The Power of Kolkata

Arriving back in Kolkata! I am so excited that I am actually shaking. The train pulls into Sealdah station. The station where I worked for two months. I wish goodbye to the smartly dressed men I shared the cabin with as I pick up the plastic bag of full of food which I have collected from the journey. The latest conversation we had gives a bitter taste to my words of farewell. Intrigued about my work in Kolkata, the smartly dressed men were all quick to blame poverty on 'laziness' rather than as a feature of the society they are so proud of. I have found this defensive reaction to be common among a certain class of Indian men. Well educated, well travelled and wealthy many are eager to share their experiences of the world with me, with conversations having a distinct but subtle tone of nationalism. Whenever I am asked about my 'work' in Kolkata, I am weary about my reply, knowing that most times it will bring a change in the tone of the conversation. Back in the rush of Sealdah station, I nip over to the slum area which hugs the north entrance. I offer the bag of left over luxury train food to a half naked and severely disabled homeless man. He smiles and nods in acceptance. I untie the bag for him and lay it on the mud, at his feet. I wonder again how my travel companions can blame the thousands of cases of destitution on laziness? Meanwhile, the survival capacity of the disabled within this Street State of War amazes me.

The taxi journey back to the tourist area of Sudder Street was as quick as it was overpriced, but I was too tired and too excited to complain. The taxi pulled up in front of Hotel Modern Lodge; the hotel which is anything but 'modern' and guarded by the 'Old Man' who seems to be a more permanent fixture of the place than the building itself.

Modern Lodge is situated at the corner where The Man Outside sleeps. I smile as I see The Man Outside standing in the middle of the road, still shrouded by his blue blanket, still bowing down to touch the feet of passing tourists and still smiling through his mumblings. I shout 'Hello' to him, and he replies by stepping over to show me a picture that he has torn out of a newspaper. I think about my adventures of the past four months as I have traveled across the north of India, met hundreds of different people and lived an entire rainbow of experiences. The Man Outside has lived on Sudder Street for over ten years. As we come and go, traveling and exploring, he continues to live within his own reality. A Happy Hard place, connected through these bizarre interactions and routinised through handouts with the same road corner for a bed.

Within minutes I feel as if I have never left. I feel as if I am back 'home' in this mix of lives and energy known as 'Kolkata'. I leave my bags and walk towards my favorite road leading to Shishu Bhavan.

I pass another Old Man, who rather the guarding the entrance to a guest house, marks the same patch of pavement: waiting to collect dropped coins, be it day and night. Despite the absence of the summer sun he is still wearing his large framed sixties style sunglasses and is sitting i- like a statue - in the middle of the parked taxis. The pavement is covered in piles of mud as men wearing the uniform blue tartan lungis work to place a large black pipe under the pavement. Nevertheless, motorbikes filled with families of young men and boys continue regardless, driving over the pipe as the workers try to lift it off the ground.

The mosque in the middle of the street of butchers is busy with smartly dressed young men rushing inside and out. The atmosphere is festive, and it soon becomes clear that there is a wedding procession intermingled with the daily activities of shoppers, who are buying their fresh cuts of goat and mutton meat.

A pack of puppies hungrily tear apart a discarded animal skull, as they trample through a pile of street rubbish. Their little pattering paws stained red. Queues of men form around the chai and mithi shops, as boxes of sweets are expertly packed and shots of chai exchanged for a few rupees.

Arriving at the orphanage was strange: A place which I had thought and spoken so much about during my travels and yet a place which seemed stuck inside a time warp. The faces of the volunteers had changed, but the faces of the children and the Indian mashis were the same. My eyes searched for Gita, and found her sitting on a chair rocking backwards and forwards in time to the loud sounds of Christmas carols blaring out of the speakers.

She is taller. Her hair is longer but still as lice filled as ever. I took her hand, and she responded by standing up. I wanted to tell her it that it was Me. That I was back to play, to explore and to laugh with her again, but how to communicate when words are still a confusion of sounds? Besides, why should I be important to her within her life of confinement and twice daily constant stream of Other volunteers?

I try to fulfill my desire to be recognised by singing her favorite songs: I start with Indiana Jones and swing her around and spin her around until she cackles with laughter. I feel the eyes of the other children on me, as they sit strapped into their padded chairs, devoid of energy and entertainment. I am so emotional that I need to hide my tears in stupidity – playing 'row row row your boat' as she grabs my hands and pretends to 'row' our imaginary boat across the nursery floor. I do not know if she remembers me or not, but I know she remembers our games, and she allows me to feed her which is a relief, although also a disappointment, as I had hoped that in the months of being apart she would have learned how to eat independently. In fact, she has made only a little progress. She is certainly more confident as she is able to move around more independently and seems happier exploring without being guided. She is showing more signs of memory, as she responds to my directions of 'stand up' and 'step' and although she copies rhythms of songs her formation of sounds is still erratic and limited. Ga Ga Ga sssssssssss Ta Te Te she sings to me - or to herself.

The Sister in charge is away at the moment, which means that there is no one I can talk to about her future. I want to know if she is still insisting that Gita is mentally retarded? I want to know if there is anything which I can do to facilitate her education? I want to know if when she will be moved into the 'active' section away from the cuddles of the volunteers, nappies and forced feeding? The more time I spend with this incredible four year old, the more I recognise her potential ability and the more I admire her unbelievable courage. I realise that there are probably many volunteers who feel her energy and that I am not the only one who has been seduced by her lust for life. But I still feel this responsibility to facilitate a life for her. I still believe that if she stays in the orphanage her independence will be compromised, and although Shishu Bhavan may have saved her life it is not enough to give her a life: she needs more – she deserves more.

I will spend the next two weeks playing with her, laughing with her and trying to teach her a little more about our world. Meanwhile, her touch and her reactions provide me with an addictive energy and unique perception which makes me wish I could tell her how amazing she is. I feel like a traitor leaving her. I feel frustrated at not knowing how to connect her reality to ours. I hug her tight before she insists on being turned upside down. A free fiery spirit.

