Sherpas, the Tigers of the Snow (Satis Shroff)

The Sherpa Issue: Tigers of the Snow (Satis Shroff)

 

Can you imagine over a hundred Sherpas throwing stones and threatening climbers from abroad? Even the Swiss climber admits that the deep animosity between the tourist-climbers and the Sherpas was more of a behavioural nature, and a longstanding one at that. What made the normally peaceful Sherpas threaten the visitor from abroad with ice-picks? Was it a deadly faux pas that brought the wrath of the Sherpas? The three foreigners wanted to scale Nepal’s famous Everest alone, using the ropes that the Sherpas had laid.

 

-         What, you don’t need us?

-         No, thank you. We want to climb alone. But thanks for fixing the ropes for the ascent on Camp 3.

-         These foreigners do as they please. We didn’t do all the ‘sherpa-work’ so that they could climb as a trio. Where’s the fairness of the sahibs? With such climbs the Sherpas will become superfluous and will be losing their existence-basis, in case free-climbing on the Himalayas becomes a trend-setter.

-          After scaling Everest, Hillary said, ‘We’ve overcome the bastard.’ Pardon me, to the Nepalese Mt.Everest is the holy mountain Sagarmatha. And to the Tibetans on the other side (as well as Sherpas) the majestic peak is Chomolungma. Buddhist ritual ceremonies are common when expeditions are underway from the base-camps to the Himalayan peaks. There is fear, hope for a successful climb. In this situation even the sahibs become a part of the ceremony.

 

- Success, failure or death.

 

Was it just a conflict between the commercial expeditions and climbers who do it in free Alpine style like the Swiss adventurist and extreme-climber Ueli Steck? It is heartening to note that an agreement was signed between the conflict parties. Ueli called it an ‘unhappy coincidence’ according to the ‘Migros- Magazine.’ According to this agreement, which was moderated by laison officers, both sides have the right to be on the mountain. Future conflicts have to be solved through the intermediary, namely the Nepalese liason-officers. Ueli Steck is of the opinion that this is certainly not the solution to the problem. The hatred doesn’t lie on this particular mountain (Everest) but has been gathering momentum since many years. The  Swiss climber broke his expedition.

 

It’s an open secret that the organisers of tourism and trekking industry pay heed to the demands of the tourist-climbers. This means that every climbing tourist has the power to reduce his or her demands to do what he or she pleases in the Himalayas. Alas, this doesn’t happen. The foreign-customer is always right and that is the motto in business.

 

There has been talk about climbing the mountains ‘by fair means,’ that is without oxygen, but a great deal of expeditions wouldn’t have scaled Nepal’s peaks without the security ropes, aluminium ladders brought to the walls of the peaks by the porters of Nepal who come from a handful of tribes, including the Sherpa community.

 

Rockclimbing, mountain climbing are also high performance sports and in the seventies the climbers from the west started taking a magic-cocktail comprising Diamoc, Dexamethason (cortisone) and Dexidrin. Whereas Diamox could lower the symptom of brain edema in the case of acute mountain sickness, Dexidrin was used by bomber US bomber pilots in the Hindukush War. Viagra, which is actually Sildenafil, and is known to promote oxygen intake, is also taken by climbers to increase their climbing-stamina. Even the hormone-drug Epo, which increases the red blood cell production, has been used by climbers even though its assistance in adapting to the thin air on peaks is still a matter of debate.

 

Reinhold Messner took Aspirin to make his blood thin when he went to the Nanga Parbat. Even he believes that there are enough climbers who take medication for better performance, even though it’s dangerous to do so. The 3-D cocktail seems to be very much in use. Even Ueli Steck, the best contemporary Swiss climber, is known to have amphetamine in his rucksack apothecary. He, of course, swallows it only in life-and-death situations. Diamox is also for Ueli Steck, an emergency solution only.

 

Perhaps the Swiss climber Ueli Steck is a person who thinks he can rule over the Sherpas and Himalayas. Nature is always stronger and mightier than humans. Generations of climbers make their way to the mountain and some lose their lives in the process but the mountain remains and is always there. And you cannot start a quarrel with the Sherpas and other porters who help to carry equipment and fix ropes and pave the way with ladders. In the West journalists write about ‘the angry mountain.’ Daniel Stolzenberg, the French veteran climber, said:

-         ‘There is only the mountain. And when she’s angry, things can go very badly wrong.’

-         Things did go wrong. He and half a dozen of his countrymen, including his wife Marie Odile, were killed along with 11 Nepalese climbers by a thunderous avalanche in their base-camp  on the Kanguru peak.

Eight climbers died in May 1966. Although every 10^th climber doesn’t return from Everest, a hundred climbers take their chance to climb the peak, a peak which is majestic and demands everything from you. On the one hand, you learn to trust your intelligence, experience, abilities and have faith in yourself, and are responsible for yourself at that height. Everything you do has to be done correctly. On the other hand, a small mistake and you never see your home, and your near and dear ones. You have to wait till Spring before the mountain gives up its dead.

 

In this death-zone it is essential to maintain a peace-of-mind and not start quarrelling with the tigers-of-the snow, the loyal, helpful ethnic Sherpas and ethnic Tamang-porters who are in the climbing business since the colonial days, even though Nepal was never a colony.

 

Intercultural competence is very important and social competence plays a big role in lubricating a friendly behaviour and relationship. Mutual respect and tolerance is also a must. Perhaps the western climbers should learn more about compassion from their fellow-climbers from Nepal. It’s not all business out there. Mutual help gain importance and not how much you paid the porter or your guide. If, as in the case of Ueli Steck (Switzerland), Johathan Griffith (UK) and Simone Moro (Italy) the ‘Sherpas’ had installed the climbing ropes, and the western trio had used these ropes, common courtesy demands that the Nepalese Sherpas receive their remuneration and courtesy, after all the three Europeans were in Nepalese territory, as paying-guests.

 

I’ve attended a number of slide-shows organised by climbers from Germany, Austria, South Tyrole and Switzerland and the pictures of the peaks and people of Nepal, the shots of the pagodas, yogis, ethnic tribes, lamas, beggars are fascinating but a certain colonial tenor from the upper hemisphere lingers as far as the comments are concerned, when people from a developed country in the Northern Hemisphere visit an underdeveloped country in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

 

THE CONQUEST OF USELESSNESS (Satis Shroff)

 

 

The Conquest of Uselessness in the death-zone at minus 40 degrees, namely climbing peaks and scaling vertical rocky, icy walls, may seem a forelorn task for the layman ot the couch-potatoe, but for the adventurer it takes a new meaning towards knowing oneself and the world.

 

If you’re victorious the world applauds, but the also-rans don’t count, like in athletics. Words like fight, victory, comradeship and leadership become meaningless in the Alpine or Himalayan heights because you’re battling against the elements: the howling wind, the scary avalanche, the thin air and the noise of the glacier crunching nearby. They haunt you at night and during the day. Your hematocrit value sinks, breathing becomes hard, and you trudge on. Sometimes there’s a whiteout. You see nothing but a mantle of snow and a furious blizzard everywhere. You hear your heartbeat and feel the angst within you. You want to live on, survive to tell the story of your ascent of Everest, and your descent. You want to witness the jubilation of your friendly, religious Nepalese porters at the base-camp with their litany of Tibetan mantras and colourful prayer flags, internet café, DVD movies. Hot coffee, dinner party.

 

Whereas the Sherpas want to appease the Gods of the Himalayas with ritual sacrifices, the Eurocentric sahibs aren’t interested in appeasing the fears of the Sherpas. Alas, Everest has become a place for egoists, fanatics and dreamers. Up there Freud’s ‘Ich’ has priority and the higher they climb the crazier and ‘grosswahnsinnig’ they become.

 

To climb a mountain ‘by fair means’ is a slogan that dated back to the 19^th century, and was postulated by a climber named Albert Frederick Mummery who died in 1895 while climbing the Nanga Parbat (Naked Mountain). The South Tyroler Reinhold Messner found this slogan appealing and has used it since then. According to the Tyrole Declaration for Best Practice in mountain-sport ‘Good style in the mountain-world means to relinquish the use of fix-ropes, performance increasing drugs and oxygen-bottles. Sadly enough, businessmen, executives and amateurs love to climb with the help of travel agencies at a sum of 80,000 dollars to get helped to climb Everest. They don’t care how they get up to the summit. They’re heroes at home when they’ve made it.

 

And the Sherpa? He’ll be glad to return home with a bit of money, if he doesn’t die in an avalanche.   

  

Alone in 1996 over 30 climbers made it to the top of Everest. Climbing with expeditions sponsored by firms has led to tourism for the masses. Adventure in the Himalayas is sold out.

 

-         Why Everest?

-          Because it’s there?

-         No, it’s the highest. It brings you prestige. At the same time, your life and the life of the Sherpa mountain-guide is endangered. One does is for esteem in the western world, and the other to eke out a living.

 

When a western climber dies because he doesn’t listen to his Nepalese mountain-guide, he takes the guide with him in the recesses of a crevice, only to turn up a years later like George Mallory (1924) in the moraine. Without the help of the Sherpas, Tamang-porters and experienced Nepalese mountain-guides who set the roles and ladders for the climbing tourists, most of these foreign enthusiasts wouldn’t have a chance in the Himalayan heights.

 

It might be noted that there are many clans among the Sherpa people. Sherpas are of Tibetan stock and live mostly in the Solokhumbu Canton of Eastern Nepal. In Helembu they live a sequestered life. As far as the language, religion and culture are concerned the Sherpas show a lot of similarities with the Tibetans but at the same time they celebrate also Hindu festivals and speak Nepali. It was the King Prithvinarayan Shah from Gorkha who in a bid to unite Nepal after his many conquests introduced Nepali as the lingua franca of Nepal. This brought a lot of hill tribes, Bahuns and Chettris who lived in the blue middle mountains, and the Tharus and Maithili-speakers of the Madesh (Terai flatland in Southern Nepal) together.

 

Tenzing Norgay was the first Sherpa to scale Everest with a bee-farmer from New Zealand, Edmund Hillary in 1953. Tenzing was a Nepalese who’d gone to Darjeeling to join an expedition to Everest or Kanchenjunga, for in those days the Brits operated from the Queen of the Hillstations. Kathmandu was established as a based for expeditions to the Nepal Himalayas later. After Tenzing, a great number of Sherpas have scaled the peaks of the Nepal Himalayas. The Sherpas live on rice, barley, potatoes and yak-milk and meat, and are known for their hospitality, even though they are don’t have much. The young people migrate to Kathmandu or Darjeeling in search of work. Life is hard in the hills. Times have changed in Nepal and so have the governments with the massacre of King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya by their own son. A decade-long war was waged by the Maoists of Nepal and  King Gyanendra’s reign didn’t last long. Now the Maoists hold the reins under the guise of democracy. Nepal, quo vadis?

 

Money dictates the relationship between the sahibs and the porters. It is also a lesson in intercultural incompetence, because the porters are used by the dollar-toting visitors as high-altitude workers and are expected to obey, much like the Gurkhas, and show discipline and loyalty, on a hire-and-fire basis, which is a bit too much in the UK, Italy and Switzerland. Human rights in the rarefied atmosphere? Does a Sherpa have a life-insurance, social-insurance, medical-insurance? The sahibs from the Continent do and they dictate what the Nepalese have to do.

 

Eurocentrics might or might not assist other climbers along the route but the egoism-prize goes to the Chinese who left one of their colleagues to die. But this isn’t the only case. The Brit climber David Sharp, who was dying on Everest, was left unassisted and 40 adventurers walked past the Brit in 2006.

 

-         What went in their minds?

-         There’s no time for such rescue activities.

-         This climb was expensive. I’ve got to make it to the top.

-         Somebody else will do the job. Not me.

-         I don’t want to be a loser.

-         Ach, just walk over the corpse and forget about your sentiments. This is the death-zone. Those are just lucky, unfortunate losers.

 

And so you march on, oblivious of the dying Brit or Sherpa. Time is money. And victory over the mountain means fame. You’re on your way to becoming an Everest-hero, even though 250 expeditions assault the Sagarmatha every year with corpses of dead climbers, and rubbish of the western civilization, along the route.

 

Welcome to Everest. We’ll get you to the top, no matter how.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE HEART OF THE WORLD (Satis Shroff)

The Heart of the World (Satis Shroff)

“Will the passengers please fasten their seat belts,” said a soft voice over the intercom. And I slid one end of the belt into the heavy metallic slot, sat back, and peered through the window of the Royal Nepal jet. 

The runway was clear and there was an Airbus 310, three Russian-made helicopters and a Dornier- aircraft near the control tower of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport. Some people waved from the tower. It was one of those early-morning mountain flights that are run ‘provided-the-weather-is-good’ as they say in tourist-brochures.

My seat was right near the port wing and I could get a fairly good view of the engines coming noisily to life. The jet taxied lazily down the southern end of the runway, swerved around and sped towards the north gathering momentum till I could finally feel a hollow in my stomach. We were airborne.

It was a steep climb and the blue mountain front was looming close. You could even spot the trees growing on the mountainside. But in a moment we left it behind. I was thrilled at the picturesque panorama of Kathmandu Valley with its pretty brown terracotta houses and prominent pagodas, which receded beneath as the jet banked almost languidly in an easterly direction.

The first mountain that caught my eyes, was the conical snowbound Langtang Peak, which was gleaming in the early morning sunlight. By the time Dorje Lakpa loomed on my window, the aircraft had attained its ceiling height of 30,000 feet. Dorje Lakhpa in Tibetan means “thunderbolt hand”. Nearby was another splendid peak, the 19,550 ft. Choba Bamare, reigning in splendid isolation. Choba Bamare rose in the distance and seemed to fizzle out towards the east.

I sat tight in my seat, oblivious of the 50-odd passengers in the aircraft’s cabin, lost in a world of snowy fantasy, and marvelling at the thought that we were less than fourteen miles away from those Himalayan giants, and feeling snug inside the pressurised cabin. Over the monotonous whirr of the Yeti’s engines, the captains voice boomed through the intercom: “Attention ladies and gentlemen, the big peak to your left is Gauri Shanker.”

The 23,442 feet Gauri Shanker, which is part of the Rowaling Himal Chain, was bathed in a ghostly mantle of snow and dominated the scene. This was indeed the Mount Olympus of the Orient, I said to myself. Gauri Shanker, the legendary abode of the Hindu God Shiva and his consort Parvati.

The Melungstse massif appeared to be blanketed with snow and looked smooth and even: like a tent covered with snow, except that a depression existed between Melungtse and its sister peak Chobutse.

Chugmago, Pigferago and Numbur impressed me with their virgin and silvery summits–looking placid and serene.

My thoughts drifted to the ageless Himalayas and their eternal silence. But my Himalayan reverie came to a momentary stop, when a tall and petite air-hostess came offering orange juice at a cruising height of 30,000 feet. It was a toast to the Himalayas.

From the 26,750 ft. Cho Oyo onwards, the Khumbu Range began to show their undisputed supremacy, since this range boasted of the mightiest of the mighty among mountains. As the jet flew past the 25,990 ft. Gyachungkang Peak, I was pleasantly surprised to find the steward come over to my window, point out small dotted structures against a rugged mountainside and say, “There’s Namche Bazaar.” I was amazed. Namche of the mountaineer’s delight, and the home of the Sherpas. Namche, the village that has become a byword in mountaineering and trekking circles throughout the world–lay below us.

The jet lost height gracefully to give the passengers a closer view, and the snows looked hauntingly beautiful from the port side windows. The warm sunlight filtered through smack on my face. Its warmth was reassuring.

The 23,443 ft. Pumori Peak seemed to be soaring in the distance, and that was when I began to ogle at the familiar 25,850 ft. Nuptse peak. Then suddenly, like a revelation, I spotted the giant amongst them all: the grey, imposing triangular massif that was Mount Everest to the outside world, Sagarmatha to the Nepalese and Chomolungma–”the Goddess Mother of the Earth” to the Tibetans. There were flecks of snow to be seen along the ridge of the highest peak in the world. A trail of vapour was emanating from its limestone summit. 

Far below the magnificent Ama Dablam peak struck me as trying to reach for the sky. But I had eyes only for the mysterious, grey and foreboding Everest massif. I recalled Mallory’s words: “There was no complication for the eye. The highest of the world’s mountains had to make but a single gesture of magnificence to be lord of all, vast in unchallenged and isolated supremacy.

The peaks Lhotse, Chamlang and Makalu continued to fascinate me. I felt thrilled to my marrow as the knowledge that we were flying over the highest mountains in the world sank into my head. I noticed that the Himalayas occurred as narrow ranges, prominently longitudinal and that the highest Himalayan chains below us were not massive elevations but narrow ridges.

Towards the north, as far as the eye could see, was the barren Tibetan Plateau: rightly dubbed the Roof of the World. I was astonished to note that beyond the Everest massif’s central chain there were no Himalayan ranges. It was the limit–the last frontier. The bleak Tibetan Plateau seemed to blend with the horizon towards the north.

