Satis Shroff's ZEITGEIST

Commentary: Falklands & the Gurkha Issue (Satis Shroff)

satisshroff — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:59:02 +0000

Commentary: FALKLANDS AND THE GURKHA ISSUE (Satis Shroff)

Twenty seven years ago, the British and the Argentineans fought over the Falkland Islands and turned, the otherwise peaceful and serene South Atlantic into an inferno. The Malvinas were claimed by the Argentineans and the British. Nurse Nicci Pugh was a witness to the hostilities from a safe distance on board the hospital ship HMS Uganda. The conflict began on April 2,1982 after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. Britain’s PM Margaret Thatcher sent a task force which resulted in the death of 1,000 people, after which the Falklands (Malvinas) were liberated on June 14, 1982.

Much like Florence Nightingale, who left England on October 21,1854, and started caring for the wounded soldiers at Scutari, Turkey, on November 5,1854, and took a large group of women as nurses (38 women, including 18 Anglican and Roman Catholic sisters), Nicci Pugh was one of 40 nursing officers on board the hospital ship Uganda. Ms. Pugh’s job was x-ray units to provide modern hospital care facilities for the injured British Tommies, civilians and also possible Argentinean soldiers wounded in the conflict. In the ship were operating theatres, 120 beds, burn-units, labs, x-ray units, a blood bank, in addition to a helipad. The Uganda was anchored a mile south-west of San Carlos Water, where there was heavy fighting. With the knowledge that hospital ships had been sunk in previous wars through shelling or torpedoes, the ladies had to go through the angst of being bombed by the Argentinean aircraft which frequently made sorties over the Royal Navy armada.

The British staff on board the Uganda have gone on record as having treated 700 patients. Among the patients were also injured Argentinean soldiers. It might be mentioned that the ship HMS Sir Galahad was shit by enemy fire, whereby 120 patients were treated in the burns unit on board the Uganda. Some 500 surgical operations were performed. Most of the injuries were caused by gunshot, shrapnel and mortar. Amputations were also carried out due to the anti-personnel mines deployed and hidden by the Argentinean soldiers. Even the injured Argentinean soldiers were treated with the same respect and dignity.

After the war, Ms. Pugh returned to her old job in Cornwall as an OP theatre nurse, but wasn’t able to talk about her experiences for years. That was her coping method. Life had to go on. But unlike the Lady with the Lamp, Nicci Pugh didn’t have to face medical ire, and works as a voluntary carer to help injured servicemen to re-visit the Malvinas to pay their respects to their own fallen comrades, and visit the killing fields of the Falklands. But for the Gurkhas who have fought for Britain since the times of Queen Victoria till Queen Elizabeth II since 200 years, there’s no noteworthy memorial in Britain. Are the Gurkhas merely guest-workers or ‘cannon fodder’ only? Britain laments that there’s no memorial for the courageous Lancaster Bomber Command which lost 55,573 out of 125,000 pilots during their deadly missions to bombard German towns and industrial complexes, collateral damage notwithstanding. But no one speaks of the courage and sacrifice of the sturdy, dedicated, loyal Gurkhas from Nepal, who laid their lives for the Glory of Great Britain, and are still doing the same for the United Kingdom. After World War I and World War II, the Gurkhas were ignominiously booked a passage to Nepal via India. Even today, instead of integration, education and service in the UK for the extraordinary service to Britain and the Queen of England since generations. They are not even tolerated when their service, i.e. unfair contract, with the Arbeitsvermittlungsagency MoD is over. The MoD is treating the Gurkhas similarly as the German government did with the so-called ‘guest workers’ from Turkey, Italy, Spain and Portugal during the fifties, only to realise that they hadn’t invited guest workers but human beings, who had families, dreams, hopes of a better quality of life, the same education as their own children. Under Angela Merkel there’s a new integration model for migrants which is showing a positive trend and in accordance with the European Union’s ideas of a better world. The Gurkhas must be given the same status as their British counterparts and comrade-in-arms, the same buying power and dignity in the United Kingdom, and the UK government would do well to put an end to the discrimination that has been meted out to the Gurkhas and their families. They must be accepted and welcomed as old and new migrants, and the UK’s loyal, historical allies, instead of being discriminated on flimsy grounds. If the Gurkhas have to go to the European court it is indeed a shame for Brown’s government, which has been trying to save precious sterling pounds on the integration of the Gurkhas and has been diverting the common man’s money for other purposes. * * * An e-mail from Argentina Hello Satis, Thanks for your message. Nice to meet you. Well you’re from Freiburg, I have a mp3 file of an audience recording from a Roxette concert that took place in Freiburg. Very funny… Regarding the Falkland war, we all Argentineans feel some kind of impotence, Imagine if one day some people broke into your house and take you away from your own house. We cannot do anything and I don’t think Argentina will get back the islands. UK is a very strong country. Well, that’s the position of Argentina. UK claims that they were always of their own. I don’t really care who’s the owner. The main point is that the war was pointless and it was not about the islands. There were many purposes besides these events, the war was just a disguise. In 1982, the government in Argentina was in charge of the military, people didn’t have the right to express what they felt, everything was banned. People was really tired. so the military government NEEDED something to give an incentive to the Argentineans. Something that proves they had the power. They made us believe that we could get back the islands that once were occupied by the British. That was the main purpose of the war. UK hadn’t any interest on these islands, but it was like a war trophy for them. Obviously, it was like a fight between 2 kids, a 5 years old boy against a 15 years old boy. As we usually say “the bad events show the best and the worst from people”. And the war was not an exception. The TV always reported that we were about to win the war, they were always lying in order to calm down us. The media was controlled, including the radio, some songs were prohibited or edited. A certain censorship. During the war, the songs sung in English were not allowed to be played. And the soldiers were 18 years old teenagers, who were recruited by the law, they didn’t know what war was really all about, they didn’t have the right to decide what to do with their lives. It was an order and they must obey “the call of the country,” so they were sent to the war. In 1982 I was just a 7 years old boy, I didn’t know what was happening to my country. In all schools, there was a campaign called “A chocolate for the soldiers”. We had to write a letter to the soldiers and we had to give them away a chocolate, that’s because of the low temperature. There were another campaigns in order to collect warm clothes and food because the army only gave them the basic elements. And even worse they were treated badly. Most of our hopes never arrived and those chocolates never were sent, in fact some people stole and re-sell them later. That’s why I wrote that “Some events show the worst and the best from people”. Of course there were very nice people who helped a lot. We usually are very kind. The UK military also took advantage of these events. Furthermore, a retired Chilean military recently admitted that the Chilean military helped the UK army telling them the position of the Argentinean ships and soldiers and the strategies they had. Everybody wanted a piece of this cake. Besides this, the General Galtieri, the most hated person in Argentina, was drinkin’ whisky while 600 young Argentineans kids were dying. Very sad to be true. To sum up, there were many events and I could write pages and pages about this. The war was pointless, I think nobody won this war, it was a big lost for 2 countries and a benefit for a few people. Arnaldo Mariano S., Jul 6, 2007, 10:21am EDT
http://www.zfs.uni-freiburg.de/zfs/dozent/lehrbeauftragte4/index_html/#shroff

E-mail from Satis Shroff:

Dear Arnaldo,

I can now understand your feelings about the Falkland War. I found your metaphor of the 5 year old boy fighting against the 15 year old a very appropriate comparison. Your story really moved me, even though I come originally from Nepal, the land of the Gurkhas.

Thank you very much for sharing a part of your autobiography. You really ought to write “pages and pages about this war” as you said, and let us read them at www.Gather.com.

I think it’s very interesting reading. For me it was a fantastic experience to hear how the people suffered and what they thought about in those days in Argentina. This helps us to understand each other.

Even a Gurkha or Nepalese and an Argentinean can be friends. I reach out my hand to you, dear Gather friend. If more Argentineans went to Nepal on their holidays to see how the Gurkhas live and what everyday problems, dreams, hopes they have, then they would be certainly friends and understand each other. Duty, obedience and discipline take on a bitter taste after the war. Many GIs visited the former battlefields (Germany, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Japan, Burma) and met their former foes, which is a good thing, for men are not murderers when they are forced to do their duty as soldiers.

In Nepal there’s no compulsory military service. The Gurkhas are professional soldiers because they never had someone to motivate them and pay their school, college and university bills. If someone is ill, one goes to the local shaman (dhamey-jhakri) for he can be paid with some eggs and a chicken. Money is scarce in the hills of Nepal. That’s why the Nepalese youth from the hills join the Gurkhas. Many are school drop-outs but many can’t afford to go to school. They have to do child-work in their parents’ farms in the terraced, craggy hills of this beautiful Himalayan country.

That’s life, Arnaldo. Let us nevertheless try to make this world a better place to live in, despite our cultural differences.
Sincerely,
Satis

Satis Shroff, Jul 6, 2007, 11:13am EDT

News: Brown’s government: arrogant & indifferent to the Gurkhas

Former Gurkha soldiers from Nepal have won the right to sue the British Government in the High Court for alleged racial discrimination. The Gurkhas allege that they have been discriminated against in at least 20 different ways while serving with the British army and subsequently during retirement.

Lawyers for the troops filed a claim for damages at the High Court in May in an action that could cost the Ministry of Defence £2bn. Their case is to be argued by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie Booth, a prominent barrister.

Nepalese soldiers have fought alongside British soldiers since 1815, and have served in recent years in the Falklands, the Gulf War, Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

Equal pay demand: The soldiers argue that since a 1947 Tripartite Agreement between India, Nepal and the UK, the Gurkhas have been linked to the Indian Army’s pay scale instead of the British army’s.

They say this has resulted in a disparity between British pensions and those paid to the Gurkhas, Phil Shiner, a solicitor with the Public Interest Lawyers group which is acting for the Gurkhas, said they were hoping for a decision from the High Court before Christmas.

“So far, this government has acted with arrogance and indifference,” he was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.

“I hope even at this late stage that sense will prevail.”

In declaring the case admissible on Tuesday, the High Court gave the Defence Ministry until 9 September to put forward its arguments in the case.

British defence: A Defence Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters that the military would “robustly defend our position in court”.

“The Gurkhas are treated well and will continue to be. We value their services and treat them in a good manner,” she said.

But the Gurkhas’ lawyers say they have 20 test cases, claiming that 30,000 Nepalese retired from the service with inadequate or no pension, and that widows had not been properly compensated for their loss. Aside from financial complaints, they say they have been subjected to different rules on family leave, food, dress codes and religious practices.

It is not the first time that Ms Booth, who specialises in human rights abuses, has tackled her husband’s government in court. In May 2000, she argued on behalf of trade unions that the government needed to offer more leave benefits to parents of young children.

That case is before the European Court.

Commentary:

Gurkhas, Welcome to the UK 200 Years Later (Satis Shroff)

Recently, I was surprised to receive an e-mail from 10 Downing Street. It was Gordon Brown. Tears ran down my cheeks as I read the happy news that he’d capitulated in the olde bureaucratic fight against the Gurkhas. It had been MoD against the Gurkhas. I remember having signed petitions addressed to the PM in the internet, having moblised the Gurkhas in Darjeeling Forum’s ‘Gupsap’ under Swaroop Chamling, the Gurkhas.com and its excellent team’s discussions and petition, on Gather.com and The American Chronicle and its syndicate of 21 newspapers in the USA, wordpress.com and other websites like Google’s Blogspot.com. We kept the Gurkha themes circulating in the media: in Nepal, UK, Hong Kong and around the world. And it worked. Gurkha veterans can now stay on in Great Britain, get benefits from the NHS and a solid pension so that they can live decently like everyone in the UK.

In this connection, the actress Joanna Lumley has played a pivotal role and has helped put the Gurkhas where they really belong: in the hub of the UK, not as underdogs of the British society but as proud winners in the UK’s prosperity and progress as a nation, for the Gurkhas have fought for the Royals and the MoD for 200 years. Alone in the World War I and II more than 50,000 Gurkhas fell under the Union Jack.

