European Culture: MGV & Satis Shroff With Songs Galore

(Photo: Chrissie Dittmers)
European Culture: From Adiemus to Blue Spanish Eyes (Satis Shroff)

This year’s Christmas Concert in Kappel’s Festhalle began at 8pm with a song from Spain sung by the MGV-Kappel with the title ‘A la nanita nana,’ with Johannes Söllner as its conductor, a serious-looking young man with a bald head, and a goatee, but with an elegant gait. The way he sways his torso and extremities, you’d think a panther is about to pounce you. Johannes is a perfectionist and he has the talent to coax out the best performance from his singers of the men’s choir from Kappel. Every song bears its characteristic lilts, sudden burst of energy in the form of loud men’s voices that peter away. Ah, it’s a delight to watch this dynamic conductor lead his charges to new heights and it’s an honour and a pleasure to sing under his baton.

Next came a song from neighbouring France but in the German version with the title: ‘Hört der Engel Jubellieder.’ It begins slowly but I love the part when you have to sing ‘Gloria’ in excelcis deo..’ You do hear angels sing.

We went back to the 16th century and sang ‘Gaudete’ with much pomp and gusto. Söllner calls it ‘mit schmackes!’ That was our share of spiritual songs for the evening.

We went to the Heimat chest and fished out a German folksong ‘Nun Ade, du mein lieb Heimatland’ about a son who remembers his beloved country while travelling to foreign shores. The Heimat laughs benignly with its azure sky and greets the traveller with its meadows and fields. God knows, my heart is always with, sings the wandering son, but he has to go afar to seek his fortune.

The fifth song was another volkslied, as a folksong is called in German, penned by Friedrich Silcher: ‘Durch’s Wiesental gang I jetzt na,’ a long song with a sad ending sung in a light style with a heavy refrain: I have no treasure anymore. The treasure implied is the lover who doesn’t seem to be in his grave because he wasn’t true in his love towards her. The roses and the carnation have to wilt away like my love, she says, for I have my Schätzele no more.

Then came a jolly song about plantation workers from Jamaica: the Banana Boat song made popular by Harry Belafonte. Johannes Söllner sang the lead part and the labourers of the banana plantation were the men of the MGV-Kappel. The song was sun with the usual swing and a good piano beat. The song came to an end and suddenly the choir members had Bio-bananas in their hands as a gag. The audience raved and loved it.

The ‘Day-O’ song was followed by a love-song about a Mexican beauty and her ‘Blue Spanish Eyes’ sung by Satis Shroff with the Kappeler men’s choir singing the chorus. This brought the house down. The people love schmaltz and quite a lot of elderly Germans could remember the hit from the sixties composed by Bert Kämpfert and made famous by Al Martino.

The evening of international songs was ended with Karl Jenkin’s ‘Adiemus.’ An encore ensued with a song from Israel: ‘Hine ma Tov,’ with lovely, manly Hebrew intonation. The moderation of the men’s choir ‘Liederkranz’ was performed by Johannes Söllner, who established himself as an animator and made the audience answer his quiz and pranced and hopped around on the stage. The audience was putty in his hands.

Since Karin Peters was busy with her family affairs, a moderator of the South-West 4 did her job and received a lot of appreciation for his im promptu interpretations and announcements. The Musikverein began with ‘A Celtic Christmas’ with music by James L.Hosay and the conductor was Manfred Preiss, a thick-set man with a bald head, who has been conducting the Musicverein Kappel orchestra since over 30 years. Noah Schroeder’s rendering of ‘alla Milanese, Siciliano, Rondo Veneziano on his fagott was a treat for one’s ears with music by Kees Vlak, accompanied by the brass-orchestra. Other notable numbers were: ‘The Bremen Town Musicians (Hayato Hirose), the Images of a City (Francesco Sessini, Op.42) and the New York Overture (Kees Vlak). The last piece was one with feeling: percussions, clarinets, flutes reaching a crescendo only to melt away in recurring waves. Samba rhythm in the first half, followed German brass in a slow tempo mingled with bells chiming, a trumpet solo reminiscent of Milies Davis, a foxtrott played on the clarinet and the evening vanished like stardust on a dark Schwarzwald sky.

The history of the MGV-Kappel dates back to 1920 and initially it carried the name ‘Musik und Gesangverein’ under the leadership of Hermann Steiert. However, it was in Mai 1, 1932 that the official MGV_Kappel ‘Liederkranz’ was founded. Whereas in those thrifty days the membership-fee for the singers was 1 Reichsmark, today it is 15 euros per annum. Politics brought new changes in the vereins of Germany in general and on November 23,1933 the Singers’ Association (Bund) demanded that a meeting be held whereby the key word in those days of the Third Reich was ‘Gleichschaltung’ meaning thereby that all associations in the country had to have a common function: to serve the nation under Adolf Hitler. New terms were introduced: Vereinsführer, vice vereinsführer.

The World War II broke out on September 1, 1939 and a lot of MGV singers had to go to the battlefields. It was on may 8, 1945 that the big ethnic murders were brought to an end in Europe. Where ever you looked, you saw piles of rubble, dust and ashes left by the krieg. It was on July 13, 1947 that the MGV-Kappel ‘Liederkranz’ was given permission by the French military government to re-start the men’s choir.

Since the Musikverein and the men’s choir in Kappel have a common origin and split up later and hold the annual Weihnachtskonzert together, it would be wonderful if the two vereins would cooperate and coordinate music and songs together in future. Miteinander instead of hintereinander or nebeneinander, for through togetherness we can win the hearts of the audience.

Viva Babilonia! Freiburger Lesemarathon (Satis Shroff)

VIVA BABILONIA!

1. Interkultureller Freiburger Lesemarathon
Die Welt ist längst in Freiburg zuhause: Menschen aus über 80 unterschiedlichen Nationen leben hier. Einen Tag und eine Nacht lang soll die babilonische Seite Freiburgs gehört, gesehen und gefeiert werden. Das Centro Culturale Italiano e.V. veranstaltet zusammen mit Südwind e.V. den 1. interkulturellen Lesemarathon im Theater Freiburg. Die Kammerbühne wird zum weltgewandten Wohnzimmer, in dem FreiburgerInnen circa 60 Muttersprachen zum Klingen bringen: Sie lesen, zitieren, singen und skandieren literarische Texte, eigene Texte, Lieder, Gedichte. Für eine Übersetzung ins Deutsche ist gesorgt. Für kleine Speisen und Getränke ebenfalls. Damit das Ohr ganz Läufer ist in diesem Marathon.

My name’s Satis Shroff and come originally from Nepal where I worked as a journalist. I am a lecturer at the Uniklinik Freiburg, Uni Freiburg, Volkshochschule-Freiburg, and in Basle. I love teaching Creative Writing and medical subjects. I live in Freiburg-Kappel and am the Schriftführer of the MGV-Kappel. I love singing songs (Russian, Broadway, German songs, Hebrew, African and Nepalese and Hindi songs. In my poems and articles I write about   themes like longing, love, the agony of war, the discrimination against Gurkhas, togetherness, dignity of humans, tolerance and one-world.

Awards: I was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize and also the Kulture prize of Green City Freiburg for my social engagement and was nominated by Green City Cluster Freiburg for the Deutsche Engagement Preis in Berlin 2011.

I’ll be reading the following poems:

1. Summertime I or II

2. A Gurkha Mother

3. The Lure of the Himalayas

——————————————————————————————————-

 

SUMMERTIME I (Satis Shroff)

I sat in the garden
With Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure on my lap,
And watched a small butterfly
With dark spots on its frail wings,
Violet patterns on its tail.
It was Aglais utricae
Flattering lightly
Between the marigolds
And chrysanthemums.

The Potentilla nepalensis
Was growing well
Under the shade of the rhododendrons.
The great pumpkin was spreading
Its leafy tentacles everywhere.
The tomatoes were fighting for light
Hiding beneath the pumpkin’s gigantic green leaves.

A Papilio machaon with its swallow-tail
Came from no where.
The laughter of the children,
As they swung in the garden’s two swings
Were a delight to one’s soul.

Little Florentin’s fear of bees,
Natasha’s morbid fear of spiders,
Elena’s garden gymnastics
And Julian’s delight in discovering
New insects, snails and snakes.

Holding hands we strolled in our garden.
You watered the flowers and trees,
I removed long, brown snails,
A hobby-gardener of Nepalese descent,
In a lovely house with character in Zähringen,
An Allemanic stronghold.
Once the subject of dispute
Between Austria and France,
Now a sleepy residential area of Freiburg.

* * * 

  

SOMMERZEIT I (Satis Shroff)

Ich saß im Garten,

Thomas Hardys „Herzen im Aufruhr“ auf dem Schoß,

und betrachtete einen kleinen Schmetterling

mit dunklen Flecken auf den zarten Flügeln

und violett gemustertem Schwanz.

Es war ein Aglais urticae,

schwerelos flatternd

zwischen Ringelblumen

und Chrysanthemen.

 

Die Potentilla nepalensis
gedieh prächtig
im Schatten der Alpenrosen.

Der große Kürbis streckte
seine wuchernden Tentakel nach allen Seiten.

Versteckt unter seinen grünen Riesenblättern
kämpften die Tomatenpflanzen ums Licht.
Aus dem Nichts tauchte ein Papilio machaon auf

mit seinem Schwalbenschwanz.

Das Lachen der Kinder

auf den beiden Schaukeln im Garten

erfüllte die Seele mit der reinsten Freude.

Der kleine Florentin mit seiner Angst vor Bienen,

Natashas morbide Furcht vor Spinnen,

Elenas Gartengymnastik

Und Julians Entzücken beim Entdecken

Neuer Insekten, Schnecken und Echsen.

 

Händchenhaltend schlenderten wir durch den Garten.
Du wässertest Blumen und Bäume,

ich sammelte lange, braune Schnecken,

ein Hobbygärtner nepalesischer Herkunft

in einem charmanten Häuschen in Zähringen,

der alten alemannischen Burg.

Damals umkämpft

zwischen Österreich und Frankreich,

heute verschlafener Vorort von Freiburg.

* * *

  

Zeitgeistlyrik: SUMMERTIME II (Satis Shroff)

My German Grandma

Is an early bird.

She discerns the birds,

Chirping and tweeting outside her window.