I could not help feeling nostalgic as the jet turned for the homeward flight. I peered at the blue Mahabharat Mountains below and the Siwalik Hills a little further south–and the extensive, fertile Terai, which blended with the azure sky. While the major ‘snows’ were still visible on the starboard , it was fascinating to see the hanging-valleys, aretes, cwms and magnificent glaciers directly beneath the port windows. It reminded me of a trip I had made to the Swiss alpine town of Grindelwald, where the tongue of the glacier licks almost the town. Occasionally, as the jetliner sped by, the mountain-tarns would catch the sun’s rays on their crystalline surface, thereby imparting blinding flashes of reflected light.

It must have snowed the previous night, since the neighbouring hills, which were normally beyond the zone of perpetual snow, were also covered in varying degrees with fluffy blankets of virgin snow. One couldn’t help being overwhelmed by the ecstatic and exotic beauty of these high snowbound wilderness areas that we were over-flying.

Continental music began to seep into the pressurised cabin and the lithe and beautifully swarthy air-hostess came down the aisle gracefully handing the passengers miniature khurkis (curved Gurkha knives) as souvenirs, with the usual compliment of sweets.

I could feel the captain easing off the throttles and saw the spoilers on the top surface of the port wind rising up slowly, in a row inducing a drag and causing the jet to slow as it touched town at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan Airport.

* * *

THE HOLY COWS OF KATHMANDU

Kathmandu without its gay and colourful vegetable dealers and the holy cows, those constant characters, that have featured in almost all paintings, sketches, photographs and books on Nepal will soon be a thing of the past.

The ecological minded mayor of Kathmandu rounded up 88 stray cows and has auctioned them outside Kathmandu Valley. The auction yielded 64,460 rupees to the Kathmandu municipality. The holy cows of Kathmandu have been declared as public nuisances and obstruction to the traffic in the city.

Till recently, the cows of Kathmandu walked at a leisurely gait with that notable air of nonchalance which all Nepalese high-brow cows possess because they’re revered and worshipped by the Hindus.

During my summer holidays I happened to be in Kathmandu seeping in the symphony of colour, noise and sights of Kathmandu perched smack in the middle of Indrachowk.

The noise emitted by the haggling vendors and customers, the high pitched bells of the temples mingling with the honks of scooters, and the sound of bamboo flutes, and the occasional moo of a languidly straying cow who love the vegetable market. This was the sound that I had missed in Freiburg. The smell of burning sandalwood incense sticks, steaming momos, mangoes, gauvas and lotus, marigold and magnolias permeated the air. Add to this cacaphony the unruffled tourists and you get a picture of the pulsating life in this Himalayan bazaar.

In the meantime, another cow, this time a white one with pink ears but hopelessly bent horns, tried to go through a bevy of giggling saffron-wrapped college girls.

The flying vegetable market in Kathmandu is a shanty affair with make-shift transitory shops because the policeman keeps on telling them to park their vegetables elsewhere. Kathmandu has its supermarkets and discount-shops, but most of the Nepalese don’t want to miss the charms of Asal Tole, where there are no fixed priced and where one can haggle and chat with the vegetable vendors in Nepali and Newari.

A steel-blue Ford cruised by noiselessly like a ghost of a battleship. The indigenous push-cart dubbed gurkha-jeep rumbled by, pushed by brawny Tamang porters. Nearby, a small Japoo-child in his birthday suit prodded a big brown cow with a puny stick.

Right near where I was perched was a local Jyapoo (Newari farmer) selling yellow bananas. The bananas looked ripe and the Jyapoo looked prosperous. The good man was busy haggling with his customer: a fat, supercilious Rana lady, and that was when a cow appeared and started munching the bananas without as much as a moo.

Half a comb of bananas later, the Jyapoo finally saw the cool cow. What he did next was utterly remarkable. He performed what might be best described as a VTO. He took of from the ground like a British Harrier jet and then thundered at the calm cow. She galloped off like a horse. But that wasn’t the end of it.

The frightened cow bolted like an unguided missile through the commuters, pedestrians and what-have-yous in the alleys of Kathmandu in its fright. A cyclist was knocked down and quite a number of Hindus and Buddhists got edgy because of the onrushing cow. Our Jyapoo was plainly perturbed and looked plain stupid, blinked uncertainly, “Kay garney? Upai chaina! What shall I do? There’s no way out of this mess!”

Cows are regarded as holy and worshipped as mother-cow by the Hindus and give milk, yoghurt, butter, holy urine and dung. According to a legend, a Nepalese king ordered cows to be set free in the streets of Kathmandu by families in mourning to share the pain of the death of a young prince. And since then children in Kathmandu Valley disguise themselves as grotesque cows and motley figures and dance to make the queen laugh. The queen in the legend is long dead but the cow-festival ‘Gaijatra’ remains.

As you walk the streets of Kathmandu, along Asan Tole, Indrachowk and Basantapur near the Freak Street, which is actually called Jhoche Tole, you see the old Newari women with golden pierced ears and children watching you with a curiosity from the artistically carved wooden windows. You cannot help feel being watched, because the doors of Kathmandu have the all-seeing eyes of the primordeal Buddha painted on them.

Below every house leading into the streets, you see shops selling almost everything: from textiles, electronic goods, pots and pans, and outsized gagros (copper vases for ritual ceremonies and festivals). The carpets are eye-catching despite that fact that the colourful ethnic dragons, snow lions and mandalas are disappearing to suit European living rooms in pastel-colours ordered per fax. There are souvenirs on display such as: curved Gurkha khukris, statues of temples, tantric gods in ecstatic poses, gargoyles, thankas (icons), Buddhas and animals in bronze and messing. The entire temples and altars seem to be on-sale. And the gods seem to be moving out.

And out in the distance beyond the forest of Nagarjun: the silence of the Himalayas, revered and worshipped by the Hindus and Buddhists.
* * *

FATAL DECISION

“Give me a glass of water,” said the London-trained Nepalese physician, as he came into the room, where a group of Nepalese people with Mongolian and Caucasian features were gathered, either pitying or wondering what the strange illness could be.

With the glass of water in his hand, the swarthy, thick-set, bespectacled doctor approached the thin, emaciated girl, who’d retreated to a corner of the apartment like a cornered cat, and was having fits. A brown froth oozed out of her thin mouth.

As soon as she caught sight of the stranger with the water, she let out a chilling scream that seemed to echo in the Himalayas.

The physician turned to the girl’s father and said, “I’m sorry Mr. Rana, I cannot do anything for your daughter. She has hydrophobia,” And with that he packed his black medical bag and left.

Mr. Rana was stunned. The shock of the doctor’s poker face, and dry diagnosis hit him with such a vehemence that he reeled mentally.

“But there must be some hope or solution for Sudha, my daughter,” he uttered.

He told his wife what the doctor has said, adding that their daughter had no hope of surviving the dog-bite, for Maya Devi spoke only Nepali and no English.

The doctor had spoken in English, as all educated Nepalese did, even among each other.

Sudha was dying and there was no help at hand. Even modern medicine, with all its antibiotics, cortisones, antiferons wouldn’t be able to help their child.

“Oh, Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva! Please don’t let us down”, cried Maya Devi, summoning the Hindu Trinity, with a mixture of fear and worry. And she decided to send for the local shaman, a jhakri, and dispatched a female relative of hers with the nickname ‘Bhunti’, which means a fat person, not that she was pregnant or had a pot belly, but because she had a hollow back, with the result that she went through life preceded by her belly.

Mr.Rana had faith in allopathic medicine and didn’t trust the traditional medicine or that which passed for traditional medicine, especially the jhakris, dhamis, bijuwas, lamas and others who took to what he called “phuk-phak” methods, which literally meant “blowing-and-throwing.”

He preferred the old western school-medicine for himself and his family. That was because his brother and grandfather were physicians, having studied at the Grant Medical College in Bombay in the days of the British Raj.

It had almost become a family tradition, and he was contemplating to send his eldest son to this college, despite the astronomical sums that the medical colleges demanded in India in general. They called these criminal sums open-donations, and was a rather done thing.

His wife, being a traditional Tamang tribes-woman, didn’t think much of modern medicine and went back to the traditional healers that she knew through her parents and grandparents for they’d lived in the foothills of the Himalayas and had heard only hair-raising stories of the practitioners of modern medicine. Whereas a local shaman was happy with a dozen eggs or a small goat, you had to pay in currency notes to the modern doctor. And currency notes were scarce in the hills of Nepal, where people bartered with natural products.

Maya Devi had seen a sick neighbour receiving a glucose injection with an outsized hypodermic syringe, and that had scared the wits out of her. She didn’t know what the thing was, but it certainly looked frightening. The patient, a diabetic, had died soon after.

After that experience she’d decided that she’d definitely not go to a modern doctor.

Her grandpa, who had been a village shaman, had treated and cured the whole village, sometime or other, ever since she knew him. And what’s more, he was her grandpa and that meant a lot to her and she had confidence in him, because he’d never do any harm or inflict injury, as was expected of true shamans.

She remembered once asking him how he’d become a shaman, and he’d told her that he’d been picked up in his childhood by the ban-jhakri, a wild, wise man who lived in the jungle in a cave, and who became his guru and had taught him the secrets of the healing plants and profession. Her grandpa had long hair, like that of the Hindu God Shiva of the Snows: unkempt but braided, and it gave him an extraordinary appearance as he’d sit near his house altar, where he had his ritual objects. To her he was Shiva reincarnated.

Maya Devi’s husband, an educated civil servant of His Majesty’s government, sneered at times about her faith in the jari-buti, as the medicinal roots-and-stems were called.

After what seemed like ages, Bhunti turned up with a lean man, who had Mongolian features. He was thought to be a ‘knowing’ practitioner of his blow-and-throw trade. He was half Tamang and half Bhotay, as people of Tibetan origin are called, and looked as though he, himself, was suffering from consumption. He was untidily dressed, had blood-shot eyes and stuck his thin black hair under his monkey-cap, and had a pair of drooping moustaches. He was left alone and Bhunti catered to his needs and demands.

First of all, he demanded rice grains to be brought for the blowing part of the ceremony, and then alcohol, since he belonged to the matwali-jat, which means the ‘caste-that-drinks-alcohol.’

In the high-caste, ritual purity-pollution thinking Hindu society, it is regarded as a direct affront when one is offered alcohol. But since this was an emergency situation, a matter of life and death in the family, there were no protests. Neither from her otherwise orthodox Hindu husband, not from the relatives and neighbours.

Meanwhile, after gulping some of the raksi (alcohol) as though he was drinking lemon juice, he began the treatment by raising his voice and reciting a mantra and counting the rice grains on a copper plate. After each chant he drew a deep breath and blew his breath thrice in quick succession.

His first intention was to find out whether the child, who was letting out screams intermittently, was seized by a witch in the neighbourhood or a distant demon (bhut), for only then could he apparently begin treatment. After more swigs of the Gurkha raksi, his mantras became unintelligible and he seemed to withdraw within himself.

After a great deal of time, he began shaking and said in staccato bursts, “It’s the demon from the othay-khola”. A rivulet in the vicinity of the town. ‘Othay’ means a ‘lip’ in Nepali.

The diagnosis having been completed, a blood-sacrifice had to be made to appease the concerned river-demon along with a prayer to the Mahaguru: Shiva. It had to be a little red rooster.

Bhunti organised a red rooster in no time, and the jhakri prepared his ritual.

Although Mr. Rana showed respect this time for the traditional methods despite his distrust, he just couldn’t help feeling irritated by this particular species of his sort, especially his preference for alcohol at a critical moment in someone’s life.

“Perhaps he’s just an alcoholic and practised traditional medicine as a quack, a dabbler who could in effect do nothing,” he thought. There was nothing he could do at the moment. He had to try it out with this quack too. It was faith healing at its best. Either you believed in someone or not. Take it or leave it. There was no choice. And when you’re in a desperate situation, you had to take all the chances that were available to soothe your conscience.”

Meanwhile, the thin girl had started seeing double, because her optic nerve was affected, and her brain stem was assaulted by the rabies-virus and she had problems with her swallowing reflex.

Her mother had tried to give her water not knowing the medical implications and her daughter had a spasm of panicky angst and screamed again.

“Oh God, my poor Sudha, what’s become of you?” cried Maya Devi as she held her daughter wrapped in a brown blanket. It was pathetic to see a pretty daughter, a girl who was only eight years old, with beautiful black hair and an olive complexion turn virtually into a skeleton, so that even the teeth seemed to jut out, the body growing thin, dehydrating and the psyche a chaos, for she was no longer able to take in the world as it had been.

There was a mighty struggle going on in her nervous system, and it registered through her brown and frothy saliva and her screams of angst and terror, which had seized her. She was evidently losing the fight.

A neighbour suggested that the patient should be immediately transported to Kathmandu for “further treatment.” Another thought it would be better to try out a local dhami, a traditional healer, and yet another an ayurvedic practitioner from the town, who wore spectacles and a turban and was from the Punjab. A well-meaning Lepcha neighbour said, “Ranaji, you should call a Lepcha Bongthing who is a mediator between humans and the Spirits. If that doesn’t help we could engage a Limbu Yeba exorcist.

Mr.Rana had often seen the Limbu Yeba males going about wearing their ridiculous creased white skirts and turbans, with long feathers, cauri and rudraksha garlands.

“Why not try homeopathy?” said another.

In this lost and helpless state there was nothing to do but to try everything, like a drowning person clinging to the last straw, and so began an odysee of ‘treatments’ carried out in the hope of saving a child whose body and mind were rebelling and running out of control.

Mrs. Rana’s thought wandered to the day when her daughter Sudha had returned with a neighbour’s daughter after the bhai-tika ceremony from a distant part of the town. Bhai-tika, the festival during which the sisters proffered various honours on their brothers after a ritual puja, whereby the brothers are blessed with prosperity and protection against the adversities of human existence and unseen evils. And who could think that evil would strike on such an auspicious day?

As is the custom in Nepal, the people have their chicken, dogs, yaks and goats outside the courtyard. The dog, which was a bitch, had let out a few snarls and barks to warn passers-by that they were trespassing her marked territory. The children had been scared by the angry barks and had emitted shrieks of fear, and the bitch had made for the two scared children in a frenzy and had bitten them on their legs after a short pursuit.

The two girls had returned home crying and told their parents about the fierce dog that had bitten them. However, the parents who were entertaining guests in the afternoon hadn’t thought anything worse about the consequences of a dog-bite and Mr. Rana had only used the zinc oxide and eucalyptus salve that you find in every household. He had faith it would heal the wound, as in the past against other bites and wounds.

And that had been a terrible mistake.

Whereas the other girl Chitra was immediately sent to a local doctor, who gave her anti-rabies injections, Mr. Rana’s daughter was treated with only a smear salve.

“That ought to do the trick,” Mr. Rana had thought. “Why spend more money unnecessarily on the doctor? Injections were expensive. And after all, if the salve had the same effect, why not save the money for another purpose?”

Only last Monday the Nepalese Brahmin from Dhankuta had visited them and had predicted something inauspicious in the near future in the family. But in order to counteract that he had suggested making an amulet for his two daughters, with vedic mantras inscribed in them, which were thought to have preventive and protective effects against the bad planets (grahas) that had changed their constellations. The Brahmin was a jotisi, a learned Benaras-returned astrologer, with the ability to interpret and analyse the astrological data of Hindus, for every Hindu possessed a long scroll (janai-patra), which bears all the lucky and unlucky, the auspicious and inauspicious days in one’s lifetime, noted according to the constellation of one’s zodiac sign, and starting from the date of one’s birth.

In the Nepal of yore, this scroll of paper was an important document, and it still is, in the Middle Mountains of Nepal where the Chettris and Brahmins live.

Mr.Rana though a Chettri from birth, didn’t think much of the jotisis and other wandering brahmins. As far as he was concerned, they were slimy, garrulous, cunning fellows who went from house to Hindu house talking fancy Sanskrit with the married women who were unfailingly always at home, and departing with a handsome dakshina (offering) in the form of: rice, currency notes and coins, and sometimes even a whole cow. The Hindu religion allowed it, and the priests and astrologers made the best of this belief.

The doctor’s words had struck Mr. Rana like a guillotine. It was a death sentence.

A dark, monsoon-like cloud hung over the family. A feeling of mourning, depression and helplessness spread, even though the daughter was breathing, shrieking and struggling with death. Their daughter had developed a hoarse throat and her whole frail body was shaking.

Mr. Rana had heard that it took at least 15 injections to treat the rabies virus. In these days it was even possible to do it with three shots, but what was the use of knowledge? Or when a medical therapy is refused due to the ignorance on the part of the parents who have the money, and therefore the power to decide whether a member of the family should be medically treated or not, through traditional or western healing methods.

The way Mr. Rana saw it, it had been a blatant misuse of power. And he had a terribly guilty conscience regarding his daughter. It had been a fatal decision. One part of his mind accused him and the other seemed to rationalise and shift the blame to the uselessness of medicine, even though man had set foot on the moon and the skies were studded with satellites belonging to the western world.