The most wonderful news was that Joanna Lumley managed to get even Gordon Brown’s very own people from the Labour Party to vote for the Gurkhas. The best part of it was the way she managed to get the State Secretary to concede to her arguments right in front of live cameras. He had to comply, there was no other way around.

Citizens of the UK, we, the well-wishers and friends of the brave and loyal Gurkhas, thank you and Ms. Joanna Lumley and even members of the Labour party who have risen to the occasion and shown civil courage, sense of justice for the cause of the Gurkhas. We’d also like to thank the sturdy Gurkhas for their unprecedented and excellent service to the UK. History has been written as far as the Gurkhas are concerned and it has caused ripples in the hearts of the Gurkhas and their dependants living under the shadow of the Himalayas. Great Britain, we are proud of you. You’ve shown that you can, if you really want to, bring about a change.

My lacrymal glands are still gushing as I write this for the Mother of the Gurkha soldier in Nepal, who lost her precious son, the sons and daughters who lost their Gurkha fathers in the killing fields, the Gurkha veterans in the UK, the Gurkhas currently doing service with the Brigade of the Gurkhas, and the thousands of Gurkhas who died in the past.

Gurkhas, welcome to the United Kingdom. It took 200 long years but we’ve arrived. Ayo Gurkhali, indeed. Gordon Brown is not amused but the rest of the UK is. This time, thanks to Bonnie Prince Charles and other Royals too. I often wonder why Prince Charles didn’t take the initiative earlier. He talks with his plants, he talks about the environment, he paints aquarelles of mountains and castles but he was loath to talk about the Gurkhas. Thanks to Ms. Lumley, he changed his mind. The Gurkhas and the Nepalese love him for it. Better late than never.

It was a courageous Gurkha who saved the life of Mr. Lumley’s father, and she showed her admiration and thankfulness for the Gurkhas by fighting for their rights in the United Kingdom. The Gurkhas have won new friends. The Nepalese government could reciprocate with the award of, at least, a Nepal Tara or Gurkha Dakshin Bahu First Class to Ms. Joanna Lumley, a lady with civil courage. Britain needs women like Ms. Lumley.

________

Zeitgeistlyrik:

The Gurkhas Win, Labour Capitulates (Satis Shroff)

Ayo Gurkhali!

The Gurkhas are upon you!

This was the battle-cry

That filled the British heart

With pride and admiration,

And put the foe in fear.

Now the Gurkhas are not upon you.

They are with you,

Among you,

In London,

Guarding the Queen at the Palace,

Doing security checks

For VIPs

And for Claudia Schiffer,

The Sultan of Brunei.

Johnny Gurkhas

Or as the Brits prefer:

Johnny Gurks.

Sir Ralph Turner,

An adjutant of the Gurkhas

In World War I said:

‘Uncomplaining you endure

Hunger, thirst and wounds;

And at the last,

Your unwavering lines

Disappear into smoke

And wrath of battle.’

Another General Sir Francis Tuker

Spoke of the Gurkhas:

‘Selfless devotion to the British cause,

Which can be hardly matched

By any race to another

In the whole history of the world..

Why they should have

Thus treated us,

Is something of a mystery.’

9000 Gurkhas died

For the Glory of England,

23,655 were severely wounded

Or injured.

Military glory for the Gurkhas:

2734 decorations,

Mentions in despatches,

Gallantry certificates.

Nepal’s mothers paid dearly

For England’s glory.

And what do I hear?

The vast silence of the Gurkhas.

England had failed miserably

To match the Gurkha’s loyalty

And affection

For the British.

Faith binds humans

The Brits have shown

They have faith

In the bravery and loyalty,

Honesty, sturdiness, steadfastness

Of the Gurkhas.

Did the souls of the perished Gurkhas

Have faith in the British?

Souls of Gurkhas long dead and forgotten,

Lingered long seeking justice

At the hands of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II,

Warlords, or was it warladies,

They died for.

How has the loyalty and special relations

Been rewarded in England

Since the Treaty of Segauli

On March 4, 1816 ?

A treaty that gave the British

The right to recruit Nepalese.

When it came to her own kind,

Her Majesty the Queen

Was generous.

She lavishly bestowed lands,

Lordships and knighthoods

To those who served the crown well,

Added more feathers to England’s fame.

A Bombay-born Salman Rushdie

Got a knighthood from the Queen,

For his Satanic and other verses.

So did Brits who played classic and pop.

When it came to the non-British,

Alas, Her majesty feigned myopia.

She saw not the 200 years

Of blood-sacrifice

On the part of the Gurkhas:

In the trenches of Europe,

The jungles of Borneo,

In far away the Falklands,

Crisis-ridden Croatia

And war-torn Iraq.

Blood, sweat and tears,

Eking out a meagre existence

In the craggy hills of Nepal

And Darjeeling.

The price of glory was high

Fighting in the killing-fields

Of Delhi, the Black Mountains,

Khyber Pass, Gilgit, Ali Masjid.

Warring against Wazirs, Masuds,

Yusafzais and Orakzais

In the North-West Frontier.

And against the Abors,

Nagas and Lushais

In the North-East Frontier.

Neuve Chapelle in France,

A hill named Q in Gallipoli.

Suez and Mesopotamia.

In the Second Word War

Battling for Britain

In North Africa, South-East Asia,

Italy and the Retreat from Burma.

The Queen graciously passed the ball

And proclaimed from Buckingham Palace:

‘The Gurkha issue

Is a matter for the ruling government.’

Thus prime ministers came and went,

Akin to the fickle English weather.

The resolute Queen remained,

Like Chomolungma,

The Goddess Mother of the Earth,

Above the clouds in her pristine glory,

But the Gurkha issue prevailed.

‘Draw up a date

To give the Gurkhas their due,’

Was the order from 10 Downing Street.

‘OMG,

We can’t pay for the 200 years.

We’ll be ruined as a ruling party,

When we do that,’

Said the Labour under Gordon Brown.

A sentence like a guillotine.

Was the injustice done to the Gurkhas

Of service to the British public?

It was like adding insult

To injury.

Thus Tory and Labour governments came and went,

The Gurkha injustice remained.

All Englishmen cannot be gentlemen,

Especially politicians.

England got everything

Out of the Gurkha.

Squeezed him like a lemon,

Discarded and banned

From entering London

And its frontiers,

When he developed ageing problems.

‘Go home with your pension

But don’t come back.

We hire young Gurkhas

Our NHS doesn’t support pensioned invalids.’

Johnny Gurkha wonders aloud:

‘Why they should have thus

Treated us,

Is a mystery.’

Till lady Joanna Lumley, Prince Charles

And even Brown’s own Labour members,

Took the matter in their hands

And gave the Gurkha veterans the right

To stay on in the UK.

Meanwhile, life in the terraced hills of Nepal,

Where fathers toil on the stubborn soil,

And children work in the steep fields

A broken, wrinkled old mother waits,

For a meagre pension

From Her Majesty’s Government,

Beyond the craggy Himalayas

Across the Kala Pani,

The Black Waters.

Faith builds a bridge

Between Johnny Gurkhas

And British Tommies,

Comrades-at-arms,

Between Nepal and Britain.

The smart, sturdy Gurkha makes

A cheerful countenance,

And sings:

‘Resam piriri,’

An old trail song

Heard in the Himalayas.

————————–

Lyrik: A GURKHA MOTHER (Satis Shroff)

(Death of a Precious Jewel)

The gurkha with a khukri

But no enemy

Works for the Queen of England

And yet gets shot at,

In missions he doesn’t comprehend.

Order is hukum,

Hukum is life

Johnny Gurkha still dies

Under foreign skies.

He never asks why

Politics isn’t his style

He has fought against all and sundry:

Turks, Tibetans, Italians and Indians

Germans, Japanese, Chinese

Argentineans and Vietnamese.

Indonesians and Iraqis.

Loyal to the utmost

Never fearing a loss,

The loss of a mother’s son

From the mountains of Nepal.

Her grandpa died in Burma

For the glory of the British.

Her husband in Mesopotemia

She knows not against whom

No one did tell her.

Her brother fell in France,

Against the Teutonic hordes.

She prays to Shiva of the Snows for peace

And her son’s safety.

Her joy and her hope

Farming on a terraced slope.

A son who helped wipe her tears,

Ease the pain in her mother’s heart.

A frugal mother who lives by the seasons,

Peers down to the valleys

Year in and year out

In expectation of her soldier son.

A smart Gurkha is underway

Heard from across the hill with a shout

‘It’s an officer from his brigade.

A letter with a seal and a poker-face

“Your son died on duty,” he says,

“Keeping peace for the Queen of England

And the United Kingdom.”

A world crumbles down

The Nepalese mother cannot utter a word

Gone is her son,

Her precious jewel.

Her only insurance and sunshine

In the craggy hills of Nepal.

And with him her dreams

A spartan life that kills.

Glossary:

gurkha: soldier from Nepal

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

hukum: Befehl/command/order

shiva: a god in Hinduism

About the Author:

http://www.zfs.uni-freiburg.de/zfs/dozent/lehrbeauftragte4/index_html/#shroff

Satis Shroff is a prolific writer and teaches Creative Writing at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. He is a lecturer, poet and writer and the published author of three books: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelogue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. He is a member of “Writers of Peace,” poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS) and The Asian Writer.

Satis Shroff is based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) and also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (University of Freiburg where he is a Lehrbeauftragter for Creative Writing). Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

THE GREAT GURKHAS (Satis Shroff)

satisshroff — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:51:30 +0000

Art & poem (c) satisshroff 2009

Their regimental motto is: ‘It is better to die than to live a coward.’ On Tuesday, the legendary courage and bravery of Britain’s Gurkha soldiers was rewarded with a landmark legal ruling that allows the former fighters to settle in Britain.

‘The long military service of these men, their wounds sustained in battle, their conspicuous acts of bravery, their acts of gallantry and their commitment and loyalty to the Crown all point to an unquestionable historic ‘moral debt of honour’ and gratitude,’ the High Court ruling said.

It overturned a government decision taken in 2004 which said that Gurkhas who retired before July, 1997, were not automatically entitled to British settlement rights as their base was then in Hong Kong, and only moved to Britain after the handover of Hong Kong to China.

‘Today we have seen a tremendous and historic victory for the gallant Gurkha veterans of Nepal. This is a victory that restores honour and dignity to deserving soldiers who faithfully served in Her Majesty’s armed forces,’ the group’s lawyer said Tuesday.

‘It is a victory for common sense; a victory for fairness; and a victory for the British sense of what is ‘right’.’

The retired Gurkhas who brought the test case represented approximately 2,000 others who were refused entry to Britain because the government said they had failed to demonstrate ’strong ties’ to Britain.

‘Today is a wonderful, terrific victory day for the Gurkhas from Nepal who asked for nothing more from this country than the unfettered right to live amongst the British people – a people they have protected and loved throughout years of long and loyal service,’ said their solicitor.

There were emotional scenes outside the court in London as the heavily bemedalled Gurkha veterans, some in wheelchairs, emerged from the building to celebrate their victory to the cheers of supporters and the skirl of pipe music.

The Gurkhas, who take their name from the hill town of Gorkha, the birthplace of the Nepalese kingdom, have fought on behalf of Britain since the end of the two-year Gurkha War in 1816.

Since then, almost 50,000 Gurkhas have died in action and 150,000 have been seriously injured in conflicts, ranging from World War I to Afghanistan today.

Gurkha troops served as mercenaries under contract to the East India Company in the Pindaree War of 1817, in Bharatpur in 1826 and the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars in 1846 and 1848.

They fought on the side of the British during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and became a formal part of the British-Indian Army on its formation the following year.

Four of the 10 Gurkha regiments entered the British Army after India was granted independence in 1947, becoming a fully-integrated regiment.

About 100,000 Gurkhas fought for Britain in World War I. During World War II, Japanese soldiers described them as their most dreaded foes. Gurkhas still carry the kukri knife, a traditional part of their armour.

But in recent years, disputes over repatriation rights and pensions have marred the special relationship.