It’s six O’clock.

Feels the rays of the morning sun,

On her parched skin.

Her Siam cat Sirikit

Jumps out of the bed,

Stretches itself and yawns.

The old grand lady shuffles

To the bathroom in her blue gown.

Later she goes to the bakery,

To get her croissants and buns.

She hasn’t read the Sunday Zeitung,

Hasn’t heard the radio,

Watched no TV.

The bakery is closed,

She notices.

Has the baker gone to Mallorca,

The Teutonic grill?

The street is empty.

No tram, no bus,

Not a soul.

She turns around to walk back home.

‘Unverschämt’ shouts Grandma.

She’s ill-tempered this morning.

Time seems to drag at a snail’s pace,

For an octogenarian.

It’s the last Sunday

Of the month of March.

Middle European Time began at 2 am,

When she was dreaming in her cosy bed.

The clocks were turned

From two to three am.

The world was synchronised.

Globalised.

But not Grandma’s biological clock.

An hour later Frau Fruttiger greets her,

‘Guten Tag’ she replied.

Her keen eyes see that her neighbour

Has a paper bag with hot buns

In her basket.

‘The bakery was closed an hour ago,’ she says.

Frau Fruttiger smiles benignly and says:

‘It’s open now.

We have Summer Time.’

Grandma mutters inaudibly:

‘Sommerzeit. Winterzeit.

So ein Unsinn.’

 

* * *

Lyrik: A GURKHA MOTHER  (Satis Shroff)

(Death of a Precious Jewel)

 

The gurkha with a khukri

But no enemy

Works for the Queen of England,

Yet gets shot at

In missions he doesn’t comprehend.

Order is hukum,

Hukum is life

Johnny Gurkha still dies

Under foreign skies.

He never asks why

Politics isn’t his style

He’s fought against all and sundry:

Turks, Tibetans, Italians and Indians

Germans, Japanese, Chinese

Argentineans and Vietnamese.

Indonesians and Iraqis.

Loyalty to the utmost

Never fearing a loss.

The loss of a mother’s son

From the mountains of Nepal.

Her grandpa died in Burma

For the glory of the British.

Her husband in Mesopotemia

She knows not against whom

No one did tell her.

Her brother fell in France,

Against the Teutonic hordes.

She prays to Shiva of the Snows for peace

And her son’s safety.

Her joy and her hope

Farming on a terraced slope.

A son who helped wipe her tears

And ease the pain in her mother’s heart.

A frugal mother who lives by the seasons

And peers down to the valleys

Year in and year out

In expectation of her soldier son.

A smart Gurkha is underway

Heard from across the hill with a shout

‘It’s an officer from his brigade.

A letter with a seal and a poker-face

“Your son died on duty,” he says,

“Keeping peace for the Queen of England,

And the United Kingdom.”

A world crumbles down

The Nepalese mother cannot utter a word

Gone is her son,

Her precious jewel.

Her only insurance and sunshine

In the craggy hills of Nepal.

And with him her dreams

A spartan life that kills.

Glossary:

gurkha: soldier from Nepal

khukri: curved knife used in hand-to-hand combat

hukum: Befehl/command/order

shiva: a god in Hinduism

 

******

 

Der Verlust des Sohnes einer Mutter (Satis Shroff)

Der Gurkha

Mit einem gefährlichen Khukri

Aber kein Feind in Sicht,

Arbeitet für die Königin von England,

Und wird erschossen

Für Einsätze,

Die er nicht begreift.

Befehl ist Hukum,

Hukum ist sein Leben

Johnny Gurkha stirbt noch

Unter fremdem Himmel.

Er fragt nie warum

Die Politik ist nicht seine Stärke.

Er hat gegen alle gekämpft:

Türken, Tibeter, Italiener, und Inder

Deutsche, Japaner, Chinesen,

Vietnamesen und Argentinier.

Loyal bis ans Ende,

Er trauert keinem Verlust nach.

Der Verlust des Sohnes einer Mutter,

Von den Bergen Nepals.

Ihr Großvater starb in Birmas Dschungel

Für die glorreichen Engländer.

Ihr Mann fiel in Mesopotamien,

Sie weiß nicht gegen wen,

Keiner hat es ihr gesagt.

Ihr Bruder ist in Frankreich gefallen,

Gegen die teutonische Reichsarmee.

Sie betet Shiva von den Schneegipfeln an

Für Frieden auf Erden, und ihres Sohnes Wohlbefinden.

Ihr einzige Freude, ihre letzte Hoffnung,

Während sie den Terrassenacker

Auf einem schroffen Hang bestellt.

Ein Sohn, der ihr half,

Ihre Tränen zu wischen

Und den Schmerz in ihrem mütterlichen Herz

zu lindern.

Eine arme Mutter, die mit den Jahreszeiten lebt,

Jahr ein und Jahr aus, hinunter in die Täler schaut

Mit Sehnsucht auf ihren Soldatensohn.

Ein Gurkha ist endlich unterwegs

Man hört es über den Bergen mit einem Geschrei.

Es ist ein Offizier von seiner Brigade.

Ein Brief mit Siegel und ein Pokergesicht

„Ihren Sohn starb im Dienst,“

sagt er lakonisch:

„Er kämpfte für die Königin von England

Und für den Vereinigten Königreich.“

Eine Welt bricht zusammen

Und kommt zu einem Ende.

Ein Kloß im Hals der Nepali Mutter.

Nicht ein Wort kann sie herausbringen.

Weg ist ihr Sohn, ihr kostbares Juwel.

Ihr einzige Versicherung und ihr Sonnenschein.

In den unfruchtbaren, kargen Bergen,

Und mit ihm ihre Träume

Ein spartanisches Leben,

Das den Tod bringt.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The Lure of the Himalayas (Satis Shroff,)

Once upon a time,

Near the town of Kashgar,
I, a stranger in local clothes was captured
By the sturdy riders of Vali Khan.
What was a stranger
With fair skin and blue eyes,
Looking for in Vali Khan’s terrain?
I, the stranger spoke a strange tongue.
‘He’s a spy sent by China.
Behead him, ’ barked the Khan’s officer.
I pleaded and tried to explain
My mission in their country.
It was all in vain.

On August 26,1857
I, Adolph Schlagintweit,
a German traveller, an adventurer,
Was beheaded as a spy,
Without a trial.

I was a German who set out on the footsteps
Of the illustrious Alexander von Humboldt,
With my two brothers Hermann and Robert,
From Southhampton on September 20,1854
To see India, the Himalayas and Higher Asia.
The mission of the 29000km journey
Was to make an exact cartography
Of the little known countries,
Sans invitation, I must admit.

In Kamet we reached a 6785m peak,
An elevation record in those days.
We measured the altitudes,
Gathered magnetic, meteorological,
And anthropological data.
We even collected extensive
Botanical, zoological and ethnographic gems.

Hermann and I made 751 sketches,
Drawings, water-colour and oil paintings.
The motifs were Himalayan panoramas,
Single summits, glacier formations,
Himalayan rivers and houses of the natives.
Padam valley, near the old moraine
Of the main glacier at Zanskar in pencil and pen.
A view from Gunshankar peak 6023 metres,
From the Trans-Sutlej chain in aquarelle.
A European female in oriental dress in Calcutta 1855.
Brahmin, Rajput and Sudra women draped in saris.
Kristo Prasad, a 35 year old Rajput
Photographed in Benaras.
An old Hindu fakir with knee-long rasta braids,

Bhot women from Ladakh, snapped in Simla.
Kahars, Palki-porters from Bihar,
Hindus of the Sudra caste.
A Lepcha armed with bow and arrows,
In traditional dress up to his calves
And a hat with plume.
Kistositta, a 25 year old Brahmin from Bengal,
Combing the hair of Mungia,
A 43 year old Vaisa woman.
A wandering Muslim minstrel Manglu at Agra,
With his sarangi.
A 31 year old Ram Singh, a Sudra from Benaras,
Playing his Kolebassen flute.
The monsoon,
And thatched Khasi houses at Cherrapunji

The precious documents of our long journey
Can be seen at the Alpine Museum Munich.
Even a letter,
Sent by Robert to our sister Matilde,
Written on November 2,1866 from Srinagar:
‘We travelled a 200 English mile route,
Without seeing a human being,
Who didn’t belong to our caravan.
Besides our horses, we had camels,
The right ones with two humps,
Which you don’t find in India.
We crossed high glacier passes at 5500m
And crossed treacherous mountain streams.’

My fascination for the Himalayas
Got the better of me.
I had breathed the rare Himalayan air,
And felt like Icarus.
I wanted to fly higher and higher,
Forgetting where I was.
My brothers Hermann and Robert left India
By ship and reached Berlin in June,1857.

I wanted to traverse the continent
Disregarding the dangers,
For von Humboldt was my hero.
Instead of honour and fame,
My body was dragged by wild riders in the dust,
Although I had long left the world.

A Persian traveller, a Muslim with a heart
Found my headless body.
He brought my remains all the way to India,
Where he handed it to a British colonial officer.

It was a fatal fascination,
But had I the chance,
I’d do it again.

* * *

 Two lamas from the Rumtek Cloister (Sikkim)

Die Sehnsucht des Himalaya (Satis Shroff)

Lange ist es her,

In der Nähe von Kashgarstadt,

Wurde ich, ein Fremder, gefangen

Von den wilden Reitern des Vali Khan.

Was macht ein Fremder,

Mit blasser Haut und blauen Augen,

In Vali Khans Gebiet?

Ich, der Fremde, der eine seltsame Sprache sprach.

„Er ist ein Spion von China.

Köpf ihm,“ brüllte der Kahns Offizier.

Ich flehte und bat um Gnade,

Versuchte meine Mission zu erklären.

Vergebens.

Am 26. August 1857

Ich, Adolph Schlagintweit,

Ein Deutscher Reisender,

Ein Abenteuerer,

Wurde als Spion enthauptet,

Ohne eine Verhandlung.

Ich war ein Deutscher

Auf Alexander von Humbolts Fußstapfen,

Mit meinen Brüdern Herman und Robert,

Von Southhampton am 20, September 1954 gestartet,

Um Indien, das Himalayagebirge und Hochasien

Zu sehen und zu erkunden.

