'Orchid Land': A Nostalgia
We have heard stories of Varanashi, of hoary antiquity, being turned into Benares at the hands of the British-Indian rulers. Dorjayling, possibly a Tibetan name, likewise, became Darjeeling, just as Sukhim, which had lorded over it till almost the other day, was turned by the British, almost overnight, into Sikkim!
By the same token, our own dear old Kharsang, which is said to have meant the 'Land of Orchids' in the language of the Lepchas, presumably its original inhabitants, was distorted by the Britishers as 'Kurseong'.
Perhaps 'Orchid Land' was, in fact, its earlier name. For, even in our childhood days, as we roamed and scoured the forest-lands surrounding our own villages, we would be enthralled by the countless varieties of enchanting orchids of all hues, shapes and sizes, flowering in gay abandon.
That little part of my nostalgic world nestled in the Himalayan midhills, with its bracing climate, received another acronym after the advent of the British - 'A Town of Schools'. And it indeed lives upto its reputation till this day. The structures of many of them are Victorian or Gothic. Some feature tall spires semingly vying with the surrounding pine trees set against the backdrop of still higher and snow-covered mountain peaks, such as Kanchanjunga, further beyond.
My visits to dear old Kurseong has been oft-repeated over the years. I find that those schools, with their share of moss-laden chapel and church-walls, still retain much of the pristine ambience of the bygone British Raj. The huge bells in their tall towers still chime occasionally to the tune of throaty chorus of children's school-songs echoing agaist the hillsides. Their vast wooden staircases make creeking sounds, their enormous chandeliers shine down the spacious class-rooms and parlours and their age-old stone chimneys belch out wood-smoke into the fog-bound winter mornings and evenings. Old and historic paintings, phtos and tapestries decorate their labyrinthine corridors. Vast playgrounds and well laid-out gardens flank their ancient architechtures virtually by the dozen.
The last time I really had a closer look into the nooks and crannies of the hallowed Dowhill Girls' School, its beautiful but slightly crumbling wooden panels, its large mantlepieces, its formidable doors, corridors and hallways, was when my daughter Yojana had been a student there. But such detailed scrutiny doesn't always fall to the lot of all the visiting parents. The rare opportunty that came my way was largely because a school and college-mate of mine, Miss Radhka Pradhan, happened to be its principal. Incidentally, it was the first time ever that a Nepali-speaking lady had made it to that position. Luckily, she has been holding it for over a decade now and might as well be the first and last such person to head a Government-owned English boarding school in the entire Darjeeling hills for a long time to come.
Whenever I am there, occasionally also as her house-guest, I do not miss the opportunity to visit a shanty one-storeyed 'cottage' nearby. For that is Davis' Primary School, my first alma mater. It stands there, often lonely and unattended, as tiny and as shabby-looking as it ever was…
But in many ways, that tiny and shanty-hut of a school appears symbolic to me. Symbolic, that is, of an over-all picture of similar shanty sub-divisional towns of the Darjeeling distric themselves. During the last four decades or so since I moved away from the place, a conspicuous trend of 'modernism' and development has been sweeping across the length and breadth of India. But, somehow, this trend appears to have stopped dead on its tracks as it is conspicuous by its absence above and upwards beyond Sukna when one drives uphill from the sub-Himalayan plains of Siliguri. For, whereas the erstwhile malaria-infested, god-forsaken terai township of Siliguri has seen resurgence and growth beyond all proportions over the years, it pains me immensely to see that the ever-sleepy and shanty hill townships such as Kurseong have been bypassed by development history, as it were!
The last time I was in Kurseong for any length of time was in 2051 B.S. Some local enthusiasts, such as Gopal Bhandari and Prem Kumar Alley, had invited me over to attend the formal inauguration of CODE (College of Distance Education) which was, in a way, my own brain-child. Coincidentally, it was all the more nostalgic in the sense that it had been housed in the same building that accommodated Pushparani High School, an institution full of childhood memories that have encapsuled six long years of my schooling prior to moving on to a college.
The next morning, as usual, saw me climbing uphill beyond our house among the thickly forested areas. As I reached the vicinity of another hoary institution, the Divisional Forest School, the lush vegetation around was all the more inviting and invigorating as it had ever been. The fresh morning air smelled of pine and fir fragrance. The enitre world of green foliage reverberated to the orchestra of birdsongs. I was particularly enthralled by the nostalgic strains and chorus of the Chibhay drongo, Jureli bulbul, Dhobini magpie, Kalchaunda whistling thrush, Lahanchey wood-pecker and the like.