Indefinately Delayed

Sitting on the train. A formidable eleven hours delay. A wait which carried me through the afternoon and into the night. A platform divided into 'classes'. A empty room full of chairs and a scattering of well dressed men. A full room empty of chairs but full of a patchwork of blankets as families mark their temporary territory and lay in wait. Information seems to be sacred and not for either classes. A woman with a spick and span English accent reads out the following:

“Your kind attention please! Train number 4005, the Lichchavi Express is indefinitely delayed. It will arrive sometime later.”

A dozen trains appear to be late, as the lady over the loud speaker never seems to have a moments rest. I pull my shawl around me, and feel a little less visible and a little less female.

A mini army march into the waiting room. A line of olive uniforms, stern looks and wooden sticks clenched tightly in each hand. It appears that the local entertainment for the Indian army on a Sunday night is to harass travellers. Those seated in the metal chairs of 'executive class' did better than those kicked from the floor in the adjacent waiting room.

A group of Tibetan nuns asked me when our train was arriving. They didn't understand Hindi or the spick and span English accent of the speaker woman. I told then, 'Later'.

Every hour I would move along the platform, feeling eyes all over me, but safe under my shawl and holding my height as my only defence from the hundreds of young bored men. I reminded myself that curiosity is harmless, and the energy I feel directed towards me is most probably an apparition of my paranoid mind. However, it does become tiring to feel constantly watched. I queued for a glass of sweet milky chai and bought another shiny packet of glucose cookies to nibble on. An old women with bones for legs and shawls for flesh lay bundled up at the edge of the platform. I tried to decide if they were beggars or passengers but unable to decide if my offers of cookies would cause offence or relieve hunger I ended up sharing them with the Tibetan nuns.

It amazes me that for a country so in love with curiosity that more people don't demand to know why they are being made to wait hour after hour, for what ultimately results in either the trains cancellation, or a night sleeping on the platform floor only to be woken by the sticks and boots of the Indian Army? I reason that for many people a journey on a train is not a daily occurrence. These travellers are not commuters, and if they are it is usually a one way or a seasonal ticket. For most of the people their journey on a train is an expensive affair – even in the cheapest seats the ticket may cost the equivalent of a weeks work, or if the family are subsistence farmers, then the 'price' of money is even higher. The distances to be covered are not a few hours, but hundreds of kilometers as the trains crawl across the entire countryside and the entire country. Filled with over a thousand people, carrying entire families, and many lone men.

The lowest tier of the 'highest' class. It is quiete. It has a plug for my lap top and sheets for my bed. There are 36 such beds in this class; out of over 1000 places on this train. I am travelling from Varanasi to Delhi - 780 km, and this ticket cost me 700 rupees. I feel in a parallel luxury world. The one which the thousands of Indian millionaires must frequent as they share this country with the millions of destitute.

I am staring out of the window, across patchwork fields dotted with palms and bodhi trees. I watch as boys appear from now where, holding hands as they walk along the train tracks. I watch as the green landscape seems to stretch into the horizon, without sign of a house or hut. I have now been on the train for sixteen hours. I have watched in envy as men jump off at the station to refill water bottles and to buy bags of samosas, while running along the platform as the train decides it is time to move on. I can tell we are approaching the capital as the chai wallahs have started staying on the train between the stops. In front of me sits my empty water bottle and four empty plastic chai cups. A day of watching, reading, thinking and waiting. I wait to appear in New Delhi, back in the chaos, smell and dirt of 'civilisation' and wonder what a different country this would be if it were not for cities?

Chai Wallah

I have stopped to drink a chai by the side of the river. The chai wallah is a sadhu wearing a purple fringed orange lungi and a neck full of beads. The chai wallah is old, and his string of dreadlocks are pure white and ring his balding head like a crown, mixing with the dreaded locks of his long beard. His other customer is another sadhu, sitting with his legs crossed and drinking his chai with his small finger straight. His technique reminds me of the queen. The chai wallah pours me a glass of sweet chai from a large steel kettle. He places the small glass on top of the steps while I climb up to take my seat, at this pseudo river theatre.

The daily performers are small children who run away from a buffalo that they have just taunted. Men strip to their underwear before plunging into the river that just a few moments ago I watched dead bodies be bathed in.

A newly bathed young boy hops around, trying to jump his feet into the trousers which he is holding in front of him like a large net. He is naked apart from the red sacred thread tied around his tiny waist.

I sip my chai, its warmth refreshing me despite the heat. The chai wallah is continuously busy collecting his glasses, refiling and then carrying over the various groups of men. I wonder if this is the first cup of chai I have been served by an aging bare chested monk?

The young boy finally relents and his bare bottom lands on the stone as he sits around buffalo shit pulling his trousers over his skinny hips.

I watch an older man simultaneously clean himself and a buffalo. The buffalo stands removed from the experience. His thick skin twitching, eyes unblinking, jaw hanging, saliva dripping. The man alternates between scrubbing the beast and scrubbing himself. I watch the other bathers and wonder why the men fully submerge themselves three times in the water? I wonder how the bathers appear on the third time looking so clean?

I try not to wonder where the chai wallah fills his kettle?

Burning Bodies

I am watching men work as they clean a burning pyre for another ceremony. Water is poured onto a pile of blackened logs which are then painstakingly wedged apart with a visible degree of effort. The burnt out bonfire is smouldering without purpose, and the wood can be reused for another body. A possible contender lays on a bamboo stretcher. Its human shape identifiable through the orange and glitzy gold cloths which shroud it. I am surrounded by curious men, or at least one who has just reached for his spectacles to either read these words or at least observe my scrawl of a handwriting technique. Now the body on the bamboo stretcher is being 'prepared' for his final public viewing.

I am not sure why I know it was a 'He', but I am sure He was.