‘At last we can begin to put this great wrong right,’ said British TV film and stage actress Joanna Lumley, who has campaigned on behalf of the Ghurka soldiers.

Lyrik: A GURKHA MOTHER (Satis Shroff)

(Death of a Precious Jewel)

The gurkha with a khukri

But no enemy

Works for the United Nations

And yet gets shot at

In missions he doesn’t comprehend.

Order is hukum,

Hukum is life

Johnny Gurkha still dies

Under foreign skies.

He never asks why

Politics isn’t his style

He’s fought against all and sundry:

Turks, Tibetans, Italians and Indians

Germans, Japanese, Chinese

Argentineans and Vietnamese.

Indonesians and Iraqis.

Loyalty to the utmost

Never fearing a loss.

The loss of a mother’s son

From the mountains of Nepal.

Her grandpa died in Burma

For the glory of the British.

Her husband in Mesopotemia

She knows not against whom

No one did tell her.

Her brother fell in France,

Against the Teutonic hordes.

She prays to Shiva of the Snows for peace

And her son’s safety.

Her joy and her hope

Farming on a terraced slope.

A son who helped wipe her tears

And ease the pain in her mother’s heart.

A frugal mother who lives by the seasons

And peers down to the valleys

Year in and year out

In expectation of her soldier son.

A smart Gurkha is underway

Heard from across the hill with a shout

‘It’s an officer from his brigade.

A letter with a seal and a poker-face

“Your son died on duty,” he says,

“Keeping peace for the Queen of England

And the United Kingdom.”

A world crumbles down

The Nepalese mother cannot utter a word

Gone is her son,

Her precious jewel.

Her only insurance and sunshine

In the craggy hills of Nepal.

And with him her dreams

A spartan life that kills.

Glossary:

gurkha: soldier from Nepal

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

hukum: Befehl/command/order

shiva: a god in Hinduism

******

Der Verlust des Sohnes einer Mutter (Satis Shroff)

Der Gurkha

Mit einem gefährlichen Khukuri

Aber kein Feind in Sicht,

Arbeitet für die Königin von England,

Und wird erschossen

Für Einsätze,

Die er nicht begreift.

Befehl ist Hukum,

Hukum ist sein Leben

Johnny Gurkha stirbt noch

Unter fremdem Himmel.

Er fragt nie warum

Die Politik ist nicht seine Stärke.

Er hat gegen alle gekämpft:

Türken, Tibeter, Italiener, und Inder

Deutsche, Japaner, Chinesen,

Vietnamesen und Argentinier.

Loyal bis ans Ende,

Er trauert keinem Verlust nach.

Der Verlust des Sohnes einer Mutter,

Von den Bergen Nepals.

Ihr Großvater starb in Birmas Dschungel

Für die glorreichen Engländer.

Ihr Mann fiel in Mesopotamien,

Sie weiß nicht gegen wen,

Keiner hat es ihr gesagt.

Ihr Bruder ist in Frankreich gefallen,

Gegen die teutonische Reichsarmee.

Sie betet Shiva von den Schneegipfeln an

Für Frieden auf Erden, und ihres Sohnes Wohlbefinden.

Ihr einzige Freude, ihre letzte Hoffnung,

Während sie den Terrassenacker

Auf einem schroffen Hang bestellt.

Ein Sohn, der ihr half,

Ihre Tränen zu wischen

Und den Schmerz in ihrem mütterlichen Herz

zu lindern.

Eine arme Mutter, die mit den Jahreszeiten lebt,

Jahr ein und Jahr aus, hinunter in die Täler schaut

Mit Sehnsucht auf ihren Soldatensohn.

Ein Gurkha ist endlich unterwegs

Man hört es über den Bergen mit einem Geschrei.

Es ist ein Offizier von seiner Brigade.

Ein Brief mit Siegel und ein Pokergesicht

„Ihren Sohn starb im Dienst,“

sagt er lakonisch:

„Er kämpfte für die Königin von England

Und für den Vereinigten Königreich.“

Eine Welt bricht zusammen

Und kommt zu einem Ende.

Ein Kloß im Hals der Nepali Mutter.

Nicht ein Wort kann sie herausbringen.

Weg ist ihr Sohn, ihr kostbares Juwel.

Ihr einzige Versicherung und ihr Sonnenschein.

In den unfruchtbaren, kargen Bergen,

Und mit ihm ihre Träume

Ein spartanisches Leben,

Das den Tod bringt.

* * *

German Academic Prize Winner Satis Shroff teaches Creative Writing at the elite Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg. The author and lecturer lives in Freiburg and writes about themes like longing, love, the agony of war, the discrimination against Gurkhas, togetherness, dignity of humans, tolerance and one-world in his poems, articles and books.

	Satis Shroff, Dozent, Dichter, Writer, Journalist .
	Studium/Ausbildung/Studies
	B.Sc. in Zoology, Botany, Geology Medicine at the University of Freiburg Dipl. Social Science (FH), Creative Writing (UK)
	Writing Experience, Publications

	About the Author
	Satis Shroff is a prolific writer and teaches Creative Writing at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. He is a lecturer, poet and writer and the published author of three books: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelogue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. He is a member of “Writers of Peace,” poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS) and The Asian Writer. Satis Shroff is based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) and also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (University of Freiburg where he is a Lehrbeauftragter for Creative Writing). Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize. * * * What others have said about the author: „Die Schilderungen von Satis Shroff in ‘Through Nepalese Eyes’ sind faszinierend und geben uns die Möglichkeit, unsere Welt mit neuen Augen zu sehen.“ (Alice Grünfelder von Unionsverlag / Limmat Verlag, Zürich). Satis Shroff writes with intelligence, wit and grace. (Bruce Dobler, Associate Professor in Creative Writing MFA, University of Iowa). ‘Satis Shroff writes political poetry, about the war in Nepal, the sad fate of the Nepalese people, the emergence of neo-fascism in Germany. His bicultural perspective makes his poems rich, full of awe and at the same time heartbreakingly sad. I writing ‘home,’ he not only returns to his country of origin time and again, he also carries the fate of his people to readers in the West, and his task of writing thus is also a very important one in political terms. His true gift is to invent Nepalese metaphors and make them accessible to the West through his poetry.’ (Sandra Sigel, Writer, Germany). Due to his very pleasant personality and in-depth experience in both South Asian, as well as Western workstyles and living, Satis Shroff brings with him a cultural sensitivity that is refined. His writings have always reflected the positive attributes of optimism, tolerance, and a need to explain and to describe without looking down on either his subject or his reader. (Kanak Mani Dixit, Himal Southasia, Kathmandu) “I was extremely delighted with Satis Shroff’s work. Many people write poetry for years and never obtain the level of artistry that is present in his work. He is an elite poet with an undying passion for poetry.” (Nigel Hillary, Publisher, Poetry Division – Noble House U.K).
	Veranstaltungen im Sommer Semester 2009
	Creative Writing: Poems, Fiction, Non-Fiction English for Natural Sciences
	Kontakt (E-Mail, websites)
	satisle@myway.com http://www.zfs.uni-freiburg.de/zfs/dozent/lehrbeauftragte4/index_html/#shroff http://www.satisle@gather.com http://www.satisshroff.blogspot.com yahoo or google search: satis shroff

GOETHE IN NEPALI (Satis Shroff)

satisshroff — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:45:57 +0000

Walking Along Goethe’s Path in Ilmenau (Satis Shroff)

Subtitle: Fragments of a Big Confession

It was on the evening of September 6,1780. Johann Wolfgang Goethe was writing one of his beautiful lyrical works with a pencil on the inner wall of the hunting-hut on the Kickelhahn. This particular verse was published in an anthology 35 years later.

A day before his last birthday, he went to the small hut, which was nailed together with planks, to recall the lines that he’d written in his younger days. That was in August, 27, 1831.

Today, you certainly will not find the inscription written with his hand, because the original hut was devoured by flames in the year 1870. But forty years later, the hut was rebuilt on the old foundation. In the year 1999, which was celebrated as the Goethe Year, the members of an international conference of Goethe-translators met at Goethe’s favourite hut to recite his verse in their respective languages. The translations were financially supported by the Stiftung Weimarer Classic and the Goethe Society. I’ve translated Goethe’s poem into Nepali, a language which is derived from Sanskrit and uses the Devnagari script.

The small, lovely town of Ilmenau lies on the north side of the Thuringer forest and is known for its mountain excavations, glass and porcelain industry, and is also known as Goethetown. Apropos porcelain, Meissen is the greatest place for those who want to gather exquisite works of earthenware art in porcelain, you know. He visited Ilmenau twenty-eight times. The town of Ilmenau has laid a path with the letter ‘g,’ which Goethe used to use when he signed his initial. Just a small ‘g’ for a literary giant.

We start the Goethe walk tour along the market in Ilmenau. To the left you see the imposing thre storied house. Goethe used to reside in the corner room on the first floor. He used to live and write there whenever he came to Ilmenau. Today it’s a part of the museum, which bears testimony to Goethe’s literary works and information about Ilmenau. The beautiful museum rooms, which have furniture from Goethe’s times, are used today for literary and musical events. If you’ve read Goethe’s ‘Wilhelm Meister’ then you’ve read about his description of the inns ‘Zum Adler’ and ‘To the Sun.’ Alas, these two houses were in a desolated, dilapidated state and had to be demolished in 1992.

A new one has been built with a similar façade. Let’s saunter from the marketplace through the Obertor Street to the graveyard. Near the entrance is the grave of Corona Schröters, who was a beautiful singer and actress in the court of Weimar. Corona was the first actress who played the role of Goethe’s heroine ‘Iphigenie.’

From the graveyard you can take a short-cut to the upper exit, where you come across many memorial-stones for the prominent people of Ilmenau. You cross the B4 and climb up the Sturmheide to the middle and upper Berggraben. This is a path with different elevations along the mountain massif, which were previously hill-trenches in which water used to flow from the mountains, and was channelised to Sturmheide and Roda.

You reach Manebacher Valley after a comfortable walk through a thick forest and watch the splendid valley below. After sometime, you reach Schwalbenstein, a high rock with porphyry, where you can rest in the adjacent hut called ‘Schutzhutte.’ It was in the Schwalbenstein that Goethe wrote the 4^th Act of his famous ‘Iphigenie auf Taurus’ on March 19,1779 and in the following years Torquato Tasso. On a rock you can read the beginning of this 4^th Act, and you are reminded of the beauty of the German language and the rhythmical power of Goethe’s prose, which has a magical effect on you and moves you to the core.

You move on to the next inn in the forest called ‘Schöffenhaus’ and descend towards Manebach, past Emmastein and the house of the Cantor, in whose garden Goethe used to do his sketches and other drawings. You cross the railway tracks and the street and climb the small bridle path across the hilly meadow, and reach Helenenruhe. A resting place for a certain Helen. You look from there in the distance towards the forested hills behind Schwalbenstein and trek over to Big Hermann Stone. The route is rather steep and most demanding. When you reach the big rock on which once perched a castle in the Middle Ages, you are rewarded by the sight of a cave. Goethe wrote about this cave: ‘It’s my favourite place, where I want to live and work.’ Perhaps it might inspire you too.

This was where Goethe worked and did his drawings. He even brought his lady von Stein when she visited him in Ilmenau. Frau von Stein was a serene, tempered lady-in-waiting who influenced Goethe, and under her friendship Goethe developed into a mature and balanced man.

After the last steep ascent you reach the 861m Klickelhahn. You can see the magnificent Thuringer Forest from here. We know through Goethe’s letter to Ms. von Stein that he fled from the town to Thuringen’s cool forested area whenever he could and wrote to her in Weimar about the beauty of the forest of Thuringen. When words couldn’t describe the opulent beauty of a place, he sent her his excellent drawings, for a picture tells more than a thousand words: he drew the cave of Hermannstein, the misty valleys of Ilmenau, Manebach and Stützerbach. As though the drawings weren’t enough, he wrote further: ‘…there are drawings and descriptions everywhere.’ Perhaps he too found ‘sermons in stones and good in everything,’ like William Shakespeare did in the forest in his ‘As You Like It.’