Nearby, a tin-plate stuck on the sides of a roadside tree-trunk seemd to beckon me further into the woods. Emblazoned with the famous Shakespearean lines sung by Amiens in the idyllic surroundings of the Arden forest, they read:
"Under the greenwood tree
He who loves to lie with me
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither"…
[From my weekly column, "Recollections", in The Sunday Post, December 31, 1995.]
Initially, I wanted to give this write-up a tittle soemthing like, 'Prostitutes as Poetesses'. But I thought the better of it, cosidering the possibility that all dancing girls may not necessarily be call girls or vice-versa.
My familiarity with Korean literary trends was at best cursory and short-lived. During my stay in Seoul for a couple of weeks, I learnt that the Korean classical poems or Sijo were originally written in three lines, much like the Japanese Haiku; short and sweet, and usually with concealed meanings. But I could see that their renderings into English, even by experts, were often made in six lines, possibly to pair each stanza for smooothness of reading. One composed by Yi Mai Chang, (Nepali Maichang?), a famous dancing girl (Kisaeng), in memory of her lover, was evocative. I thought it could as well be 'redone' in four lines, thus:
"When pear blossoms were falling in spring rain,
Weeping, I clung to thy strength in a fond farewell.
Now, autumn scatters the leaves with pain,
Ah! dost thou miss me in thy heart as well?"
Another popular Korean literary genre was known as the 'Comic Story'. One that I particularly liked was interspersed with verses and its central character was also a Dancing Girl. "The Choice of a Husband' was its title. It revolved round a Kisaeng who was pining for a husband. Her vow was that she would only marry the man who could 'cap' her song best by way of a repartee, resembling some kind of juhaari or dohori duet-contest popular among some of our own hill-people. As she was well-endowed and rich, many suitors came to seek her hand by excelling her in the verse-contest, but were unable to match her poetic wits. Her poem or 'challenge' ran thus:
"There is a barrel of wine in my house,
I permit Kim to drink it,
But, once permitted, I do not care
Whether he drinks it or not!"
A teacher came first and then a medicine-man. Both of them composed their respective poetic repartees and sang them to her. But she was not impressed. The third man to come along was a monk who sang:
"There is an idol in my temple
I offer it a prayer on behalf of Kim
But once a prayer is offered
I do not care whether he gets blessings or not."
Oksun, the dancing girl, was angry. "You care not whether your prayers bring blessings to your devotees? You are a bad monk. Go away," she said.
Then came a beggar who sang:
"There is a gourd-bowl in my hands,
I beg food at Kim's feast with it
But once my begging is done,
I care not whether he goes on feasitng or not."
Oksun laughed and said, "You are a wise man. You are a beggar and naturally don't care about others once you have your fill. Your poem isn't artificial; it touches my heart with its sincerity; so I choose you as my husband."
A random sampling of other South Korean literary works suggests that the short story is predominant as a literary medium. But the tone and texture of most of them is somehow negative, defeatist and pessimistic. Why so? "Because of the pain and anguish of the people oppressed by the conquerors (Japanese?), the tragedy of Civil War and Partition, and the struggle for survival in a post-War society," explained K.O Pourke, known for his translation of ten best Korean short stories into English.
The short story and the novel are both distinctly Western literary genres with not a very long Korean tradition, as in the case of Nepal. In Korea, for example, a bare half century divides the Opening of Ports to foreigners in 1876 (Incidentally, it also marked the end of the 'magic' known as the Hermit Kingdom). Its first better-known short story, Readymade Life, is also as old.
In Nepal, too, the history of the short fiction as a literary genre can hardly be traced beyond the last 60 years, can it?
Likewise, the novel Tears of Blood by Yi Injik, published in 1906, was possibly the first to set the now-popular trend in Korea. Nepal, in her turn, can hardly go beyond Dwarika Upadhyaya who came out with his Yamapanchak Prapancha, serialised in Gorkhapatra, as the maiden novellette or novella, in 1907.
In the sphere of literary journalism, too, the first Korean magazine, Youth, which first appeared in 1908, may be said to be a contemporary of our own Gorkhay Khabar Kaagat that came out of Kalimpong in 1901. At the best, we can go back to Motiram's Sudha Saagar, first published in 1955 B.S.