And Sudha died that night.
* * *

On This Spot a Lotus Bloomed

Nepalese men and women work in the fields. They use the traditional bullocks and buffaloes that are seen in the villages of Southeast Asia.

They dig the fields manually. The women work beside the men, with babies strapped to their backs. Long wooden hoes are being used to dig and break the soil, whole families pitching in to do the job. And far out in the distance, the all-seeing-eyes of the compassionate Swayambhu observes the land from the towers on which his eyes are painted.

As you start for the temple, you’re first greeted by two Tibetan lions, set in stone, amid wonderful wooded surroundings. Behind the lions you see three colossal statues of the Buddha, serene and daubed in flaming red and gold. All around you there are naked trees in poses of suspended animation.

The ground crackles as you step on the fallen brown and russet leaves. Shrill bird cries ring through the air. It is roosting time, you say to yourself. The trees are silhouetted against the evening sky and the shadows are lengthening. Your eyes discern the prayers carved in the granite slabs as you ascend the seemingly endless stairs.

A bearded tourist and a bevy of girls giggle nearby, talking in French and eating peanuts. They pass some peanuts to the swarm of monkeys who are a regular feature of Swayambhu. The Rhesus monkeys are creeping, jumping, fooling and fighting with each other.

“How happy they are”, remarks a tourist with a laugh, as the monkeys climb the spire of the stupa. The overhanging eaves of the stupa, gilded with gold, are loosely chained together. The wind blowing from across the silvery Himalayas makes them rustle. You are dumbfounded by the majestic temple.

Three lamas go by: “Om mane padme hum” stirs in the air.

You take a cue from them and go about spinning the 211 copper prayer wheels that girdle the dome. Then you peer at the all-seeing-eyes painted on the four sides of the stupa and look where they look: at the myriad pale yellow, white, blue and crimson lights of the Kathmandu Valley below. You feel that you have indeed reached the top of the world.

It is chilly, and an icy gust of wind blows your hair. The clatter of the prayer-wheels is constant. The stony stairs are set at an extremely steep angle, but there are railings to help you up or down. A Tibetan, probably a Khampa from Eastern Tibet, mumbles his prayers as he comes down from the temple. He is wrapped in heavy mauve woollens. A shaggy Tibetan Apso, a tiny dog, like a Pekingese, with bells round his collar jingles past.

You go on. A few paces up, a monkey stealthily passes by as though he were a big-game hunter. You are again confronted by meditating Buddhas: the Dhyanibuddha Akshobya who rides an elephant and a lion, Ratnasambhava who rides a horse, Amitabha who rides the peacock and Amoghasiddhi who rides the heavenly bird garuda.

The going is hard but the ascent is redeemed because of the breathtaking beauty of the place. More Rhesus monkeys dart around you. One of them takes a joy ride along the railings like a kid, skids off and vanishes. You can’t help laughing. You abruptly come across two statues of horses: short and stubby. You’re weary but you press on and come across small elephant statues, with live monkeys playing pranks on their backs. The monkeys give you a quizzical stare. These are all part of the Buddhist pantheon. Now you begin to understand why the tourists call this temple complex also “the monkey temple”. The monkeys are protected by law(as is the yeti)and have freedom there since over 2000 years. They live on the offerings brought by the Hindus and Buddhists, and peanuts and popcorn offered by the tourists.

Your climb is over. The sky is dark, blue, and is fast changing into Prussian blue, and Venus has already appeared, but you have eyes only for the gigantic white dome and stupa of the Self-Existent One. The stupa is of great sanctity for all Hindus and Buddhists. It is hemispherical and you are struck by its enormous size. The earliest inscription on Swayambhunath dates back to the year 1129, but the stupa is thought to be much older.

You make your way to a Buddhist monk and he tells you a legend about Swayambhu…

“Once upon a time the Nepal Valley was a great lake. It was on this spot, where you now stand that a lotus bloomed and became the heart of the world”.
* * *

Live and Let Live : Wildlife versus Humans in Beautiful Nepal

The loss of wildlife habitat in the states of Nepal, India and Pakistan caused by widespread and indiscriminate destruction of forests in the foothills of the Himalayas and the Karakoram has led to an ecological crisis, resulting in floods and landslides after the torrential monsoons. When the forests recede the humans venture further into the habitats of the wild animals to cut and gather firewood. 

Take Chitwan, the jungle in Nepal’s Terai for instance. Till 1961 organised poachers wantonly decimated the wild Rhinoceros unicornis in the jungle in order to sell the rhino-horn for a profit due to its healing properties in traditional Chinese Medicine. In February 1993 for instance, four rhinos were found dead in the Chitwan Park and the poachers had removed their hoofs and horns. In Nawalparasi there had been similar cases of rhinos being shot for their horns and hoofs a few weeks earlier.

To assist the helpless wardens a battalion of 8oo Royal Gurkhas had been deployed. According to the then director of the wildlife department Tirtha Man Maskey, “There are 400 rhinos in Chitwan with a reproduction rate of 2% according to research statistics.” A few days earlier 12 persons were arrested with 44 pieces of rhino hoofs and two pieces of horns. And in the Shukla Phanta three Rhino-cubs were found dead. The average life span of a rhino is 60 years. To combat the increased poaching a security committee involving the Chitwan chief district officer, forest officer, security officer along with the representatives of the various units had been formed. The point was: will poaching be stopped in the long run or only as long as the Royal Gurkhas prowl and patrol the National Park? Moreover, the Gurkhas were deployed to stop the Maoists insurgents in the past, and the poachers faced hardly any resistance and started decimating the wild animals. That also scared the tourists, and they were advised from their respective foreign departments to avoid Nepal.

There are less than 11,000 rhinoceroses left in the world, and four species are threatened with extinction. The Taiwanese are known to be stockpiling rhino horns as an investment. According to a World Wildlife Fund(WWF)estimate already 10 tonnes are already stored in Taiwan. In 1970 the price of a kilo African rhino horn was $30 and today more than $2,000. The Asian rhino horn, which is smaller than the African one, is worth $50,000 a kilo because the Taiwanese think it’s more potent. Even though commercial trade in rhino horn and its by-products are prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, Zimbabwe and South Africa would like to export them and use the money to support effective anti-poaching programmes. It’s a case of legal trade to stop illegal poaching.

But poaching is also a trade. The legal market might “jeopardise rhinos elsewhere” according to Joanna Pitmann, who thinks “Taiwanese traders see gold in stocks of rhino horn.” To think that 30 years ago there were 100,000 black rhinos in southern Africa. Now there are only 3,500, the better part of which are in Zimbabwe, which is notorious for its high poaching-rate. According to Joanna Pitmann: “An average of three rhinos are lost in Zimbabwe every week.”

There seems to be a lucrative market and desperate souls are out to smuggle as many rhino horns and hoofs as possible. But aside from poaching there are also other problems. Thanks to the electrification of the many lodges along the Chitwan Park border the rhinos, tigers, leopards, and other denizens of the Royal forest nowadays have started getting used to techno-sound, hip-hop, lambada, Bollywood melodies, and rock n’ roll music blaring for the delights of the jungle tourists. The noise pollution created by the industry catering to tourism, in what should be a tranquil and serene National Park, is a nuisance indeed for the denizens of forest.

Nepal’s Endangered Rhinos: Once a royal hunting reserve, the lowland valley of sal forest and riverine grassland has come to be known as the Royal Chitwan National Park, and is Nepal’s number one Park. Take a trip down to Chitwan and you will get what I mean.

The wildlife you will get to see ranges from tigers, leopards, gaurs, sloth bears, sambars, chitals, hog deer, barking deer to the noted Gangetic dolphins which are seen cavorting in the waters of the Narayani River. And if you have a crush for ornithology, you will find exotic avi-fauna. Chitwan without the great one-horned rhinoceros would be unimaginable, since the area is internationally known as the wallowing grounds of 300 to 350 rhinos, which incidentally is the second largest population in the world. 

Back in 1975 the rhino population of Chitwan was between 200 to 250.If you are planning to make a trip to Chitwan, I would advise you to make it between January and May, because that’s when the rhinoceros concentration down there is the greatest. The lush, green grass provides high quality grazing to the rhinos. In May they begin to shun the tall grass species which are unpalatable, and that is when they make for the paddy fields of the local hamlets to pull nocturnal raids much to the consternation of the local Tharu and other Nepalese farmers. During the day you will find them wading in the shallow rivers and feeding on the aquatic plants.

Do the rhinos have a specific breeding season? Actually there’s no evidence. The habitat in Chitwan is such that it provides a year-round food supply, and the conditions of living are most favourable to them. During the mating season, you are likely to hear “pant squeaks” when a male is hot on the trail of a female rhino. The females emit squeaks of low intensity when the pursue the males. The highest frequency of such squeaks is heard in the month of March. The males can be seen making furrows on the earth or sand as the case may be, by dragging their stubby hind legs along on the toes, while urinating. This was a phenomenon which had been baffling a biologist from Cambridge named Andrew Laurie whom I met, and who was doing research on the ecology of the Nepalese rhinos. He’d been recording the rhino behaviour every month and felt that their urinating and furrow-making during the monsoon may have been due to the “bad conditions for track preservation” He said, “The furrows are made by male rhinos after unsuccessful attempts to mate cows or after encounters with humans”.

The rhino has a long period of pregnancy and the young ones take an equally long time to mature, and all this overrules the advantage of a regular breeding season. When a rhino cow has completed her period of gestation, she heads for a secluded spot. The cow disappears into the thick forest for several days before the birth. Andrew Laurie had evidence for a possible oestrus periodicity of between 34 and 44 days, which he obtained in the months of June and July. Laurie said, “I saw a bull grazing and moving with a cow and her two year old calf from the 14th to 16th June. On 15th June he mounted the cow and remained mounted for one hour, stationary in the elephant grass”.

One whole hour: it was unbelievable.

Laurie went on to say, “I didn’t see the bull again with the cow and her calf until the 19th of July, when he attacked her. It was amazing. He succeeded in turning her right over on her back by lifting from the side with his head between her front legs. And all this while the calf grunted from a distance in the tall grass.”

He said the cow and the bull evaded each other until the 27th of July when the cow started to follow the male around sniffing at his penis, urinating herself and uttering “squeak blows”. 

There is a possible peak births during July and August, which would tie in with a peak of mating activity in March and a 16 1/2 month gestation period. But Andrew was of the opinion that mating behaviour and births have been recorded throughout the year, and it was hard to detect a peak. “I’ve christened a healthy calf with the named Lickety Split,” he said with a chuckle because it seemed to dash about in the Chitwan foliage. The movements of the rhinos tend to be linked with food availability. They can be observed during the March-April feeding on the short grasses in the river banks in the blazing and forested plains located below the foothills of the Himalayas.

When grasses are scarce, they try aquatic plants, sedges and other coarse plants rather reluctantly. And when the grasses are burnt by the villagers of Chitwan, they immediately rush to these places to eat the charred stalks, which they relish. They return about two weeks to the same place to eat the new shoots. It’s quite intriguing to watch a rhino eat short grass. It uses its lips to bite off or pull up the shoots. The chewing is continual and often, the animal blinks and then bites off new grass with its lips again. You will discover that some roots and grass drop out by the side of the rhino’s mouth, but the animal normally has a gargantuan appetite and eats even the dead, russet and yellowed leaves on the ground.

And peaceful coexistence is not exactly what the villagers in the vicinity of the Royal Park believe in, at least as far as the rhinos are concerned. The Nepalese villagers have been briefed about the importance of the National Parks for the country, but not the animals. From as early as April in Katar and in the eastern parts of the Chitwan Park, the ungainly, cool and determined rhinos begin visiting the farmlands and feeding on the first rice and maize crops because they are so supple and delicious to them. Some of the rhinos tend to be neurotic and go about eating bananas, weeds and ripe wheat. And some even indulge in coprophagy. Keeping off the wildlife from the crops is indeed an eternal problem that the Nepalese farmers in the Terai face.

Rhino greetings: How do rhinos greet each other? They do it like the Inuit. A young rhino approaches another slowly with its nose stretched forward. The noses come in contact gently, and often a sparring bout ensues with one’s horn circling the other’s snout. But unlike the Inuits, the horns of the rhinos sometimes clash with a great noise. A nuzzling of the side of one’s face with the other’s mouth may take place, with a view to biting each other. And sometimes, you may be able to watch a rhino down in Chitwan bob its head up and down or even grazing and sweeping its head speedily from side to side. However, the approaching rhino, after touching the newcomer’s nose or nuzzling him will graze with him peacefully. The adult cows and bulls behave differently. They avoid contacts. But when they do come in contact, they hold their heads high and snort again and again, and even bare their teeth.

And what do adult males do when they come face to face with each other? They either ignore each other or threaten each other. The meeting is characterised by head-on approaches at times, followed by loud shouts, squirts of urine and touching of horns, low on the ground. And one of them may even turn and flee honking. Sometimes, a fight may develop in which the tusks are used a lot.

Andrew said, “During a fight one November, one male lost half its horn and both rhinos were deeply gashed. One of the animals returned six miles to the south of the Rapti River the next night. He walked very slowly, dragging a back leg and fed for no less than two hours.” Eating after a good fight seems to do them good. You will find that the rhinos show the most aggressive behaviour in their wallows, where threats and fights are very common, especially during the monsoon season. Despite the existence of many wallows in Chitwan, you will find the rhinos concentrated at a few wallows, and the wallows are changed very often. Most interactions involve rhino cows and calves. The approach of another rhino to the wallow might trigger off an interaction.

Attacks normally take the form of a charge. I remember having read an exciting description of a charging rhino by Peter Fleming in my school days, in which he called the animal a “brute”. Well, if you had a huge rhinoceros charging at you, you wouldn’t be inclined to call it friendly or cute either I suppose.

The best thing to do under such conditions would be to clamber up a thick tree. But the tourists in Chitwan are mostly on elephant-back and hence such situations hardly arise. When a rhino charges, the head is held low, mouth open, tusks bared and the charge is accompanied by a loud roar. The rhinos stop facing each other at a distance of one to two feet. The charge is ritually repeated. Or one of the animals might turn and disappear into the jungle: a loser. Each attack results in the loser having to divert to another place in the wallow, or even away from the wallow all together. A banishment and the winner takes it all.

Approaching rhinos sometimes turn and go on quite oblivious of the snorts. Others don’t even bother to take notice and walk right in. Even between the same rhinos in similar situation, the results of encounters are different on different occasions, and not stereotyped, according to Laurie.

“One cow and calf” he said,” always occupied the same position in a wallow no matter which rhinos were present. They never took part in aggressive interaction rituals.” But the normally playful rhino-calves are involved in the interactions.” In one case,” said Andrew, “a two month old calf attacked an adult female after she had chased off his mother. The cow in turned chased him in the opposite direction, but the spirited calf charged twice again. The cow stopped in front of him each time with her tusks bared, roaring loudly. Eventually the calf’s grunts were answered by soft squeaks blown from his mother, who had returned to fetch him.”

Interestingly enough, dung-piles are used by all members of the rhino population. And when a rhino comes across fresh dung, it serves as a signal for him to defecate. Calves invariably defecate after their mothers. And the dung-piles are developed in areas frequented by rhinos especially along paths and near wallows, and they are often 20 feet in diameter. A most remarkable thing about rhinos is that they defecate after an encounter with either another rhino, elephant or humans. So if a rhino defecates after he or she sees you don’t feel insulted. It’s the done thing in the world of the rhinoceros. One would not like to pass judgement, but the rhinos of Chitwan seem to have an entirely different opinion about us humans.

Besides the defecation, urination is also another important communication signal for the rhinos. A rhino squirts urine during or after encounters with fellow rhinos, elephants or humans, especially while walking away. It also urinates while on leaving a forest or grassland, a ditch, a field or road edge. The rhinos, while urinating, are known to scrape and drag their feet. The marking behaviour of the rhinos form a sort of communication system between individuals. The olfactory signals are recognised by other fellow rhinos.

The dung-heap for instance stimulates the rhino to defecate, and the furrows created by them after defecation and urination serve as visual and scent marks. And what’s remarkable is that the only permanent association among the rhinos happens to be the cow and her calves. The adult males are solitary, egoistic and do not tolerate the presence of other rhinos. Physical contact is very important in the cow-calf relationship, and wallowing cows and calves often lie touching each other. The small and chubby calves are very playful and spend long periods rubbing their heads and flanks along their mother’s huge body.

Mating among the rhinos takes place when the calf is about two years old. The calf is driven away usually by the male at the time of courtship. Both male and female follow each other’s tracks in Chitwan or for that matter in Kaziranga or elsewhere, when they have lost contact and greet each other by touching noses. The behaviour patterns change as the animal matures from a baby to a calf, and from a sub-adult to a full grown, breeding adult. Forty years go, most of the rhinos in Chitwan lived in the ideal, wild environment with very few people and extremely low amount of cultivation. 

The only deadly enemies were the stately princes and maharajas from Kathmandu or their royal guests from Great Britain, who took pride in wantonly shooting animals after driving them and trapping them through the use of hundreds of villagers who encircled them with endless white sheets of cloth, and the beating of drums, tin-cans to create a great clamour and frightening noise in the otherwise serene jungle in the Terai. 