Die Mission von der 29,000km Reise

War, eine exakte Kartographie anzufertigen,

Von den unbekannten Ländern.

Sans Einladung,

Ich muss gestehen.

In Kamet erreichten wir ein 6785m hohen Gipfel,

Eine erstaunliche Höhe in jenen Tagen.

Wir haben die Höhen gemessen,

Meteorologische, magnetische,

Und anthropologische Daten dokumentiert.

Sogar botanische, zoologische

Und ethnographische Raritäten

Haben wir gesammelt.

Hermann und ich machten 751 Skizzen,

Aquarelle und Ölbilder.

Die Motive waren Himalaya-Panoramas,

Einzelne Gipfel, Gletscherformationen,

Reißende Himalayaflüße

Und exotische Häuser und Hütten

Von den Einheimischen.

Padamtal, neben der alten Moraine,

Von dem Hauptgletscher in Zanskar

In Bleistift und Feder.

Ein Blick vom dem 6023 m Gaurishanker-Gipfel,

Von der Trans-Sutlej-Kette in Aquarell.

In Kalkutta 1855 eine europäische Dame

In orientalischen Kleidern.

Brahmin, Rajput und Sudra Frauen,

Gewickelt in meterlange Saris.

Kristo Prasad, ein 35jähriher Rajput,

Photographiert in Benaras.

Ein alter Hindu Fakir,

Mit einer knielangen Rastafrisur.

Bhotfrauen von Ladakh, aufgenommen in Simla.

Kahars, Palki-Träger von Bihar,

Hindus von der Sudra-Kaste.

Ein Lepcha bewaffnet mit Pfeil und Bogen,

In traditionellen Tracht,

Die bis zu seinem Unterschenkel reichten,

Und einen Hut mit Feder.

Kistositta, ein 25jährige Brahmane aus Bengalen,

Kämmte die Haare von Mungia,

Einer 42jährigen Vaisa Frau.

Manglu in Agra, ein reisender

Muslime Bänklesänger mit seine Sarangi

Ram Singh, ein 31jähriger Sudra aus Benaras,

Der seine Kolebassenflöte spielte.

Der Monsun,

Und die strohgedeckten Häuser in Cherrapunji

Die kostbaren Dokumente von unserer langen Reise,

Kann man im alpinen Museum in München anschauen.

Sogar ein Brief von Robert,

An unsere Schwester Matilde,

Geschrieben am 2. November 1866 von Srinagar:

„Wir sind eine 200 englische Meilen Route gefahren

Ohne ein Mensch zu sehen,

Der nicht zu unserer Karavane gehörte.

Außer unseren Pferden, haben wir Kamele,

Die richtigen, mit zwei Höckern,

Die Du in Indien nicht findest.

Wir überquerten 5500m Hohe Gletscherpässe,

Und gefährliche Bergflüsse.“

Meine Faszination für das Himalayagebirge

Brachte mich um.

Ich hatte die Himalayaluft eingeatmet,

Und vergaß wo ich war.

Ich fühlte mich wie einst Ikarus,

Und wollte höher und noch höher

Und vergaß wo ich war.

Mein Brüder Hermann und Robert

Verliessen Indien mit dem Schiff

Und erreichten Berlin in Juni 1857.

Ich, meinerseits, wollte die Kontinent durchqueren,

Ohne Gedanken an Gefahren,

Die vor mir lagen,

Denn Humboldt war mein Held.

Anstatt Ruhm und Ehrung,

Mein Körper wurde

Von wilden Reitern in den Staub gezerrt,

Obwohl ich schon längst

Die irdische Welt verlassen hatte.

Ein persischer Reisender, ein Muslim mit Herz,

Fand meinen kopflosen Körper.

Er brachte mein Leichnam,

Über die Himalaya nach Indien,

Und übergab ihn zu einem britischen Offizier.

Es war eine fatale Faszination.

Aber hätte ich die Chance,

Wurde ich dasselbe wieder tun.

 

* * *

Schwarzwald Chronicle: Tales From Kappel (Satis Shroff)

TALES FROM KAPPEL (Satis Shroff)

 

The 4th of December is celebrated as Barbara Day after the saint who is regarded as a protector of the hillfolk in Germany and elsewhere in countries where people work in mines.

 

According to a legend from the 4^th century, the holy Barbara is said to have to have died a gruesome death as a martyr. She is regarded as one of the fourteen helpers-in-need and worshipped as the protector of the miners. In Freiburg-Kappel, the worship of St.Barbara dates back to 1146 at Eichberg in Litterweiler, which lies to the east of Freiburg, and has been documented in a certificate dedicated to the holy Barbara. It is said that the name-giving is closely related to the mining industry in Kappel.

 

In 1967 a kindergarden was built in Kappel and it received the name St. Barbara. Among the miners of Kappel the Barbara Day has always been regarded as a special day. This tradition has been documented in a certificate by a priest named J. Vitt who composed the lyrics of the St. Barbara (Miner’s song) as well as the popular Kappeler song. Both songs were composed in the year 1936. We, the men’s choir of the MGV-Kappel ‘Liederkranz’ sang both songs at the inauguration ceremony of the Bergbau exhibition at the Kappel’s  town council, located in the Grosstal Strasse 45. The project manager was our good friend Ernst Ehemann, who’s father-in-law Joseph Sumser gave his knowledge about the mining-industry to Ernst.

 

The work in the mine was, and still is, extremely dangerous. On St. Barbara’s Day the people remember the miners who lost their lives in the recesses of the Schauinsland and Kappeler  hillsides where mining was done. The life-span of the miners were short and the miner’s pulmonary disease was dreaded.

 

The miners felt that they were responsible for the well-being of each other. They organised themselves since 750 years in an association called ‘Knappschaft’ in German and showed the solidarity and mutual support when someone was ill, couldn’t go to work, due to gerontological reasons or the near and dear one of the miners were left behind, families that were in need and comrades who’d died in the mines.

 

Much like the ‘guthi’ among the people of Nepal, the Kappeler ‘Knappschaft’ is the oldest social security organisation and became a model for the social insurance in Germany later. Nevertheless, it must be mentioned that not all people who are in emergency situations , ill and old are not sufficiently insured. Yes, in a modern country like Germany there are people who are impoverished, especially the children and single-mothers. It is hoped that those responsible in politics care about a real solidarity and assistance for the needy and the underdogs of the German society.

 

Our planet earth bares an endless treasure in its soil such as ores, coal, minerals, uranium, salts, oil, precious stones, gold and silver. The miners have been bringing these and other treasures since centuries out of Mother Nature’s womb. But how Man uses these treasures is another matter, for the human being tends to be unfortunately infected with greed, exploitation, misuse and extravagance which in turn brings danger to peace, tolerance, miteinander (togetherness). There is always the temptation of accumulating wealth at the cost of others. We can only hope that Man will make good use of the treasures that Mother Nature bestows upon us with more responsibility and respect for ecology and natural resources.

 

If you come to Kappel’s Schauinsland school you can see a mural on its front entrance painted by Benedikt Schaufelberger. It depicts three miners in their overalls, helmets and mining implements. A stylish blonde housewife sits barefoot near her playful children. The school was built after the World War II. There was a lot to be done in Germany in those days and the motto was: carpe diem and ‘trust morning only a little.’ The school’s first Hausmeister, who looked after the school’s non-academic sector, was a miner named Emil Krauss.

 

In a book about Kappel and its history with the title ‘Kappel im Tal’ Erwin Steiert devotes a chapter on: the Bergbau in Kappel from 1872 till1954. He mentions: ‘ Unfortunately there’s  a Bergmuseum neither in Hofsgrund nor in Kappel.’ But the Kultur und Kunstverein has made a start with Ernst Ehemann as a pioneer of the Miner’s Museum in Kappel’s town council. Perhaps a day might come when Kappel has enough money from Freiburg and Stuttgart to build a museum for its sons who dedicated their lives in the mines of Schauinsland and Kappel in their search and excavation for lead, zinc, gold and silver.

 

Ernst Ehemann was of the opinion that the museum should be made known throughout the world and children should be motivated to view the exhibits dealing with the mining industry, because those are the roots of the people of Kappel and Schauinsland. To this end, the MGV-Kappel sang the olde miner’s songs. If it hadn’t been for the silver mines in Schauinsland, Kappel and Zähringen, Freiburg would have remained an impoverished town. The wealth brought to Freiburg through the mines in the mountains was used to build the Freiburger cathedral (Münster). Today some 303,000 visitors come to the Schauinsland. Niklas von Gayling (FDP), a landlord and castle-owner from Ebnet praised the good relationship between Ebnet and kappel. Since the days of mining are almost over in this part of the Black Forest, Schauinsland’s future lies in the water it delivers to Freiburg’s growing population.

 

On display at the museum were: a boring-machine from 1820, a St. Barbara statue as a   holy figure from the Black Forest, a Bergman’s parade uniform in black studded with brass buttons on the breast and lots of mining equipment. In front of the town council there was also a rusty mining-wagon for the ore-transport on railway tracks.

 

In my head was the haunting melody of the miner’s song (Bergmannslied) depicting the fear and rising lonesomeness in the pitch dark tunnels and shafts and the thoughts of his beloved:

 

Ade, ade,ade,ade!

Herzensliebste mein!

Und da unten

In den tiefem, finstern Schacht

-bei der Nacht,

da denk ich dein.

World Healing Poetry: The Healing Power of Hope (Satis Shroff, Germany)

World Healing Poetry: The Healing Power of Hope (Satis Shroff, Germany)

Unto you that fear my name

Shall the sun of righteousness

Arise with healing in his wings

(Malachi)

Bridges of peace, friendship and togetherness

Are built on mutual respect,

Tolerance and Miteinander.

We must talk about the symbols

Of tyranny in your villages, towns and cities.

On Memorial Day we gather with earnest faces,

To honour and remember the people

Whose names are engraved on stones,

Who died in the two World Wars.

The suns and husbands have fallen,

But a new ghost raises its ugly head again,

The Neonazis who work for

The Bundesnachrichtendienst.,

Who receive money for their incompetence,

In Thuringen, Saxony,

Hessen and Lower Saxony.

The lesson of faschism taught us

Never to combine

The police with the secret service,

For it would be akin to the Gestapo,

The Geheimen Staatspolizei.