Water from the filthy Holy Ganga is sprinkled over his head as it laps gently at his temporary bed. A long piece of string is pulled from under his stretcher. It is pulled out covered in thick mud. A pile of marigold garlands lay discarded in the river of mud, a few of which have been picked up and carried a couple of meters out into the river of water, as it licks the sacred banks.

The floating flowers remain still. Floating. Suspended. The force of the water is to weak to carry then too far from the shallows. It is almost as if they are waiting to witness the burning of the body they were bought to decorate. The surface of the water is black and lumpy. A mixture of soot, wood and then the soft shades of orange petals.

A group of barefoot men, wearing an assortment of white and cream cloths and clothes pick up the body and leave him on his final resting place; on top of the bonfire which has just been stacked to receive him. The glitzy decorations are removed to reveal a plain white sheet which clings to his face and flesh. In India white is the symbol of death and morning. Devoid of colour; devoid of Life, and yet a bright contrast to the surrounding dullness of the dirt. Handfuls of grain are pulled out from a sack, and then the group take it in turns to scatter it over the body.

The men now appear to be discussing which way to balance the branches of trees, which waiting to be stacked on top of him; creating a sort of human sandwich made out of a bread of freshly chopped wood.

His hair pokes out, as the still white sheet is caught by a log and pulled back. His rounded stomach is a destabilising foundation and a catalyst for yet more discussion from the watching men.

Behind the body a Holy Cow is lapping up the thick water and then takes a few confident steps into the Holy water in order to enjoy the still floating flowers. The Holy Cow munches, tugging at the garland of marigolds until she manages to pull them into her grazing jaw. She chews unperturbed by the pieces of tinsel onto which her snacks are strung.

The smoke from another pyre – another body – is stinging my eyes and burning my nostrils. As a vegetarian I already have a dislike for the smell of meat, and at this moment I will my mind not to linger on the fuel for the smoke I breathe.

Three men with lungis pulled up to their knees are standing in the water. They are a stones throw from the burning bodies. They are working – a local laundry service – washing clothes on purpose laid flat rocks, which they use to beat their clothes against.

A mongrel of a dog pokes around a deep pile of refuse as a bandy legged goat scratches its ear against the now discarded bamboo bed.

A woman wearing a sari pulled tightly around her face walks silently behind the group of gathered men. Unnoticed she nips between the distracted men as they still arrange the wood on top of the body. She darts to the front and quickly lifts up the corner of the still white sheet. One final look. Her reactions betray her, and her cries destroy her invisibility. She is reprimanded. Her presence is not acceptable and she is sent away, scuttling, crying and to watch the ceremony from within the confines of her imagination.

Another man crouches and lights the fire. The crackling it makes is filled with the mutterings of hushed voices and then silenced by the shouts of a prayer from further along the Holy banks. The smoke adds to the already thick air and my eyes continue to object. It feels as if I am peeling a mountain of onions, and yet my curiosity glues me to the bench. My thinking head is exploding with thoughts of which there are too many to process but only to actively observe.

Young boys now join my own uninvited audience, but my 'view' has already been blocked by a group of short wearing camera dangling British tourists. I stand up to try and find a space over and above their heads, but I keep writing and so they move closer in order to keep watching. A small boy is now standing next to a slow burning pyre. He is pointing at a stubborn head, which had managed to escape the flames. The body which it had been attached to for an entire lifetime had already surrendered to the lick of the fire. At this moment all that remained of the some body was a head, a pair of feet and a thick stinging polluting smoke. Even the pyre itself was transforming into golden and black embers.

Through my streaming eyes I see the hungry Holy Cow finish the last of the no longer floating marigolds. The Holy Cow begins to lazily nose around the covered feet belonging to the same head which now has no body.

The newly lit fire is now a multi-story construction. So much chopped wood has been placed on top of the other body that it is no longer visible and it even makes me wonder how much wood it takes to burn an Average Body?

The British tourists have left. They were complaining about the smell of burnt meat. They walk on as the Holy Cow continues to meander along the sooty banks. I turn my attention back to the no body and wonder if the feet and head will be make a final stand for life and drop to the ground?

Tubes of shit fall out of the bottom of a Holy Cow. She continues to graze, and finding no flowers left for her to feast upon, she instead pulls sheets of sodden newspaper into her moving mouth.

Behind me life continues. The laundry is beaten, as curious boys and men encroach further upon my personal space. They are torn between watching the fires and watching my words transfer from my mind to the paper.

A sadhu stands as if he is a statue cemented to the steps. He is naked apart from an orange loin cloth, a skin full of white powder and a head full of coiled dreadlocks. The different reality of the living within and outside of India is astounding. I can only but imagine life as a wandering praying smoking bead wearing snake loving trident holding Holy man.

The heat of the smoke is turning the stillness into a watery air. It appears to be almost fluid as my vision is contorted by its ripples. The source of the heat is greedy. The newly lit fire eats the cloth, and quickly begins to consume the flesh.

A laundry boy comes and places a pile of black suit jackets in front of me. Within seconds they are covered with a layer of flying ash, the wind is growing stronger and soon the ash sticks to my skin, falling from my hair onto these pages. The laundry boy returns to work. Scrubbing. Submerging. Soaking.

One of the curious onlookers nudges me. I ignore him and continue to write. He stays. Persistent. I have dropped a card and he is trying to return it to me.

The hungry fire is burning well. Better than the others. I wonder if the richer the customer the faster the burning? I wonder if the rich reuse the used wood? I wonder of the watery fate of those bodies who cannot afford a fire.

A new snotty boy has taken a front row seat by my side. After a few minutes he has become bored of my words and is now staring intently at my face. Face to Face I feel his eyes study me and I refocus my attention onto the mirage of life and death surrounding me.

A older man appears next to one of the pyres. He is clearly well versed in the techniques of cremation. He pokes at the feet. Pushing them further towards the flames and within minutes the ankles have been transformed into scorched bones.