Goethe was moved by the picturesque idyll of it penned his poems thus:

Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh,

in allen Wipfeln

spurst du kaum einen Hauch;

die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.

Warte nur, balde ruhest du auch.

Goethe was influenced by Herder’s appreciation of Shakespeare’s genius, and thereafter he’s known to have written a pseudo-Shakespearean tragedy called ‘Geschichte Gottfrieds von Berlichingen, which was ill received by Herder. The school-kids have to learn this on their way to acquiring the high-school certificate.

The hunter’s hut, where Goethe wrote his night-song on September 6, 1780 doesn’t exist anymore, but you can see a remake of the same. And like they say on all guided tours: ‘On a bright day you can see even the distant Harz.’ You descend to the hunter’s hut at Gabelbach (fork-stream). That small house you see was constructed at the order of the Duke Carl August in 1983 when he expected prominent hunting guests. In the house itself you hear lectures about Goethe’s scientific studies in the forest of Thuringen. If you’re tired you can walk to the Shepard’s meadow (Hirtenwiese). From there you can take different routes.But since we ‘re walking along Goethe’s path, we cross the street, and descend to the pretty Schorte Valley.

In Frankfurt Goethe became the leader of a group of intellectuals, which formed the inner circle of the Sturm and Drang. He wrote stormy poetry in free rhythm such as the Wanderers Sturmlied (storm-song), Prometheus, An Schwager Kronos and drafted the scenes of a Faust play, namely Urfaust.

Goethe lived to be 82 and it was in this time that the French Bastille was stormed. Read also A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Goethe was 39 then, and told his companions at Valmy: ‘This is the beginning of a new epoche of world history and you can say, you experienced it.’ In his youth he’d been fiery, energetic and impatient and later he became an oracular figure of Olympian stature. Germany’s man of letters liked acting, drawing, even directing theatres, and is universally regarded as a writer of the first rank. About his own work, Goethe said: ‘All my works are fragments of a big confession.’

His diversity in creative writing was astonishing and he had a wide range of forms: lyric, epic, ballad poetry, drama, novels, short-stories, autobiographical works. The fragments are the essence of his literary genius.

Schwarzwald Lyrik: Aurora borealis (Satis Shroff)

satisshroff — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:40:59 +0000

Lyrik:

Aurora borealis (Satis Shroff)

The sky was bathed

In fantastic hues:

Yellow, orange, scarlet

Mauve and cobalt blue.

Buto dancing,

In this surreal light,

On the stage,

Was magnificent.

Your heart pounds higher,

Your feet become light,

Your body sways

To the rhythm

And Nordic lights

Of the Aurora borealis.

Akin to the creation

Of the planet we live in.

And here was I,

Anzu Furukawa.

Once a small ballet dancer,

Now a full grown woman:

A choreographer, performer,

Ballet and modern dancer, studio pianist.

‘The Pina Bausch of Tokyo’

Wrote a German critic

In Der Tagesspiegel.

Success was my name,

In Japan, Germany, Italy,

Finnland and Ghana:

Anzu’s Animal Atlas,

Cells of Apple,

Faust II,

Rent-a-body,

The Detective of China,

A Diamond as big as the Ritz.

I was a professor

Of performing arts in Germany.

But Buto became my passion.

Buto was born amid upheavals in Japan,

When students took to the streets,

With performance acts and agit props.

Buto, this new violent dance of anarchy,

Cut off from the traditions

Of Japanese dance.

Ach,

The Kuopio Music et Dance festival

Praised my L’Arrache-coer,’

The Heart Snatcher.

A touching praise

To human imagination,

And the human ability

To feel even the most surprising emotions

I lived my life with dignity,

But the doctors said

I was very, very sick.

I had terminal tongue cancer.

I’d been sleeping over thirty hours,

And stopped breathing

In peace,

With my two lovely children

Holding my hands.

I’d danced at the Freiburg New Dance Festival

Only twenty days ago.

I saw the curtain falling,

As we took our bows.

I bow to you my audience,

I hear your applause.

The sound of your applause

Accompanies me

Where ever my soul goes.

I’m still a little girl

In an oversized dress.

I ran through you all

In such a hurry.

* * *

The Colour of Your Eyes (Satis Shroff)

Blue is the colour of the mountain,

Blue is the colour of t sky,

Blue is the colour of our planet,

And blue is the colour of your eyes.

Blue,

You have so many names:

Blau, bleu, caerulus,

Neelo, niebes, mavi,

Sininen, sienie,

azzuro

azul

a-oj.

Blue is the colour

Of your balanced character:

Unshakeable and constant,

Peace-loving and distanced,

Where there’s conflict,

You shy away.

Blue is the colour

Of your responsibility,

Your astonishment

And helpfulness,

Towards your fellow beings.

Blue is the colour of flexibility,

Tender feelings and faithfulness.

Perhaps that’s why

I love you.

Blue is not alone light,

It carries a bit of darkness

With it.

The colour of your eyes

Have an unspoken effect on me.

I feel an ambivalence

When you look at me.

Ultramarine blue is deep,

The endlessness of the mind.

Your cool blue eyes are distant,

Like an open ocean.

Stimulus and silence,

Annäherung,

Vermeidung.

Sometimes,

I understand you,

At other times,

I don’t.

Am I day dreaming?

Glossary:

Blau: German

Bleu: French

Caerulus:Latin

Neelo: Nepali

Niebes:Polish

Mavi: Turkish

Sininen: Finnish

sienie:Russian

azzuro: Italian

azul: Spanish,Portugese

a-oj: Japanese

Annäherung: to draw close to

Vermeidung: shun, avoid

* * *

Winter Blues (Satis Shroff)

Winter blues,

Go away!

Season of short daylight,

Coughs and rheuma,

Wet, cold days.

Misty towns,

Snowbound Schwarzwald,

Season depression,

Winter blues.

This cold seasonal change

Influences your hormones.

The lack of sunlight,

Its warm and reassuring rays,

Reduces the endorphine

In your blood vessels.

Serotonin, which regulates

Our happy mental state,

Is sparingly there,

When we need it.

Daylight is the best cure,

For light seasonal depression.

You go for a walk,

Even when the weather

Is misty and wet.

You keep a balanced diet:

Fruits and vegetables,

To create good feelings,

And to avert colds.

But for those have

Endogenic depression?

Low appetite,

Weight loss,

Sleepless nights,

Increased melatonin,

Caused by a lack

Of sunshine,

Makes you tired:

Your activities are at a low.

If walks in the misty countryside

Or city parks don’t help,

You have antidepressiva

As a last resort.

Ach, winter blues

* * *

Cosmic Soul (Satis Shroff)

E=mc2

Your body is a mass,

When you decease,

It becomes a mess.

Putrification.

Your soul,

Which never had a beginning

And never has an end

Lives on as energy,

Travels with the speed of light,

To be one with the cosmos,

Leaving behind families,

Friends and relatives.

People and emotional experiences

Of this small transitory world.

Was it an illusion,

This worldly maya,

With its ethereal charms?

Did you live

Or were you already dead?

Unanswered questions of humanity,

As the soul leaves your body

And heads for the vast,

Unfathomable cosmos,

Like a blitz.

To transform into energy.

What came first?

The light?

The energy?

Or the mass?

*****

LIKE PROMETHEUS AND ICARUS (Satis Shroff)

Up and up we flew exultantly

Towards the Himalayas.

Kathmandu, Bhadgaon and Lalitpur

With their palaces, pagodas, shrines,

Brick houses and hotels ,

Lush green fields in the outskirts

Of the valley,

Were becoming smaller and greener.

For a moment in my mind

I was the dragon that rides over the clouds.

I was Prometheus,

The saviour of mankind,

Who gave mortals fire.

I was Icarus,

Flying away from Crete.

As I peered at the majestic silvery Himalayas,

I felt my insignificance in the vastness

That unfurled below me.

How many climbers from the West and East,

How many Sherpas and other ethnic porters

Still lie in the crevasses

Of Himalayan glaciers?

The earth is below us,

And receives us.

I have a feeling of smallness,

Humility,

As I alight from the jet.

I’ve seen and felt

The spell of the mighty Himalayas,

And what’s beyond the clouds

In the sky.

A strong, deep, religious experience,

For I had trespassed

The Abode of Snows,

Himalaya.

The Home of the Gods.

*****

MUSIC AND MUSE (Satis Shroff)

Pillows of silk, sheets of white satin

A world of lights and colours,

Of precious spices, exotic fruits

And music.

A world of joy and merrymaking

Behind the Rana palace curtains

In Kathmandu.

I’ve learned the mystery of love

And buried my face in her lap.

Penned poems in the white heat

Of passionate moments,

Till she cried in ecstasy:

‘How wonderful.’

Glossary:

Ranas: The Ranas were former rulers of Nepal who usurped the throne of the Shahs. Nepal is a republic since 2008 headed by a Maoist Führer named Prachanda

————————————————-

WITHOUT WORDS (Satis Shroff)

We speak with each other

A wonderful feeling overcomes me

And I’m touched to the roots.

As though it’s a doubling

Of my existence.

It becomes a passion

To speak with each other.

Our lives are filled with togetherness:

With ourselves and our children.

I discover myself in you

And you in me.

Where one is at home

In the company of the other

And vice versa.

Where you can be

The way you are,

Where I can be

The way I am.

Our tolerance for each other is crucial.

There are moments when one forgets time.

We speak to each other without words.

It’s not sung,

Not instrumental chords.

Just our hearts

Understanding each other.

In tact with each other.

Our eyes speak volumes

And a nod is enough.

©satisshroff 2009

About the Author:

Satis Shroff is a lecturer, poet, artist and writer and the published author of three books on www.Lulu.com: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelogue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. He is a member of “Writers of Peace”, poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS) and The Asian Writer.

Satis Shroff is based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) and also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes and lectures at the University of Freiburg. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (University of Freiburg where he is a Lehrbeauftragter for Creative Writing). Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

http://www.zfs.uni-freiburg.de/zfs/dozent/lehrbeauftragte4/index_html/#shroff

GURKHAS IN LONDON 200 YEARS LATER (Satis Shroff)

satisshroff — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:34:27 +0000

Commentary:

Gurkhas, Welcome to the UK 200 Years Later (Satis Shroff)

Recently, I was surprised to receive an e-mail from 10 Downing Street. It was Gordon Brown. Tears ran down my cheeks as I read the happy news that he’d capitulated in the olde bureaucratic fight against the Gurkhas. It had been the MoD against the Gurkhas. I remember having signed petitions addressed to the PM in the internet, having mobilised the Gurkhas in Darjeeling Forum’s ‘Gupsap’ under Swaroop Chamling, the Gurkhas.com and its excellent team’s discussions and petition, on Gather.com and The American Chronicle and its syndicate of 21 newspapers in the USA, wordpress.com and other websites like Google’s Blogspot.com. We kept the Gurkha themes circulating in the media: in Nepal, UK, Hong Kong and around the world. And it worked. Gurkha veterans can now stay on in Great Britain, get benefits from the NHS and a solid pension so that they can live decently like everyone in the UK.

Citizens of the UK, we, the well-wishers and friends of the brave and loyal Gurkhas, thank you and Ms. Joanna Lumley and even members of the Labour party who have risen to the occasion and shown civil courage, sense of justice for the cause of the Gurkhas. We’d also like to thank the sturdy Gurkhas for their unprecedented and excellent service to the UK. History has been written as far as the Gurkhas are concerned, and it has caused ripples in the hearts of the Gurkhas and their dependants living under the shadow of the Himalayas. I think of my aunt (maternal side) Mrs. Dong who was stationed in Hong Kong and ran the Nepali school there, and my cousins Kunjo, Wandri, Chung-Chung who fought for the glory of Great Britain in different battlefields. United Kingdom, we are proud of you. You’ve shown that you can, if you really want to, bring about a change.

________

Zeitgeistlyrik:

The Gurkhas Win, Labour Capitulates (Satis Shroff)

Ayo Gurkhali!

The Gurkhas are upon you!