The sixteen secret services in Germany

Cannot coordinate and cooperate.

Since thirteen years have we given

Neonazis a free hand,

Who robbed banks,

Executed Turkish and Greek migrants.

The constitution makes it possible:

‘Germany for the Germany,

All aliens out!’

Long live the Freedom of Speech.

But prithee, where is the protection

Of the migrants and underdogs

Of the society?

Is a new holocaust in the offing?

Yet there is no way

But the path of peace and togetherness.

The ewig gestrigen and the neos

Are still licking the wounds of war,

Wounds that won’t heal,

For they are infected with hate anew,

With brown-propaganda.

War has always been ugly and brutal.

The widows of the on-going krieg in the Hindukush,

The survivors who don’t understand their own world,

After the trauma of Vietnam, Irak, Afghanistan.

When the NATO sirens are tested,

The air vibrates with a monstrous noise.

Fear makes the olde soldier’s heart beats faster,

His pulse races and he almost chokes.

The memories and the fury of war overwhelm him.

Who will restore the faces we’ve adored?

Love, faith, togetherness and peace

Haven’t been lulled to sleep.

We still hear the clarion call

To the dangers of war,

To the hoarse shouts

Of the Neos in the street,

Who strut and fret,

And believe Auschwitz was a lie.

A silence treads like clouds shadows,

Among the people of Germany.

Hope hasn’t abandoned us yet,

Despite the petite victories of the rightists,

In Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

The people in these lands

Think otherwise.

In every good person there is a bad part,

In every bad person there’s a good trait,

Like ying and yang.

We can only appeal to humans,

Hope and pray for peace,

And the old wounds to heal,

Between humans in this world.

Memorial Day in Germany (Satis Shroff, Freiburg-Kappel)

Volkstrauertag-Memorial Day (Satis Shroff)

 

                      Volkstrauertag at Freiburg-Kappel in the Black Forest, Germany

Once a year we in Germany think about the victims of past wars, conflicts and rulers who used aggression and brutality to attain and preserve their power. We were gathered in the Black Forest town of Freiburg-Kappel to honour the people who’s names were engraved on the stone-slab; sons of Kappel who died in the killing-fields of World War I and II. The dedication ran thus:

‘…Ihren in den Weltkriegen

1914-1918 und 1939-1943

gefallenen Söhnen.’

The people of Kappel were standing between the graves, the navy-blue uniformed men of the Voluntary Fire Brigade standing at attention, the music verein and the men’s choir (MGV-Kappel ‘Liederkranz’ played appropriate music and the choir sang a Russian song ‘Tabje Pajem’ as well as the German version of ‘Nearer My God.’

The ones who were honoured were the sons, fathers and young husbands who died in the last two big wars. The memorial service was also for those who weren’t mentioned, as well as those who have had to live without the dead and missing members of the family. Even today, young German widows are weeping for their husbands who were killed on duty in the Hindukush. At the same time, the memorial reminds us of the right to protest in countries where people are treated inhumanly and where peaceful living and togetherness are jeopardised.

Values and norms are always followed by deeds and our memorial in Kappel is one such act. We have to extend our hands to others in friendship, and the soldier who has his finger on the trigger should have the civil courage not to shoot another human being, thinking of the people of the Volksarmy of the old German Democratic Republic, who didn’t hesitate to shoot their own people, who wanted to flee from the socialist, totalitarian country where barbed-wire, the automatic shooting devices, long and tall walls were normality, and where the people were crushed by army-boots and many tortured and killed. The trauma of those days and the days of the holocaust still haunt us today, and in the future too.

As a result of aggression on the weaker by the powerful, wounds were, and still are, being created, which can never be healed and the sufferers swear revenge in the sanguine and fearsome wars. Yet there is no other way than to forgive and live in peace.

In Germany we have lived long in peace after the last World War II, and we shouldn’t give war a chance to raise its ugly head, but endeavour to look for peaceful solutions when conflict flairs up. Our children must be told about the misery and loss in wartime and it is our duty to tell them about the experience and deep feelings that we have whenever we’re confronted with the word ‘war.’ It should not be a taboo like death. It’s not about DVD and computer games: it’s the hard reality. We have to bring the symbols of aggression and tyranny to our hamlets, towns and cities and talk about it and endow respect for the deceased and those injured, whether the damage is collateral or not. If we show respect, tolerance, togetherness and peaceful intentions to other people it will be possible to build bridges of consolation, friendship and togetherness.

We should never cease to hope and act for peace, because krieg, brutality and aggression are evident very much in our lives, brought to us through the media. The war in Afghanistan, which was for a long time sold by the governments of Germany and Britain as a mere ‘conflict,’ even when we all knew that it was a terrible war where people died on both sides. The Arabian Spring has shown what people can do against tyranny by joining forces and fighting against it.

In Freiburg the memorials for the fallen soldiers were commemorated after World War I, among them one for the 5th Badische field artillery at the cannon-place on Schlossberg in the years 1925-26, and also at the big graveyard with the themes: Germania and Heimat. The ‘Alma mater in grief’ can be seen at the university building I, initiated by a psychiatrist named Alfed Hoche later for all the victims of World War II and tyranny.

Grapes and Culture (Satis Shroff)

Grapes and Culture (Satis Shroff)

It was a beautiful autumnal day and we, the members of the men´s choir (MGV-Kappel) headed for ZunZingen, a wine-growing area near Müllheim along the country-road in a Winterhalter bus, based in Kirchzarten. We went past Staufen and the Munster Valley hidden by a thick forest in the colours of autumn.

´Oh, that´s the place where we used to go to gather mushrooms,´ quipped Elke Suetterle, a soft spoken, slim lady with long flowing brunette hair.

Yellow mustard fields appeared and in the distance a glorious sunset. An Eurofighter jet streaked with its white jet stream vertically as though it´d found a hole to Heaven in the orange-blue sky.

The bus went slowly along the country-road past picturesque villages with gentle valleys, spurs and hillocks. We saw a Café im Glashaus in Dottingen. There were horses and some mules grazing in small green enclosures. A pretty church with a steep roof and a cross on the top went by with the colourful sunset in the background. Then came the grapevines. There was a Hofladen, a shop attached to the farm, with the farmer´s wife selling self-produced fruits and vegetables. Soon we went past the grey building of the Winzergenossenschaft Laufen. There were carefully planted grape vines, half a metre high on the slopes of where ever you looked. The wood was already cut and neatly stacked for the winter for in the countryside you still use ovens which are fed on wood, and there were huge hay-bundles in sky-blue plastic bags scattered across the fields because everything´s done with agricultural machines.

After the Winzergenossenschaft Britzingen, along the narrow streets you could suddenly see a local artist´s atelier with modern exhibits, and in the distance cypress trees arranged in a row like in the Tosca. Finally we reached Zunzingen, located on a slope. There was a sign with the words ´Gas weg v: Kinder,´ warning car-drivers that there was a Kindergarden ahead.

We were greeted with Badische hospitality by our friend Dirk Schneider and his Mongolian wife and were ushered into the Weinetiketten Museum housed in their spacious home, the first of its kind in Germany. There were 1200 exhibits which keep on changing, and the collection had 120,000 specimens from over Europe, the oldest wine label dating back to 1811.

What was fascinating was the fact that a few wine-labels were specially drawn and painted by renowned artists like Picasso and Chagal and even famous cartoonists.

Dir Schneider, who´sDr. Gustav Schneider´s son, said, ´My parents took over the tradition-rich wine estate in Zunzingen in the year 1995. Since then we´ve been carrying on the success of a marriage between experiencing wine and enjoying it.´ Dr. Gustav Schneider and his wife Elizabeth have two sons: Dirk and Jörg. Whereas Dirk runs the historical wine-castle in Freiburg, which is located between the Jazzhouse and the Goethe Institute, his brother Joerg is responsible for the Walfgasthaus St. Barbara. Dr. Gustav Schneider was an ophthalmologist before he took over the wine-business with his sons.

Zunzingen lies in the middle of the Markgräflerland which is a sunny area, like Ihringen and Freiburg, and the people as well as the grapes enjoy the sun here. To turn the sun-kissed grapes into noble wine lies in the hands of the grape-grower, who combines tradition with modern technology. Zunzingen´s soil is suitable for the vineyards because it is fertile loess earth where the Burgunder grapes and the well-known Markgräfler Gutedel grow.

Dirk mentioned, ´Around 55% of our wines are white wine and 44% are red wine. The best among them belong to the international best. The profile of our wine is: fresh and fruity. We have 90% wines of the dry sort.´

We had the fresh, fruity dry sort to go with dinner and none of us had a headache or a hangover. Good wine.

There are as many labels as there are wines. They tell us also about the time in history, and there are people who gather these wine-labels like postage stamps. You could peruse through the 200 years of wine-history on the thousands of labels from Thomas Wangler´s collection, which were on exhibit arranged according to specific themes. Beside the label of 1811, the ones from Baden are also interesting. You have to be a wine-connoisseur and have time at your disposal.

Wine is the fermented juice of freshly gathered grapes. The character of the wine depends on the species of grapes, the locality of the vineyard and method of cultivation. The main kinds are: sparkling champagne, beverage wines such as the famous red and white wines of Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Rhone Valley and the white wines of the Rhine, Moselle and Loire valleys. A wine can be fortified with the addition of alcohol, as in the case of sherry.

After the sekt-reception at the Weinetikettenmuseum we had an excellent dinner: wine and enjoyment, that´s the enjoyment of culture. When you drink wine you have to sing, as we from the MGV-Kappel did. We sang ´Erhebet gas Glass´ (Raise your glasses), ´Oh, you Maiden From Schwarzwald, How Lovely You Are´ and ´Heaven is a Wonderful Place.´ Zunzingen was an oasis for our senses: wine, cuisine, culture. We boarded the bus and carried out animated conversations till be reached Kappel. A lovely evening, I must say.

Satis Shroff: An Interview

(Germany-based Nepalese author and journalist Satis Shroff interviewed by Atank Basnet, Nepal Unites-Germany 2011)

Satis Shroff is a lecturer, poet, Schriftführer MGV-Kappel and author based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) who also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany  in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and Manchester (UK). He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the VHS-Freiburg. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize and also the Kulture Prize of Green City Freiburg for his social engagement for the refugees and asylum seekers. Nominated for German Engagement Prize 2011 Berlin by Green City Freiburg.