Royal Hunts: The royal shikaris sat on perches called machans or on the backs of tamed elephants and shot the animals, birds and reptiles. Not because they had hunger as is in nature among the denizens of the jungle, but because it was chic and was supposed to be a sport ever since the gun was invented. The idea was not to stalk an animal alone in the ratio of one against one, with the undercover of the jungle as part of the game, and to kill a wild animal to feed the starving wife and children. Agriculture and transportation problems were already solved and hunting and killing helpless animals living in the jungles and forests came in vogue, to be documented for posterity in front of ‘fierce’ animals, not realising that the fiercest and wildest animal was the human himself armed with a gun and lethal cartridges.

In one big game expedition alone, the Nepalese Royalty Jung Bahadur Rana shot 21 elephants, 31 tigers, 7stags, 1 rhinoceros, 1 boa constrictor, 11 wild buffaloes, 10 boars, 1 crocodile, 4 bears, 20 deer, 6 pheasants and 3 leopards. Three successive generations of British monarchs have done game-hunting in the Nepalese Terai jungle. In 1886 when King Edward VII visited Nawalpur he is said to have bagged 23 tigers, 1 leopard and 1 bear. His son King George V shot “in one day in Chitwan” 10 tigers, 1 rhino and 1 bear. That was in 1911.

In 1921, the Duke of Windsor, when he was the Prince of Wales, visited Bhikhana in the Nawalpur district and took part in a shikar (hunt)and was presented the following animals and birds by the Maharaja Chandra Shumsher Rana as a present for the London Zoological Gardens:1 baby elephant,2 rhinos,2 leopards,2 Himalayan black bears,2 leopard cats,1 black leopard,1 tiger,1 Tibetan fox,1 mountain fox,2 sambhurs,1 thar,1 unicorn sheep,3 musk deer,1 four-horned sheep,1 one-horned Tibetan shawl goat,2 Tibetan mastiff puppies,1 monitor and 1 python.For the ornithological collection there were: 4 Nepalese kalij, 1 white crested kalig-pheasant, 4 cheer-pheasants, 2 koklass-pheasants, 4 chukor-patridges, 4 swamp-patridges, 2 green-pigeons, 10 bronze-winged doves, 3 Great Indian Adjutants (L. dubius), 1 hawk, 1 peafowl (P. cristatus). That was just the list of the animals presented by the Nepalese Maharaja.

In the course of the shikar, the Prince of Wales shot 17 tigers, 10 rhinos, 2 leopards, 1 bear, 7 jungle-fowls, 2 partridges, 15 snipes, 1 peacock and a hamadryas (Naja bungarus).

How long did it take to shoot all these animals?” you might ask. 

Just eight days.

Today, the animals in the jungles of Chitwan, as elsewhere in the world, have to coexist with more people in the areas due to the increase in human population and migration of people from the mountains of Nepal under the resettlement programme of the Nepalese government. Much of the mixed forest and grassland areas which are good rhino habitat have been destroyed, giving way to settlements and cultivated fields. 

The Nepalese population in 1974 was 12 million and in 1996 it is almost 18 million. Now it is 27 million. The humans multiply despite the so-called family-planning programmes that are publicised in Radio Nepal and Nepal Television, in the Gorkhapatra and The Rising Nepal. The movements of the rhinos and other animals in their original home grounds of the Terai (lowlands) have been restricted, so that they move after dark: stealthily, warily, over areas which used to be previously grassland and dense jungle. Nevertheless, there’s one thing that gladdens all conservationists and animal lovers alike, is that the Nepalese rhinos are opportunists and surprisingly adaptable, utilising a wide range of food.

With proper wildlife management, the rhinos of Chitwan have increased in number. And rhinoceroses have also been translocated from the Chitwan Valley to the Royal Bardiya Wildlife Reserve. In order to reintroduce a part of the endangered species in another part of the country and to provide them with an alternate habitat, and as an insurance against any unforseen catastrophe that could infect the rhino population in any particular area. The translocation might also help reduce the conflicts between the need for protecting the endangered species(and their gene pool)and the Nepalese villagers living in the periphery of the Nationalal Parks.It took 16 hours to bring the rhinos from Chitwan to Bardiya, and was a major success. The WWF(USA) gave a helping hand to the Nepalese, and tranquillising equipment and other support were provided by the Smithsonian Institute.

But there’s no need to be complacent, since the rhinos may succumb if disease broke out among them, for despite their thick armour, they are just as fragile as humans inside, as far as immunity is concerned. The most appropriate measure would be to move the villages from the Park area and to compensate the Nepalese villagers adequately through organisations like the WWF, World Bank or whatever, so that the wildlife may not have to encroach upon paddy fields at night. After all it is the human beings who have been encroaching upon the territory of the ‘wild’ animals, and not the other way round. The rhinos move in relation to the food, and when there is a stiff competition for food from wildlife, domesticated animals and the local people, migration to another territory is inevitable. The National Parks and Wildlife Office and the KMTNC need to be more vigilant in preventing human encroachment and poaching for furs and aphrodisiacs at the cost of rare animals which are a natural heritage, worth preserving.

On the one hand you have the government and conservationists passing laws that the Chitwan jungle be declared a National Park, so the dollar-paying tourists can stay in so-called jungle-lodges and go on photo-safaris on the backs of elephants through the thick elephant grass and drink campari or bourbon-on-the-rocks. And on the other hand, you have the farmers and villagers of the Chitwan area, who are endangered by the wild animals of the National Parks, because the wild animals (elephants, rhinos, tigers, leopards) not only come at night looking for fodder (rice, bananas, maize) and easy prey in the form of domestic animals, but also enjoy the protection of the National Park Rangers and, therefore, of the government.

The Chitwan Park covers 93,200 hectares and comprises also the flood plains of the Rapti, Reu and Narayani Rivers. The confrontation between the wildlife and humans in the jungle areas is pre-programmed. In 1974 there were approximately 400 rhinoceros and 70 tigers in Chitwan Park. According to a recent report published in July 31, 2006 the population of the endangered one-horned rhino in Chitwan has dropped from more than 500 six years ago to around 370. Three one-horned rhinos were killed and one wounded by poachers in around Chitwan National Park in south-western Nepal in the last week of July 2006.

It can only be hoped that the Nepal Terai Ecology Project’s attempts to make solar-powered electrical fences to keep the rhinoceros out of the farm lands will be a help, though prowling big cats don’t make much of such man-made hinderances.

Wildlife versus Humans: The KMTNC has in the past also initiated a grassland Ecology and Human Use project in collaboration with the International Institute of Environment and Development (USA). An American biologist named John Lemkhul made an in-depth study of the grassland ecosystem in Nepal, and the project proposed to develop a management scheme for the thatch grass that is vital for local human needs. 

A Nepali grassland expert Keshav Rajbhandari from the Department of Botany also took part as a consultant. The study revealed that the Chitwan Park was providing over 15 million rupees indirectly to the village economy by permitting the local villagers to cut grass in the park for two weeks every year. It was found that 90,000 Nepalese enter the park during the two week season. The cutters are legally allowed to cut khar, kharai, bayo and smiti. The villagers walked up to 3km to get to the park and up to four members of a family helped to cut the grass. Even the Nepalese villagers need an entry permit to cut grass.

But at night, when the wild animals start plundering the crops, the farmers become angry, and try to drive them away. Moreover, there have been tragic episodes enough to fill volumes, whereby the village children and women have been attacked by the wild animals. The Rising Nepal and the Gorkhapatra, two Kathmandu-based governmental English and Nepali dailies, bring out such tragic news often enough. The humans living in the vicinity of the National Parks, that goes not only for Chitwan but also Langtang, Bardia, Rara, Sagarmatha (Everest) National Parks, are tempted to go to the Parks with their lush green grass and vegetation to gather firewood and fodder for their domestic animals. This phenomenon is also evident in the Darjeeling area, despite the forest-officers on duty. Where there’s poverty and an acute dearth of firewood, there’s always a way out of the desperate situation, mostly through illegal means.

It’s not uncommon to read in the pages of The Rising Nepal about the call to “Propagate the Nature Conservation Message” and about the heavy responsibilities of the wardens in the preservation and effective management of Nepal’s national parks and wildlife reserves. And in the same daily you have the story of how wild elephants terrorised and destroyed some thatched houses and saplings in Morang district, and how a village assembly member named Khadga Bahadur Ale was crushed to death while travelling from Letang to Kane through a forest.Or the story of a four year old girl named Sita Devi Paudel of a village in Dhikurpokhari who had been suffering from diarrhoea and was carried away by a tiger around 8:30pm and the next day only some part of the girl’s body were found in the nearby jungle. 

Meanwhile, there was another story about wild elephants on the rampage from the Sunsari district, where they’d destroyed the thatched huts of 12 families in the Baraha Chetra villege. And in the hamlet of Bishnu Paduka four cows and two domestic swines had been killed and some goats injured by the wild elephants. Another caption tells the story of how the man-eater leopard which had attacked many children in the Kaski district was killed by a single bullet fired by Ram Bahadur Tamang, a resident of Chapakot village in Lalitpur district. The leopard was 4.5 feet long, and had been terrorising the children belonging to the hamlets of Hemaja, Dhita, Kaskikot, Dhikurpokhari, Bhadauremagi and Sarankot.

The story reminded me of the German TV film entitled “Danger in the Rapti” by Max Rehbein, who’s protagonist was Hemanta Mishra, a Nepalese wildlife expert, who likes to hear Beatles songs, in the role of a swashbuckling local Jungle Jim, in which he shot a man-eater and smoked a cigarette with the thankful village headman, for want of a peace-pipe. Hemanta Mishra used to work in the wildlife office in the early 1970s and ran the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation, and was awarded the J. Paul Getty Prize for Natural Protection. He worked for the UNO later in New York.

Another story deals with a leopard which killed ten children, aged 3 to 13, in the hamlets of Dhimal, Bhadaure, Tamagi and Sarankot. A small 3 year old girl named Maya Adhikari of Malang village in the Sarankot district was snatched away from her mother as she was being washed in front of her house at 7pm on a Sunday. No wonder that the local people living in the vicinity of the National Parks feel insecure and few villagers venture out of their homes after sunset. The tigers turn into man-eaters only when then become old, are injured or have lost their habitat. The question is: Do the tigers encroach into the habitats of the Nepalese villagers or is it the other way around? To date there are 13 national protected areas comprising more than 9% of the total land area in Nepal. According to the Save the Tiger Fund report, the situation of the tiger in Chitwan is optimistic and their numbers are increasing and their habitats are improving. The number of elephants are also on the rise and provided that poaching is curbed, the numbers of rhinos will definitely increase in the future in Nepal.

The situation may take a positive trend if the Nepalese farmers plant trees, for only a fourth of the forest wealth of Nepal has remained intact. The reason is that in the year 1967, the then Nepalese government nationalised vast forest areas in the country. And after that the Nepalese farmers didn’t feel obliged and responsible for the forests and started cutting down trees without second thoughts. In order to combat this, the Nepalese government introduced in 1979 the village-forest, the state-forest and the so-called protected-forest.

Old eco-song & dwindling habitats: “Nepal’s wealth is the forest, said our ancestors” runs an eco-melody over Radio Nepal, but the vast tracts of forests have been encroached upon by people looking for agricultural-land. With the Nepalese forests dwindling, there is an increasing pressure in the remaining forests which have been declared National Parks, and are protected by the government.

There’s no denying that there’s a struggle for habitats between the wildlife and the humans in the vicinity of the National Parks of Nepal, as elsewhere in the world. As long as the Nepalese government and its apparatus, the wildlife offices, are active and educate and warn the people and nab the poachers, there might be hope for Nepal’s wildlife. But can more wardens and wildlife management help in a country where the population has been steadily increasing, and where there’s a dearth of arable land, and thus the competition and habitat encroachment on the part of the wildlife as well as humans in the limited living space in Nepal?

The 104 year old misrule in the past under the Rana heredity Prime Ministers, and the defunct Panchayat government, and the later administrative mistakes on the part of different governments, have led to the reduction in the number of flora and fauna in Nepal, not to speak of the forests which were prized for trees like the karma for furniture, sal in the foothills of the Churai chain for construction purposes. And sadly enough, Nepal needs 7.5 million tons of newly planted trees per annum if it is to avoid shortages.

At this stage I shall have to tell the story of a big game hunter-turned-conservationist. He came to Nepal in 1960,when there were a lot of tigers and no tourists. The tigers were shot till they became almost rare.

Today there are a little more than 60 tigers at Chitwan Park. Some In the year 1999 the number of tourists who visited Nepal were registered as 492,000 but due to the decade of armed conflict between the government troops and the Maoists some 13,000 Nepalese, mostly civilians, died. The tourists were advised not to go to Nepal and the number of visitors sank to 277,000 in 2005. The tourists were obliged to pay a “tax” to the Maoists. 

Although over 15,000 tourists come each year to the Terai, the tiger population has nevertheless increased since then. The British banker named Jim Edwards (Tiger Tops) is supposed to have brought about this wonder. He organised jungle tours, wild water trips and trekking in the Himalayas, complete with climbing equipment: all for dollars naturally, because you cannot live in the Himalayas without money, and he has a beautiful residence in Kathmandu, a luxury apartment in London, and a domicile in posh St. Moritz. And till 1960 he was busy making money by organising big game Safaris. And since a couple of decades it’s been ecology and tourism.

Protected Wildlife: The growth of the population in the Terai area and elsewhere in the Middle mountains of Nepal, which shows an increment of 2.6 per cent does and will exert a lasting pressure upon the wildlife and vegetation of Nepal in the long run. And these are the questions that will pose serious problems for the country in the future. For with the construction of new roads, establishment of new industries and lodges and hotels for the foreign tourists, the country expects an industrial and tourist-boom that might disturb the ecological balance of this beautiful biotope that is Nepal, with its diverse flora, fauna, landscapes and ethno-cultural rarities.

Meanwhile, the protected wildlife of Nepal has been divided into 38 species falling under the three classes of mammals, birds and reptiles. The National Park and Wildlife Conservation Act has put 26 species of mammals, 9 species of birds and three species of reptiles in the wildlife protection list (1993). The protected mammals are: the red monkey, hispid rabbit, wolf, red panda, hyena, lynx, tiger, wild elephant, small boar, stags, yak-nak, “napon”, “salak”, “sonru”, the Himlayan red bear, “lingsang”, “charibagh”, leopard, the snow leopard, the rhinoceros, the musk deer, gaurigai, wild buffalo, “chiru” and “chapeka”.

The birds in the protected list are: the stork, orane, Lopophorus impejanus (Nepal’s national bird), “garmujur”, the great pelican, the white stork, “chir”, the munal pheasant and the “sano swar mujur”(peacock with the small voice). The list of protected reptiles include: the python,”sungohari” and the gharial.

After the establishments of National Parks in Nepal a number of projects were started: the Nepal Terai Ecology Project, the Snow Leopard Project, the Barun Valley Project, the Annapurna Project, International Workshops on the National Parks, Rhino translocation to India, the Nepal National Conservation Strategy, the Gharial Conservation project to name a few.

Health Region Freiburg: Fit for Life (Satis Shroff)

Health Region Freiburg: Feel Your Own Health (Satis Shroff)

Die „HealthRegion Freiburg“ präsentiert sich erstmals auf der „fit for life.“ Die von führenden Einrichtungen aus Gesundheitswirtschaft und Tourismus gemeinsam getragene Initiative „HealthRegion Freiburg“ wird auf der „fit for life“, die im Rahmen der cft auf der Messe Freiburg stattfindet, vom 09. bis 10. März erstmals die Kompetenzen der Gesundheitsregion Freiburg einem breiten Publikum präsentieren. Dem interessierten Besucher bietet der Gemeinschaftsstand die Möglichkeit, sich aus erster Hand über die zahlreichen Angebote und Dienstleistungen der Partner zu informieren. Ergänzt wird das Informationsangebot durch kos-tenlose Gesundheits- und Vorsorgechecks, Demonstrationen und interessante Beiträge im begleitenden Vortragsprogramm. 

Auf dem 150 m² großen Gemeinschaftsstand, werden neben dem zentralen Infostand der „HealthRegion“ mit dem Universi-tätsklinikum Freiburg, dem Universitäts-Herzzentrum Freiburg-Bad Krozingen, dem RKK Klinikum, dem Zentrum für Ganzheit-liche Medizin Dres. Karner, dem Gesundheitsresort Freiburg, der Theresienklinik Bad Krozingen, dem Labordienstleister MVZ Clotten sowie dem PACs Verlag aus Staufen auch renommierte Einzelaussteller vertreten sein. Das Angebotsspektrum reicht von der erfolgreichen Therapie mit integrierten Angeboten über Rehabilitation bis hin zu Präventionsprogrammen für Privatper-sonen und Unternehmen. „Die Premiere dient interessierten Besucherinnen und Besuchern aus Deutschland, Frankreich und der Schweiz als regionales Schaufenster. Hier können sie sich aus erster Hand über individuelle Angebote zur Erhaltung und Wiederherstellung der persönlichen Lebensqualität und Leistungsfähigkeit informieren“, erläutert Bernd Dallmann, Vor-sitzender des Vereins HealthRegion Freiburg e.V. 