If B.P. Koirala amd Devkota have been bracketed together as our literary realists worth the name, we find their counterpart in Korea's Kim Tongin, whose story, Potatoes, gives a good idea of what the lives of the down-trodden were like in that country at the time. Much like B.P.'s Doshi Chasmaa, it also typifies the lot of the lowly.
Hyo Jin-gon, variously described as Korea's Chekov or Maupassant, published a famous collection, The Face of Korea, in 1926. One of his best stories, A Lucky Day, depicts the tragic lot of a labourer, not much unlike Shiva Kumar Rai's Maachhaako Mol, depicting, likewise, a day's toils and the tragic end of a fisherman in the process of earning his daily bread.
Another point of resemblance may also be noted. The Korean liberation from the yoke of Japanese occupation and oppresion in 1945 and Nepal's own liberation from an autocratic and oppressive Rana rule 5 years later not only roughly coincide in point of time, but also mark the birth of a new breed of litterateurs. In Korea, this new gneration had experienced the horrors of the Civil War, while its Nepali counterpart had suffered the deprivation an denail of man's most basic human rights prior to the popular insurrection of 1950.
A typical (shall we call it symbolic?) and terrifying story of post-War Korea is The Misfit by Yi Bomson. Although I could not ascertain if it has been translated into English, an editor friend working with the Korea Daily, gave me a gist of it that ran as follows:
"The hero, Chol-ho, works in an office for a painfully low salary. He is so poor, indeed, that he has no more zest for living. His mother is deranged and keeps on urging him "to go back" to the pure and simple life they once led in the countryside.
"His once-beautiful wife is no more happy either because of loss of health and repeated pregnancies. His younger brother is jobless and his younger sister, a prostitute…
"Chol-ho, who has to bear the entire household burden, somehow ekes out a miserable existence. His only saving grace is that he doesn't want to degrade his conscience despite all odds.
"But his younger brother doesn't share his view and wants to get fat on some others' money ("Everyone is doing it, why not we?" - he asks.). But he gets caught in a robbery case. Chol-ho, desperate at hearing this, goes to the police-station to rescue his brother, hardly knowing that his wife has suddenly taken ill and died in the meanwhile!
"In complete despair and knowing not what to do, he takes a taxi and rides aimlessly in the streets. He knows very well it's a luxury he can ill-afford; that's why he keeps muttering to himself all the while, 'I am the god's misfit, I am the god's misfit…! "
The story is thus a savage indictment of the present-day societies marked by inequity and poverty, Korean or otherwise. Other modern Korean writers have harped on similar themes - presenting a society where all human values have broken-down, not unlike in today's Nepal.
Another beautiful story in this genre is Kim Seuing-ok's Seoul 1964, Winter, and Ka Koun-chan's Suffering of Two Generations, two stories that particularly summarise the troubles and hardships which have afflicted that country in the 20th century.
When most Koreans talk about their language, they are inclined to boast that any intelligent foreigner can learn to read the Korean script in a matter of hours. And, true enough, within a day or two of my arrival in Seoul, I was happily deciphering some of the signs in shops and builbings! But the pitfalls for the unwary foreigners are many. You must choose your words carefully depending on whether you are addressing a child, your boss, a relative, or a colleague. My use of honorifics, for example, was particularly the cause of many hilarities and even of embarrassments at times!
Fortunately, some 500 years ago, a great and unusually enlightened monarch had set himself to the monumental task of creating a language system which would enable his people to write their own language in their own indigenous way. This desire for universal literacy led king Sejong (1418-50) to create the hangul alphabet in 1443, a system so remarkable in its ground-breaking theortetical foundation and graphic simplicity that it continues to be used with only slight modifications even at present.
The Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 and the introduction of Western literary styles resulted in the growth of the Shinmunhak or 'New Literary Movement', whose ideas continue to dominate the Korean literary scene down to the present day. This movement sought to take literature out of the court and down to the street.
In 1912, Yi Kwangsu, the father of the modern Korean literature, began to publish his first experimental fiction. In the face of cultural genocide, historical novels aimed at reminding readers of their national heritage, their lost freedom and their cutural identity.
As mentioned earlier, most modern literature and poetry in today's Korea are predominantly sombre following the tragic division of their country after the Korean War. Fictions deal with alienation, frustration, the dehumanizing effects of modernisation and industiralisation. Most of the poetry is also nationalistic, melancholic and filled with an emotion the Koreans call han, which means living with national loss. Since the late 1960's, there has been an increasing experimentation coupled with modernisation of the traditional forms such as the aforesaid sijo, besides p'ansori.