 

Writing experience: Satis Shroff has written two language books on the Nepali language in German for DSE (Deutsche Stiftung für Entwicklungsdienst) & Horlemannverlag. He is a contributing author on Boloji.com and writes regularly for The American Chronicle (www.amchron.com) and its twenty-one affiliated newspapers in the USA. He has written feature articles in the Munich-based Nelles Verlag’s ‘Nepal’ on the Himalayan Kingdom’s Gurkhas, sacred mountains and Nepalese symbols, and on Hinduism in ‘Nepal: Myths & Realities (Book Faith India) and his poem ‘Mental Molotovs’ was published in epd-Entwicklungsdienst (Frankfurt).

You can find his works on:

http://kkv-kappel.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=75

http://www.lulu.com/satisle

http://www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/1207

                    http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Writers&WriterID=1338

http://www.satisshroff.blogspot.com in addition to http://www.satisshroff.Gather.com and http://www.satisshroff.tigblogs.org, www.sonog.com.

  ^{* * *}

What  others have said about the author:

 

„Die Schilderungen von Satis Shroff in ‘Through Nepalese Eyes’ sind faszinierend und geben uns die Möglichkeit, unsere Welt mit neuen Augen zu sehen.“ (Alice Grünfelder von Unionsverlag / Limmat Verlag, Zürich).

 

“Since 1974 I have been living on and off in Nepal, writing articles and publishing books about Nepal– this beautiful Himalayan country. Even before I knew Satis Shroff personally (later) I was deeply impressed by his articles, which helped me very much to deepen my knowledge about Nepal. Satis Shroff is one of the very few Nepalese writers being able to compare ecology, development and modernisation in the ‘Third’ and ‘First’ World. He is doing this with great enthusiasm, competence and intelligence, showing his great concern for the development of his own country.  (Ludmilla Tüting, journalist and publisher, Berlin).

 

Due to his very pleasant personality and in-depth experience in both South Asian, as well as Western workstyles and living, Satis Shroff brings with him a cultural sensitivity that is refined. His writings have always reflected the positive attributes of optimism, tolerance, and a need to explain and to describe without looking down on either his subject or his reader.  (Kanak Mani Dixit, Himal Southasia, Kathmandu)

 

Satis Shroff  writes with intelligence, wit and grace. (Bruce Dobler, Associate Professor in Creative Writing MFA, University of Iowa).

 

‘Satis Shroff writes political poetry, about the war in Nepal, the sad fate of the Nepalese people, the emergence of neo-fascism in Germany. His bicultural perspective makes his poems rich, full of awe and at the same time heartbreakingly sad. I writing ‘home,’ he not only returns to his country of origin time and again, he also carries the fate of his people to readers in the West, and his task of writing thus is also a very important one in political terms. His true gift is to invent Nepalese metaphors and make them accessible to the West through his poetry.’ (Sandra Sigel, Writer, Germany).

 

‘Brilliant, I enjoyed your poems thoroughly. I can hear the underlying German and Nepali thoughts within your English language. The strictness of the German form mixed with the vividness of your Nepalese mother tongue. An interesting mix. Nepal is a jewel on the Earths surface, her majesty and charm should be protected, and yet exposed with dignity through words. You do your country justice and I find your bicultural understanding so unique and a marvel to read.’ Reviewed by Heide Poudel in WritersDen.com 6/4/2007.

‘The manner in which Satis Shroff writes takes the reader right along with him. Extremely vivid and just enough and the irony of the music. Beautiful prosaic thought and astounding writing.

‘Your muscles flex, the nerves flatter, the heart gallops,
As you feel how puny you are,
Among all those incessant and powerful waves.’
“Satis Shroff’s writing is refined – pure undistilled.” (Susan Marie, www.Gather.com)

 

 

Published Books:

-         Im Schatten des Himalaya

-         Katmandu, Katmandu

-         Through Nepalese Eyes

-         A Gurkha Mother, a Broken Poet and Mental Molotovs

-         Articles in Nellesverlag’s ‘Nepal’

-         Collected Poems:Satis Shroff (Booksie)

-         Article on Hinduism in Book Faith India’s : Nepal, Myths and Reality

 

Awards and achievements:

-         German Academic Exchange Prize 1998

-         Social Engagement Prize from Green City Freiburg 2010

-         Nominated by Green City Freiburg for German Engagement Prize, Berlin 2011

Weblinks:

-          www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/1207

http://kkv-kappel.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=75

http://www.lulu.com/satisle

http://www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/1207

http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Writers&WriterID=1338

-         If you want to read his writings, please Google for: satis shroff

 

Person Satis Shroff has various faces, of a singer, author, poet, medical lecturer, artist . Which face is near to your heart?

 

I like writing which means sitting down and typing what you’ve thought about. Writing is a solitary performance but when I sing with my croonies of the MGV-Kappel it is sharing our joy and sadness and it’s a collective song that we produce and that makes our hearts beat higher during concerts. When an idea moves me for days I have the craving to pen it. I get ideas when I’m ironing clothes and listening to Nepali songs or Bollywood ones. When I don’t have time, I make a poem out of it, for poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity. When I prepare my medical lectures I’m transferring knowledge from my university past and bringing them together verbally, and I realise it’s great fun to attain topicality by connecting the medical themes with what’s topical thereby creating a bridge between the two. That makes a lecture interesting, which is like a performance, a recital in which you interact with the audience.

At school I was taught art by a lean, bearded Scottish teacher who loved to pain landscapes with water-colours. Whenever I travel during holidays, I keep an ArtJournal with my sketches and drawings, and try to capture the feelings, impressions of the place and people I meet, and it’s great fun to turn the pages years later and be reminded how it was then. I like doing all these things and they’re all near to my heart.   

 

2. What does literature mean to you ?

Literature is translating emotions and facts from truth to fiction. It’s like a borderline syndrome; between sanity and insanity there’s fine dividing line. Similarly, non-fiction can be transformed into fiction. Virginia Woolf said, ‘There must be great freedom from reality.’ For Goethe, art was art because it was not nature. That’s what I like about fiction, this ability of transforming mundane things in life to jewels through the use of words. Rilke mentioned one ought to describe beauty with inner, quiet, humble righteousness. Approach nature and show what you see and experienced, loved and lost.

3. Normally a scientific mind and literary heart do not go together. How do you manage that? (since you were student of zoology, botany and medicine)

At school I used to read P.G.Wodehouse (about how silly aristocrats are and how wise the butler Jeeves is) and Richard Gordon (a physician who gave up practicing Medicine and started writing funny books). For me Richard Gordon was a living example of someone who could connect literature with bio-medical sciences. Desmond Morris, zoologist (The Naked Ape, The Human Zoo) was another example for me. He has also written a book about how modern soccer players do tribal dances on the football-field, with all those screaming spectators, when their team scores a goal. That’s ethnological rituals that are being carried out by European footballers.

Since I went to a British school I was fed with EngLit and was acquainted with the works of English writers like Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy, Walter Scott, RL Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, HG Wells, Victor Hugo, Poe, Defoe, Hemingway, and poets like Burns, Keats, Yeats, Dante, Goldsmith. Since we had Nepali in our curriculum it was delightful to read Bhanu Bhakta, Mainali, Shiva Kumar Rai and other Nepali authors. At home I used to pray and perform the pujas with my Mom, who was a great story teller and that was how I learned about the fantastic stories of Hindu mythology. At school we also did Roman and Greek mythology. My head was full of heroes. I was also an avid comicstrip reader and there were Classics Illustrated comic with English literature. I used to walk miles to swap comic-books in Nepal. It was mostly friends from the British Gurkhas who had assess to such comics, gadgets, musical instruments they’d bought in Hong Kong, since it was a British enclave then.

Science can be interesting and there is a genre which makes scientific literature very interesting for those who are curious and hungry for more knowledge.

In Kathmandu I worked as a journalist with an English newspaper The Rising Nepal. I enjoyed writing a Science Spot column. One day Navin Chandra Joshi, an Indian economist who was working for the Indian Cooperative Mission asked a senior editor and me:

‘Accha, can you please tell me who Satis Shroff is?’

Mana Ranjan gave a sheepish smile and said, ‘You’ve been talking with him all the time.’

The elderly Mr. Joshi was plainly surprised and said, ‘Judging from his writing, I thought he was a wise old man.’

I was 25 then and I turned red and was amused.

As I grew older, I discovered the works of Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Authur Miller, Henry Miller, Doris Lessing and James Joyce. The lecturers from the English Department and the Literary Supplements were all revering his works: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake. His works appealed to be because I was also educated by the Christian Brothers of Ireland in the foothills of the Himalayas, with the same strictness and heavy hand. God is watching you..

Since my college friends left for Moscow University and Lumumba Friendship University after college, I started taking interest in Russian literature and borrowed books from the Soviet library and read: Tolstoi, Dostojewskije, Chekov and later even Solzinitzyn’s Archipel Gulag. I spent a lot of time in the well-stocked American Library in Katmandu’s New Road and read Henry Miller, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Thoreau, Whitman.

Favourite books and authors:

Bhanu Bhakta Acharya’s ‘Ramayana,’ Devkota’s ‘Muna Madan,’ Guru Prasad Mainali’s ‘Machha-ko Mol,’ Shiva Kumar Rai’s ‘Dak Bungalow,’ Hemingway’s Fiesta, For Whom the Bells Toll, Günter Grass ‘Blechtrommel,’ Zunge zeigen, Marcel Reich Ranicki’s ‘Mein Leben,’VS Naipaul’s  ‘ ‘Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness,’ James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses, Stephan Hero, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Faust I, Faust II’, Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace,’  Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Briefe an einen jungen Dichter’ Goethe’s ‘Die Leiden des jungen Werther,’The Diaries of Franz Kafka’ Carl Gustav Jung’s ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections,’ Patrick Süskind’s ‘Perfume,’ John Updike’s ‘The Witches of Eastwick,’ ‘Couples,’ Peter Matthiessen’s ‘The Snow Leopard,’ Mark Twain ‘A Tramp Abroad,’John Steinbeck’s ‘The Pearl,’ Rushdie’s ‘Midnight Children,’ Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections,’ John Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River.