This was the battle-cry

That filled the British heart

With pride and admiration,

And put the foe in fear.

Now the Gurkhas are not upon you.

They are with you,

Among you,

In London,

Guarding the Queen at the Palace,

Doing security checks

For VIPs

And for Claudia Schiffer,

The Sultan of Brunei.

Johnny Gurkhas

Or as the Brits prefer:

Johnny Gurks.

Sir Ralph Turner,

An adjutant of the Gurkhas

In World War I said:

‘Uncomplaining you endure

Hunger, thirst and wounds;

And at the last,

Your unwavering lines

Disappear into smoke

And wrath of battle.’

Another General Sir Francis Tuker

Spoke of the Gurkhas:

‘Selfless devotion to the British cause,

Which can be hardly matched

By any race to another

In the whole history of the world..

Why they should have

Thus treated us,

Is something of a mystery.’

9000 Gurkhas died

For the Glory of England,

23,655 were severely wounded

Or injured.

Military glory for the Gurkhas:

2734 decorations,

Mentions in despatches,

Gallantry certificates.

Nepal’s mothers paid dearly

For England’s glory.

And what do I hear?

The vast silence of the Gurkhas.

England had failed miserably

To match the Gurkha’s loyalty

And affection

For the British.

Faith binds humans

The Brits have shown

They have faith

In the bravery and loyalty,

Honesty, sturdiness, steadfastness

Of the Gurkhas.

Did the souls of the perished Gurkhas

Have faith in the British?

Souls of Gurkhas long dead and forgotten,

Lingered long seeking justice

At the hands of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II,

Warlords, or was it warladies,

They died for.

How has the loyalty and special relations

Been rewarded in England

Since the Treaty of Segauli

On March 4, 1816 ?

A treaty that gave the British

The right to recruit Nepalese.

When it came to her own kind,

Her Majesty the Queen

Was generous.

She lavishly bestowed lands,

Lordships and knighthoods

To those who served the crown well,

Added more feathers to England’s fame.

A Bombay-born Salman Rushdie

Got a knighthood from the Queen,

For his Satanic and other verses.

So did Brits who played classic and pop.

When it came to the non-British,

Alas, Her majesty feigned myopia.

She saw not the 200 years

Of blood-sacrifice

On the part of the Gurkhas:

In the trenches of Europe,

The jungles of Borneo,

In far away the Falklands,

Crisis-ridden Croatia

And war-torn Iraq.

Blood, sweat and tears,

Eking out a meagre existence

In the craggy hills of Nepal

And Darjeeling.

The price of glory was high

Fighting in the killing-fields

Of Delhi, the Black Mountains,

Khyber Pass, Gilgit, Ali Masjid.

Warring against Wazirs, Masuds,

Yusafzais and Orakzais

In the North-West Frontier.

And against the Abors,

Nagas and Lushais

In the North-East Frontier.

Neuve Chapelle in France,

A hill named Q in Gallipoli.

Suez and Mesopotamia.

In the Second Word War

Battling for Britain

In North Africa, South-East Asia,

Italy and the Retreat from Burma.

The Queen graciously passed the ball

And proclaimed from Buckingham Palace:

‘The Gurkha issue

Is a matter for the ruling government.’

Thus prime ministers came and went,

Akin to the fickle English weather.

The resolute Queen remained,

Like Chomolungma,

The Goddess Mother of the Earth,

Above the clouds in her pristine glory,

But the Gurkha issue prevailed.

‘Draw up a date

To give the Gurkhas their due,’

Was the order from 10 Downing Street.

‘OMG,

We can’t pay for the 200 years.

We’ll be ruined as a ruling party,

When we do that,’

Said the Labour under Gordon Brown.

A sentence like a guillotine.

Was the injustice done to the Gurkhas

Of service to the British public?

It was like adding insult

To injury.

Thus Tory and Labour governments came and went,

The Gurkha injustice remained.

All Englishmen cannot be gentlemen,

Especially politicians.

England got everything

Out of the Gurkha.

Squeezed him like a lemon,

Discarded and banned

From entering London

And its frontiers,

When he developed ageing problems.

‘Go home with your pension

But don’t come back.

We hire young Gurkhas

Our NHS doesn’t support pensioned invalids.’

Johnny Gurkha wonders aloud:

‘Why they should have thus

Treated us,

Is a mystery.’

Till lady Joanna Lumley, Prince Charles

And even Brown’s own Labour members,

Took the matter in their hands

And gave the Gurkha veterans the right

To stay on in the UK.

Meanwhile, life in the terraced hills of Nepal,

Where fathers toil on the stubborn soil,

And children work in the steep fields

A broken, wrinkled old mother waits,

For a meagre pension

From Her Majesty’s Government,

Beyond the craggy Himalayas

Across the Kala Pani,

The Black Waters.

Faith builds a bridge

Between Johnny Gurkhas

And British Tommies,

Comrades-at-arms,

Between Nepal and Britain.

The smart, sturdy Gurkha makes

A cheerful countenance,

And sings:

‘Resam piriri,’

An old trail song

Heard in the Himalayas.

————————–

Lyrik: A GURKHA MOTHER (Satis Shroff)

(Death of a Precious Jewel)

The gurkha with a khukri

But no enemy

Works for the Queen of England

And yet gets shot at,

In missions he doesn’t comprehend.

Order is hukum,

Hukum is life

Johnny Gurkha still dies

Under foreign skies.

He never asks why

Politics isn’t his style

He has fought against all and sundry:

Turks, Tibetans, Italians and Indians

Germans, Japanese, Chinese

Argentineans and Vietnamese.

Indonesians and Iraqis.

Loyal to the utmost

Never fearing a loss,

The loss of a mother’s son

From the mountains of Nepal.

Her grandpa died in Burma

For the glory of the British.

Her husband in Mesopotemia

She knows not against whom

No one did tell her.

Her brother fell in France,

Against the Teutonic hordes.

She prays to Shiva of the Snows for peace

And her son’s safety.

Her joy and her hope

Farming on a terraced slope.

A son who helped wipe her tears,

Ease the pain in her mother’s heart.

A frugal mother who lives by the seasons,

Peers down to the valleys

Year in and year out

In expectation of her soldier son.

A smart Gurkha is underway

Heard from across the hill with a shout

‘It’s an officer from his brigade.

A letter with a seal and a poker-face

“Your son died on duty,” he says,

“Keeping peace for the Queen of England

And the United Kingdom.”

A world crumbles down

The Nepalese mother cannot utter a word

Gone is her son,

Her precious jewel.

Her only insurance and sunshine

In the craggy hills of Nepal.

And with him her dreams

A spartan life that kills.

Glossary:

gurkha: soldier from Nepal

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

hukum: Befehl/command/order

shiva: a god in Hinduism

Commentary: FALKLANDS AND THE GURKHA ISSUE (Satis Shroff)

After the war, Ms. Pugh returned to her old job in Cornwall as an OP theatre nurse, but wasn’t able to talk about her experiences for years. That was her coping method. Life had to go on. But unlike the Lady with the Lamp, Nicci Pugh didn’t have to face medical ire, and works as a voluntary carer to help injured servicemen to re-visit the Malvinas to pay their respects to their own fallen comrades, and visit the killing fields of the Falklands. But for the Gurkhas who have fought for Britain since the times of Queen Victoria till Queen Elizabeth II since 200 years, there’s no noteworthy memorial in Britain. Are the Gurkhas merely guest-workers or ‘cannon fodder’ only? Britain laments that there’s no memorial for the courageous Lancaster Bomber Command which lost 55,573 out of 125,000 pilots during their deadly missions to bombard German towns and industrial complexes, collateral damage notwithstanding. But no one speaks of the courage and sacrifice of the sturdy, dedicated, loyal Gurkhas from Nepal, who laid their lives for the Glory of Great Britain, and are still doing the same for the United Kingdom. After World War I and World War II, the Gurkhas were ignominiously booked a passage to Nepal via India. Even today, instead of integration, education and service in the UK for the extraordinary service to Britain and the Queen of England since generations. They are not even tolerated when their service, i.e. unfair contract, with the Arbeitsvermittlungsagency MoD is over. The MoD is treating the Gurkhas similarly as the German government did with the so-called ‘guest workers’ from Turkey, Italy, Spain and Portugal during the fifties, only to realise that they hadn’t invited guest workers but human beings, who had families, dreams, hopes of a better quality of life, the same education as their own children. Under Angela Merkel there’s a new integration model for migrants which is showing a positive trend and in accordance with the European Union’s ideas of a better world. The Gurkhas must be given the same status as their British counterparts and comrade-in-arms, the same buying power and dignity in the United Kingdom, and the UK government would do well to put an end to the discrimination that has been meted out to the Gurkhas and their families. They must be accepted and welcomed as old and new migrants, and the UK’s loyal, historical allies, instead of being discriminated on flimsy grounds. If the Gurkhas have to go to the European court it is indeed a shame for Brown’s government, which has been trying to save precious sterling pounds on the integration of the Gurkhas and has been diverting the common man’s money for other purposes. * * * An e-mail from Argentina Hello Satis, Thanks for your message. Nice to meet you. Well you’re from Freiburg, I have a mp3 file of an audience recording from a Roxette concert that took place in Freiburg. Very funny… Regarding the Falkland war, we all Argentineans feel some kind of impotence, Imagine if one day some people broke into your house and take you away from your own house. We cannot do anything and I don’t think Argentina will get back the islands. UK is a very strong country. Well, that’s the position of Argentina. UK claims that they were always of their own. I don’t really care who’s the owner. The main point is that the war was pointless and it was not about the islands. There were many purposes besides these events, the war was just a disguise. In 1982, the government in Argentina was in charge of the military, people didn’t have the right to express what they felt, everything was banned. People was really tired. so the military government NEEDED something to give an incentive to the Argentineans. Something that proves they had the power. They made us believe that we could get back the islands that once were occupied by the British. That was the main purpose of the war. UK hadn’t any interest on these islands, but it was like a war trophy for them. Obviously, it was like a fight between 2 kids, a 5 years old boy against a 15 years old boy. As we usually say “the bad events show the best and the worst from people”. And the war was not an exception. The TV always reported that we were about to win the war, they were always lying in order to calm down us. The media was controlled, including the radio, some songs were prohibited or edited. A certain censorship. During the war, the songs sung in English were not allowed to be played. And the soldiers were 18 years old teenagers, who were recruited by the law, they didn’t know what war was really all about, they didn’t have the right to decide what to do with their lives. It was an order and they must obey “the call of the country,” so they were sent to the war. In 1982 I was just a 7 years old boy, I didn’t know what was happening to my country. In all schools, there was a campaign called “A chocolate for the soldiers”. We had to write a letter to the soldiers and we had to give them away a chocolate, that’s because of the low temperature. There were another campaigns in order to collect warm clothes and food because the army only gave them the basic elements. And even worse they were treated badly. Most of our hopes never arrived and those chocolates never were sent, in fact some people stole and re-sell them later. That’s why I wrote that “Some events show the worst and the best from people”. Of course there were very nice people who helped a lot. We usually are very kind. The UK military also took advantage of these events. Furthermore, a retired Chilean military recently admitted that the Chilean military helped the UK army telling them the position of the Argentinean ships and soldiers and the strategies they had. Everybody wanted a piece of this cake. Besides this, the General Galtieri, the most hated person in Argentina, was drinkin’ whisky while 600 young Argentineans kids were dying. Very sad to be true. To sum up, there were many events and I could write pages and pages about this. The war was pointless, I think nobody won this war, it was a big lost for 2 countries and a benefit for a few people. Arnaldo Mariano S., Jul 6, 2007, 10:21am EDT
http://www.zfs.uni-freiburg.de/zfs/dozent/lehrbeauftragte4/index_html/#shroff

E-mail from Satis Shroff:

Dear Arnaldo,

Thank you very much for sharing a part of your autobiography. You really ought to write “pages and pages about this war” as you said, and let us read them at www.Gather.com.