Though not exactly fitting into an essay in literature, it might nevertheless be an amusing deiversion to readers to compare some Korean proverbs and maxims with similar ones prevalent in our own language, although I have selected them at random and with an eye to amusement alone. Here they go:
1. The navel is larger than the belly (Naani bhandaa aachi thulo in Nepali)!
2. The blind man blames the ditch (Naachna najaane aangan tedo)!
3. Rice eaten in a haste chokes (Hataarko kaam lataar)!
4. Preparing quilt for the baby before one's wedding (Naani paaunu kahile kahiley, kokro bunnu ahile)!.
5. A fight between whales breaks the shrimp's back (Saandheko judhaai, bachhaako michhaai)!
[From my weekly column, "Recollections", in The Sunday Post, January 23, 1994.]
In contrast with Korea, I was more at home with Japanese language and literature. Firslty becaue, I have had a cursory familiarity with the language during a four-month-course conducted by the Japanese Conasulate in Calcutta, way back in the late 'Fifties. Secondly, I have had quite a few interactions with the Japanese in the course of my three visits (between 1970 and '91) to the Land of the Rising Sun, for weeks at a stretch, in contrast with my single, as also a shorter, visit to Korea.
On top of these, I had obtained an insight into the country's literature with the help of Lafcadio Hearn, regarded as the most eloquent interpreter of Japanese life and learnings in English. His books like Kotto:A Japanese Miscellany; Japanese Lyrics, Japanese Fairy Tales, and the like had been of great help in familiarising me with the initial Nihon literary trends. Also, with litterateurs such as Yasunari Kawabata, the 1968 Nobel-laureate, I had a brief brush in the course of my first visit there just two years later. I was extremely lucky in that, because he unfortunately committed suicide just a year after my visit.
In the course of my last 15-day sujourn in 1991, I could make myself more familiar with the politico-social themes such as those handled by Ibuse Masuki in the novel about Hiroshima, Kuri Aame ('Black Rain'). Yukio Masima, a younger generation 'expert' in handing romantic and erotic themes, had been dead for 20 years - he also having committed a violent suicide after the completion of his final tetralogy of novels, Hojono Umri ('The Sea of Fertility'). His cue had appparently been taken by Oe Kenzaburu, whose 1967 novel, Man'en Qannen no Fottoboru ('The Silent City'), was still enjoying popularity as a major landmark of post-War Japanese fiction in 1970.
Women writers of promise appeared to remain in oblivion - obviously in keeping with the reprehensible trait of most oriental social cultures that underline male 'superiority'. The only possible exception, I felt, was Ariyoshi Saeake, whom I read in translation. She appeared eloquent both in her elegant stories and novels in highlighting the problems faced by Japanese women.
Upto the end of the World War II, Japan, an Axis nation, was at war with the Allies such as Great Britain and America. The Japanese had, at the time, even spurned the English language, having increaisgnly turned towards German and Italian, the language of the other Axis countries. But the end of the War, along with the defeat of Germany and Japan, changed all that. The emergence of the US as a super-power compelled the Japanese to rediscover and reappraise its erstwhile enemy, with which its future prospects lay. The lure of the lucre, particularly the greenbacks, was so predominant in the business-conscious Japanese society that they virtually turned their heads away from all the other Asiatics, whom they regarded as paupers, if not beggars. That precisely was at the back of the anti-Japanese animosity of the Koreans - the hatred was so pervasive, indeed, that most Koreans had this to say, 'if you faced a cobra and a Japanese at the same time, kill the latter first ' !
That they had gone gaga over the Americans was evidenced by the American Literature Society of Japan. By the time of my first visit in 1970, it had already opened 10 Chapters with over 600 teachers in their rolls throughout Japan.
One day, our guide took us to what he called a 'poetry-reading session' in a beer-hall in Shinjuku. That, he said, was the favourite corner of poets like Miyushi Tatsuji, best poet after Hagiwara, till his death in 1964.
"Why do you hold Hagiwara Sakutaro in such a high esteem?" - I asked him.