Position of Nepali as world literature in terms of standard:

Nepali literature has had a Cinderella or Aschenputtel-existence and it was only through Michael Hutt, who prefers to work closely with Nepalese authors and publishes with them, under the aegis of SOAS that literature from Nepal is trying to catch the attention of the world. We have to differentiate between Nepalese writing in the vernacular and those writing in English. Translating is a big job and a lot of essence of a language gets lost in translation. What did the author mean when he or she said that? Can I translate it literally? Or do I have to translate it figuratively? If the author is near you, you can ask him or her what the meaning of a sentence, certain words or expression is. This isn’t the case always. So what you translate is your thought of what the writer or poet had said. I used to rollick with laughter when I read books by PG Wodehouse and Richard Gordon. I bought German editions and found the translations good. But the translated books didn’t bring me to laugh.

Tribhuvan University has been educating hundreds of teachers at the Master’s Level but the teacher’s haven’t made a big impression on the world literary stage because most of them teach, and don’t write. Our neighbour India is different and there are more educated people who read and write. The demand for books is immense. Writing in English is a luxury for people who belong to the upper strata of the Nepalese society. Most can’t even afford books and have a tough time trying to make ends meet. The colleges and universities don’t teach Creative Writing. They teach the works of English poets and writers from colonial times, and not post-colonial. There are a good many writers in Nepal but their works have to be edited and promoted by publishers on a standard basis. If it’s a good story and has universal appeal then it’ll make it to the international scene. Rabindra Nath Tagore is a writer who has been forgotten. It was the English translation that made the world, and Stockholm, take notice.

Manjushree Thapa and Samrat Upadhya have caught the attention of western media because they write in English. One studied and lived in the USA and the other is settled there. Moreover, the American publishing world does more for its migrant authors than other countries. There are prizes in which only USA-educated migrants are allowed to apply to be nominated, a certain protectionism for their US-migrants.

 

Motivation to write:

 

The main motivation is to share my thoughts with the reader and to try out different genres. Since I know a lot of school-friends who dropped out and joined the British Gurkhas  to see the world, it was disgusting to see how the British government treated their comrade-in-arms from the hills of Nepal. On the one hand, they said they are our best allies, part of the British Army and on the other hand I got letters from Gurkhas showing how low their salaries are in the Gurkha Brigade. A Johnny Gurkha gets only half the pay that a British Tommy is paid. Colonialism? Master-and –Servant relationship? They were treating them like guest-workers from Nepal and hiring and firing them at will, depending upon whether the Brits needed cannon-fodder. All they had to do was to recruit more Brigades in Nepal. This injustice motivated me to write a series on the Gurkhas and the Brits. I like NatureJournaling too and it’s wonderful to take long walks in the Black Forest countryside and in Switzerland. As a Nepalese I’m always fascinated and awed by the Alps and the Himalayas.

 

A Specific writing style?

Every writer in his journey towards literature discovers his own style.

 

My suggestions to Nepalese readers:

I might sound old fashioned but there’s lot of wisdom in these two small words: Carpe diem. Use your time. It can also mean ‘seize the job’ as in the case of Keating in the book ‘Dead Poets Society.’ When I was in Katmandu a friend named Bindu Dhoj who was doing MBA in Delhi said, ‘Satish, you have to assert yourself in life.’ That was a good piece of advice. In the Nepalese society we have a lot of chakari and afnu manchay caused by the caste-and-jaat system. But in Europe even if you are well-qualified, you do have to learn to assert and ‘sell’  and market yourself through good public relations. That’s why it’s also important to have a serious web-presence. Germany is a great, tolerant country despite the Nazi past, and it’s an economic and military power. If you have chosen Germany, then make it a point to ‘do in Germany as the Germans do.’ Get a circle of German friends, interact with them, lose your shyness, get in touch with German families and speak, read, write and dream in German. If you like singing then join a choir (like me), if you like art join a Kunstverein, if you like sport then be a member of a Sportverein. If you’re a physician, join the Marburger or Hartmann Bund. Don’t think about it. Do it. It’s like swimming. You have to jump into the water. Dry swimming or thinking alone won’t help you. Cultural exchange can be amusing and rewarding for your own development.

 

Current and future projects: I always have writing projects in my mind and you’ll catch me scribbling notices at different times of the day. I feel like a kid in a department store when I think about the internet. No haggling with editors, no waiting for a piece of writing to be published. I find blogs fantastic. Imagine the agonies a writer had to go through in the old days after having submitted a poem or a novel. Now, it’s child’s play. Even Elfriede Jelenek uses her blog to write directly for the reading pleasure of her readers. The idea has caught on. In a life time you do write a lot and I’m out to string all my past writings in a book in the Ich-Form, that is, first person singular and am interested in memoir writing, spiritual writing, medical-ethno writing and, of course, my Zeitgeistlyrik . Georg F. Will said: A powerful teacher is a benevolent contagion, an infectious spirit, an emulable stance toward life. I like the idea of being an ‘infectious spirit’ as far as my Creative Writing lectures are concerned, and it does your soul good when a young female student comes up to you after the lecture and says: ‘Thank you very much for the lecture. You’ve ignited the fire in me with your words.’ I love to make Creative Writing a benevolent contagion and infect young minds with words.

To my Readers: Be proud of yourself, talk with yourself as you talk with a good friend, with respect and have goals in mind. If your goal is too high you must readjust it. My Mom used to say, ‘Chora bhayey pachi ik rakhna parchha. When you’re a son you have to strive for higher goals in life. I’d say a daughter can also adopt this. Like the proverbial Gurkha, keep a stiff upper lip and don’t give up. Keep on marching along your route and you’ll reach your destination in life. But on the other hand, be happy and contended with small successes and things. We Nepalese are attributed with ‘Die Heiterkeit der Seele’ because we are contented with small things which is a quality we should never lose. Keep that friendly Nepali smile on your face, for it will bring you miles and miles of smiles; and life’s worthwhile because you smile.

On literature: When you read a novel or short-story, you can feel the excitement, you discover with the writer new terrain. You’re surprised. You’re in a reading-trance and the purpose of literature is to give you reading experience and pleasure. Literature is not the birth-right of the lecturers of English departments in universities where every author of merit is analysed, taken apart, mixing the fictive tale with the writer’s personal problems in reality. The authors are bestowed with literary prizes, feted at literary festivals and invited to literary conferences and public readings.

Literature belongs to the folk of a culture, but the academicians have made it their own pride  possession. Would like to hear Hemingway telling you a story he had written or an academician hold a lecture about what Hemingway wrote? I’d prefer the former because it belongs to the people, the readers, the listeners. In India and Nepal we have story-tellers who go from village to village and tell stories from the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita. Story-telling has always appealed to simple people and the high-brows alike, and has remained an important cultural heritage. The same holds for the Gaineys, those wandering minstrels from Nepal and Northern India, with their crude violins called sarangis. They tell stories of former kings, princes and princesses, battles, fairy tales, village stories, ballads accompanied by the whining, sad sound of the sarangi.

Literature has always flown into history, religion, sociology, ethnology and is a heritage of mankind, and you can find all these wonderful stories in your local library or your e-archive.

My first contact with a good library was the American Library in Katmandu. A new world of knowledge opened to me. I could read the Scientific American, Time, Newsweek, the Economist, The New York Times, National Geographic, the Smithsonian, the Christian Science Monitor. The most fascinating thing about it was , you only had to be a member and you could take the precious books home.

OMG! It was unbelievable for a Nepalese who came from a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas. Nobody bothered about what you were reading: stories, history, new and old ideas, inventions, theories, general and specific knowledge. The sky was the limit. I had a voracious appetite, and it was like the opening of a Bildungsroman.

Historical novels tell us about how it was to live in former days, the forms of society involved that the writer evokes in his or her pages. In ‘A Year in Provence’ Peter Mayle makes you almost taste the excellent French food and wine, and the search for truffles with a swine in hilarious, as well as the game of bol. On the other hand, James Joyce evokes a life-changing experience with his protagonists Leopold Bloom and Stephan Daedalus in Dublin on June 16, 1904. Ulysses is a modern interpretation of Homer’s Odyssey, an inner monologue recalled as memories of places, people, smells, tastes and thoughts of the protagonist . The Bhagwad Gita is a luminous and priceless gem in the literary world, possesses world history character, and teaches us the unity in diversity. It is a dialogue between the hero Arjuna and Krishna, who is the chariot-driver. Krishna is an incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu. The Mahabharata alone has 18 chapters and the epic has 18 books with legends, episodes and didactic pieces that are connected with the main story. It is a fascinating reading about the war between relatives, written in the 4^{th and 3rd} centuries before the birth of Christ. He who reads knows better than to be indoctrinated, for he or she learns to think, opening new worlds and lines of thought.

In my school-days I read Charles Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and it became alive when I went to the Bastille Museum in Paris with a fellow medical student. My memory of A Tale of Two Cities took shape there, as I peered at the old, historical exhibits and the guillotine. Later in the evening my friend Peter’s sister, who was married to a Parisian said, ‘Oh, Satish, there are so many things to see in Paris than a museum the entire afternoon.’ For me it was like time-travelling to the times of the French Revolution, because I’d soaked up the story in my school days. I could see Madame Defarge knitting the names of the noblemen and women to be executed. Dickens was a great master of fabulation. I was ripe for those stories and was as curious as a Siamese cat I had named Sirikit, reading, turning page for page, absolutely absorbed in the unfolding stories. Time and space and my personal demands were unimportant. It was the story that had to be read, even with a midnight candle when the local hydroelectric power supply failed. That happened to me when I read ‘The Godfather’ (Der Pate) while visiting a friend from Iceland. I couldn’t put the book down.

I felt sad when a 14 year old computer-crazy schoolkid said: ‘Who reads books these days? Everything’s in the internet.’ The question is: do kids read books on their laptops and eReaders? School websites, Facebook and You Tube and their apps have added new hobbies for children who’re growing up. Does the cyberspace-generation have only time for games? I tell them they should use: Google Scholar, Pubmed etc. to gather knowledge and learn to transfer it.