That’s life, Arnaldo. Let us nevertheless try to make this world a better place to live in, despite our cultural differences.
Sincerely,
Satis

Satis Shroff, Jul 6, 2007, 11:13am EDT

News from the Past: Brown’s government: arrogant & indifferent to the Gurkhas

Former Gurkha soldiers from Nepal have won the right to sue the British Government in the High Court for alleged racial discrimination. The Gurkhas allege that they have been discriminated against, in at least 20 different ways, while serving with the British army and subsequently during retirement.

Nepalese soldiers have fought alongside British soldiers since 1815, and have served in recent years in the Falklands, the Gulf War, Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

Equal pay demand: The soldiers argue that since a 1947 Tripartite Agreement between India, Nepal and the UK, the Gurkhas have been linked to the Indian Army’s pay scale instead of the British army’s.

“So far, this government has acted with arrogance and indifference,” he was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.

“I hope even at this late stage that sense will prevail.”

In declaring the case admissible on Tuesday, the High Court gave the Defence Ministry until 9 September to put forward its arguments in the case.

British defence: A Defence Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters that the military would “robustly defend our position in court”.

“The Gurkhas are treated well and will continue to be. We value their services and treat them in a good manner,” she said.

That case is before the European Court.

The British and the Gurkhas: Worlds Apart? (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

Prince William has received his coveted curved knife, the Khukri, after a four-day stint with the Gurkhas. According to a close source Prince William is seriously thinking of joining the Gurkhas. This comes at a time when the Gurkhas are battling for their pensions, human rights and dual passports. For even though generations of Nepalese soldiers called the fearsome Gurkhas, have fought Britain’s colonial and other wars (Falklands, Croatia, Iraq) the Gurkhas don’t have the same rights as ordinary British citizens.

It was a magnificent scenario: the proud Royal Scouts led British cadets, Territorial Army and Gurkhas over Waverly Bridge and along Princes Street. The Gurkhas were led by a man in spotted leopard cloak beating a drum, followed by vehicles with armed Gurkhas.

Who are these Gurkhas? You might ask. They are Britain’s 3,500 elite soldiers from the small Himalayan country Nepal. These Gurkhas have fought and died with the British Armed Forces for two centuries. This year, according to the Scotsman (news.scotsman.com), Gurkhas have been dumped back in Nepal with a stipend by the thousand. This, after two centuries of fighting your wars for you. They are not, never have been, paid the same as a British soldier.

When it comes to money-matters, the Brits have always regarded the Gurkhas as cheap labourers and mercinaries that you can recruit in a matter of months, or even weeks. There are always 28,000 young Nepalese who want to join the Royal Gurkha Brigade. Only 200 are chosen annually. What happens to the others? Do they join the Maoists to get battle experience? I knew one named Kunjo Lama who didn’t make it at the recruiting depot in Dharan (Eastern Nepal) and worked as a teacher in a Nepalese village in the hills rather than face the ignominy of returning home as the laughing stock of the hamlet dwellers. Losing one’s face is something serious in the Nepalese world, and for the Nepalese psyche. But Kunjo made it at the next admissions and even took part in the Falkland War at Port Stanley against the Argentinians.He showed me a photograph from his wallet of himself and his fellow Gurkhas in front of a helicopter, armed to the teeth during the war at the Malvinas.

Sometime later during a trip to London I saw how the South Asian people were living in London’s East End, where the Cockneys use to live earlier, with its brick-houses (Monica Ali’s ‘Brick Lane’). Nay, the Gurkhas didn’t even enjoy the same status as the asylum-seekers from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Jamaica and other former colonies, settled in London’s East End or Southhall. The Gurkhas are based in Church Crookham, Hampshire, but they are lucky if they can return to their home country after fighting Britain’s wars and police missions in the British Rhine Army, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Borneo, Cyprus, Falklands, Lebanon, Croatia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

To think that so many ethnic Nepalese mothers have lost their sons, and so many children have lost their fathers and sisters their dear brothers fighting for the Glory of Britain, is indeed worth contemplating and discussing about in the London Parliament by the new government.
The Gurkhas, who are ruthless warriors at war, have always been obedient, loyal, disciplined and subordinate to their British officers for 200 years. Their loyalty and bravery have always been unfaltering. Had Indira Gandhi taken the Gurkhas as her personal bodyguards like the Queen of England, instead of the Sikhs, at a time when the storming of the Golden Temple of Amritsar was a big issue in Punjab and India, I’m sure she would have lived longer.

But most South Asians think: that’s kismat. It was written in her fate that she had to die a violent death. Schicksalsdenken.

A Gurkha serves in the Army a minimum of fifteen and a maximum of thirty years after which they are discharged and obliged to leave Britain for Nepal. No, they aren’t allowed to stay on, settle down and enjoy the English countryside with their meagre pensions, as far as English lifestyles and pays-scales are concerned. This speaks for the British government’s nefarious ’special treaty’ with the Gurkhas and the Royal Narayanhiti Palace in Kathmandu (Nepal). Nepal now has a republican government, with a Maoist as its head, the king has been ousted, and it is hoped that the new Nepalese government will make positive amendments or scrap the treaty and draw a new one with equal human rights and dual citizenships for the Gurkhas.

The British government always uses Nepal’s government pay-scales as a yardstick to pay off their loyal Gurkhas. There are so many British citizens working all over the world but what would happen if they were paid according to the laws existing under the rule of Queen Victoria and received the same pay scale as in those days. The Gurkhas are not living in the past but in the present, and the cost of living is high everywhere and their families need food, clothing and education. Gurkhas aren’t social cases for the men have been enlisted by Her Majesty’s officers at Dharan (Nepal) to serve in the Gurkha Brigades, which officers like to emphasise as an integral part of the British Army. The British government realised soon enough that the India of the former Raj-subjects were being qualified, and were clever at Oxford and Cambridge and they wouldn’t tolerate the master-and-servant relationship which the burra sahibs had propagated during the Raj.

But Nepal is another matter. The Ranas and Shahs have exploited the country and its manpower resource for longer than two centuries and were to blame for the bad manpower management deals with the then British government. Another factor that is to Nepal’s disadvantage is the fact that Nepal wasn’t really conquered by the East India Company, and has thus never belonged to the British Commonwealth. That explains why the wealth and equality hasn’t reached Nepal’s Himalayan boundaries as yet, for the targets of equality are always specific and comprise aristocratic privilege, capitalist wealth, bureaucratic power, racial or sexual supremacy, and the desire of a group of people to dominate their fellows.

Today, we have the possibility of doing away with these discriminations and injustices. Under Gordon Brown we have the chance to give the Gurkhas a helping hand of real friendship, and not only lip-service, and make good.

Prior to the EU-membership of East Bloc countries, when a Polish worker came to help pluck the strawberries in the vicinity of Freiburg (Germany), they weren’t paid the actual rate for west workers in Germany either. Now that the Poles have no zlotys, and are paid in euros in their own countries, it doesn’t seem to be lucrative to go all the way to Germany, with the result that the strawberries get overripe and go kaputt. Ethnic Germans are reluctant to do this back-breaking job under the blazing sun.

The British Army once sacked 111 Gurkhas, and as a result the Gurkhas wrote a petition to the Queen of England to help the men who had been sent to Nepal, and to improve the treatment of the Gurkhas (who had after all fought for Britain in the Falklands) throughout the Army. The petition to Queen Elizabeth II was signed: Your Majesty’s most obedient servants. The all (sic) ranks of SP 1/7^th Gurkha Rifles.

A question that vexed me is why the Gurkha children have to do the SLC (School Leaving Certificate) exams of Nepal, instead of the GCSE ‘A’ levels, like all school-kids in England? The British government and the Nepalese monarchs never appreciated the importance of better, higher education for the offsprings of the Gurkhas. With British educational certificates and degrees thousands of sons and daughters of the Gurkhas would have had better chances in their lives and would be much better off than their soldiering Dads and brothers. The idea from the start was to put the Gurkhas and their families in ghettos alias barracks or lines, and no attempts were made to integrate them and their families in the British society.

If a Gurkha would join France’s Foreign Legion, they’d be taught the French language and would get a much better status in the French society than the British give to the Gurkhas. I don’t want to say alas, but Nepal just wasn’t a French colony, though the French managed to come up to an enclave named Pondicherry in India. Nepal has no special relationships with the French but with the British

There have been isolated instances of Gurkhas involved in recent courtroom skirmishes with the British Ministry of Defence to receive the same pension and conditions as other British soldiers. Whereas an ex-Gurkha received 40,000 English pounds payment from Britain after a court ruling, which was an isolated instance, another Gurkha claim was rejected by a Nepal court. ‘Better to die than be a coward’ is the motto of the Gurkha warriors who are an integral part of the British Army. It should run ‘better to fight a battle with a good lawyer against the Ministry of Defence than against Britains foes, as we say in Germany: bis die Fronten geklärt sind.

Britain and its admirable people still have to do a bit of soul-searching on the question of their best friends-in-arms. The officers in the administration and the Defence Ministry think of the Gurkhas still as cannon-fodder and not as humans, at eye-level with the same rights and equality. They still play the game of the Raj: masters and servants. This must not be tolerated and must be put to an end by the new government at 10 Downing Street, for they have gone too far. It is hoped that the impeccable British people will rally around and support the brave, but legally weak, Gurkhas by giving them a helping hand. I know that the British people do give a helping hand to the underdogs of their own or other societies when necessary, and that I appeal to their fairness.

What is the difference between an asylum-seeker and a Gurkha in Britain? In the long run the asylum-seeker gets a British passport, British pay (if he or she’s qualified) and British rights and his or her children kindergartens, schools, colleges and universities in Britain, and become a part of the British mainstream. Not so the Gurkhas and their families.

Due to questionable ’special relations’ between Britain and Nepal that haven’t been ratified yet, the poor Gurkha and his family have to say goodbye to Britain and head for the barren hills of Nepal. That’s the plight of what Sir Ralph Turner MC, 3^rd Queen Alexandra’s Own Gurkha Rifles, 1931 said, “Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had a country more faithful friends than you.”

When you think of how true, loyal friends are treated for their faithfulness in even present-day Britain, you can only shake your head or hide in shame.

During the Falklands War out in the Malvinas under Margret Thatcher’s primiership, the British were put in an embarassing situation by Argentina’s UN- representative when he accused the British of having deployed ‘Gurkha mercinary’ troops. The British government demented that and said it had special relationsships with Nepal and that the Gurkhas were its own troops, belonging to and integrated in the British Army.

But the sad reality is: when a British leutenant saunters by, a Gurkha-Major is obliged to salute him! And not the other way around. This still means that all soldiers are equal in the British or Gurkha army, but some solders are more equal than the others, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which Gurkha school children learn in good English schools in India’s Darjeeling and Nepal. In this context it must be mentioned that over 50,000 Gurkhas died in the two World Wars under the Union Jack and another thousand since then, even though the Gurkhas were reduced and demobilised to Brigade strength in the British and Regiment strength in the Indian Army. This was after the partition of India in 1947 after an agreement between Nepal, India and Britain, whereby four regiments from the Indian Army were transferred to the British Army, which then became the Gurkha Brigade.

It’s still the white sahib commanding the natives, despite the so-called handsome pensions that the Gurkhas receive, according to Nepalese standards. When I lecture in Switzerland I earn almost 100 Swiss Francs per hour, like all Swiss and German lecturers, without discrimination about my origin and descent. I think that it’s high time that the Gurkhas received the same wages as their British fellow soldiers. Please don’t come up with the Sugauli Treaty or ’special relations crap’ that dates to the times of Queen Victoria and Junga Bahadur Rana. We are living in modern times and democracy exists in England since a long time. The world has learned from the British what fairness is not only in sport but in everyday life.

I think it’s high time that the Gurkhas went to an international court in Strassburg, Belgium UN(NY) and received Flankenschutz from Human Rights Organisations in Britain, Britain Watch, NGOs and whatever. Sally and rally around and give the Gurkhas a helping hand so that they can also have equal rights and their sons can receive education in Britain and when they are qualified they can work and live there. They are not exotic creatures, they are human beings who also ought to have equal human rights. Britain still has the chance to repair the damage it has done towards the Gurkhas by giving their children a decent English education, for education is the best gift we can give to children. Give education to a Gurkha child and you have given him or her something very valuable and priceless and they will be thankful all their lives.