"Because he was the true father of modern Japanese poetry," he replied, and read out some of the poet's works from a book he had been carrying. Of those, one was Ai Ren. It ran:
"O surely, with your sweet hard teeth
Woman, my otherness, you
Will chew the green stem of grass
That, with its faintly blue
Ink, I may so paint your face;
Here, where the grass grows dense,
That your slow heart's intensities
May grow more intense…
Hard as I hug your breast, your body,
Hard-presses mine, that we
May squeeze from this abandoned place
Our snaking ecstasy;
And, as I love you piercingly,
I'll stain your stainless skin
With ooze from blue bruised grasses
Such juiciness was in", …etc
Now, for a slight diversion. We Nepalis do take pride in the fact that the Japanese national-ego, their enterprise and heritage-consciousness provide a model for all of us to emulate. But, as hinted above, it's difficult to swallow their all-too-common "Us-and-They" syndrome that tantamounts to denigration of the Third World nations in general. To cite just one example, one may point to the "Japanese Only" bars, clubs and nightspots that dot the length and breadth of cities like Tokyo. "Why this apparent colour-bar?" - I asked our guide.
"Possibly because the staff and hostesses there don't know any language other than their own", was his reply.
"But I conversed with them in their own language, as I do with you. But even then, they turned me out," - I protested.
Poor old chap, he remained speechless. And that silence was eloquent enough!
I had heard and read about the Sento and Onsen, of course. The first is a type of communal bath-house with one large room separating the sexes by a tall barrier and is common where small housing facilities do not provide he luxury of private baths. The second type is not sex-exclusive, meaning that both men and women, in all their nudity, share a common pool which uses hot water from a natural hot spring. The theory behind such common baths being that physical proximity/intimacy brings emotional intimacy, which the Japanese call skinship…
The first ime I saw and joined an Onsen was in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost prefec- ture, in 1970. We had been put up in a posh hotel, and, while it was snowing outside, the men and women guests at the hotel were enjoying hot water public bath in a common pool inside. Reading and hearing about it was one thing; but seeing it with your own naked eyes was quite another - and exciting - experience altogether!
While our other friends shied away from it, Pancha Bahadur and myself gathered courage and jumped into the pool. Needless to add, we enjoyed every minute of it, talking and gossiping with other nude men and women, young and old, as also laughing and spalshing water at one another. In other words, developing a kind of skinship with them!
But the best part of it was before we entered the pool. Pancha pointed towards a shaving kit complete with a shaving soap, a brush and a small mirror lying next to the entrance, but on the ground. He told me he would have a shave before jumping into the pool. But, before he could do it, a Japanese male sat down on the ground and started shaving his pubic hair with the kit, looking at the mirror at the same time! Now we understood why they had been placed so low!
My last trip to Kimamoto, Japan's southernmost prefecture, in 1991, provided another completely different and unforgettable experience. Mount Ado, one of the world's greatest calderas and possibly an eighth natural wonder, was found belching out volcanic ash and smoke. We were taken high up, almost next to the crater, which was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. But we could almost peer inside the crater, despite the extreme heat and suffocating smoke! Only that we couldn't do it for long, and beat our retreat fast!
Lastly, we visited the Techno Center nearby. There, a robot was drawing portraits of the visitors, one at a time, each in three minutes flat! I still have a copy of mine, drawn by it in three minutes, as a fond memento.
[From my weekly column, "Recollections", in The Sunday Post, February 6, 1994.]
Paris Honemoon and Later
It's easy to get lost in Paris. And I discovered it the hard way. One reason is, few people speak any language other than their own. Secondly, people do nor appear too keen to help outsiders, perhaps the Third World 'blackies' in particular. But, of course, there are exceptions. For example, the best wedding present I had received was from a Frenchman, Mr. Robert Rieffel, presently the Honorary Consul-General for Belgium in Nepal. At the time, he was the Regional Manager, India, Air France, and stationed in Delhi. His wedding present to me was in the shape of two free First Class air-tickets to Paris and back. We had thought we would make use of them some day.
Soon after, I received an invitation to visit the Paris Air Show. And, naturally, I and my wife decided to go. Those were also the times when Nepal had been negotiating with France for a possible collaboration between Air France and Royal Nepal Airlines. And I was asked to head the RNAC delegation to Paris to work out the nitty-gritties of a possible agreement between the two airlines. The two other members in my entourage were Capt. R.P. Rana and Capt. G.P. Shrestha.
About six months earlier than our visit, one Mr. Lahouge had been deputed by the French government as an Advisor to Nepal's newly-formed Department of Tourism. I had become fairly chummy with him while he had been in Kathmandu. As such, I had informed him, in advance, of my Paris itinerary. Thankfully, Mr. Lahouge was at hand to receive us at Orly airport as we landed there.