The airless wind lifts a black plastic bag up from the ground. It is caught inside the warm thermos of the pyre and inflates like a hot air ballon. The watching children smile, shout and point, and I am free from their gaze for a few moments. A man throws a bundle of rolled newspapers as if he is delivering the morning paper to the knowledgeable river. It tumbles and turns and then lands in the reach of the lapping water.

The man with the poking stick returns to the obstinate feet; they remain hanging off the end of the pyre. He pokes a foot and it falls into the flames, but as it does the other foot tumbles down, landing strangely vertical in the mud. One final hop. The row of men squatting and observing from a nearby vantage point immediately proffer a chorus of shouts. After a short deliberation the poker turns and picks up another stick from out of the mud. Almost as if they were a large pair of chopsticks the poker catches the escaped foot and carefully returns it to the fire. But this time he places the foot in the middle of the fire – where the body used to be. The foot begins to bubble and then curl, like melting plastic, and then it blackens to the bone.

Shouting begins as a team of water buffalo swim by. Their noses are sticking up in the air, their horns are locked behing their flapping ears – like large bone earrings.

A baby goat climbs up to explore the top of a prepared pyre. It is playing and stumbling over the logs. The buffaloes stop paddling and start munching; they have found a flesh batch of floating marigolds.

The laundry boy returns to turn his baking jackets, sending ash floating to the floor. A new procession arrives and with it the bamboo bed is lifted from shoulders and placed on top of the water. For a moment it seems as if it will float but then it sinks and the orange and glitzy gold cloth blows up with liquid and the water is stained red from the tikka piled on top of the body. The stretcher is lifted up and laid down in the mud to wait for a pyre. And so – the cycle continues.

Good Morning Varanasi!

Waking up in Varanasi was a loud shout Welcome Back to India! Beeping horns, spitting, hacking, a muezzin call making my mind work in my semi state of sleep, as I try to remember or create the religious importance of the Holy Ganga for Muslims. The room is hot. The windows appear to be boarded shut with ply wood. The glass windows on the door are covered over with a poster of Shiva and Parbati as their faces merge to create a rather disturbing image of their child 'Ganesh' – the elephant god.

Outside of my locked room box is a small shrine guarded by iron gates, but inside all that stands protected are discarded sheets of old newspaper, which in the villages of Langtang would have been used to decorate yak shit walls.

The view from the flat walled roof reminds me of Jerusalem, with the main difference being that is is not quite so beautiful, but certainly as intricate. Below me rises a collage of houses awash with movement and lives: Washing lines full of colours, walls full of drying circles of cow shit, women watering plants potted in rusty tins, red bottomed monkeys idling away the morning, mongrel dogs trying to protect their roof top territory, there is even a man jogging around his small patch of sky-high cement. Electricity wires congregate in a muddle, and are decorated by a plethora of plastic kites, which are still trying desperately to escape into the wind. The majority of plastic shapes are coloured with the pattern of the Indian flags. I lift up my eyes and see a flock of other kites, being maneuvered over the tops of the city as small boys run backwards and forwards across different roof tops. Each one playing independently and yet adding to the mosaic of skyline activity.

A woman calls for her 'babu' and eventually a child's voice screams a reply. Rickshaw bells tring, taxi horns beep, voices merge into the sound of the street which are carried up on the scented warm air. Loaded with sound, the atmosphere feels full as the air rises around me, lifting away the dawn and welcoming me with the sounds of a vibrant full life, in this city famous for death.

A Night Bus

Beep

Swerve

Braking.

An Aching bum unable to rest.

Aching eyes which strain to distract the mind.

Approaching headlights.

Braking. Bang!

A slight collision. Pause.

And so it continues.

Riding away from the setting sun.

Moving away from the Mountains.

Bumping towards the wooden boxes of electric lights.

Lighting the way to a confusion of concrete.

A box full of lives.

Beeping

Swerving

Braking.

A twenty four hour travelling World.

Monastic Wilderness

The Korean Temple, Lumbini: A wonderful, donation only, oasis in the middle of Buddha's birth place. Nepal now; India then.

A great morning despite another crazy night – this time filled with very vivid dreams (despite being now at sea level) and wild noises rising from the savanna like grasses outside. I have just finished my yoga practice on the roof: Plenty of cement dust and poky pebbles causing havoc under the clouds of my yoga mat, but still it was possible to find a nourishing silence. The view in front of my sun salutations was of another temple in construction. The temple rose from a field of long grasses, nursing an equal amount of spider's webs.

The day took hours to rise above the foliage, leaving my asana's free from the sweat of the sun. It was only during the finishing poses that the resident old American woman called a Namaste out of the bars of her bathroom window. A few moments later two Indian ladies took their seats on the wall; observing, giggling and the shouting into their communal mobile phone. Their presence was preferable to the audience of Nepali men who had been pulling their chairs at six o'clock every morning in Kathmandu – front row seats from the roof opposite my guest house.

Now I am sitting on a large wooden bench (or maybe it is a low table or bed?!) outside of my down. My view is of the rubbley courtyard and then to my left stands the newly constructed Korean Temple – the reply to the massive Chinese Monastery recently completely opposite. The Temple appears like a ghost – void of all life and colour as it still waits for the funds to be raised for it to be painted and decorated. Its grey facade reflects the grey robes of the monks and nun, who also appear slightly lifeless as they creep around camouflaged by the walls, and wearing the same shadow uniform of a 'seeker', devoid of an individual identity or even of a sex. Heads shaved and voices lowered to what seems to be a constant 'physical and verbal bow'.

In contrast, or rather to balance, there is so much wild life around here. Perhaps because the Lumbini complex is protected from busy roads and trucks. Transport around the inside is limited to ones own legs – or those of someone else's - as bicycles and rickshaws bump up and down the sandy roads. The only buildings are monasteries – which still appear to be carefully planned and set in their own lush gardens, full of flowers, watered grasses and the coloured streaks of prayer flags.