(This article was published on The American Chronicle, Blogspot.com, Swiss.com, Gather.com, Ning.com, WordPress and a host of other publications & websites in the years 2007-2008. It bears information on the Gurkhas and their problems. But now the Gurkhas have won and Gordon Brown has capitulated, thanks to a charming, politically active, courageous lady named Joanna Lumley who beat Brown in his own game. Her father, by the way, was rescued by a Gurkha and she never forgot it and thanked the Gurkhas in her own way. Gurkha hats off to a great lady).

About the Author:

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BOOK REVIEWS By Satis Shroff

satisshroff — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:27:26 +0000

http://www.zfs.uni-freiburg.de/zfs/dozent/lehrbeauftragte4/index_html/#shroff.

Creative Writing Critique: Chicken of India Unite! (Satis Shroff)

Review: Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger. Atlantic Books, London, 2008. Man Booker Prize 2008. German version: ‘Der Weisse Tiger’ published by C.H. Beck, 2008.

Aravind Adiga was a correspondent for the newsmag Time and wrote articles for the Financial Times, the Independent and Sunday Times. He was born in Madras in 1974 and is a Mumbai-wallah now. The protagonist of his first novel is Balram Halwai, (I’m a helluva Mumbai-halwa fan, you know) who tells his story in the first person singular. Halwai has a fantastic charisma and shows you how you can climb the Indian mainstream ladder as a philosopher and entrepreneur. An Indian entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same time (sic). Balram’s prerogative is to turn bad news into good news, and the White Tiger, who’s terribly scared of lizards, slits the throat of his boss to attain his goal, and doesn’t even regret his deed.

In the subcontinent, however, Aravind Adiga’s novel has received sceptical critique. Manjula Padmanabhan wrote in ‘Outlook’ that it lacks humour, and the formidable Delhi-based Kushwant Singh 92, who used to write for the Illustrated Weekly of India and is regarded as the doyen of Indian English literature, found it good to read but endlessly depressing.

‘And what’s so depressing?’ you might ask. I found his style refreshing and creative the way he introduced himself to Wen Jiabao. At the beginning of each capital he quotes from a part of his ‘wanted’ poster. The author writes about poverty, corruption, aggression and the brutal struggle for power in the Indian society. A society in which the middle class is reaching economically for the sky, in which Adiga’s biting and scathing criticism sounds out of place, when deshi Indians are dreaming of manned flights to the moon, outer space and mountains of nuclear arsenal against China or any other neighbouring states that might try to flex muscles against Hindustan.

India is sometimes like a Bollywood film, which the poverty-stricken masses enjoy watching, to forget their daily problems for two hours. The rich Indians want to give their gastrointestinal tract a rest and so they go to the cinema between bouts of paan-spitting and farting due to lack of exercise and oily food. They all identify themselves with the protagonists for these hundred and twenty minutes and are transported into another world with location shooting in Switzerland, Schwarzwald, Grand Canyon, the Egyptian Pyramids, sizzling London, fashionable New York and romantic Paris. After twelve songs, emotions taking a roller-coaster ride, the Indians stagger out of the stuffy, sweaty cinemas and are greeted by the blazing and scorching Indian sun, slums, streets spilling with haggard, emaciated humanity, pocket-thieves, real-life goondas, cheating businessmen, money-lenders, snake-girl-destitute-charmers, thugs in white collars and the big question: what shall I and my family eat tonight? Roti, kapada, makan, that is, bread, clothes and a posh house are like a dream to most Indians dwelling in the pavements of Mumbai, or for that matter in Delhi, Bangalore, Mangalore, Mysore, Calcutta (Read Günter Grass’s Zunge Zeigen) and other Indian cities, where they burn rubbish for warmth.

The stomach groans with a sad melody in the loneliness and darkness of a metropolis like Mumbai, a city that never sleeps. As Adiga says, ‘an India of Light, and an India of Darkness in which the black, polluted river Mother Ganga flows.’

Ach, munjo Mumbai! The terrible monsoon, the jam-packed city, Koliwada, Sion, Bandra, Marine Drive, Juhu Beach. I can visualise them all, like I was there. I spent almost every winter during the holidays visiting my uncles, aunts and cousins, the jet-set Shroffs of Bombay. I’m glad that there are people like Aravind Adiga, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai who speak for the millions of under-privileged, downtrodden people and give them a voice through literature. Aravind deserves the Man Booker Prize like no other, because the novel is extraordinary. It doesn’t have the intellectual poise of VS Naipaul or Rushdie’s masala language. It has it’s own Mumbai matter-of-fact speech, a melange of Oxford and NY. And what we get to hear when we take the crowded trains from the suburbs of this vast metropolis, with its mixture of Marathi, Gujerati, Sindhi and scores of other Indian languages is also what Balram is talking about. Adiga was bold enough to present the Other India than what film moghuls and other so-called intellectuals would have us believe.

Balram’s is a strong political voice and mirrors the Indian society which wants to present Bharat in superlatives: superpower, affluent society and mainstream culture, whereas in reality there’s tremendous darkness in the society of the subcontinent. Even though Adiga has lived a life of affluence, studied at Columbia and Oxford universities, he has raised his voice in his book against the nepotism, corruption, in-fighting between communal groups, between the rich and the super-rich, a dynamic process in which the poor, dalits, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s Children of God (untouchables), ‘scheduled’ castes and tribes have no outlet, and are to this day mere pawns at the hands of the rich in Hindustan, as India was called before the Brits came to colonise the sub-continent.

Balram, Adiga’s protagonist, shows how to assert oneself in the Indian society, come what may. I hope this book won’t create monsters without character, integrity, ethos, and soulless humans, devoid of values and norms. From what sources are the characters drawn? The story is in the form of a letter written by the protagonist to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and is drawn from India’s history as told by a school drop-out, chauffeur, entrepreneur, a self-made man with all his charms and flaws, a man who knows his own India, and who presents his views frankly and candidly, sometimes much like P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster. The author’s attitude toward his characters is comical and satirical when it comes to realities of life for India’s poverty stricken underdogs, whether in the form of a rickshaw puller, tea-shop boy or the driver of a rich Indian businessman. His characters are alive and kicking, and it is a delight to go with Balram in this thrilling ride through India’s history, Bangalore, Old and New Delhi, Mumbai and its denizens. The major theme is how to get along in a sprawling country like India, and the author reveals his murderous plan brilliantly through a series of police descriptions of a man named Balram Halwai.

The theme is a beaten path, traditional and familiar, for this is not the first book on Mumbai and Indian society. Other stalwarts like Kuldip Singh, Salman Rushdie, Amitabh Ghosh, VS Naipaul, Anita and Kiran Desai and a host of writers from the Raj have walked along this path, each penning their respective Zeitgeist. In this case, the theme is social, entertaining, escapist in nature, and the reader is like a voyeur in the scenarios created by Balaram. The climax is when the Chinese leader actually comes to Bangalore. So much for Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai. Unlike Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss) Adiga says, “Based on my experience, Indian girls are the best. (Well second best. I tell you, Mr Jiaobao, it’s one of the most thrilling sights you can have as a man in Bangalore, to see the eyes of a pair of Nepali girls flashing out at you from the dark hood of an autorickshaw (sic).

As to the intellectual qualities of the writing, I loved the simplicity and clarity that Adiga has chosen for his novel. He intersperses his text with a lot of dialogue with his characters and increases the readability score, and is dripping with satire and humour, even while describing an earnest emotional matter like the cremation of Balram’s mother, whereby the humour is entirely British—with Indian undertones. The setting is cleverly constructed. In order to have pace and action in the story Adiga sends Balram to the streets of Bangalore as a chauffeur, and suddenly you’re in the middle of a conversation and narration where a wily driver Balram tunes in. He’s learning, ever learning from the smart guys in the back seat, and in the end he’s the smartest guy in Bangalore, evoking an atmosphere of struggle for survival in the jungles of concrete in India. Indeed, blazingly savage, this book. A good buy this autumn.

About the Author: Satis Shroff lectures on Creative Writing at the University of Freiburg http://www.zfs.uni-freiburg.de/zfs/dozent/lehrbeauftragte4/index_html/#shroff. and is the published author of three books on www.Lulu.com: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelgue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. Satis Shroff is a member of “Writers of Peace”, poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS) and The Asian Writer.

Satis Shroff is a poet and writer based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) who also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (University of Freiburg). Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

* *
Review by Satis Shroff, Germany: Getting Along in Life in Tricky Kathmandu

Bhatt, Krishna: City Women and the Ghost Writer, Olympia Publishers, London 2008, 191 pages, EUR 7,99 (ISBN 9781905513444)

Krishna Bhatt, the author, a person who was ‘educated to get a graduate degree in Biology and Chemistry,’came to Kathmandu in 1996 and has seen profound political changes. In this book he seeks to find an ‘explanation for what is happening.’ Life, it seems, to him, is tricky, while political violence has been shocking him episodically. That’s the gist of it: twenty-one short episodes that are revealed to the reader by an author, who’s trademark is honesty, clarity and simplicity—without delving too deep into the subject for the sake of straight narration. What emerges is a melange of tales about life, religion, Nepalese and Indian society packed with humour. A delightful read, a work of fiction and you can jump right into the stories anywhere you like.

Additionally, Bhatt has published ‘Humour and Last Laugh’ in October 2004, a collection of satirical articles published in newspapers in Kathmandu, which is available only in Kathmandu’s bookstores. The author emphasises that he has always written in English and adds, “Reading led me to writing.” He found his London publisher through the internet. Lol!

Did you know that people who are married wear an ‘air of sacrificial glory’ about them in Nepal? The other themes are keeping mistresses in Kathmandu, sending children abroad for education, the woes of psychotherapists in Nepal (no clients). I’ll leave it to you to find out why. Nepal is rich in glaciers and the water ought to be harnessed to produce drinking water and electricity, but in Kathmandu, as in many parts of the republic, there’s a terribly scarcity of water among the poor and wanton wastage among the Gharania—upper class dwellers of Kathmandu. The Kathmanduites fight not only against water scarcity but also a losing battle against ants and roaches. The author explains the many uses of the common condom, especially a sterilised male who uses his vasectomy for the purpose of seduction. However, his tale about the death of his father in “The Harsh Priest and Mourning” remains a poignant and excellent piece of writing, and I could feel with him. It not only describes the Hindu traditions on death and dying but also the emotions experienced by the author.

Like the Oxford educated Pico Ayer who has the ability to describe every ‘shimmy’ that he comes by when he travels, Bhatt too says that Thamel District is all ‘discotheques and massage parlours’ in the story ‘A Meeting of Cultures,’ in which the author meets two former East Germans and one of them thinks ‘people in Germany are lazy.’ Did she mean the Ossies or the Wessies? If that doesn’t get you, I’m sure the many uses of English and vernacular newspapers will certainly do. What’s even amusing is a ritual marriage ceremony of frogs to appease the rain gods. It might be mentioned that in Kathmandu Indra is the God of Rain, the God of the firmament and the personified atmosphere. In the Vedas he stands in the first Rank among the Gods. When you come to think of it, we Hindus are eternally trying to appease the Gods with our daily rituals, special pujas and homs around the sacred Agni (Ignis). Agni is one of the chief deities of the Vedas, and a great number of Sanskrit hymns are addressed to him.