From there, we drove to the apartment of Mr. Keshari Raj Pandey, a UNESCO official, who was also one of my wife's maternal uncles. But even before we could settle for rest we deserved after a night-long flight from New Delhi, Mr. Lahouge was impatient to take me out sight-seeing round Paris. Of course, I was no less eager to taste a bit of the well-known Parisienne bohemianism, about which I had read somewhere:
In Paris, in Paris, Sind die maedels so suess,
Wenn sie fluestern, 'Monsieur,
Ich bin dien.'
("In Paris, the girls look so beautiful when they whisper into your ears, 'Monsiuer, I.m yours'…" - or, something to that effect!)
First, Lahouge took me to the most famous Paris landmark, Eiffel Tower. From the way he described this marvel of a creation by le magicien du fer ('Magician of Iron'), Gustave Eiffel, it appeared everything about it drew out his superlatives. "It's about 1000-feet tall," he began. "Two million visitors had arrived to see it in the first few weeks of 1889 when it had been built, while 25 times that number have been awed by it since: no giant of 20th century art has failed to paint it, Duffy, Picasso, Chagall and Utrillo included". He continued, "The four giant leaning pillars of iron supporting it encompass about 16 thousand square metres; about 10,000 tons of steel had gone into its initial construction; it is given a coat of paint every 7 years, needing 45 tons of it, everytime; about 1300 spotlights illuminate it every night." And so on and so forth, he blabbered along, non-stop!
The ornate old restaurant on the second plarform was still there at the time - and jampacked with visitors (it was sold to an American restauranteur later, I learnt). We stepped into the old rickety elevator that took us past the 978-step spiral staircase to the top. "It carries 600 visitors per hour", Lahouge was still waxing eloquent. And, as I cast a bird's-eye view at the city-scenario far down below, I was apalled, spell-bound. The city lay sprawled before me in a breath-taking vista. "This is the best way to see Paris", the indefatigable Lahouge butted in again!
Much of that afternoon we spent driving round many other landmarks. I was easily overpowered by the sensory feast Paris offered - architecture, history, chapels, museums, parks - all presenting an endless stimulation. It was indeed the city of arts and romance, the cultural hub of Europe. Its powerful legends, narrated by my guide, made me feel that its present is tinged by an ever-existent past.
Then, in the balmy afternoon weather - it was spring-time - we visited quite a few outdoor cafes dotting the length and breadth of the pavements along the famous Montparnasse, as we oggled at the crowds, some of them semi-nude, sitting, eating or drinking under the shade of huge colourful umbrellas. We ourselves sampled a wide variety of another French speciality - the bubbly semi-scarlet fluid, the countles varieties of wine, each one seemingly more delicious than the last one!
Next we wandered through the halls of Musee d'Orsay before proceeding to the Notre Dame chapel. The sun was still up when we reached the chapel, beautifully silhouetted against the western sky. But, once inside the spacious hall packed with a vast multitude, my ordeal seemingly began. I virtually slumped in one of its long benches - and possibly passed out! When I ultimately came to, Lahouge was nowhere to be seen…
As I came out, quite a few taxi-cabs were watiting for fare. Not that my little stammering of French - learnt way back in Calcutta's Alliance Francaise - didn't help; it did. But since I didn't have my hosts' address and couldn't explain to them its exact location, the cabbies were reluctant to take me. Left with no alternative, I started swaggering along, almost in a zigzag, bag in hand; my legs tottered along the pavement that ran parallel to the left bank of the Siene river. But my eyes remained fixed all the time at the Eiffel Tower, because I had a vague feeling that Mr. Pandey's residence was located somewhere next to that landmark, which indeed came to my rescue like a light-house at the time of a ship-wreck. I kept trudging on and on.
Having been to Europe for the first time in life, the Paris sun also played some kind of a trick on me!. For I never knew that sunsets in summertime came almost around midnight in that part of the world. My watch showed it was past 10 p.m.; but the sun hadn't set yet. Had my watch gone berserk like myself, I wondered!
The best surprise of the evening, however, was that I did ultimately make it to the Pandey household after all! But, by the time I arrived there, the entire house was, expectedly, in a virtual bedlam - with Kak, my wife, disconsolate and wailing, Mr. Pandey making frantic phone-calls to Mr. Sunder Prasad Bhattarai, Charge d'Affaires at the Nepalese Embassy, and the Police Headquarters, in turns, and so on…
What had made matters worse, however, was a phone-call from Mr. Lahouge himself. It turned out that he had phoned my wife around 10 pm, asking if I had reached home. "I lost track of him at the Notre Dame chapel," he is said to have added. That was enough of an excuse for her to go into tantrums! In a strange land, and on the first night itself; it was but natural.