It is a pretty unique place, which so far seems to have been spared the commercialisation of religion to the extent that there was not a 'charge' to entre the complex and the only 'souvenirs' for sale are piles of wooden malas and even a visit to the birth place of Buddha – the Maya Devi – cost only fifty rupees and came with a complementary history of the area by a keen park attendant.

Yesterday we rented bikes from the builders who work at the Korean Temple. Fifty rupees for the day and a perfect way to explore – peddling around, dodging potholes, rocks, baby cobras and small children. My little red bike was like am arm chair. It was comprised of a large padded seat, a rusted red frame and a highly erratic steering, leaving me swerving at every pile of soft sand (of which there were many). The horizon of long grasses and marsh land was interspersed with the maroon robes of the young monks, which flew and bumped across the mud roads as they raced each other on their own rented bikes. By far the most entertaining were three monks who had hired an entire rickshaw while the owner jogged along next to his hijacked carriage.

I am left wondering what sort of people visit this place? Foreign tourists seem to be limited to Chinese and Korean visitors. Or maybe they are just more visible as they tour in packs and with a united 'flash' as their cameras light up their curiosity . There are also an incredible amount of Indian visitors, as Buddha is considered to be the ninth reincarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu. According to the ticket seller at the Maya Devi, there are between 200-300 foreign tourists per day in comparison to the 2000-3000 Nepali and Indian visitors. I suppose that this ratio 'protects' the complex from certain development, as at the moment all that needs to be 'watered' are the lush gardens of the complex rather than people like me who demand gallons of water each day, waste disposal and a 'variety' of foods. For example, three times a day the Korean Temple provides a spread of food for a small donation. Everything from wholewheat rice with beans to curry, daal, three types of spinach, fruits and even sushi are served. But last night Bruno still complained that he wouldn't be able to eat at the Temple for more than a few days – he would need more of a 'choice'...

Meanwhile, I feel really grateful to have found the Korean Temple rather than to stay in some typically overpriced windowless room. Ironic as it may seem, it almost feels as if this is one of the few spaces left, where spirituality can be explored rather than exploited. Without its fancy churches or famous mosques, the entrance fees for the sacred sites are minimal, while if luxury resorts are present, they are well hidden. In fact, I feel really lucky to have 'found' Lumbini' before Buddhism explodes in popularity.

As the visitors to Dharamasala demonstrated, the search for an alternative style of spirituality is appealing to both the young and rich; Buddhist literature is exploring intellectual debates which the monolithic religions hide under the label of 'faith', while the Dalai Lama's dedication to peace and compassion highlights the failures of Western leaders. Yet with this continuing interest in Buddhism comes new incentives for religious commercialization through the vehicle of spiritual tourism. However it is not the Western countries who are solely responsible for this new 'development' of ancient Buddhist sites. Eastern countries are also beginning to explore the market of 'Buddhist package tours'. One particular example is of Korea. In the past nationalistic Koreans were encouraged to spend their vacations exploring their own country; yet now more and more of the younger generation, as well as the wealthier social groups, are beginning to explore foreign destination, with religious sites holding a particular appeal.

Whatever the direction of the hypothetic future, I feel privileged to be here now. I have really felt a sincere peace and moments of Reality in Lumbini. Moments where I have been able to feel the silence and energy of the nature, and this is a sensation which it is actually difficult to find even in the most 'remote' places. Even in the Himalayas where just as you taste tranquility it is shattered by an offer of a lodge, or a question forcing you to remember 'where have you come from' and 'where are you going?'

I have loved the absence of vehicles, hotels and the lack of other 'explorers'. I have loved the presence of beautiful places well visited by seekers searching for a spirituality guided by humanity. I have loved the presence of nature and the wild within a community of human animals.

A special place. To be returned to. At some point...

Pogada's of Peace

Space. A sacred construction.

Curves of Peace so smooth that they give way to

Eternity.

Round and Round.

Spiralling upwards.

White stone so beautiful in its Simplicity.

A perfect complement to the clear blue of the painted sky

Above and Around.

A desire for Peace based on Unity.

A Spirituality founded upon tragedy and found in Space.

Mount Disney

More and more distance is growing between us and the snow capped mountains. Now they loom like a line leading to the clouds rather than as an explosion of power popping up under our feet. The more we descent the more that plant, animal and human animal life rises. Today the forest opened out into terraced hills, villages filled with more than just lodges for trekkers but with a more traditional foundation: Based not on seasonal and unstable tourism but on agriculture and trade. Buddhist Chortens marked the tops of hills – a peaceful counterpart to the eerie caravans of the illegal Israeli which mark the hilltops of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I kept passing young attractive men holding Khukuris, until one of them walked (ran) past us later, directly us to his guest house. When we finally arrived I took a warm shower in a unlit shed while being dried cold by the wind. We ate next to a wood oven and in the company of a Belgium man who spoke no English, and his Nepali Guide who spoke excellent French.

Trekking creates an interesting situation where new issues intersperse with forgotten thoughts as together they circle the mind during its hours of walking meditation. Trekking itself carries enough development issues to keep one preoccupied for kilometers at a time, while every issue debated is compounded by ones own role in the equation: The commercialisation of rural communities; the tensions it creates among old neighbours and the new business men and women it brings to remote and arid lands. Lodge owners fight for customers, leaving you feel like you have arrived in a popular backpackers suburb rather than a remote mountain village. Farmers ask you to sponsor their children so that they can fulfill their dreams of attending an expensive private schools. They ask determined to provide an 'opportunity' they only dreamed of and they ask despite the economic and social sacrifices it will demand as children leave and never return, or return with unfilled ambitions and frustrations.