Staufen im Breisgau Through History (Satis Shroff)

Freedom: Thoughts Are Free (Satis Shroff)

 

It was in September 24,1848 that the irregulars under Gustav Struve and his courageous wife Amalie from Lörrach marched to Staufen im Breisach. It was also in this place that the revolutionary spirit was inspired, and it was here that the fear among the citizens of  Staufen became evident.

 

Gustav Struve marched to the Town Council building and proclaimed the Republic and the revolutionaries erected barricades on the bridges.

 

A great battle was fought in Staufen when General Hoffmann came with his government troops of the Baden Dukedom. The hope of the republicans died with the smoke of the cannons that were fired by the troops. Gustave Struve managed to escape, and what remained after the fierce battle were the dead musicians, citizens and piles of smoking cannon-balls on the façade of Staufen’s Gate and houses. In the Second World War Staufen was hit by Allied airraids. And in recent times, due to a geothermal boring half of Staufen’s houses, as well as the olde Town Council building were damaged. The houses have cracks on their walls but the spirit of Baden that still lingers in the minds of its citizens make it a great place to live in. An elderly lady showed me all the major cracks of the buildings and houses and praised the cultural events in this town made famous by Doctor Faustus. It was in this town that Mephistopheles came to get his due, like Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Whereas Shylock went with empty hands, Dr. Faustus met his end.

 

As a Badener, I love the song ‘Die Gedanken Sind Frei,’ for it depicts the people’s suffering in Baden in their questis for self-determination. In the song a woman pleads, ‘Lassa laufen, mein Mann ist im Krieg’ because her husband is at the war. Falkenstein, the lord, rides with his head in the air, is a side-snipe at the rich by the poor. There is also the story of Hans Steutlinger from the Black Forest. The anonymous pamphlet was distributed during the Thirty Years’ War. Men were butchered during this krieg and this is illustrated in the words: Es ist ein Schnitter, heisst der Tod which means: it’s a reaper who’s name is death.

 

The pain and suffering of lovers in parting during the war and difficult times are commemorated by the words: ‘Gott b’hüte Dich.’  God protect thee.

 

Like I mentioned earlier, it is a pleasure and honour to sing the song lyrics of the Baden Revolution 1848 even today. The song clearly shows its bourgeois origin and our hearts are with Friedrich Hecker. He was a lawyer from Baden who called for armed resistance and insurrection at Lake Constance. The march to Karlsruhe was stopped by state troops. He also managed to escape, as did Carl Schurz, and emigrated to the USA and became a national hero.

During the Thirty Years’ War courage was summoned, like today as we raise our voices against Stuttgart 21, nuclear lobbies, ecological destruction, against terrorism and fanatism in general.

 

Today we can blog, make podcasts,upload topical political themes and music on YouTube and Facebook and disseminate information, opinions and columns when we believe and fight for a just cause.

 

In the old days the people the people were so suppressed and intimidated that they couldn’t voice their thought because the walls had ears. This has been experience by people living in the former German Democratic Republic, where you didn’t know who was spying on you. It could have been your neighbour, your grocer, butcher or your colleague. There were spies everywhere. During the Thirty Years’ krieg a song with the title Thoughts Are Free (Die Gedanken sind Frei) was written and began to make the rounds. It became a freedom from yoke and tyranny song and is sung even today. We only have to think of the misery and suffering that the World War I and World War II brought down upon the culture of the German folk.

 

The ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity which were propagated by the French Revolution of 1789 spread to the world, and Germany was no exception. The Holy Roman Empire was broken up through Napoleon’s subsequent domination of Europe. The craving for freedom in Germany was coupled with the desire for German Unity. After Napoleon was defeated the loose German states formed the German  Confederation .

 

The Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 promulgated a repressive system which triggered the revolution within the German Confed in 1848. However, there was no political integration of the citizens. Even in those days certain states  (like Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg today) were compelled to make considerable concessions, and Baden was one of them.

 

A new constitution was adopted in March 27,1849 and on the following day King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia was elected the Emperor of Germany. He refused the imperial crown and the new constitution was rejected by Austria, Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria. The Reichs

Constitution Campaign that was started anew to establish a realm precipitated uprisings in Rheinland, Palatinate, Baden and Saxony.

 

On May 11,1849 there was a mutiny in the garrison at Rastatt which spread like wildfire. On May 13, the Grand Duke Leopold fled from Karlsruhe and fled to the Prussians in Koblenz to seek protection. The first democratic elections were held on June 3, but the Prussian troops crossed the Rhine into Baden at Germersheim on the 20^th of June. The revolutionaries held their positions  till the 23^rd of July and some fled to neighbouring France and Switzerland. The Baden Revolution came to an end when the Prussians defeated them. No mercy was shown to the rebels by the state troops.

 

Over 80,000 citizens of Baden emigrated to other countries to escape repression and punishment. This is the reason why the Badener sing the song ‘Die Gedanken sind Frei’ with heartbreaking pathos. And that why I love this song. It is a song about freedom, thought and deed. Thoughts cannot be imprisoned by the so-called authorities or rulers of a country. Thoughts have wings. The only thing the people of Baden possessed were their thoughts, because the victorious Prussians had taken everything away, leaving them only with their free thoughts. Thoughts have wings.

 

Thoughts create speech. Thoughts create speech and thoughts are indeed the measure of this world we live in. We think and decide what’s good and bad for us in politics, economics, in our daily behavioural patterns, relationships, interactions with others.

 

‘Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts,’ said Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. But thoughts have always remained, and will remain, free as the air that we breathe.

Italian Impressions: O Sirmione (Satis Shroff)

Ah, Sirmione: Where the Poet Catull Lived (Satis Shroff)

 

Sirmione is a small peninsula like a tongue into the blue Garda Lake, where the flowers grow in a rhapsody of colours, where the slopes are green with a majestic panorama of the Alps in the background.

 

Sirmione is the town where Catull (85-54 BC) lived and who has gone down in literature with these words: ‘Greetings to you, you beautiful Simione, rejoice over the return of your master.’ So runs the verse of Catull, who enjoyed living in the estate of his family. Although the famous Grotto of Catull, which  are the ruins of  a Roman villa, built on one of the hills of Sirmione, complete with a thermal bath, carrying his name, Catull never lived there.

 

On the tip of the half-island thee’s a 70 degree hot sulphur bath, the medicinal properties of which was treasured by the Romans. Today, a small museum give us an idea of the former beauty of the thermal path. The oldest church of the place lies on the outskirts of the centre and is the San Pietro in Mavino.

 

One of the biggest attractions of Sirmione is the castle of Scaligero, a might fortification and the most beautiful Wasserburg in Upper Italy.

 

A historical pics of the Italian women of Sirmione doing their washing on the Garda  lakeside

 

©A drawing from Satis Shroff’s ArtJournal

 

Mastino I della Scala ordered the huge fortification to be built in the 13th century. It was a symbol for the power, influence and wealth of the renowned family. There’s a 30m tower which presides over the labyrinth of rooms, water surrounding fortification the fortification, draw-bridges, slits for shooting the enemies, stairs and a commanding view of the lake, and the land-tongue.

 

The arms of the Scaliger (‘scale’ means ladder) is depicted near the Venetian Markus Lion which hangs from the entrance to the fort. The heart of the lively town is the Piazza Carducci. Cars are banned here, except for expensive limousines of the well-to-do from Sirmione. There’s always an invasion of tourists who, like pilgrims, go up and down the small, narrow lanes. I love to sit in a café, sip an Italian espresso and watch humanity shuffle by, taking with them images of a medieval town, as they go unhurriedly along the via Vittorio Emanuele.

 

Sirmione, this beautiful peninsula, has a population of 5000 but during the tourist season it has to bear with over 10,000 visitors.

British Gurkhas: A Nepalese Mother’s Tears (Satis Shroff)

Summary: Nepalese journalist Satis Shroff wrote about a Nepalese mother who waits for her to return from the British Gurkha Army in vain. This story has affected thousands of mothers in Nepal, a poverty-stricken country where the sons join the foreign armies  to eke out a living because they have no chance to educate themselves formally, and life is hard and competitive in Nepal. Satis has written a series of articles on the Gurkhas in the media and it was only recently that the Gurkhas were granted the right to stay in Britain, educate their children and receive the benefits of the NHS. For 200 years the loyal, dedicated Gurkhas were treated as merchandise, discriminated and sent home on a hire-and-fire basis. Many Gurkhas have fought their cases against Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) in courts in London and have won in recently because they have at last broken their silence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnNymFm3TaM

 

 

 

A GURKHA MOTHER’S TEARS  (Satis Shroff)

(Death of a Precious Jewel)

 

 

A Nepalese mother sits in front of her verandah, smokes her crude cigarette looks at the lofty Himalayan peaks and asks:

‘My Nepal, what has become of you?’

Your features have changed with time. The innocent face of the Kumari has changed to that of the blood-thirsty countenance of Kal Bhairab, from development to destruction, from bikas to binas.

‘I have lived to see a crown prince who fell in love, but couldn’t assert himself, in a palace where ancient traditions still prevail. Despite Eton college and a liberal education, he chose guns instead of rhetoric, and ended his young life, as well as those of his parents and other royal members. An aunt from London aptly remarked on Nepal TV: He was like the terminator.’

Another bloodshed in a Gorkha palace, recalling the Kot massacre under Jung Bahadur Rana.

You’re no longer the same. There’s insurrection and turmoil against the government and the police. Your sons and daughters are at war, with the Gurkhas again. Maobadis with revolutionary flair, with ideologies from across the Tibetan Plateau and Peru.Ideologies that have been discredited elsewhere, flourish in the Himalayas.

Demanding a revolutionary-tax from tourists and Nepalis with brazen, bloody attacks, fighting for their own rights and the rights of the bewildered common man.

Well-trained government troops at the orders of politicians safe in Kathmandu. Leaders, who despise talks and compromises, flex their tongues and muscles, and let the imported automatic salves speak their deaths. Ill-armed guerrillas against well-armed Royal Gurkhas in the foothills of the Himalayas. Where will this end?

Nepali children have no chance, but to take sides. To take to arms not knowing the reason and against whom. The child-soldier gets orders from grown-ups and the hapless souls open fire.

Hukum is order, the child-soldier cannot reason why.

 

Shedding precious human blood, for causes they both hold high.

 

Ach, this massacre in the shadow of the Himalayas.