Thematisch im Vordergrund stehen die Themen Herz-Kreislauferkrankungen, Arthrose und Osteoporose, Minimal-Invasive Neurochirurgie, Ganzheitliche Medizin, Rücken-gesundheit, Medical Fitness, Betriebliches Gesundheitsma-nagement, Medical Wellness & Beauty sowie orthopädische und kardiologische Rehabilitation. 
Von den angebotenen Aktionen findet sich inhaltlich vieles in den begleitenden Vorträgen wieder: Von Bewegungstherapien zu Themen wie „Schmerzfrei: Natürlich!“ und „Rückenschmerzen ganzheitlich behandeln“ über den Check der Gleichge-wichtsfähigkeit am Posturomed bis zu Medical Wellness-Aktionen und Untersuchungsangeboten. Die Vorträge reichen von „Erfolgreiche Therapie bei Arthrose“ und „Behandlung von Wirbelsäulenerkrankungen: Neue Entwicklungen in der minimal invasiven Wirbelsäulenchirurgie“ über „Die Bauchspeicheldrüse – das vergessene Organ“ bis zu „Aktiv und gesund trotz Zucker-krankheit – Optimale Behandlung des Diabetes mellitus“ und „Den Arzt in der Westentasche -Diagnose und Therapie via Handy und Internet“. 

Der Verein HealthRegion Freiburg e.V. begleitet und ergänzt die Aktivitäten der für drei Jahre aus Mitteln des Europäischen Fonds für Regionale Entwicklung (EFRE) geförderten Cluster-initiative „Healthcare & Economy – Region of Competence Freiburg“. Ziel ist es, die Innovationsstärke und die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der Region Freiburg in den Bereichen Gesundheitswirtschaft und Tourismus nachhaltig stärken und die landesweit geförderte Clusterinitiative HealthRegion F

Invasive Neurochirurgie, Ganzheitliche Medizin, Rücken-gesundheit, Medical Fitness, Betriebliches Gesundheitsma-nagement, Medical Wellness & Beauty sowie orthopädische und kardiologische Rehabilitation. 

Von den angebotenen Aktionen findet sich inhaltlich vieles in den begleitenden Vorträgen wieder: Von Bewegungstherapien zu Themen wie „Schmerzfrei: Natürlich!“ und „Rückenschmer-zen ganzheitlich behandeln“ über den Check der Gleichge-wichtsfähigkeit am Posturomed bis zu Medical Wellness-Aktionen und Untersuchungsangeboten. Die Vorträge reichen von „Erfolgreiche Therapie bei Arthrose“ und „Behandlung von Wirbelsäulenerkrankungen: Neue Entwicklungen in der minimal invasiven Wirbelsäulenchirurgie“ über „Die Bauchspeicheldrüse – das vergessene Organ“ bis zu „Aktiv und gesund trotz Zucker-krankheit – Optimale Behandlung des Diabetes mellitus“ und „Den Arzt in der Westentasche -Diagnose und Therapie via Handy und Internet“.

Review: Sophie Boswell’s ‘The Power of Feng Shui’ (Satis Shroff)

Review: Love, Money, Home & Chinese Philosophy (Satis Shroff)

Genre: Memoir

Sophie Boswell: The Power of Feng Shui Living Proof. Strategic Book Publishing, NY, 2008,  230 pages, Hardback $ 25,95

 

The purpose of this book is to give readers evidence of how the ancient Chinese philosophy works as the author herself is the ‘living proof.’ She’d applied it in her home-setting, relationships and business successfully. It’s a book about change and how to make it happen with you remaining in command. This knowledge is packed in the form of an enchanting love-story after two wrecked marriages, and a third endearing one, full of bliss and passion, thanks to Feng Shui.

 

Feng Shui? An Asian martial art? No, Feng Shui means ‘wind’ and ‘water’ and is the science of life in harmony with your direct environment. Feng Shui belongs to daily life in China. Wind and water belong to the taoistic knowledge that change is the fundamental principle of the universe. And we humans (and other species) as a part of this universe participate in a dynamic principle and are subject to eternal change. Feng Shui also gives you the opportunity to understand your fellow human being. Which theme belongs to this person? What does he or she have to know or discover? According to Feng Shui, your environ, working place, even your visiting-card reflects your personality. This is more than non-verbal communication. Sofia Boswell uses these ancient Chinese philosophical principles in modern western society and lifestyle with amazing success.

 

Your inner life begins to influence your outer world in a cheerful, positive way, whereby there’s a reciprocal exchange between the inner and the outer world.

 

Sophie’s story is topical and begins in Sydney in 1996, she travels through blue Hawaii, Newport Beach, New York and ends in Dubai in 2003. A perfectionist at heart, she doesn’t believe in failure despite setbacks in her business and in her private life. She regards a mistake as a chance to find another way to do and to go about things by using a change in perspective. There’s no room for headlong collisions in life. The gentle power of Feng Shui if often behind her decisions because she has internalised this philosophy.

 

Sophie’s grandfather was a successful businessman, and she has inherited his business acumen in her genes. Her grandmother, Kathleen Boswell, was a talented portrait painter and musicians, so the grandchild has an artistic streak and plays the piano and even writes lyrics today.

 

She reveals that the first ten years of her life ‘produced a strong minded individual’ which makes us understand that she didn’t seem to fit in with her peers. She was brought up as a proper English girl with all its connotations. There was ‘pomp and ceremony’ inside her house in far-away Australia but the family didn’t have much money to go with the aristocratic mannerisms. Brisbane wasn’t exactly the Cotswolds and was ‘dry and dusty with poisonous spiders and snakes; flies and mosquitoes came in plagues along with crickets and locusts.’

 

In addition to demonstrating that Feng Shui works, the narrative is humorous and true.

 

‘What are the author’s thought?’ you might ask. She does some fast thinking when an annoying man named Prem tells her, after consulting his tatty tarot cards: ‘Your life won’t begin until you’re sixty.’ He says further in his Indian English, ‘Vot you should do it is, is to let go!’ To detach oneself from things that bog us down. He tells her in no uncertain terms that she’ll change her lifestyle, travel and meet people she never dreamed of. All under a new flag.

 

But why would she want to change anything?

 

Sophia doesn’t seek psychics. ‘I never sought them out,’ she says. They seem to hook up with her whenever she needed help in life. In 1982 she met a psychic named Margaret Dent, after her first divorce. She had been living in a small rented two-bedroom house with her three little girls. Her husband had been a controlling man. It was a financial fiasco for her. Magaret predicted, ‘I see you sitting in a big house, in lush garden surrounding, near the harbour.’ And it came true. After 1984 she became rich through the use of her own resources in her home-based business and by putting all her energy into it. That one hour with Margaret Dent in Sydney had changed her life. The significance of this story is that women can get along in a men’s world through the understanding of Feng Shui, and is useful for female managers who have to assert themselves in so-called men’s business domains.

 

It was Elyse, a girl-friend of hers, a spiritual soul with a great knowledge about people and why they did things called her. She advised her to ring Rupert White, a person who could unblock trapped energy and show her which way to go in life. Mr. White was a Feng Shui expert, and the story of change begins here.

 

The component part of the book contributes to the purpose of the book for Sophie is an open-minded person and she seeks advice from psychics and clairvoyants when her normal logical, western thinking fails to help her in life problems. This is the beginning chapter, which is followed by an introduction to Feng Shui, Grounding, Letting Go, Closure, Hawaii’s  Magnetism, Destiny, An Unbelievable Answer, Taking the Plunge, Popping the Question, Popping the Cork, A Blessing from Heaven, Metamorphosis and Living Beyond the Dream. There are also some poems: The Angels Must Have Sent Him (dedicated to her beloved Zayid), Earthly Angels and seven Hawaiian landscape paintings done by the author. Another poem ‘I’m Watching Over You’ was written, according to Sophie, after Zayid died on December 9, 2009. He communicated via a medium and mutual friend, who then took it down and emailed it to her.

 

A comparison of the work to others within the same genre: Whereas Sophia Boswell already has three daughters and two divorces behind her, and has mastered her life, environment and business successfully, Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ (published in 2006) is in her thirties, settled in a large house with a husband who wants to start a family. However, she doesn’t want any of it. After a bitter divorce and a rebound fling she emerges badly bruised. She goes on a quest to find out what’s missing in her life across Italy, India and Indonesia. I Rome she enjoys the Italian cuisine and handsome Giovanni, her Tandem Exchange Partner, almost Latin-lover, and puts on weight after all that pasta. In India she finds enlightenment, in an ashram frequented by westerners like her, through scrubbing temple floors. Liz even learns to chant the entire 182 Sanskrit verses of the Gurugita, the great, purifying basic hymn of the Hindus. She professes having felt happiness: better, truly than anything which included salty, buttery kisses and even saltier and more buttery potatoes. After that she’s glad to have made the decision to stay alone.

 

Unlike, Sophie, Elizabeth finds a toothless medicine man who reveals a new path to peace. She’s ready for love again. Filipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship, says he needs towards the end of the story, he needs Bali because of his biz, its proximity to Australia where his kids live. Much like Sayid and Sofie, Liz and Felipe are also survivors of divorce. Felipe needs to be in Brazil often, because that’s where the gemstones are for his biz, and he has his family also there. The quest is over and Elizabeth returns to her family and friends in the USA. Can they build a life together divided between America, Australia, Brazil and Bali? Liz says, ‘Hey—why not?’

 

In Sophie’s story Zayid, her tall, handsome, Bedouin Arab brings her to life because she’d been in a mental rut. Zayid had humour and for Sophie he was the most interesting man she’d ever met and she had nothing to lose and dreamt of Lawrence of Arabia’s world with her Arabian hero. As a woman in love she notices every nuance. Zayid smells of Verace’s ‘Blue Jeans’ cologne. When he visits her in Hawaii she says, ‘Stars fell on Honolulu this night.’ He, on his part, kept on saying, ‘Life is short,’ which was perhaps a premonition of things to come. Another of his favourite expression is. ‘It takes two hands to clap,’ and he thanks her for inviting him to Hawaii. To Sophie, he’s her soul mate, a wild yet gentle man, and she even seems to know that ‘We were man and wife in another lifetime.’

 

Whereas Elizabeth Gilbert describes a major catastrophe in the form of a tsunami of staggering destruction in Southeast Asia, in Sophie’s Boswell’s ‘Power of Feng Shui’ she’s in a plane with fire-men from other states who were coming out to help out in the aftermath of 9/11 and the captain gives these brave men a bird’s eye view. Sophie describes thus: ‘In the distance we saw smoke still soaring skyward, highlighted by searchlights. The digging continues non-stop. The Captain asked us all to sing Amazing Grace as he headed for GuardiaAirport.’

 

Sophie’s poem ‘September 11’ still lingers in my mind.

 

On page 225 were the words she’d scribbled for me: To be continued..

Upper Rhine Valley Tourism (Satis Shroff)

 

 1,3 Millionen for Tourism Pojekt „Upper Rhine Valley“ (Satis Shroff)

 

Die weltweite Vermarktung des grenzüberschreitenden Reiseziels wird fortgesetzt. Tourismusminister Alexander Bonde fördert Projekt mit 100.000 Euro.

 

Das touristische Projekt ‚Upper Rhine Valley‘ erhält weitere zwei Jahre Fördergelder aus dem Programm INTERREG IV A: Mit knapp 1,3 Mio Euro werben die nun 33 Partner aus Deutschland, Frankreich und der Schweiz unter Federführung der FWTM gemeinsam für Reisen in die trinationale Region am Oberrhein, das teilte Regierungspräsidentin Bärbel Schäfer mit, die derzeit den Vorsitz des INTERREG IV-Begleitausschusses Oberrhein inne hat. Der Förderzeitraum startet am 01. April 2013 und endet am 31. März 2015. Projektträger und FWTM-Geschäftsführer Bernd Dallmann: „Ich danke den 33 Projekt-partnern für ihre Bereitschaft, das Projekt erneut mit erhebli-chen finanziellen Mitteln zu unterstützen. Das ist für uns Bestä-tigung und Erfolgsindikator zugleich. Mein besonderer Dank gilt dem Land Baden-Württemberg und Herrn Minister Alexander Bonde für den größten Förderbeitrag sowie dem Regierungs-präsidium Freiburg und Regierungspräsidentin Bärbel Schäfer für ihre unermüdliche persönliche Unterstützung des Projekts.“

 

Mit 100.000 Euro ist das Land Baden-Württemberg der größte Einzelförderer unter den Projektpartnern. Der baden-württembergische Minister für Ländlichen Raum und Verbrau-cherschutz Alexander Bonde, in dessen Ressort auch der Tourismus fällt, freut sich über den erfolgreichen Bewilligungs-bescheid des INTERREG-Begleitausschusses und damit die Kofinanzierung des Projekts durch die Europäische Union: „Mit dem Schwarzwald vor der Tür, den Vogesen in der Nachbar-schaft und dem Rheintal als Verbindung dazwischen ist das Oberrheintal ein attraktives Reiseziel für Touristen aus aller Welt.

 

Zwei kürzlich umgesetzte Projekte: Über 100 der attraktivsten Ausflugstipps in der Region finden sich in der neuen Ausflugsbroschüre, die auf http://www.upperrhinevalley.com heruntergeladen werden kann und bei allen Tourist Informationen am Oberrhein erhältlich ist.

 

Unterstützt hat Upper Rhine Valley auch die Herausgabe des im Freiburger Promo-Verlag erschienenen Bildbandes „Oberrhein“, der in Wort und Bild die Vielfalt und Schönheit der Region zeigt und viele Anregungen für Ausflugsziele und Reisen bietet.

 

Hintergrund: Das „Upper Rhine Valley“ liegt für Touristen aus aller Welt ideal zugänglich im Herzen Europas, wo der Rhein Frankreich, Deutschland und die Schweiz verbindet. Projektpartner aus dem Elsass, dem Schwarzwald und der Südpfalz sowie der Region um Basel arbeiten gemeinsam an der Bekanntheit der Oberrheinregion als Reiseziel. Die wirtschaftlich starke Region ist mit über 21.000 qkm fast so groß wie die Toskana und zählt insgesamt rund 6 Mio Einwohner. Über 18 Millionen Übernachtungen pro Jahr, darunter viele Stammgäste, belegen die Attraktivität der Region für Gäste aus dem In- und Ausland. 

German Translations of Nepalese Lyrics (Satis Shroff)

Satis Shroff’s GERMAN TRANSLATIONS OF LYRICS FROM NEPAL

Satis Shroff’s German Translations: 

Satis Shroff has translated Nepali literature (prose and poems) by Nepali writers such as: Laxmiprasad Devkota (Muna Madan), Bhupi Sherchan, Banira Giri (Kathmandu), Bhisma Upreti, Krishna Bhakta Shrestha, Bal Krishna Sama (Ich Hasse & Auf der Suche nach Poesie), Abhi Subedi, Toya Gurung, Dorjee Tschering Lepcha (Die Ameisenkönigin & Der Spinnenmensch), Guruprasad Mainali (Der Martyrer), Krishna Bam Malla (Der Pfluger), Lekhnach Paudyal (Der Himalaya), Hridaya Singh Pradhan (Die Tränen von Ujyali), Shiva Kumer Rai (Der Preis des Fisches),Sharad Sharma (Woman:Nature), Toya Gurung (Mein Traum), Binaya Rawal (Phulmayas Dasainfest), Abhi Subedi (Am Abend mit dem Auto), Bimal Nibha (Jumla), Jiwan Acharya (Der Bildhauer & Muglin) etc. into German, a part of which can be read under the title ‘Im Schatten des Himalaya.’

Muna Madan (Laxmi Prasad Devkota)

Devkotas Werk „Muna und Madan“ entstand 1936 auf. Dieses Gedicht basiert auf einer Newari-Ballade. Madan, ein Geschäftsmann will nach Lhasa (Tibet) um dort Handel zu treiben, wie es früher üblich war. Damals gab es eine richtige Newar-Kolonie von Händlern in Lhasa. Seine frisch verheiratete Frau Muna liebt ihn innig und bittet ihn, sie nicht allein in Kathmandu zu lassen, „mein Herz nicht brennen zu lassen in einem Feuer, das nie ausgemacht werden kann“. Madan macht sich sehr viele Sorgen, geht aber trotzdem weg von Muna. Bevor er geht, verlangt er ein Lächeln von Muna. Aber Muna kann „die Sonne nicht herausbringen in der Nacht und lächeln zum Abschied“. Sie hat keine Interesse für Reichtum und ist sogar bereit, ein Leben in Armut, Frieden und Liebe zu verbringen. Aber Madan muss sein Haus reparieren und muss sich um seine alte Mutter sorgen. Er geht auf diese gefährliche Reise, wird auf dem Rückweg krank und wird von seinen Händlerfreunden im Stich gelassen. Dennoch hat er Glück und wird von einem guten Tibeter gepflegt. Muna kann die lange Zeit der Trennung nicht aushalten und ist traurig und verzweifelt. Sie sieht viele schlechte Omen. Ein böser Verehrer von Muna schickt eine Nachricht von Madans Tod zu ihr. Muna stirbt an gebrochenem Herzen. Viele Jahre später kehrt Madan zurück und findet seine Geliebte schon längst tot und verschwunden und seine Mutter liegt auf dem Sterbebett. Er kann den Schmerz und das Leiden nicht verkraften und stirbt auch.