Lines of porters sweat their way along the trails, providing imported food for foreign mouths which perhaps the local land could not afford to nurture but which leaves a smell of cultural imperialism and the globalisation of the remote Himalaya. Guided groups of up to thirty people trek by, all with their own porter carrying their bag of 'essentials' including a panel of solar panels and too many changes of clothes. The parties remind me of Reinhold Messner's recent dubbing of Everest as 'Mount Disney'. And yet 'these people' are just enjoying the nature, no different from 'me'. In fact they are bringing more economic development to these rural areas, and to these generations of porters, but again I am reminded of a comment made by Appa Sherpa – A Nepali sidhar (chief Sherpa) who holds the record for his 18 summits of Everest but when asked acbout his 'achievements' replies that he climbs so his sons won't have to. A BBC documentary, Carrying the Burden features the life of a Nepali porters, who often comes not from the mountains of the Sherpas but from the city of Kathmandu. Even the Sherpas are naively viewed by trekkers as partially superhuman; as small strong men, able to walk though wind and snow while carrying a basket filled with a ruck sack weighing 50 kilo and wearing nothing more than passed on clothes and collected odd shoes. The International Porters Protection Group (IPPG) works for the protection of porters rights, by demanding access to medical care when they suffer from what can be deathly altitude sickness or frostbite as well as proper shelter and food and equipement: It is all to common to see groups of porters camping around a fire, cooking the food they have carried as well as the bags of the trekkers who sit inside a warm lodge eating pasta and drinking bottled beer.

The French Speaking Nepali guide in the lodge told us that guiding was indeed his preferred profession. In 2003 the fighting between the Royal Nepalese Army and the Maoists had reached such a level that the dollar bills of the tourists had left the Nepali hills. Wages from sons who had travelled to the cities to work in the tourist resorts had dwindled, and with few young people left in the villages, farming food from the arid land was becoming harder and harder for those who had remained. Families who had built their livelihood around the seasonal income of the trekkers were struggling. The guide himself had no alternative but to borrow money from his friends and family to pay for a plane ticket to South Korea. He worked in a weapons factory alongside many other Nepalis. The factory was supplying the USA. The work was hard but the money was good and much to his relief he managed to pay off his loans and save some money but as soon as peace returned to his country, so did he. The guide explained he was relieved to be back in the mountains; in his home land and doing a job he loved. Business was still slow, but it was enough. Working aboard had helped him to pay the bills when his own country was failing, and had also provided him with a warm company coat, which he was still wearing with the logo of the weapons factory printed on the breast pocket.

We were joined by the attractive khurkuri wielding man who had lured us to his guest house earlier. The guide explained that the man was about twenty years old. He had left school during the fighting in order not to be conscripted by the Maoists who at that time were taking over schools and forming their own army of 'Youth Cadres'. Without an education and with limited English, Mr Khurkuri helps his mother run the guest house. Today he had walked over two hours up the hill to cut a mountain of leaves to feed the family's buffalo. His mother is a big woman who has eight children and who clearly runs the show. Her eldest son is hoping that all of his brothers and sisters will finish their education. I cannot help but wonder the value of this 'idealised' Western ideal.

I wonder where all the husbands are: South Korea? The Gulf? Singapore? Apparently it is easy to divorce around here – you just have to 'cut' the knot tying the wedding string around your wrist, and there is no problem for a woman to remarry.

The final days of the trek seemed to condense all of my previous meditations. The trails were filled with litter from both tourists and locals. Large painted signs advertised Coca Cola and trekkers with their porters leading the way, drank from newly purchased bottles of water. A lovely lady from Cuba asked me if the plastic in the bottles was bad for her health? Why else she wondered, would I prefer to drink boiled water than buy another bottle of plastic? Guides from Kathmandu discussed between themselves the correct route for day two of their two day trek, as it was also their first time in the area. An entrance fee for a national park left me feeling infuriated as biscuit wrappers continued to litter the paths and the park wardens themselves supplemented their salary by setting up a small stall full of shiny packets at the entrance.

Mountain tourism is tricky. Rural people want the same opportunities as those in the urban areas, while trekkers from the urban areas want the same luxuries and are prepared to pay ridiculous amounts for it without regard for the cultural or economic implications. Infrastructure needs to be developed in a way which benefits the local community and protects the fragile mountain ecosystems. Tourists need to realise that money cannot buy them a Shangri-la; if they try it will come at the price of the wilderness and the culture rich lives which it supports.

Internationl Porters Protection Group

A Little Nepali Frog

A little frog swimming around in a muddy pool. A pool filled by fresh mountain water from a concrete pipe. The water falls through the air, landing softly below. Below the water is no longer clear but brown. The pool has been enjoyed by local roaming buffaloes, as large pile of pooh sit on the shallow concrete bottom. The little frog pushes herself around, suspended between the surface air and the liquid water. Pusssssssssssssssssssh. Paddle. Pusssssssssssssssssssssh. Paddle she goes. The little frog seems so content; investigating floating sticks, and sneaking up to idle skating flies. She is busy exploring her watery world. Perhaps she doesn't mind its dirt. Perhaps she enjoys the invaders, she certainly does not care much for her audience. But she is small; only beginning her amphibious life, where at the moment this small pool of water is her whole world.

A shimmer of silver reflects from the mud. A watch. Bruno picks it up. Examines it. He turns it over. Made in Japan.

'Di!'. A woman's voice calls from above. We look up and a local lady is calling us towards her. Its mine! She shouts pointing to our find.

Bruno looks quizzical. The woman is squatting next to her washing. Her head coloured head scarf pulled tightly around her long black plate which hangs down to her hips.

He folds the watch in his hands. 'What colour is it?' He asks. I shrink. Embarrassed. I would not have the courage to doubt, but I understand why he does.

A crowd of children and young men appear from the mani stones, and what was only moments ago a peaceful afternoon trek, has suddenly become a spectators sport.

The woman's English is shaky, but she is determined that her property is returned. She replies 'white' which could well mean 'silver' and Bruno hands over the watch.

We walk along the mud path turn a corner and come face to face with a line of Japanese photographers.