After two days at the Air Show, followed by discussions with the Air France officials, it was time to call the France visit it a day. While my two other pilot friends opted to return, I left for a brief jaunt around Nice, Monte Carlo and Geneva with my wife. For the Paris-London trip, we took a Pakistan International (PIA) plane in preference to Air France, and, while on board that aircraft, we accidentally came across Mr. Salim Durrani, the PIA Chairman and Managing Director. Scarcely had we met him, than he extended to us an invitation to vist Pakistan as his guest on our way back from London. Not only that. As soon as we alighted from the aircraft at London, he promptly instructed the PIA Airport Manager on duty at the Heathrow airport and other London-based PIA officials to make arrangements for our trip as and when it suited our convenience. He then bade us goobye and left, promising to meet us next in Karachi.
In London, our hosts were another Pandey couple, Ishwari Raj and his wife. The ever affable, cultured and courteous Ishwari Rajji was also my wife's maternal uncle, and, at the time, the First Secretary in the Royal Nepalese Embassy in London. They had their quarters at the Embassy premises itself, located at the Royal Kensington Gardens.
The kindly Pandeys not only took time of their busy routine to take us out for sight-seeing around London, but also made arrangements for my wife, then a radio-Nepal vocalist, to sing for the BBC's inaugural Nepali radio programme. All that was worth seeing in London, keeping in mind our short stay, we were shown - the Tower of London, Madame Tussaud's, the Changing of Guards at the Buckingham Palace, etc. Our nights were spent going round the Piccadily and Soho areas, visiting this theatre or that 'nude' musical, and what not!
On our way back, we stopped over for two nights at Karachi. The luxury suite we were put-up in at the Hotel Inter-Continental was something out of this world, as it were. So was the hospitality displayed by our Pakistani hosts. Mr. Durrani, who also came to the Airport to see us off on our way to Dacca, then East Pakistan, presented a set of records containing both Ghulam Ali and Mehdi Hassan's gazal -masterpieces to my wife.
In Dacca also, we were guests of the PIA. In the evening, Mr. Madhab Kumar Rimal, Nepal's consul-general, had invited us for dinner. When asked about news back home, he told us, as he looked at my wife in particular, "The most important news for you is that your elder sister, Indu, has been married to one Mr. Tewari," adding, "king Birendra also graced the wedding reception at your father's invitation."
This, somehow, marred the evening as far as my wife was concenred. She must have had a flashback of her own wedding, I thought. Because, apart from inviting anyone else, her parents, themselves, hadn't felt it worth attending! What a contrast - she must have felt and was put-off.
[From my weekly column, "Recollections", in The Sunday Post, June 12, 1994.]
The other day, I ws in for a revelation of sorts. For I then learnt th the ancient name for Bodh Gaya was Gah-i-Kaivan! Something that I had never heard or read ealier.
Some years ago, as I was returning to Kathmandu after watching the Kaalachakra fiasco in Siliguri, I thought of visiting Bodh Gaya enroute. At a nondescript railway station between Patna and Rajgir, in walked a bearded, kurtaa and dhoti-clad young man, a sack-cloth jholaa slinging down his shoulders. He sat beside me and introduced himself. It transpired that he was a lecturer in Ancient Indian History in a nearby Bihar college. Besides, he had also been working on a Doctoral thesis on 'Old Magadhan Civilisation'
Once he came to learn that I was from Kthmandu, his eyes visibly beamed with curiosity. "Pardon me," he began, "but I have read that there is a tribe called Magars in Nepal, am I right?"
But all I knew on the subject was while I had been working on my book, Nepali Janajivan, many years ago. That book, if I remember correctly, contained a chapter on Magars and the second on Taraali Magars. But with a million or more grey-matter cells dying each hour of the day at my age, as they say, I was hard put to it to recall what exactly I had written so many years earlier. Nevertheless, I scratched my memory hard and replied, "Yes, the Magars are believed to be a tribe of Mongoloid ancestry. But there are differing views aboout their predecessors or where they exactly hailed from. Some scholars have even sought to establish a link between them and the Magyars of Hungary."
