered with dense green forests, and at their base – a few moments’ walk from Pardi – lies the long, emerald-green lake which gives this valley its name. (Pokhara is the Nepali for lake.) The beauty of the place is incomparable, with sub-tropical vegetation flourishing on every side directly beneath the cold white lines of the snow-peaks, and it is not surprising that the Nepalese hope eventually to develop it into another Kashmir.

  However, on a more practical plane Pokhara does have its disadvantages at present. The prices of obtainable essential commodities are astronomical, and as most supposedly essential commodities are unobtainable at any price one soon learns to regard them as inessential, which is very good for one’s pampered Western soul. Sugar is half-a-crown per pound, tiny eggs are sixpence each (it takes three of them to make what looks like one scrambled Irish egg), small potatoes and onions are fourpence each and no other vegetables or fruit are to be had at this season. Fresh milk, butter, cheese, meat, bread and flour are all unobtainable, so rice, dahl, dried beans and eggs must therefore be our staple diet – and for luxuries we can import from Kathmandu Indian instant coffee of a peculiarly vile variety and stale Indian Cadbury’s chocolate at one-and-sixpence per very small bar. Just now excellent Russian sweetened condensed milk is available in the local bazaar at four shillings per pound tin, and recently good quality Chinese tinned jam was also available; but the supply of these ‘propaganda-type’ goods is very uncertain. Occasionally Kay treats herself to Indian cream-crackers at seven-and-sixpence per pound – a good example of ‘give them cake …’ One feels that the Nepal Tourist Bureau could use this situation as a new advertising gimmick aimed at overweight Westerners – ‘Enjoy the Breathtaking Beauty of Pokhara Valley and Regain Your Figure!’

  Today Chimba told me that I could soon move into a room at the lower end of Pardi Bazaar – for a rent of fifteen shillings per month – so this afternoon I went marketing in the main Pokhara Bazaar. From Pardi the rough track climbs all the way, past neat two- or three-storey Brahmin, Chetri and Gurung homesteads, their ochre walls warm against a freshly-washed background of maize-fields, bamboo-clumps, banana-trees, orange-groves and many other trees and shrubs unknown to me. Everywhere smug black cattle roam free, blatantly conscious of their sacred status and looking a lot healthier than their Indian cousins. It seems lunatic that we have to buy tinned milk from Russia in a valley overrun by herds of healthy cows; but I can see that these cattle are not bred as milkers: their udders are completely undeveloped, so the little fresh milk that is used by the locals must come from buffaloes.

  An hour’s unhurried walking took me to the centre of Pokhara Bazaar, and at once I fell hopelessly in love with the place. Its attraction is not easy to define: one cannot claim that it is especially beautiful, or colourful, or gay, or exotic – but as yet it is utterly itself, a small Nepalese town (or Nepal’s second city, if you wish) where one feels immediately and intimately in touch with an ancient, strong tradition that still determines every action, thought and emotion of the local people. One may be aware that in the course of many centuries much of this tradition has become distorted, and therefore socially damaging; yet the basic stability and tranquillity inherent in such communities – despite the perennial anxieties of debt, disease and political unrest – appeal most powerfully and significantly to our tradition-bereft Western hearts.

  On either side of Pokhara’s ‘Main Street’ stand dignified, three- or four-storey tiled houses, their ground floors open-fronted shops, and from any given point on any of the town’s streets or alleyways at least one dilapidated but much-frequented Hindu shrine is visible. At various corners squat ragged hawkers, with their pathetic stock-in-trade of gaudy Indian glass bracelets, small religious oleographs, bunches of safety-pins, flimsy combs, heavy bead necklaces and sundry other trinkets spread on the dust at their feet; it is to be hoped that they are not dependent on their sales for a living. Then, halfway up the Main Street, one is startled to see the carcass of a large motor-truck. There are now six or seven small Willys jeeps in the valley, but as all vehicles have to be flown in I was fascinated by this remnant of someone’s over-optimism; considering the nature of local tracks and the absence of local mechanics it is not surprising that the truck died young.

  Even by Nepalese standards the surface of the Main Street is incredibly rough: it looks as though it had been torn up by some enraged god who was determined that no one should ever again be able to walk in comfort through the bazaar. And sure enough I was told this evening that it had indeed been deliberately torn up a few years ago, when the local authorities were afflicted by delusions of grandeur and yearned for a ‘with-it’ paved road. However, by the time the previously tolerable track had been turned into this present inferno of boulders and chasms the authorities had recovered from their delusions and lost all interest in paved roads – so the inferno remains.

  At first sight Pokhara Bazaar appears to be quite an impressive shopping centre: but a brief scrutiny reveals that its stock is virtually limited to cloth, cigarettes, matches, pens, electric torches, lanterns, saddlery, kerosene oil, rice, dahl, dried beans, dust-tea, rock-salt, sugar, biscuits and Bournvita at fifteen shillings per quarter pound. I tried to buy a small oil-stove for cooking but none was available so I returned with only two enamel mugs, three little aluminium bowls in lieu of plates, a tiny kettle, a slightly larger saucepan and three teaspoons – all of the most inferior material though they cost me thirty-five shillings.

  Almost everything in the bazaar has come from India (though the rock-salt still comes from Tibet), which perhaps explains why I paid for my purchases by weight. The system by which they were weighed was most intriguing – even foreigners who have lived for years in Nepal can’t begin to comprehend it, though the Nepalese themselves take these proceedings quite seriously. To begin with little shapeless lumps of metal are thrown onto the scales by the handful – and then, if these prove unequal to the occasion, the merchant casually leans forward, without bothering even to uncr
oss his legs, and picking a few stones off the ground throws them, too, on to the scales. But I feel that somewhere there is method in this madness and I have no suspicion of being diddled. Indeed, I was very gratified today when on two occasions merchants handed me back excess rupee notes which I had given them in error because of my ignorance of Nepali. Such gestures do a lot to make one feel at ease in a new environment.

  This evening, at sunset, I went for a swim-cum-wash in the lake, which was too hot to be refreshing, though with the aid of carbolic soap it served to remove sweat and dust. Even by strictly controlling one’s imagination it is impossible to believe this lake to be clean; yet at present it is our only source of drinking-water, so quite a lot of expensive kerosene will be needed to boil the brew before use. It is rather annoying that so many Nepalese favour the edge of the lake as a latrine – obviously because they can then jump straight into the water and combine a swim with the ritual washing enjoined upon Hindus after defecation. But the abundant consequences of this habit diminish even my enthusiasm for swimming. Incidentally, one good result of nomadism is that the camp here has always been kept spotless – providing quite a contrast to the many Tibetan camps in India, which tend soon to become revolting manure-heaps. These Tibetans are so used to the hygiene of camping that even the hobbling grandparents and toddling infants go far over the fields each morning, and every day the whole camp is cleared of litter and swept as clean as a Mayfair street.

  4

  Under Machhapuchhare

  21 MAY – POKHARA

  It is a (long) month today since I left London and I’ve just now moved into my new home, after a week of inexplicable but not unexpected delays. (I reckon that at least half one’s time in Nepal is spent waiting for something to happen that probably won’t happen until tomorrow, or the day after – if ever.) This unfurnished apartment is in a fairly recently-built semi-detached house and it measures some twelve by fifteen feet – very nice too, apart from an excess of rats. Just now a glitter caught my eye, and looking up towards the crude wooden beams that support the flat corrugated-iron roof I thought at first that I was seeing fireflies or glowworms: but then I realised that three monster rats were peering speculatively down at me – no doubt wondering how securely the new tenant would lock away her food supplies.