Madan verabschiedet sich um nach Tibet zu gehen:

(Muna): „Geh nicht, mein Leben, und lass mich hier allein,

Im Wald meines Herzens hast du ein unlöschbares Feuer der Sehnsucht entfacht,

Ein unstillbares Feuer der Sehnsucht hast du entfacht,

Du Stern meiner Augen, oh mein Geliebter! Wenn dieses Licht erlischt,

Was soll ich sagen? Ich würde nichts sagen, auch wenn du mich vergiftet hättest,

Geliebter, mich vergiftet!

Die Worte aus meinem Herzen, bleiben mir im Hals stecken, in meinem Hals bleiben sie stecken

Mein Herz schlägt fünfzig mal in einer Sekunde,

Wenn meine Brust aufgerissen (würde) und dir gezeigt würde,

Würden deine Gedanken vielleicht zurückkehren wenn das Bild entschleiert würde,

Ein Stück meines Herzens fällt in meine Tränen, diese Tränen sprechen nicht,

Meine tiefsten Gefühle bleiben in meinem Herzen, meine Brust zeigt sie nicht,

Meine Liebe, Tränen können nicht sprechen!“

(Madan): „Oh meine Muna, sprich nicht so, blühend im Mondlicht,

Schnell werde ich zurückkehren, warum vergisst du?

In Lhasa werde ich zwanzig Tage verweilen, und zwanzig Tage unterwegs sein,

Der Cakheva Vogel kommt an einem Tag morgens angeflogen,

Geliebte, der große Tag, an dem wir uns treffen.

Eines Mannes Entschluss ist Handeln oder Sterben,

Geliebte, leg mir mit deinen Tränen kein Hindernis auf den Weg.

Lächle, und zeige deine Zähne, die wie Kerne des Granatapfels sind,

Wenn du lächelst, kann ich Indra auf seinem Thron herausfordern,

Geliebte, lächele beim Abschied !“

(Muna): „Oh, mein Rama, oh mein Krishna, es wird Dschungel und Berge geben,

Die Tibeter auf den Felsen sind wie wilde Tiere, die Kühe anfallen!

Ein Lächeln beim Abschied ist wie die Sonne in der Nacht, wie kann ich dies verstehen?

Wenn du gehen musst, lass mich nicht allein, lass mich dich begleiten,

Laß mich dein Gesicht und deinen Körper beschützen mit meiner Liebe.“

(Madan): „Sprich nicht so, verstehe Muna, deine Füße sind wie Blumen,

Die Wälder sind dornig und steil, wie kann ich dich mitnehmen?

Oh Nagas Tochter, komm nicht in die Berge !

Meine einzige Mutter, das glückverheißende Licht, vergiss sie nicht zu pflegen,

Lass eine Mutter, die sechzig Winter überstanden hat, nicht alleine,

Sie möge sitzen und auf dein mondgleiches Gesicht schauen.“

(Muna): „Ihre grau gewordenen Haare, ihre müde gewordener Körper, die Liebe deiner Mutter

Haben deine Füße nicht zurückgehalten, die Schatten der Liebe konnten dich nicht aufhalten,

Mein Herr, die Liebe deiner Mutter.

In ein wildes Land gehen, gekleidet wie ein Händler, Gefahren ausgesetzt,

Was soll gewonnen werden, Herr ! Du verlässt sie und gehst nach Lhasa?

Taschen voller Gold,( sind) Hände voller Schmutz, was bringt so ein Reichtum?

Besser ist es Brennnessel und Salat zu essen mit zufriedenem Herzen,

Oh meine Geliebte, mit einem reichen Herzen !“

Madan): „Geliebte, deine Worte treffen mich ins Herz,

Was willst du machen, Muna ? Dieser Atem stockt vor jenem sündhaften Reichtum,

Mit ein paar Schluck Milch würde ich Mutters Kehle erfrischen,

Ihre Wünsche nach eine Herberge und einem Brunnen erfüllen,

Diese Arme würde ich schmücken mit Reifen aus schwerem Gold,

Das Fundament des Hauses, baufällig durch Schulden, würde ich verstärken.

Diese Hoffnung entstand in meinem Herzen und verschwand wieder

Ich habe meine Füße jetzt gehoben, meine Wünsche gehoben,

Gott ist oben, mein Herz ist meine Begleiter, Ich werde diesen Fluss überqueren,

Falls ein Gefühl mir gesellen sollte, obwohl ich mich richtig verhalte, werde ich auf dem Weg sterben,

Außerhalb von dieser Erde, im Himmel, Liebste, werden wir uns wieder treffen.

(Muna): „Oh mein Krishna, sprich nicht und binde nicht den Knoten im Herzen noch enger,

In meinem Geist male ich ein Bild von deinem kostbaren Gesicht,

Wende dich nicht ab, Liebster ! Verstecke nicht die Tränen, die deine Augen füllen,

Die Mädchen von Lhasa, mit blitzenden Augen, aus Gold geschmiedet,

Ihre Sprache wie die einer Nachtigall, mit Rosen die auf ihren Wangen blühen,

Lass sie alle spielen, lass sie alle tanzen auf den Bergen und Wiesen,

Falls du mich vergisst, diese Tränen werden dich beunruhigen, sage ich ängstlich.

Mach dich auf die Reise, lass dunkel werden in Haus und Stadt,

Ich habe keine Kraft mehr zu weinen, ich habe Tränen vergossen vor dir“.

In der Dunkelheit brennen die Erinnerungen wenn es blitzt,

Ein Regen von kühlen Tränen wird vor den Augen der Sorgenvollen fallen.

MUNA ALLEIN

Muna allein, wunderschön, blühend wie eine Lotusblume,

Sich offenbart wie der Mond, der die silberne Wolkenkante berührt,

Wenn sie ihre zarten Lippen öffnete zum Lächeln, regnete es Perlen,

Sie welkte wie eine Blume in Winter (Pus), und Tränen flossen aus ihren Augen

Sie trocknete ihren große Augen und kümmerte sich um ihre Schwiegermutter,

Wenn sie schlief in ihrem Kämmerlein war ihre Kissen durchnässt von tausend Sorgen.

Lang (waren) die Tage, lang die Nächte, traurig die Tage,

Ob dunkle Nächte oder helle, der Mond selbst war traurig,

Muna am Fenster, ein glitzernder Stern, ihre Liebster ist in Lhasa,

Tränen in ihren Augen, Munas Herz war zerfressen von Sorge,

Es war als ob ein dünner Nieselschauer in ihrer Stimme wäre.

Ein Lied stieg empor in der Stille, als ob die Sehnsucht selbst gesprochen hätte.

Ihre Träume waren kostbar für ihre Augen, Tausende von Sorgen erreichten sie nicht,

Wenn sie ihn im Traum sah, fiel es ihr schwer aufzustehen.

Sie weinte, da sie noch lebte, auch im Traum,

Tag für Tag welkt sie dahin wie eine Rose.

Sie versteckt ihre Trauer in ihrem Herzen, verbirgt sie in Schweigsamkeit:

Ein Vogel versteckt mit seinen Federn den Pfeil, der sein Herz durchbohrt,

Das Ende des Tages wird hell im Schein einer Lampe.

Die Schönheit einer welkenden Blumen wächst, wenn der Herbst nahe ist.

Die dunkeln Ränder der Wolken sind silbern, und der Mond ist noch heller,

Sein Gesicht beim Abschiednehmen leuchtet auf in ihrem Herzen, das Licht der Traurigkeit,

Tränen von Tautropfen fallen auf Blumen, Regenwasser vom Himmel,

Sternenlicht, Tränen der Nacht, tropfen auf die Erde.

Die süßen Wurzeln der schönen Rose werden zur Nahrung von Würmern

Eine Blume, die in der Stadt blüht, wird Opfer eines Bösen,

Die Hand eines Menschen füllt Schmutz in reines Wasser

Menschen säen Dornen in den Weg der Menschen.

Wunderschön, unsere Muna, sitzend an ihrem Fenster

Ein Stadtgauner, ein Taugenichts, sah sie, sie bewegte sich wie ein Nymphe,

Machte eine Lampe für die Göttin Bhavani.

Ihre runden Backen, ihre Ohrläppchen, ihre lockigen Haare,

Bei dieser plötzlichen Erscheinung stand er auf, verlor seinen Verstand,

Und ging weg, einmal hierhin, einmal dorthin.

Du siehst die Rose ist schön, Bruder berühre sie nicht!

Er sah sie mit Verlangen, er war verzaubert, werde kein Wilder!

Die Dinge der Schöpfung sind schöne Edelsteine für unsere Blicke,

Berühre und töte nicht die Blume, die Gottes Lächeln bekommen hat.

Madan ist auf dem Heimweg an Cholera erkrankt

Lasst mich nicht im Wald allein, meine Freunde,

Zur sündigen Beute von Krähen und Geiern,

Meine alte Mutter daheim! Wird die alte Frau sterben?

Meine Muna, gleich wie der Mond, wird sie zu Tode geschlagen?

Oh meine Freunde, O meine Brüder, ich werde jetzt nicht sterben,

Ich werde den Tod bekämpfen, ich werde aufstehen, ich will nicht im Wald sterben,

Mein Hals ist trocken, meine Brust brennt, trocknet meine Tränen,

Noch habe ich Atem, noch habe ich Hoffnung, versteht meinen Schmerz,

Meine alte Mutter wird euch segnen, rettet mich!

Es ist Pflicht eines Menschen, die Tränen des anderen zu wischen.“

Was willst du tun, Bruder? Unser Heim ist weit entfernt von diesem Dschungelweg,

Warten wir bis du geheilt bist von dieser Cholera, wird uns Unglück bringen,

In diesem Wald gibt es keine Heilkräuter,

Verweile hier und denke an Gott,

Alle müssen gehen, ihre Haus und Heim verlassen,

Wenn du in deiner letzten Stunde an Gott denkst, wirst du sicher gerettet werden.“

Gestützt auf seine Arme, erhob sich Madan, (er sah), seine Freunde waren gegangen,

Im Westen hatten sich die Augen des Tages blutrot gefärbt,

Eine fahle Dämmerung kam über den Wald, sogar der Wind schlief ein,

Die Vögel hörten auf zu singen, die Kälte befiel ihn

Ein trauriger Zustand, erbarmungslos die Berge und Wälder,

Die Sterne, die ganze Welt erschien grausam, grausame Trostlosigkeit.

Er drehte sich langsam auf dem Gras, dann seufzte er,

Ein Bild von Zuhause kam in sein Gedächtnis, klarer als je zuvor,

Oh meine Mutter, denk an mich!

Oh meine Muna, denk an mich!

Gott, Gott, in diesem Wald bist Du meine einziger Freund,

(Von) oben siehst du die steinharten Herzen der Menschen.

Wo wird jene Feuerflamme sein? Hat der Wald Feuer gefangen?

Ist ein Waldbrand entstanden, um diesen sterbenden Menschen noch mehr zu zerstören?

Ein Man näherte sich, er trug eine Fackel,

War es ein Räuber, war es ein Geist oder eine böser Waldgeist?

Sein Atem hing an einem Faden, sollte er hoffen, sollte er fürchten?

Schließlich erreicht die Fackel sein Gesicht.

Ein Tibeter schaute, wer da weinte, er sah den kranken Mann,

Er sagt liebevoll, “Deine Freunde sind treulos,

Mein Haus ist in der Nähe, nur ein wenig (kos) entfernt, du wirst nicht sterben,

Ich werde dich tragen, ist dir das recht? Mir macht es nichts aus.“

Der arme Madan berührte die Füße des Tibeters and sagte,

Oh mein Herr, mein tibetischer Bruder! Was für wunderbare Worte!

Daheim ist meine alte Mutter, ihre Haare sind grau,

Daheim ist meine Frau, die wie eine Lampe leuchtet,

Rette mich jetzt und Gott wird zuschauen,

Wer den Menschen hilft, wird bestimmt in den Himmel kommen.

Ich, aus der Kaste der Krieger, berühre deine Füße, ich tue es nicht widerwillig,

Ein Mensch ist ein Mensch durch die Größe seines Herzens, nicht durch seine Kaste“.

Der Tibeter trug ihn zu seinem Haus und legte ihn auf ein Tuch aus Wolle,

Er gab ihm ein paar Schluck Wasser und verwöhnte ihn liebevoll,

Er suchte und brachte eine Heilkraut, zerdrückte es und gab ihm zu trinken,

Mit Yakmilch machte er ihn wieder stark.

Madan verabschiedet sich von dem Tibeter

Madan dreht sich um und schaut nach dem Hof der Tibeter:

Was für schöne Kinder, was für schöne junge Tiere, so im Spiel vertieft!“

Nachdem er zugeschaut hatte, wandte Madan sich dem Tibeter zu und

Seine Lippen offenbarten verborgene Wünsche seines Herzens:

Grün sind die Hügel, die Blumen blühen in den Wäldern,

In meinem Herz denke ich an mein Heim in der Ferne, lieber Bruder.

Die Knospen müssen aufgebrochen sein, zart und duftend

Der Pflaumenbaum muss sich des Frühlings erfreuen,

Ein zartes Grün wird in den Wäldern erwacht sein!

Das kleine Haus in jenem Land, es strahlt in meiner Erinnerung

Meine Tränen sind der Tribut für jene Erinnerung

Meine Mutter, Mond der Berge, muss sich an mich erinnern,

Ich verweile weit entfernt an diesem Waldesrand, bringe Tränen in jenes Haus.

Du hast ewige Verdienste erworben, ich kann (es dir) nicht zurückzahlen,

Du hast mir das Geschenk des Lebens gegeben, ich kann (es dir) nicht zurückzahlen,

Ich stehe immer in deiner Schuld, kann es dir nicht zurückzahlen.

Zwei schmutzige Taschen mit Gold habe ich im Wald vergraben,

Eine ist für dich, eine ist für mich, gerecht verteilt für deinen Verdienst,

Nimm es, verabschiede mich, ich gehe nach Hause,

Während ich weitergehe, erinnere ich mich immer an Deine Barmherzigkeit.“

Der Tibeter sagt, “Was kann ich mit reinem Gold anfangen?

Gold wächst nicht, wenn du es pflanzt, oder? Was kann ich mit Gold machen?

Kann ich es pflanzen und essen durch deine Liebenswürdigkeit?

Meine Kinder, Söhne und Töchter, sind verlassen worden von ihrer Mutter,

Was nützt Gold, Vermögen, wenn das Schicksal sie uns weggenommen hat?

Diese Kinder können nicht Gold essen, sie tragen keinen Schmuck,

Meine Gattin ist im Himmel, die Wolken sind ihr einziger Schmuck.“

Der Tibeter sagt: „Diese Gelegenheit zu bekommen, Verdienste zu sammeln, war eine Chance“

Es war ein Glück, die Tugend der Hilfsbereitschaft zu üben.

Für meine Wohltat nehme ich nichts, behalte mich in Erinnerung, während du gehst.

Ich pflüge selbst, ich ernähre mich selbst, nichts wird mir geschenkt.

Was würdest du mir geben? Was werde ich nehmen? Ich bettle nicht.

Denk an meine Name (Changbas) während du gehst, erzähle über mich daheim,

Schicke den Segen der alten Frau für diese Kinder.“

Weinend brach er vom Waldrand auf, unwissend und ungebildet

In jenem Tibeter erinnerte er sich der Quelle des guten Herzens,

Weinend ging Madan in Richtung Heimat.

MADANS MUTTER STIRBT

Madans Mutter, ihre Haare weiß, liegt im Bett,

Mond der Berge, wartend in Traurigkeit auf ihre letzten Tag.

Die Lampe dieses Hauses, das Öl verbraucht, sich verzehrend,

Flackerndes Licht, die Dunkelheit drohte zu kommen.

Sie sieht das Gesicht ihres Sohnes, und ruft (nach) Gott

Für ihren Sohn, ihres Herzens Herz, (ruft) sie nach Gott.

Eine Brise vom Fenster streicht über ihre weißen Haare und geht vorüber

Haucht Mutters Herz in Richtung Lhasa.

Keine Tränen in ihren Augen, erfüllt mit Frieden

Der Glanz des Endes kommt um die Abenddämmerung zu erhellen,

Die treibende Kraft ihres Lebens, ihr Garant gegen den Tod: Ihr Sohn ist weit weg,

Sein Gesicht zu sehen bevor sie stirbt, ist ihr Herzenswunsch,

Heiß von Fieber, ihr schmale Hand brennt mit Sehnsucht,

Sie hält liebevoll die Hand ihrer weinenden Schwiegertochter,

Tätschelt ihre weiche Hand und sagt, “O meine Schwiegertochter,

Jetzt ist die Zeit gekommen, ich muss diese Welt verlassen ,

Warum Weinen, weine nicht Schwiegertochter !