Mountain Medicine

The beauty of remoteness. I bask in the silence of mountain life as I walk down from the top of Kyangin Ri. High in the Sky where only the birds fly. The go-betweens from the land to the hills, to the mountains to the air. Passing lines of ancient mani stones; rock carved prayers adjacent to wheels of water prayers. Crossing glacier streams, and then re crossing them. Following lines of porters, as they jog down steep mountain paths with their own woven baskets of mountains balanced on their sweat singed brows. The stony hills give way to grassy meadows, overseen by herds of domestic yaks and naks.

We turn a corner and walk into an old man. He is wrinkled to the core, wrapped in a old army jacket and with a wollen hat pulled over his head. He stands in our path and points to his lips. His lips are swollen. They are bloodied. And filled with pus He has some sort of infection, but exactly what I am not sure. He is asking for medicines. We discuss a possible diagnosis: A fungus, a bacteria, a virus? We don't know. I search through my first aid kit as if looking for clues. I pull out boxes and packets and tubes - a range of different antibiotics, anointments and creams. But would a broad range spectrum antibiotic help? And if so how much should we give? Do we have enough? What if we need it ourselves in the next few days?

Remote beauty comes at a high price. Where even food does not grow and children leave for school for years at a time, mountain medicine is a privilege for only the rich. It is possible to charter a helicopter if the 'price' of life can afford to be paid. For others, perhaps they can leave for the 'services' of a city but that leaves them without the security of a family or a community. But for most mountain people, the lack of medical care is not a 'sacrifice' because access to orthodox treatment has never been a luxury they have experienced. The recent arrival of 'Health Posts' often means an increase in the responsibilities of the local midwife, as well as increasing frustrations as she does not have the medicines nor knowledge to fulfill the expectations placed upon her.

Meanwhile, for an old man with no English, and a humbleness beyond equality, his best choice is to catch a foreigner with the 'magic pills'.

We give him a couple of paracetamol and a handwritten sign in English to ask other tourists for the most likely antibiotics. Upon returning from the trek we look up a possible and distant diagnosis in a book entitled, “Where there are No Doctors”.

Shiva's Lakes

I am sitting on a window ledge with the lakes behind me and the sun slowly rising behind the mountains. Listening to really badly recorded Tibetan (or maybe Tamang) music which intermediately has cows mooing and roosters crowing and it is impossible to tell which is real until I remember that there are no cows or roosters at 4380 meters. Stamping comes from the kitchen: A young guy cooking the mornings daal bhat in the kitchen. Yesterday he was singing along to 'I'm too sexy for this shirt' whereas today he seems happy with the moos and crows accompanying this popular home recording. The lake is still dark and covered in a skin of ice, although the sun is spreading a white golden path across it. I had followed its marker rocks yesterday – tracing the footsteps of the pilgrims who believe that the lakes were created by their vagabond Lord, Shiva.

The pilgrims visit the lake to change their scared strings. This means that the rough slated path which circumnavigates the water is covered with discarded holy thread. I walked around thinking of all the thousands of people who had walked so far for their beliefs. Walking with no 'special' equipment and sleeping in roofless barns. I thought about the woman with frozen feet, wooden feet, who was hobbling and hiding her way around Sing Gompa. I thought about how the pilgrimage had killed her and how she had ended up left, abandoned, dying, in a cold desolate lonely place. I thought about the person she must have been and the person she is now – clearly crazy and only sort of alive. I felt privileged to be walking a path which people will sacrifice everything for, while I was 'just' enjoying nature. As soon as the sun peaked down behind the highest peaks, the air around the lake seemed to freeze.

I walked fast through the shadows picking out the most stable slabs and passing mini piles of stone statues which frame the lake, almost as if they were 'natural' creations rather than the man and woman made constructs of the years of pilgrims.

The next day we crossed the pass. I hung a small string of prater flays in the middle of a mountain of flags and thought about the dead, the dying and the living: I though of a woman who I never really knew, but who had recently died, the mother of a dear friend. I thought of how she must feel to be free above the mountains, drifting in the winds. I thought about the woman who is dying from crossing this pass as she sits and waits for her frozen body to consume her, a painful and fateful pilgrimage. I thought of little Gita, who will never see the enormity of the power of nature, but only feel it from the confines of the walls of an institution which saved her. Three parallel realities.

The Woman with Frozen Feet

There were a few times during my explorations of the Langtang Range that I came face to face with my own fears, as well as against several moral dilemmas forcing me to examine the basis for my reactions as well as their worth.

The following set of blogs explores a few of these themes, and begins not in chronological order but with a brief interaction which has lasted far more than the few seconds it grew from. This blog is a memorial for a death which at the time had still to happen. The events leading to this death were explained to be by a local woman and elaborated upon by guides familiar with the dead. Now I will retell what little I know to you, because this is the story of the last few months of an Indian pilgrim who will die in a remote village in the Nepali Himalayas, nameless and alone, with no one to remember her and no living testimony apart from I suppose, these few impersonal helpless words.

We had just arrived in Sing Gompa, it was day seven of our twelve day trek. At 3330 meters I was feeling good if a little nauseous as I waited for my body to readjust to the altitude. We had just bought 100 grams of yaks cheese which we were munching away on, as we visited the 'gompa'. The gompa was being renovated which meant that it was a wooden shell of a monastery with dust, pebbles and the odd large block of concrete falling down as we stepped over dusty relics and planks of wood.

As we walked back to our tea house, a local woman was marching after a beggar. Now there were two things which struck me as particularly strange. Firstly, this was the first beggar I had seen while trekking in the mountains. It is normally the city's where the beggars congregate, while in the more remote rural areas, the family and village networks are still strong enough to act as a social security net for those in need. Secondly, the 'beggar' was not actually begging. In fact this was why the local woman was marching after her – she was trying to give her money.