"It could be so, sir," he rejoined, His politeness undiminished despite my obvious ignorance, "but, on my part, I have a feeling that the term Magara could be more closely linked with ancient Magadha."
He seemed to have a point there, although it was a bit hard for me to easily swallow it. "But how come?" - I retorted. "As far as I knnow, the people predominant in these parts of Bihar, of which Magadha fromed a part, are often sharp-nosed, large-eyed and with a darkish compexion. The Magars, on the other hand, look quite different - they are mostly snub-nosed, oblique -eyed and much fairer in comparison."
"Quite right. But the people of present-day Bihar do not resemble their Magadhan ancestors either, as there has been so much of miscegenation over the centuries. Besides, the very name Magadha is believed to have been derived from ancient Maga." He then recited a line in Sanskrit, "Magam dhaarayate iti Magadha", or something to that effect. Which meant, in other words, that the areas which housed the Maga people was known as Magadha.
"But who were the Magas in the first place?"
"They are said to be an ancient Sun-worshipping people. It appears that they were originally an indigenous race in Elam, and very likely also of Mongoloid stock. Their religious leaders were the sorcerer-priests known as Magi, from which the word 'magic' is also said to have been derived. Besides the sun and fire, they aslo worshipped the Serpent-god and the Mother Goddess, as far as I have gathered."
He continued, "The first eastward migration of the Magian tribes followed their dislodgement at the hands of the invading Aryans. Their appearace on the Indian scene may have coincided with the time when the pre-Aryan Indus Valley civilisation was at its zenith. Professor J.N. Banerjea, an eminent authority on the subject, is of the opinion that the Magas of India were the same as the Magis, the priestly class in ancient Iran. The Asura king Maya, of whom we read so much in the Ramayana as the architect of Ayodhya, as also of the city of Lanka, could himself have been Maga, mispronounced as Maya, the Asura king of our pre-history."
"Any inscriptional or other evidence to corroborate your hypothesis?" - I jocularly remarked.
But he was in no mood for light banter. "Of course," he replied, almost with a vengeance, "a 12th century inscription found right here, near Both Gaya, mentions about Magian or Persian priests having constructed sun-temples around this area. Not only that. Bodh Gaya itself was originally said to have been known as Gah-i-Kaiwan, meaning a summer residence, and, for many centuries, remained a seat of Magian worship. Interestingly, the surrounding areas are still known as Maga."
Against the background of such information, the Magas did loom large before me as a shadowy, but distinct, entity. An entity that may have contributed to the ancient cultures and civilisation in this part of the world. But doubts persisted and I threw another spanner, "Do you mean to say that this region of Magadha, where we are now, was beyond the pale of the Aryan civilisation in ancient times?"
"Precisely, that is what I mean. Particularly if we go by the derogatory references made by ancient Aryan texts like the Aaranyakas and the Upanishads to the pople of this region. And even Bimbisara, a contemporary of Lord Buddha and architect of Magadha's greatness, could have been a Maga king himself. Besides, the present Rajgir, known in older times as Girivraja, is said to have been the capital of famous Jarasandha."
Now I thought it was time to switch the topic over. "What are your own views about the Buddha?" - I asked.
"Before I reply to your question, sir, may I know if you have read any of the works of Dr. Nalinaksha Datta?"
"No. Who's he?"
"A renowned professor of Pali at the Calcutta University. In his opinion, Buddhism itself may have been and offshoot of Zoroastrianism."
I was surprised, but kept mum - at a loss for words, as it were!
Then he elucidated further. "Dr Datta isn't alone in believing that early Zoroastrianism had great influence on Buddha's life and teachings. Another Western scholar, Dr. Spooner, also holds similar views. And, Dr. J.N. Samaddar, author of "The Glories of Magadha", even suggests that king Suddhodhana and the Sakyas of Kapilavastu belonged to the Mongol-Persian Saka clan of Sakadwipa, and, lke the Zoroastrians, married their own sisters. Buddhas' mother also belonged to the clan of Licchavis, who were closely related to the ancient Magas, 'Magars' if you will! And, even the Mauryas or Mayuras of old were a class of Asuras, according to a Puraana, which has led some historians to consider that they were a Himalayan tribe of non-Aryan or Mongolian stock, much like the Kiratas, Mallas, Paandavas, etc." - he enigmatically smiled a little, for the first time…
All this came to me as quite amusing. But are any of our Magar scholars listening?...
[From my weekly column, "Recollections", in The Sunday Post, February 16, 1997.]
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