Alle müssen diesen Weg nehmen, mein Kind, der Reiche und der Fakir

Erde vermischt sich mit Erde an den Ufern des Leidens,

Erdulde dies, sei nicht gefangen in der Schlinge des Schmerzes,

Sei Fromm, denn Hingebung erbringt Erleuchtung auf dem letzten Weg!

Ich habe die Blumengärten der Erde blühen und verwelken gesehen,

In Traurigkeit, liebe Schwiegertochter, habe ich Gott erkannt !

Die Samen, die auf der Erde gesät werden, tragen Früchte im Himmel,

Was ich gegeben habe, nehme ich mit mir, was geht mit?

Der Reichtum, den du in einem Traum erwirbst, bleibet in deinen Händen, wenn du erwachst.

Ich nehme Abschied von allen, Madan ist nicht gekommen.

Meine Augen haben ihn heute nicht gesehen, bevor sie sich schlossen,

Ich bin gestorben,“ sag dies zu Madan.

Die alte Frau, die ihrem Ende entgegen ging sagte: „Weine nicht zu sehr“

Madan kehrt Heim

Munas Worte waren wie Geschosse, erinnert sich Madan,

Wie süß hat sie mich getadelt, „ Was kannst du machen mit Reichtum?“

Ihre nektargleichen Worte trafen mich bis ins Mark und durchbohrten mein Herz,

Besser ist es mit glücklichem Herzen Salat und Brennnessel zu verzehren“,

Jetzt hat Gott dies ermöglicht mit Reichtum

Ein Vorhang hat mich zugedeckt, ein Vorhang hat mir meinen Weg versperrt, oh Schwester!

Ich werde nicht weinen, ich werde morgen gehen und sie treffen,

Lüfte den Vorhang, O Schicksal (Gott), und du wirst schnell gesegnet.

Madan fiel auf die Erde und wurde schlapp vor Traurigkeit.

Der Arzt kam, hielt ihn am Handgelenk und fühlte seinen Puls:

Was ist Medizin für einen der krank ist am Herzen?

Probleme mit Husten und Schleim, sagt der Arzt,

Ohren, die Worte von anderen nicht hören, hören diese

Madan sagt ihm „Lies die Bücher über die Heilkunde, blättere die Susruta durch‚

Wo ist die Qual des Herzens, erzähle es mir?

Die Krankheit, die meinen Körper quält, ist, am Leben zu sein: Vertreibe diese Krankheit!

Die Erinnerung macht mich unruhig, ich habe Durst nach dem Anblick von Muna (Darshan) 

Meine Augen starren in die Weite, ich werde verbrannt durch eine Brise,

Mein Gehirn dreht sich wie ein Wirbelwind, mein Herz schmerzt mich,

All meine Symptome sind in meinem Herzen, versteckt von der Außenwelt.“

Der Arzt schaute, der Arzt verstand, jener Arzt kam nie (mehr).

Was auch das Herzleiden sein mochte, ein Mittel dagegen wurde nicht gefunden.

Tag für Tag wurde es mit dem armen Madan noch schlimmer,

Er war bei Bewusstsein wie zuvor, seine Sprache war klar.

Oh, meine Schwester, führe diesen Haushalt,

Erfülle Mutters Wunsch nach eine Herberge und einem Brunnen,

Muna kümmert sich um unsere einsame Mutter, hoch oben;

Möge keine andere einsame Mutter vernachlässigt werden,

Mach den Knoten an meinem Kleid auf, gib mir einen Schluck Gangeswasser ,

Es gibt keine Medikamente, meine Schwester, für ein gebrochenes Herz!“

Die Wolken rissen auf, der Mond lächelte schön am Himmel,

Begleitet von den Sternen, schaute der Mond durch das Fenster,

Die Wolken zogen sich zusammen, Madan schlief für immer,

Am nächsten Tag war es wieder klar, und die Sonne ging auf.

Habt ihr den Staub aus eueren Augen gewischt, Bruder und Schwester?

Wir müssen diese Welt verstehen und nicht Feiglinge sein.

Schauen wir der Welt ins Gesicht, reißen wir uns zusammen,

Lasst unsere Flügel zum Himmel schwingen, während wir auf dieser Erde leben.

Wenn das Leben nur Essen und Trinken wäre, Herr, was wäre das Leben?

Wenn der Mensch keine Hoffnung hätte auf ein Leben danach, Herr, was wäre der Mensch?

Solange wir auf der Erde leben, schauen wir zum Himmel,

Klage nicht, wenn du nach unten auf der Erde schaust!

Der Geist ist die Lampe, der Körper das Opfer, und der Himmel die Belohnung .

Unsere Taten sind unsere Gottesverehrung, so sagt Laxmiprasad , der Dichter.

* * *
Devkota, Lakshmiprasad:Muna Madan Sajha Prakashan, Kathmandu

 E-mail:sajhap@wlink.com.np

Satis Shroff ist Journalist und Schriftsteller. Schule in Darjeelings North Point, Studium der Zoologie und Botanik an der Tribhuvan Universität (Kathmandu). Danach Tätigkeit als Lehrer der Naturwissenschaften an einer englischen Schule in Kathmandu und später Features Editor (The Rising Nepal). Verfasser der „Sprachkunde Nepals“ (Horlemann Verlag) und Veröffentlichungen in: The Christian Science Monitor, epd-Entwicklungspolitik, Nepal Information (Köln), Himal Asia, The Rising Nepal, The Independent, Nelles „Nepal“, Nepal: Myths & Realities (Book Faith India) und schreibt regelmäßif für The American ChronicleSyndikate von 21 US Zeitungen. Er studierte Creative Writing (bei Prof. Bruce Dobler, Universität Pittsburgh), und Writers Bureau (Manchester). Er ist Dozent in Basel (Schweiz). Preisträger des DAAD-Preis.

* * *

 

 

 

 

Woman: Nature (Sharad Sharma)

Die Frau, der Anfang von Schöpfung,

Eine Schöpfung bei sich, nicht eine tugendvolle Gattin!

Kann nicht in die vier Wände eingesperrt werden,

Sie, die das ganze Natur verkörpert!

Sie kann nicht nur eine Ehefrau sein,

Diese verehrte von ihre Lieblinge.

Sie ist der Inbegriff von macht,

Sie ist die Heimat von elterliche Liebe.

Sie hat Flügeln von Gefühle,

Die in den Himmel fliegen,

Und herzliche Umarmungen/Liebkosungen von der Liebe,

Die ins Herzen eindringen.

Sie ist ihre eigene Reichtum,

Ihre eigene Herrin, Sie!

Sie kann nicht irgendwo gefesselt werden,

Eine Wolke der Freiheit ist Sie!

* * *

 

Mein Traum (Toya Gurung)

Mein Traum

Ein Traum davon einmal

In meiner Mutterleib getragen zu werden.

Ein Traum von Geburt und Rituale

Und dann von watscheln und lispeln.

Ein Traum davon über einen Prinz

Geträumt zu haben,

Und Schamgefühle über mich selbst.

Ein Traum von eine heimliche Hochzeit

In einem Tempel.

Mein Traum

Ein Traum von Patronen,

Gezielt an einem unschuldigen Brust.

Ein Traum davon, lebend auf dem Boden

Hingeschmissen zu werden.

Und gezwungen zu werden,

Das letzte gute Henkersmalzeit zu genießen.

Ein Traum (davon) erhängt zu werden

Lebendig von einem Baum

Und gestochen zu werden,

Von eine Bajonette.

Mein Traum

Ich weiß es nicht warum,

Verfolgt zu werden von der

Vergangenheit,

Gegenwart

Und Zukunft.

* * *

 

Phulmayas Dasainfest (Binaya Rawal)

Ich fragte Phulmaya

Als ich sie letztes Jahr in Mugling traf:

Wie hast Du den Dasainfest dieses Jahr verbracht?“

Mit eine traurige Stimme erwiderte sie:

Ich konnte meine Wünsche nicht erfüllen,

Schöne Kleider dieses Jahr zu tragen, Bruder,

Aber ich aß viele Pokhrelireis,

Leckere Currysauce (aber ohne Fleisch).“

Sie sagte sofort:

Dieses Jahr lud mich der Bruder von Auswärts

Zum Curryreis,

Gab mir schöne Kleider zu tragen,

Schenkte mir ein wenig Juwelen auch.

Ich hatte eine großartige Dasainfest.

Dieses Jahr kam ich in Bombay an.

Als ich spazieren ging in Bombay

Winkte jemand von weitem.

Das Gesicht kam mir bekannt vor,

Ich kam näher und plötzlich rief meine Name:

Phulmaya!“

Weinend sagte Phulmaya:

Bruder, warum fragtest Du nicht,

Wie Du den Dasainfest diesmal verbracht hast?“

* * *

Am Abend mit dem Auto (Abhi Subedi)

Die Stadt hebt ein Mund

Um Thamels Verkehr

Neben der königliche Palast,

Und hupt und ruft

Die Abenddämmerung,

In eine chaotischen Manier.

Vögel

Singen nicht mehr in Chorus

In diese Bäume

Verpflanzt am Asphalt.

Der Palast hat eine Geschichte,

Mit federnen Himmel

begossen mit Düngemittel

über die Arsenale.

Königliche Wappen

Mit trockene Vogelmist

Getragen von Generäle,

Die Faul gegen eine Kater kämpfen.

Wie oft

Habe ich die Geschichte

Aus all diese ausgeringt?

Am Abend fährt ein Auto vorbei

Auf einem Autofenster

Rastet der Arm einer Frau:

Voller Handreifen.

Abend

In Thamel steht nebenan

In der Nation bricht der Tumult aus.

* * *

 

Jumla (Bimal Nibha)

Der Traum ist verloren.

Nirgendwo gibt es Licht.

Warst Du in eine Siedlung,

Die von der Dunkelheit verschluckt war?

Die nackte Berge

Stehen wie kriminellen,

Die keine Nahrung mehr zu geben haben.

Was auch dort ist,

Das unertragbares Land

Streckt überall.

Die Herzen von Männern schlagen

In den Rippen von Schafe und Kühe,

Zwei kalte Hände,

Die verlangen nach Berührung haben,

Bewegen sich unendlich.

Den Dörfern berührend,

Fließt ein Fluss,

Wo große und kleine runde Steine

Miteinander stoßen.

Aber das verursacht kein Lärm.

Ist Jumla ruhig?

Das Aussehen von Brot hat sich geändert.

Der Geschmack von Hunger ist Bitter geworden.

Und die Leere im Inneren des Magens,

Hat sich übergeben und ist raus gekommen.

Dieses Jahr ist es sehr kalt.

Der Schweiß fließt,

Und der Körper des Mensch,

Der neben das Feuer steht,

Glüht wie Kupfer.

Der Saison ist unvorhersehbar in Jumla.

Plötzlich beginnen die Wälder zu pfeifen.

Hast Du den Pinienzweigen betrachtet,

Der wie ein Hochsitz schwebt?

 

Der Bildhauer (Jiwan Acharya 1960-1991)

Ich lief um viele Statuen herum

Meisterlich gemachte Kunstwerke.

Ich lobe die Hände und suche

Das Hirn, der Körper.

In anderen Worten, der Künstler.

Eine Statue regt sich! (bewegt)

Ich bin erstaunt.

Diese Werke der Kunst

Sind nicht nur schön,

Sie sind auch lebendig!

Schau!

Die Statue fängt an zu sprechen

Von der Menge:

Lieber Herr, bitte kauf mich zuerst!

Ich verhungere!“

* * *

 

Munglin (Jiwan Acharya)

Als Munglin mich zum Abendmahl heranzog,

Als ob ich ihre Gatte wäre,

Sagte sie, dass sie mir ein Lächeln schenken wurde.

Sie ließ mich im Haus warten,

Und sagte zu einem anderen Mann auf der Strasse,

Dass sie ihm den selben Lächeln servieren wurde.

* * *

Mein Alptraum (Satis Shroff)

Wenn die Nacht nicht so Kalt ist,

Wenn ich im Bett bin

Träume ich von einem entfernten Land.

Ein Land wo ein König über seinen Reich regiert

Ein Land wo es noch Bauern gibt, ohne Rechte,

Die Felder bestellen, die denen nicht gehören.

Ein Land wo die Kinder arbeiten müssen,

Und keine die Zeit für Tagträumerei haben.

Wo Mädchen das Gras schneiden

Und schwere Körbe auf dem Rücken tragen.

Winzige Füße, die steilen Wege gehen.

Ein Land, wo der Vater Holz sammelt und zerstückelt,

Die schließlich nur ein Paar Rupien bringen,

Von Sonnenaufgang bis Sonnenuntergang.

Ein Land, wo unschuldige Mädchen

Ihre rechte Hand ausstrecken,

Und werden mit Dollars belohnt.

Ein Land, wo eine Frau weiße, rote, gelbe und lila

Tabletten und Pillen sammelt,

Von den altruistischen Touristen, die vorbei laufen.

Die meisten sind weder Ärzte noch Krankenschwestern.

Dennoch verteilen Sie Pillen,

Sich ohne Gedanken zu machen über die Nebenwirkungen.

Die Nepali Frau besitzt eine Arsenal

Von potente Pharmaka.

Sie kann die fein gedruckte Hinweise nicht lesen,

Weil sie auf Deutsch, Französisch, Englisch

Oder Spanisch sind,

Die Hieroglyphen von viele ferne Grammatik.

Schwarze Buchstaben sehen aus

Wie asiatische Wasserbüffel in ihren Augen.

Kala akshar, bhaisi barabar“ sagt die Nepali Frau.

Die Gedanken, dass sie Pillen und Tabletten

An andere Kranke Nepali Mütter oder Kinder verteilt,

Macht mir Angst.

Wie gedankenlos, diese Fremden,

Die Trekker und Bergsteiger mit Bildung,

Die medizinische Almosen geben,

Und dabei die makabere Rollen von Ärzte,

Im Schatten des Himalaya, spielen.

Glossar:

Kala: Schwarz

Akshar: Buchstaben

Bhaisi: Wasserbüffel

Barabar: ist gleich/ähnlich wie

* * *

Das göttliche in Dir (Satis Shroff)

Wenn das vertraute plötzlich Fremd wird,

Die Fremde wird vertraut.

Eine fremde Zunge und fremde Sitten,

Fremd zueinander

Ein Nepali trifft ein Schweizer Fräulein

In den Bergen von Grindelwald.

Ein fremder in ein vertrautes Landschaft,

Eine Welt voller eisige Schneehänge

Dennoch wuchs eine Wärme.

Wir hatten die gleiche Gedanken

Ohne ein gemeinsames Wort.

Die Gesten und die Mimik sagten:

Wir verstehen uns.

Namaste! Auf wiedersehen!

Auf wiedersehen! Namaste!

Wir werden uns wiedersehen.

Ich begrüße das göttliche in Dir.

* * *

Santa Fe (Satis Shroff)

Ein deutscher Professor machte mir den Hof

Und sagte, dass ich trotzdem mein Kreatives Schreiben

Weitermachen dürfte,

Wenn ich ihm heiraten würde.

Ich gab ihn das Jawort,

Schenkte ihm fünf Kinder

Und hatte fürs Schreiben keine Zeit.

Ich war ewig dabei

Pampers zu wechseln,

Popos einzukremen

Für sieben Familiemitgliedern zu kochen.

Ich staubte die vielen Fenstern und Möbeln ab.

Polierte das Treppenhaus

Räumte immer die Kindersachen auf,

In einem dreistöckigen Haus.

Ich fütterte und pflegte den Kleinen,

Lobte und streichelte den Größeren.

Ich hatte plötzlich keine Zeit

Für mich und meine Belange.

Hin und wieder hatte ich eine Inspiration

Aber ich hatte keine Zeit

Und die Gedanken sind in Luft aufgelöst.

Verloren waren meine intellektuelle Kostbarkeiten,

Zwischen Sonnenaufgang und Sonnenuntergang.

Eine Müdigkeit fiel über mich.

Ich war froh, wenn ich einmal gut schlief.

Der Schlaf tröstete mich nach meiner Hausarbeit.

Die Familie war zu sehr mit mir.

Eines Tages habe ich mir auf den Weg

Nach Santa Fe gemacht,

Der einzige Ort wo ich mich frei fühlte.

Frei zu denken und auszusortieren

Und sie in meinem Laptop heranwachsen zu sehen.

* * *

 

 

Der Makel (Satis Shroff)

Ich lebe in ständiger Angst

Entdeckt zu werden.

Meine Frau weiß es

Meine Tochter weiß es

Sonst niemand.

Ich fühle mich wie ein Versager,

Denn ich habe einen Makel.

Die Gründe liegen im Elternhaus,

Teilweise in der Schule.

Meine Eltern hatten keine Zeit für mich

Sie schufteten und schafften.