I looked at the beggar woman. She was bundled up in scarfs and blankets. But she walked awkwardly; like a wooden puppet being manipulated from above. Her movements appeared to be more mechanical than natural. Her steps seemed to jar and her sense of balance disturbed as she was unable to walk with fluidity along a straight line. The reason for her robotic movements was that the beggar woman was trying to walk on feet which were frozen black and swollen to cracks of blood. The beggar woman was still managing to walk on her lost feet. But it was difficult, and her motivation seemed to be to try and put as much distance as possible between herself and the helping hands reaching towards her. She supported herself with a hand, which appeared stiff and again, wooden, as she touched the doorway leading to a cow shed; a rickety barn behind the gompa of the towns namesake.

I walked passed, into my tea lodge. I took a shower in sun warmed mountain water; a luxury at this altitude and the first one in countless days. But the chill of the mountain air blew through the cracks in the plywood walls and made my wet skin turn bumpy. The freezing winds were gaining more confidence as the afternoon sun dropped prematurely behind the ring of mountains. I dressed quickly, but began to feel the chills shiver up my legs and numb my fingers and toes. I piled on all the clothes that I had carried in what I considered to be a relatively light bag - layers of long sleeved tops and polar fleeces.

I basked in the simply warmth which my tea house offered and in return for my free accommodation I ordered a pot of hot lemon. I rested my feet on the heated bricks around the wood fire. My toes began to tickle as the circulation returned. I closed my eyes. I had climbed over 1000 meters that day and my body was aching from the trek and from the altitude. I closed my eyes and my mind took me on a wander. Thoughts and images took me to a cow shed. I felt my body, and I felt the cold. I let go of my 'safe' surroundings, and imagined myself alone, abandoned; frozen. I imagined myself as her – imagined losing myself – or rather losing the sense of self and then imagining being unable to pull back to the self. Panic seared through my body, but I kept my eyes shut. At what point would it be impossible to retreat from my day dreamings? Is the definition of sanity really defining the otherwise porous borders of reality? The woman in the cow shed was 'mad'. Clearly crazy from the pain that she has been living with and inside of for three months. The image of her wooden feet, her stuttered walk, her confused glances shook away the feelings of tranquility bestowed by the previous days trekking. I was confused why a woman could be left to freeze in a cow shed, next to a Buddhist gompa and in the middle of a village made prosperous from its foreign visitors. I asked the local woman – the one with helping hands – and this is what she replied:

Sing Gompa is a village one days walk from Shiva's Holy Lakes. The lakes of Gosainkund are stunningly clear pools of glacier water. They stand at over 4000 meters, and for most of the time are covered with a layer of ice as the temperatures are rarely warmed more than a few degrees above freezing. Hindu legends say that the lakes were created when Shiva, who thirsty for water after being poisoned, pierced a glacier with his trident. It is said that the Gosainkund Lake disappears underground via a subterranean channel and travels the 60 km to resurface next to the Shiva Temple in the ancient capital city of Patan. Apparently, Shiva's dreadlocked head is still in the largest of the lakes, and protrudes from the surface taking the form of a large black stone.

The Holy Lakes attract thousands of pilgrims per year who come to worship, bathe and to change their Yajñopavītams (the sacred Hindu threads) during the full moon festival each August. The Hindu pilgrims walk from all over India and Nepal, climbing up to the 4460 meter pilgrim site over a course of weeks, often with little other 'trekking equipment' than perhaps a pair of flip flops – or perhaps not. Although the temperatures in August are warmer than the rest of the year, the elevation and the proximity to the snow covered peaks still brings ice kissed winds. Moreover, August is in the middle of the monsoon, which brings an added challenge to the pilgrims who will have to climb up through mud washed trails and paths of rivers. And this is the pilgrimage which brought the beggar woman to her fate. She was found three months ago (which would mean shortly after the full moon festival) at the lakes, and was helped down to Sing Gompa by a trekking group. As a Indian Hindi speaker, she remained isolated from the Sherpa village. Unable to speak their local dialect and as a low caste woman unaccustomed to traveling alone, it must have been a rescue which brought little more than the perceived threat of strangers. She found shelter in a cow shed, where she has remained ever since.

My first reaction was that she needed medical attention. I spent the evening arguing the logistics with a Nepali Tourist, who arrogantly told me he would 'save' her by paying for a porter to carry her down to the nearest town next to a road three days away and then leave some money for her to catch the bus back to Kathmandu. The beggar woman, I reminded him, was clearly crazy. After three months of living with frozen limbs, isolated from family and far away from her village she was now barely able to communicate with either Nepalis, Sherpas or tourists. She would need an escort to Kathmandu I replied, and then she would need private treatment. As an Indian woman it would be nearly impossible for her to receive free medical care. Her feet would have to be amputated, and then what? She would live as a crazy beggar woman on the streets of Kathmandu? During our discussion, a local guide intervened. He told us the beggar woman is here to die. She is waiting. She will not go anywhere. And at least in the small village, local women know her and try to feed her; surviving in Kathmandu would be a very different story.

I spent the night Angry. Even my sleep was Angry. I was imagining the woman outside. Imagining what it must be like with frozen feet with the absence of sanity the only anesthetic. Imagining myself outside.

The next morning, we left early, before the dawn frost had chance to thaw, but before the winds collected power. I left a paltry 100 rupees with the local woman towards her food. Then I followed the footsteps which the beggar woman can no longer make, as I walked past her, bundled up in her pile of shawls, slumped at the entrance to her temporary shelter.

The sense of helplessness to save a life that no longer wishes to be saved has stayed with me. It followed me as I climbed up to the lakes, and it whispered to me as I saw discarded shoes in the snow. It became my shadow when I followed the pilgrimage around the edge of Gosainkund Lake, as I stepped over the discarded threads as I quickened my pace to escape from Shiva's ice kissed breath.

The price of a pilgrimage? Not just a pair of feet, but sanity, dignity and ultimately Life.

What could have been done?

I still feel its presence.