We, Nepalis, look out of our ornate windows, in the west, east, north and south Nepal and think: how long will this krieg go on? How much do we have to suffer? How many money-lenders, businessmen, civil servants, khaki-clad policemen and Gurkhas do the Maobadis want to kill. Or be killed?

How many men, women, boys and girls have to be mortally injured till Kal Bhairab is pacified by the Sleeping Vishnu? How many towns and villages in the seventy five districts

Do the Maobadis want to free from capitalism? When the missionaries close their schools,

Must the Hindus and Buddhists shut their temples and shrines? Shall atheism be the order of the day? Not in Nepal.

It breaks my heart, as I hear over the radio: Nepal’s not safe for visitors. Visitors who leave their money behind, in the pockets of travel agencies, rug dealers, currency and drug dealers,

and hordes of ill-paid honest Sherpas, Thakali, Gurung and Tamang porters. Sweat beads trickling from their sun-burnt faces, in the dizzy heights of the Dolpo, Annapurna ranges and the Khumbu glaciers, eking out a living and facing the treacherous icy crevasses, snow-outs, precipices and a thousand deaths.

Beyond the beaten trekking paths live the poorer families of Nepal. No roads, no schools, sans drinking water and sans hospitals.

Where aids and children’s work prevail.

The dynasties of Lichhavis, Thakuris and Mallas have made you eternal. Man Deva inscribed his title on the pillar of Changu, after great victories over neighbouring states. Amshu Verma was a warrior and mastered the Lichhavi Code. He gave his daughter in marriage to Srong Beean Sgam Po, the ruler of Tibet, who also married a Chinese princess.

 

Jayastathi Malla ruled long and introduced the system of the caste, a system based on the family occupation, that became rigid with the tide of time.

 

Yaksha Malla the ruler of Kathmandu Valley, divided it into Kathmandu, Patan and Bhadgaon for his three sons.

It was Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha, who brought you together, as a melting pot of ethnic diversities, with Gorkha conquests that cost the motherland thousands of ears, noses and Nepali blood. The spoils of that war can be seen even today at the temple in Kirtipur.

The Ranas usurped the royal throne and put a prime minister after the other for 104 years.

104 years of a country in poverty and medieval existence. It was King Tribhuvan’s proclamation and the blood of the Nepalis, who fought against the Gorkhas under the command of the Ranas, that ended the Rana autocracy.

His son King Mahendra saw to it that he held the septre when Nepal entered the UNO. The multiparty system along with the Congress party was banned. Then came thirty years of Panchayat promises of a Hindu rule with a system based on the five village elders, like the proverbial five fingers in one’s hand, that are not alike and yet functioned in harmony.

The Panchayat government was indeed an old system, from the holy days of the Vedas, packed and sold as a new and traditional one.

A system is just as good as the people who run it. And Nepal didn’t run. It revived the age-old chakary, feudalism  with its countless spies and yes-men, middle-men who held out their hands for bribes, perks and amenities.

Poverty, caste-system with its divisions and conflicts, discrimination, injustice, bad governance became the nature of the day.

A big chasm appeared between the haves-and-have-nots. The social inequality, frustrated expectations of the poor led to a search for an alternative pole. The farmers were ignored, the forests and land confiscated, corruption, bad-governance and inefficiency became the rule of the day.

Even His Majesty’s servants went so far as to say: Raja ko kam, kahiley jahla gham.

This birthplace of the holy and enlightened Buddha and the Land of Pashupati, a land which King Birendra declared a Zone of Peace, through signatures of the world’s leaders was at war a decade long.

Bush’s government paid 24 million dollars for development aid, another 14 million dollars for insurgency relevant spendings, 5,000 M-16 rifles from the USA, 5,500 machine guns from Belgium.

Guns that were aimed at Nepali men, women and children in the mountains of Nepal. Alas, under the shade of the Himalayas, this corner of the world became volatile again.

People I knew changed sides, from Mandalay to Congress, from Congress to the Maobadis.

From Hinduism to Communism. Even Nepal’s bahuns vied with each other to become the first communists for there were important political positions to be given away to party-members. Ah, Dolpo and Silgadi, made unforgettable by Peter Mathiessen in his quest for his inner self, and his friend George Schaller’s search for the snow leopard, was where Nepali students wrote Marxist verses and acquired volumes from the embassies in Kathmandu: Kim Il Sung’s writings, Mao’s red booklet, Marx’s Das Kapital and Lenin’s works. They defended socialist ideas at His Majesty’s Central Hostel in Tahachal and elsewhere. This was the fruit of the scholarships given to Nepalese students by the Soviet government to later create a Russian-speaking elite in developing and least-developed countries, just the way the Brits had done with the Indians, Burmese, Malays and Africans in their former colonies.

I see their earnest faces, then with books in their arms, later with guns. Trigger-happy, boisterous and ready to fight to the end for a cause they cherish in their frustrated and fiery hearts: to do away with poverty, royalty, corruption, nepotism and capitalism and feudalism.

But weren’t these sons of Nepal misguided and blinded by the initially sweeping victories of socialism?

Even Gorbachov, the baldy man with a red forehead, pleaded for Peristroika, and Putin had shown his admiration for Germany, its culture and commerce.

Look at the old Soviet Union, and other East Bloc nations. They have all swapped sides and are EU and Nato members.

Globalisation has changed the world fast, but in Nepal time stands still. The blind beggar at the New Road gate sings: lata ko desh ma, gaddha tantheri. In a land where the tongue-tied live, the deaf desire to rule.

 

Oh my Nepal, quo vadis?

The only way to peace and harmony  is by laying aside the arms forever. Let there be no more bloodshed among the Nepalese and Gurkhas, and let no Gurkha raise his khukri against another’s throat. I know it’s wishful thinking in this Kali Yuga, this Age of  Darkness. I wanted my son to be an educated person with the pension earned by my husband, but he went his own way, following others like him in their youthful, capricious manners. He became a school dropout, joined the British Gurkhas in Dharan and away he was out in the wide world, across the Black Waters, as we call the Oceans. He wrote beautiful cards from Hong Kong, the Rhine towns and London. I felt so proud to have a son who wrote such lovely cards, I a Gurkha widow, withering in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Sometimes I ask myself, can Nepal afford to be the bastion of a movement and a government

that rides rough-shod over the lives and rights of fellow Nepalis? Can’t we learn from the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq? The people in the Hindukush must be suffering since centuries. The Pathans and Pashtoon chieftains fought even in the times of Queen Victoria and even before that. The British took their Gurkha troops to fight against the Afghans. A British captain wrote home to his parents: ‘You have no idea what fine little fellows the Goorkhas are. They actually do not know what fear is.’

Yes, this fearless attitude has been a boon to the Gurkhas but also the cause of death, which has made thousands of Gurkha mothers weep dearly. I dare not think about the mothers of the soldiers slain by our Gurkhas. The Gurkhas were our sons and when they were in battle they also had fear like any other soldiers. Piles of letters written by the Gurkhas in the battlefields were confiscated, censored and not sent to families and relatives in Nepal. The Gurkhas love their legends but behind these legends there’s also another story. The story of a soldier who was discriminated by his officers, cheated by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). When a British Gurkha became an invalid or developed illness, he was shipped to Nepal as soon as possible, and didn’t enjoy the benefits of the NHS. Healthy Gurkhas were and are always good Gurkhas. The Royal Palace and the former Nepalese governments did little to assist the Gurkhas in their demands for equal pay in the British Army. In the Falkland War the Argentinians protested at the UNO that the Brits were using mercenaries to fight under the Union Jack. The British MoD replied that the Gurkhas were a part of the British Army. If they were a part of the British Army when had they been given only half the pay that a British Tommy got? Why weren’t the children of the Gurkhas given the right to learn and sit for the GCE examinations? Why were Gurkhas just sacked and sent home on the hire-and-fire principle? Perhaps because we Nepalese or Gurkhas haven’t put much emphasis on education and there are only a few Nepalese who are solicitors who can put the case of the Gurkhas forwards in the British, European or International courts.

Meanwhile, the Maobadis, as Maoists are called in Nepal, have been given a chance at the polls, like all other democratic parties, for the Maobadis are bahuns and chettris, be they Prachanda or Baburam Bhattrai, leaders who fought against monarchy and later even preferred to retain it in Nepal.

After the massacre of the Royals in the Narayanhiti Palace by Prince Dipendra, Birendra’s brother Gyanendra Shah ascended the throne in a blitz ceremony. What better chance for a constitutional monarch, a re-incarnated Vishnu, who held the executive, judiciary, legislative, spiritual and temporal powers in the shadow of the Himalayas to flourish again? The people thought otherwise, and the Nepalese Maoists marched into Kathmandu and the Valley became a scarlet sea.

 

* * *

 

 

The Gurkha with a khukri but no enemy, works not for his country but for the Queen of England since the times of Queen Victoria. Yet gets shot at in missions he doesn’t comprehend. Order is hukum, hukum is life and Johnny Gurkha still dies under foreign skies.

He never asks why, politics isn’t his style. He’s fought against all and sundry: Turks, Tibetans, Italians and Indians, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Argentinians and Vietnamese, Indonesians and Iraqis.

Loyalty to the utmost and never fearing a loss. The loss of a mother’s son from the mountains of Nepal.

My grandpa died in Burma for the glory of the British. My husband in Mesopotemia, I honestly do not know against whom for no one did tell me. My brother fell in France, against the Teutonic hordes.

I pray everyday to Shiva of the Snows for peace and my son’s safety. My joy and my hope, as I do farming on a terraced slope. A son who helped wipe my tears and ease the pain in my mother-heart. I’m his frugal mother, who lives by the seasons and peers down to the valleys, year in and year out in expectation of my dear soldier son.

One fine day, two smart Gurkhas are underway, heard from across the hill with a shout, as is the communication-custom in our hilly country:

‘It’s an officer from his battalion and an orderly.’

A letter with a scarlet seal and two poker-faces.

‘Your son died on duty,’ said the blue-eyed and red-headed British officer, ‘keeping peace for the country and Her Majesty the Queen of England.’ The Gurkha orderly near him translated into Nepali.

A world crumbled down. I couldn’t bring myself to utter even a word. Gone was my son, my precious jewel. My only insurance and sunshine in the craggy hills of Nepal. And with him my dreams. A spartan life that kills.