Vater kam oft mit einer Fahne.

Er schlug auf Mutter und uns.

Mein Lehrer verprügelte mich auch.

Ich bekam Lernprobleme.

Als Kind musste ich in den Feldern arbeiten,

Denn mein Vater war Bauer.

Ich wurde als Kind vernachlässigt.

Meine Mutter hätte mir geholfen,

Aber sie war Müde und ratlos.

Ich mogelte mich durch in der Schule,

Schaffte aber den Schulabschluss nicht.

So wuchs ich als Mann auf

Ohne Lesen,

Ohne Schreiben

Zu können.

* * *

Die Berge sind Menschenleer (Satis Shroff)

Wo sind die jungen Leute?

Die Männer sind in fremden Armeen

Und dienen ausländischen Herren.

Die schönen, Gehörsamen Frauen

Sind in Bombays und Kalkuttas Bordellen verführt.

Und sie Fragen mich:

Wo die jungen Leute sind?“

Sie gingen fort um zu überleben,

Weil eine Kälte sich im Königreich verbreitet hat. 

Die Dürre, die Hungersnot,

Die Armut, die Vetterwirtschaft

Und der Feudalismus

Und der Fluch unter den Namen

Afnu manchey

und Chakari

geht.

Glossar:

Afnu manchey: Leute von dem eigenen Kasten (Vitamin B)

Chakari: Speichelleckerei, Dienstleistungen in einer feudalen Hierarchie

* * *

 

Nur Sagarmatha weiß es (Satis Shroff)

Der Sherpa stapft durch die Schnee

Keucht und Kämpft

Und bereitet den Weg

Mit Fixierseil, Leitern,

Haken und Spikes vor,

Und sagt: „Folgen Sie mir, Sir.“

Letzte Saison war es ein Tiroler, ein Tokyoter

Und ein Gentleman von Vienna.

Diesmal ist es ein Sahib aus Bolognia,

Mit Gesundheitsversicherung

Und Lebensversicherung,

Bewaffnet mit Kreditkarten und Stolz,

Stürmen Sie die Himalaya Gipfeln,

Mit der Hilfe von Nepalis.

Hillary nahm Tenzings Bild auf.

Ach, die Zeiten haben sich geändert.

Für den Sahib ist es pure Eitelkeit,

Für den Sherpa krasse Existenzkampf.

Durch stürmische Wetter und der Sherpas

Können und schaffen am vorherigen Tag,

Nimmt der Sahib einen kräftigen Zug Sauerstoff,

Er denkt laut im Basislager:

Die Sherpas können eh nicht kommunizieren,

Die sind des Schreibens und Lesens 

Unkundig zu der Außenwelt.“

Der Sahib täuscht Krankheit und klettert runter. 

Und macht ein Solo Klettern am nächsten Tag.

Und so wächst die Legende

Von der Sahib auf dem Gipfel.

Ein Digitalfoto geht rund um die Welt

Ohne Sherpa

Ohne Sauerstoff.

War es ein faires Verhalten?

Nur Sagarmatha weiß es

Nur Sagarmatha weiß es.

* * *

Die Frau des Professors (Satis Shroff)

Mein Mann ist verrückt, er spinnt,“

Sagt Frau Fleckenstein, meine Vermieterin,

Als sie die Marmor Treppe schwankend hinunter kommt.

Sie bremst ihre torkelnde Gang

Mit einem Schluckauf

Und sagt: „ Entschuldigen Sie,“ 

Und entlädt ihre Elend, Unzufriedenheit,

Melancholie

Und Leid.

Der Emotionsstau von vierzig Ehejahren. 

Ihr Mann ist ein angesehener Intellektueller.

Ein Ehrenwürdiger Mann.

Ein Professor mit einer jungen Geliebten.

Und sie hat ihre wohlgeformte Flaschen:

Rotwein, Weißwein,

Burgunder, Tokay und Ruländer,

Schwarzwälderschnaps, Whiskey,

Kirchwasser und Feuerwasser.

Je hochprozentiger 

desto besser.

Sie verteidigt sich

Sie verletzt sich

Mit Bitterkeit und Eifer.

Ihre Schönheit ist verblasst.

Einst ihre Kapital,

Jetzt ein Handikap.

Ein ledernes Haut,

Taschen unter den Augen,

Vernachlässigte blonde Haare

Und ein Spitzbauch 

von abendlichen Naschereien.

Eine verfaulte Leber,

Und ein Überschuss an Zorn.

Eine Fee die eine Nörglerin

Geworden ist.

Spannung liegt in der Luft

Töpfe und Pfannen fliegen in der Luft

Furie und Frustration,

Zorn und Bösartigkeit.

Eine Ehe ist zerrüttet

Was übrig bleibt ist eine Fassade,

Von einem Professor und seiner Gattin.

Grau und grausam zueinander.

Maskierte Gesichter die sagen:

„Guten Tag,“

Wenn es innen bewölkt, stürmisch,

Hurrikanartig ist. 

Sie vergeben und vergessen.

Das ist menschliche Schwäche.

Ich ertrage mein Groll“ sagt Milady.

Und mein Vermieter ist ein wahrer Herr.

Herr über sein Reichtum,

Frau und sein elendes Eheleben.

Ein erbarmloses, reuloses,

mitleidloses Dasein,

Im Winter ihres Lebens.

Zu alt sich scheiden zu lassen,

Zu jung um zu sterben.

Was übrig bleibt ist nur die Lüge.

* * *

Mental Molotovs (Satis Shroff)

Wenn Hoyerswerda brennt

Diskutieren sie über Asylanten.

Friedliche, Rechtbewusste Deutsche 

Gehen mit Kerzen auf die Strassen.

Wenn ein Haus in Mölln brennt

Diskutieren sie ob sie Soldaten

Von den Gefahren von Somalia 

zurückbringen sollen. 

Bei der türkischen Beerdigung in Solingen,

Blieb der Kanzler weg.

Und vermied so das

Faule Eier und überreife Tomaten,

In seine Richtung fliegen würden.

Bei der Gerichtsverhandlung

Kommt der Skin und der Neonazi

Mit vielen Haaren auf dem Kopf.

Eine wahre Umwandlung.

Er trägt ein Zweiteiler Anzug,

Eine Krawatte um seinen Hals

Und sieht so respektabel aus.

Er schaut in die Kamera

Mit klaren, kalten, blauen Augen und

Sagt: „Ich bin unschuldig

Und ein Opfer der

Modernen Industriegesellschaft,“

Und zieht seine ursprüngliche Aussage zurück.

Die Richter sind Nachsichtig,

Und der Neo wird auf

Freien Fuß gesetzt.

Draußen gestikuliert mit seinem Mittelfinger

Und sagt: „Leck mich am Arsch!“

Als er in einem Auto wegfährt,

Und kommt wieder mit einem Molotov,

Wie ein Sphinx aus der Asche.

Ausländer raus!

Deutschland den Deutschen!“ 

Das sind die Parolen

Von den neunziger Jahren

Und jetzt noch.

Die alte Schwarz und Weiß Fahne 

Von dem Dritte Reich

Verursacht kein staunen mehr,

In Fußballstadien, Strassen und Kneipen.

* * *

Der Zerbrochene Dichter (Satis Shroff)

Ich war der Präsident von der Nepali Literarische Gesellschaft

Und mein Reich war ein kleines Königreich

Von Dichtern und Schriftstellern am Hang des Himalaya.

Ich machte viel Fortschritte,

Nachdem ich als Buchhalter in Seiner Majestätsregierung anfing.

Ich war Brahmane und nahm eine Chettri als Frau,

Schön wie ein Bollywood Sternchen.

Jedes mal als ich ihre Antlitz betrachtete,

Wurde meine Männlichkeit geschmeichelt.

Ach, weil sie ein Jahrzehnt jünger war als ich.

Ich fing an spät zu schreiben

Und veröffentlichte ein Gedicht.

Die Kritiker sagten meine Verse wären schlecht

Und ich bekam mehrere Abfuhren.

Durch Zufall begegnete ich einem begabten jungen Mann,

Der mein Ghostwriter wurde.

Während ich mit meinem Geschäft beschäftigt war,

Und die Zahlen hin und her schob,

Schrieb er wunderschöne Verse

Und Kurzgeschichten in meinem Name.

Meinem Ruf wuchs im Königreich.

Ich wurde hoch verehrt für meine endlose Kreativität.

Gedichtbände mit meine Name sind erschienen.

Sie wurden in literarischen Kreisen vorgelesen.

Ich wurde produktiv und Prominent.

Bis mein Ghostwriter meine schöne Frau nahm 

Und verschwand.

Da war ich: Ein alter, verletzter, zerbrochener Mann,

Der im Bett lag und auf Yamaraj wartete, der Gott des Todes.

Ich bereitete mich vor um dem ewigen Schicksal

Meines Lebens zu begegnen,

Nach einer Diagnose von Leberzirrhose. 

Der Raksi, Gurkha Rum und teuere schottische Scotch

Hatten mich umgebracht.

Bis zum bitteren Ende riss ich mich zusammen.

* * *

Die heilige Kühe von Kathmandu (Satis Shroff)

Heilige Kuh!

Der Bürgermeister von Kathmandu

Hat es geschafft.

Seit Jahrhundert eine Tabu

Die freie, nonchalant Kühe von Kathmandu

Wurden zusammengetrieben

Wie bei einem Rodeo von der Nepali Polizei.

War es Nandi, Shivas Stier?

Oder heilige Kühe?

Trotzdem sind sie Rinder,“ sagte der Bürgermeister.

Streunende Kühe sind nicht erwünscht.“

Achtundachtzig heilige Kühe

Kamen unter das Hammer

Nicht bei Sothebys

Sondern in Kathmandu.

Die Auktion brachte 64,460 Rupien.

Kühe waren Hindernisse

Für Fußgänger und Touristen in Thamel.

Kühe die Dünger lieferten,

Und andere Produkte:

Milch, Joghurt und Butter 

Für den Hindus und Buddhisten in Kathmandu.

Kühe gaben Urin

Das die Hindus eifrig sammelten

Und für religiöse Zeremonien brauchten.

Kühe waren Heilig

Und wurden angebetet und verehrt

Als die Kuhmutter.

Kühe die geschenkt wurden

Und frei gesetzt von den Brahmanen und Chettris 

Um sich von ihren Sünden zu befreien.

Kühe, die eine Zeichen für Gaijatra waren,

Eine achttägige Hommage an den verstorbenen.

Es war ein König, so eine Legende,

Der Befahl, dass Kühe freigesetzt sollen

Von Familien die trauerten,

In den Strassen von Kathmandu,

Lalitpur und Bhadgaon,

Um die Schmerzen von einem verstorbenen Prinz

Zu verkraften,

Und eine traurige Mutter und Königen

Zu trösten.

Die Kinder verkleideten sich

Als groteske Kühe und lustige Figuren

Und tanzten zu Nepali Musik,

Um die Königen zum lachen zu bringen

Und ihre Tränen zu wischen.

 

MGV-Kappel Sings Verdi’s ‘Choir of the Prisoners’ (Satis Shroff)

Nabucco and Verdi (Satis Shroff)

 

Ah, who hasn’t heard Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco song ‘The Choir of the Prisoners?’ It means ‘Fly, thoughts.’ This song became the within a short time the musical banner of the Risorgimento, and has remained to this day Italy’s secret national hymn. The text is by Temistocle Solera and had its premier in Mainland in 1842. The opera is set in Jerusalem and Babylon of the 6^th century and has four acts.

 

Jerusalem: The Jews flee to the temple of Jerusalem. Nabucco, the King of Babylon, is persecuting them. The high-priest Zacharias believes that God will help him. Among the Jews who have sought shelter is also Fenena, Nabucco’s daughter. She had freed Ismael, the nephew of the King of Jerusalem, and came to Jerusalem with him because she loves him. But in Jerusalem she’s regarded as kidnapped by the Jews.

 

Soon the enemies, who are led by Abigail who has become the ruler of Babylon, attacks them. It might be mentioned that Abigail is also in love with Ismael. She tells him that he can save himself and his folk when he declares that he loves her. Ismael refuses.

 

Since Ismael owes his life to Fenena, he frees her from the clutches of Zaccarias. The Hebrews curse him for this deed. Fenena returns to her father.

 

The Jews become prisoners and are brought to Babylon.

 

L’empio: the Dastardly: In Babylon Abigail joins forces with the high-priest of Baal when she reads a document stating that she’s the daughter of a slave, and as a result has no right to the throne. Fenena is the rightful Queen. Abigail and the high-priest decide to spread a lie, namely that Nabucco has died in battle.

 

Fenena has become a Jew in order to marry Ismael. Zaccarias prays to God that he should help them in their imprisonment. The Levites accuse Ismael that he’s a traitor.

 

When the news of Nabucco’s death spreads, there is chaos and fear everywhere. Abigail comes and proclaims the crown belongs to her. Suddenly, Nabucco appears and ridicules the Gods of Babylon and despises the Jewish God. He commands all to go to their knees and pray to him because he is no longer king, but God.

 

As if were the wrath of Heaven, a thunderbolt strikes him and he collapses and becomes mad shortly after that. This is Abigail’s hour and she triumphs becomes the Queen. Femena is thrown into prison.

 

The Prophesy: Queen Abigail decides to sentence Fenena and all the captive Jews to death.

 

Nabucco, though psychic deranged, manages to realise what’s happening in the palace and wants to prevent the death of his daughter Fenena.

 

Abigail forces Nabucco to sign the death sentence, and imprisons him.

 

L’idolo infranto(the Broken Idols): In his desperate situation Nabucco prays to Jehova, the God of the Jews, and soon he’s relieved of his madness. The doors of the torture chamber open. Nabucco goes to the temple, with his loyal subjects, where Fenena and the prisoners are waiting for their execution.

 

Zaccaria declares Fenena is to die a martyr’s death. She sends a last prayer to Heaven. Nabucco comes to her rescue: he says he believes in the God of the Jews and gives everyone their freedom. Moreover, he says the temple in Jerusalem should be re-built. The idols of Baal collapse and Abigail, who has been deadly wounded by the falling temple-debris pleads for mercy.

 

Nabucco discharges all Hebrew prisoners. Ismael and Fenena are united at last. Zaccarias and the Hebrews praise the power of Jehovah and follow Nabucco.

 

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) who went from Busseto to Mailand had some success as a music-composer with ‘Oberto’ in 1839 but it was his third opera ‘Nabucco’ in 1842 which finally established him as, beside Richard Wagner, as one of the most prominent opera-composers of his time. Verdi’s engagement for the Risorgimento, which took place at the coronation of Vittorio Emanuel in 1861, made him a symbol-figure of united Italy. He became world famous and was honoured everywhere as he journey to Europe’s capitals.

 

Nevertheless, he did not forget his home in Sant’Agata because he was proud to be ‘a farmer from Parma,’ which he often emphasised. Verdi wrote more than 20 opera-scores between Nabucco (1842) and Rigoletto (1851) in which the love of freedom and fight against tyranny became the main themes. Then came the middle phase in which he composed ‘Troubadour’ (1853) and ‘Don Carlos’ (1867) and ‘Aida’ (1871). The final operas were ‘Otello’ (1887) and Falstaff (1893) which enhanced Verdi’s zenith as a composer of operas.

 

When you think about Verdi’s Nabucco, you can’t help thinking about Jerusalem today with its crucial role as a place for cultural, religious, political and military skirmishes. It has become a stage for wars between atheism and religious beliefs, between Christians, Jews and Islamic fundamentalists. A city closely associated with prophets, patriarchs, Abraham, David, Jesus and Mohammad. This was the birthplace of Abraham’s religions, the city of the Bible, but also of Jews, early Christians, the Muslim conquerors, the knights of the Crusades and of course evangelists.

 

Back to Nabucco: Under these circumstances whom should we believe? The tyrannical Nabucco or the religious, converted Nabucco?  Verdi’s Nabucco is actually the ambivalent Babylonian King Nebukadnezar II dating back to the 7^th and 6^th century BC. That was when the AssyrianKingdom fell, and as a result the Babylonians could plunder the Kingdom of Juda and bring gold treasures from Jerusalem to Babylon. Three years later, Nebukadnezar decided to siege Jurasalem and destroy the temple, take the king as prisoner and bring a great number of Hebrews as prisoners to Babylon. This was the ‘Great Imprisonment’ which was ended 47 years later. It was the Persian Kings who waged war against Babylon and fought for the cause of the Jews and the re-construction of Jerusalem.

 

The story has a parallel in the middle of the 19^th century, when Italy set out to become a united country after 300 years of rule under the yoke of France, Spain and Austria. In Verdi’s opera Nabucco becomes the leader of a folk in fetters and who leads them to freedom, for he is the one who gives them hope. He has two daughters: Fenena and Abigail. Fenena personifies altruism and love. Abigail is power-hungry and egoistical.

 

The opera evokes a dysfunctional family-relationship where there’s a wish for harmony, love which remain unattainable and break in the hard rocks of reality. A family-therapy situation in which lies and intrigue dominate in the household of the Babylonian King Nabucco.