Bhatt uses life and the people around him, and in the media, as his characters and his attitude towards his characters is of a reconciling nature. The characters work sometimes flat for he doesn’t develop them, but the stories he tells are about people you and I could possibly know, and seem very familiar.
Most of the stories are short and quick, good reads in this epoch of computers, laptops,DVDs, SMS, MMS, which is convenient for people with not much time at their disposal. Other themes are: writing, the muse, fellow writers (without naming names, except in the case of V.S. Naipaul), east meet west, abortion, art and pornography, colleagues and former HMG administrators. His opinions are always honest and entertaining in intent, and his tales have more narration than dialogues. Krishna Bhatt is a welcome scribe in the ranks of Kunda Dixit, Samrat Upadhya, Manjushri Thapa and is another new voice from the Himalayas who will make his presence felt in the world of fiction writing. His ‘Irreconcilable Death’ is thought-provoking, a writer who wants to change morality and fails to reconcile with death, like many writers before him. Writers may come and go, but Bhatt wants to leave his impression in his own way and time. Time will certainly tell.
I wish him well.

Review German version by:Satis Shroff
Rezension:
Grünfelder, Alice (Hrsg.), Himalaya: Menschen und Mythen, Zürich Unionsverlag 2002, 314 S., EUR 19, 80 (ISBN 3-293-00298-6).

Alice Grünfelder hat Sinologie und Germanistik studiert, lebte zwei Jahre in China und arbeitet gegenwärtig als freie Lektorin und Literaturvermittlerin in Berlin. Dieses Buch ist vergleichbar mit einem Strauss zusammengestellter Blumen aus dem Himalaya, die die Herausgeberin gepflückt hat. Es handelt von den Menschen und deren Problemen im 450 km langen Himalaya Gebirge. Das Buch orientiert sich, an englischen Übersetzungen von der Literatur aus dem Himalaya.

Nepal ist literarisch gut vertreten mit dem Anthropologen Dor Bahadur Bista, dem Bergsteiger Tenzing Norgay, die in Kathmandu lebenden Journalisten Kanak Dixit and Deepak Thapa, dem Fremdenführer Shankar Lamichane, dem Dichter Pallav Ranjan und dem Entwicklungsspezialisten Harka Gurung. Manche Geschichten sind nicht neu für Nepal-Kenner, aber das Buch ist für Leser, die in Deutschland, Österreich, Südtirol und die Schweiz leben, bestimmt. Außer sieben Nepali Autoren gibt es Geschichten von sieben indischen, drei tibetischen, zwei chinesischen und zwei bhutanesischen Autoren.

Die Themen des Buches sind: Die Vorteile und Nachteile der Verwestlichung in Nepal, da Nepal erst 1950 für den Fremden sozusagen geöffnet wurde. Kanak Dixit erzählt dies deutlich in „Welchen Himalaya hätten Sie gern?“. In einer anderen liebenswerten Gesichte erzählt er über die Reise von einem Nepali Frosch namens Bhaktaprasad. K.C. Bhanja, ein umweltbewußter Bergsteiger, erzählt über das empfindliche Erbe—die Himalaya und deren spirituelle Bedeutung. Die „Himalaya-Ballade“ von der chinesischen Autorin Ma Yuan, „Die ewigen Berge“ von dem Han-Chinesen Jin Zhiguo, und der indischer Bergsteiger H. P. S. Ahluwalia in „Höher als Everest“, schließlich Swami Pranavanadas in seinem „Pilgerreise zum Kailash und der See Manasovar“ haben alle die Berge aus verschiedenen Sichten thematisiert. Tenzing Norgay, der erste Nepali, der auf dem Gipfel von Mt. Everest mit dem Neuseeländer Edmund Hillary bestiegen war, erzählt, dass er „ein glücklicher Mensch“ sei. Der Nepali Journalist Deepak Thapa beschreibt den berühmten Sherpa Bergsteiger Ang Rita als einen sozialen Aufsteiger.

Während wir in einer Geschichte von Kunzang Choden (Auf den Spuren des Migoi) erfahren, dass die Bhutanesen, als ein buddhistisches Volk, nicht einmal einen Tier Leid zufügen können, erzählt uns Kanak Dixit von 100 000 Lhotshampas (nepalstämmige Einwohner), die von der bhutanesischen Regierung vertrieben worden sind und jetzt in Flüchtlingslagern in Jhapa leben.

James Hilton hat das Wort Shangri-La für eine Geschichte, in Umlauf gebracht die sich in Tibet abspielte. Genauso ist mit dem Ausdruck „Das Dach der Welt“ die tibetische Plateau gemeint und nicht Nepal oder Bhutan. Die bewegende Geschichte, die der Kunsthändler Shanker Lamechane erzählt, handelt von einem gelähmten Jungen. Sein Karma wird in Dialogform zwischen ein Nepali Reiseleiter und einem überschwenglichen Tourist erzählt. Das hilflose Kind bringt uns dazu, über die Freude in Alltag nachzudenken, was wir meistens nicht tun können, weil wir mit dem Alltag so beschäftigt sind. Während Harka Gurung „Fakten und Fiktionen über den Schneemensch“ zusammenstellt, schildert uns Kunzang Choden, eine Psychologin aus Bhutan, über „Yaks, Yakhirten und der Yeti“. Wir erfahren von einem alten Yakhirt namens Mimi Khandola, wie das freundliche Wesen Migoi, gennant Yeti, von einem Rudel Wildhunden erlegt wurde. In „Nicht einmal ein Leichnam zum Einäschern“ lernen wir von dem tragischen Schicksal eines Mädchens namens Pem Doikar, die von einem Migoi entführt wurde.

Diese Anthologie versucht nicht die Himalaya Literatur als ganzes zu repräsentieren, aber betont bestimmte Themen, die im Alltagsleben der Bergbewohner auftauchen. Die Welt, die die Dichter und Schriftsteller aus dem Himalaya beschreiben und kreieren, ist ganz anders im Vergleich zur westlichen Literatur über die Himalaya Bewohner. Es ist wahr, dass der Trekking-Tourismus, moderne Technologie, die Entwicklungshilfeindustrie, die NGOs, Aids und Globalisation die Himalayas erreicht haben, aber die Gebiete die vom Tourismus unberührt sind, sind immer noch ursprünglich, gebunden an Traditionen, Kultur und Religion.

Auf der Frankfurter Buchmesse gibt es kaum Bücher die von Schriftstellern und Dichtern aus dem Himalaya stammen. Es sind immer die reisenden Touristen, Geologen, Geographen, Biologen, Bergsteiger und Ethnologen, die über Nepal, Tibet, Zanskar, Mustang, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh und seine Leute, Religion, Kultur und Umwelt schreiben. Die Bewohner des Himalaya sind immer Statisten im eigenen Land gewesen in den Szenarios, die im Himalaya inszeniert worden sind, und die in New York, Paris, München and Sydney veröffentlicht werden. Sie werden durch westliche Augen beschrieben.

Dennoch gab es Generationen von denkenden und schreibenden Nepalis, Inder, Bhutanesen und Tibeter, die Hunderte von Schriftstücken, Zeitschriften und Bücher geschrieben und veröffentlicht haben, in ihren eigenen Sprachen. Allein in Patans Madan Puraskar Bibliothek, die Kamal Mani Dixit, Patan’s Man of Letters, beschreibt als „der Tempel der Nepali Sprache,“ gibt es 15,000 Nepali Bücher und 3500 verschiedene Zeitschriften wovon die westliche Welt noch nie gehört oder gelesen hat.

Der englische Professor Michael Hutt machte einen Anfang. Er übersetzte zeitgenössische Nepali Prosa und Gedichte in „Himalayan Voices“ und „Modern Nepali Literature“. Die erste Fremdsprache wird weiterhin Englisch bleiben, weil die East India Company dort zuerst ankam.

Dieses Buch von Alice Grünfelder erzeugt Sympathie und Verständnis für die nepali, indische, bhutanesische, tibetische, chinesische Psyche, Kultur, Religion. Es beschreibt die Lebensbedingungen und menschlichen Probleme in den dörflichen und städtischen Himalayagebieten und ist eine willkommene Ergänzung zu der langsam wachsenden Sammlung von literarische Übersetzungen aus dem Himalaya, die von den einheimischen Autoren geschrieben worden sind. Ich wünsche Frau Grünfelder Erfolg in Ihre Aufgabe als Vermittlerin zwischen den literarischen Welten von Asien und Europa.

English Version by: satisshroff, freiburg
Book-review:
Grünfelder, Alice (Editor), Himalaya: Menschen und Mythen, Zürich Unionsverlag 2002, 314 pages, EURO 19, 80 (ISBN 3-293-00298-6).

Alice Grünfelder has studied Sinology and German literature, lived two years in China and works in the publishing branch in Berlin. This book is comparable to a bouquet of the choicest Himalayan flowers picked by the editor and deals with the trials and tribulations of a cross-section of the people in the 450 km long Abode of the Snows–Himalayas. The book orients, as expected, on the English translations of Himalayan literature. The chances of having Nepali literature translated into foreign languages depends upon the Nepalis themselves, because foreigners mostly loath to learn Nepali. If a translation is published in English the success of the book is used as a yardstick to decide whether it is going to be profitable to bring it out in European or in other languages.

Nepal is conspicuous with contributions by the anthropologist Dor Bahadur Bista, the climber Tenzing Norgay, the Kathmandu-based journalists Kanak Dixit and Deepak Thapa, the tourist-guide Shankar Lamichane, the poet Pallav Ranjan and the development-specialist Harka Gurung. For regular readers of Himal Asia, The Rising Nepal and GEO some of these stories are perhaps not new but this book is aimed at the German speaking readers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In addition to the seven Nepali authors, there are also stories by seven Indian, three Tibetan, two Chinese authors and two Bhutanese authors.

Some of the themes that have been dealt with in this collection are: the pros and cons of westernisation as told by Kanak Dixit in “Which Himalaya would you like?” and an endearing story of a journey through Nepal as a Nepali frog named Bhaktaprasad. K.C. Bhanja, the ecology-conscious climber writes about the spiritual meaning of our fragile heritage—the Himalayas. “The Himalayan Ballads” by the Chinese author Ma Yuan, “The Eternal Mountains” by the Han-Chinese Jin Zhiguo, the Indian climber H. P. S. Ahluwalia in “Higher than Everest” und Swami Pranavanadas in his Pilgrim journey to Kailash and the Manasovar Lake” have presented the mountains from different perspectives. Tenzing Norgay, the first Nepali who reached the top of Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary, says that he was a happy person.

The Nepali journalist Deepak Thapa portrays the famous Sherpa climber Ang Rita as a social “Upwardly Mobile” person. Whereas in Kunzang Choden’s story (In the Tracks of the Migoi) we learn that the Bhutanese, as a Buddhist folk, are not capable of harming even a small animal, in another story Kanak Dixit tells us about the 100 000 Lhotshampas (Bhutanese citizens of Nepali origin) who were thrown out by the Bhutanese government and live in refugee-camps in Jhapa. The curio art-trader Shanker Lamichane’s “The Half Closed Eyes of the Buddha and the Slowly Setting Sun” is a poignant tale of a paralysed boy’s karma, related as a dialogue between a Nepali guide and a tourist. The helpless child makes us think in his mute way about the joys in everyday life that we don’t see and feel, because the world is too much with us. Whereas Harka Gurung has gathered facts and fiction“ and tells us about the different aspects of the Snowman, another author who is a psychologist from Bhutan, tells us about yaks, yak-keepers and the Yeti and we come to know through an old yak-keeper named Mimi Khandola, how the friendly creature called the Migoi, alias Yeti, gets chased and killed by a group of wild-dogs. In “Not Even a Corpse to Cremate” we learn about the traumatic shock and tragic fate of a girl named Pem Doikar, who was kidnapped by a Migoi.

This anthology does not profess to represent Himalayan literature as a whole, but lays emphasis on the people and myths centred around the Himalayas. For instance, the Nepali world that the poets and writers describe and create is a different one, compared to the western one. It is true that trekking-tourism, modern technology, the aid-industry, NGOs, aids and globalisation have reached Nepal, Bhutan, India, but the areas not frequented by the trekking and climbing tourists still remain rural, tradition-bound and untouched by modernity.

There are hardly any books written by writers from the Himalayas at the Frankfurter Book Fair. It’s always the travelling tourist, geologist, geographer, biologist, climber and ethnologist who writes about Nepal, Tibet, Zanskar, Mustang, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh and its people, culture, religion, environment, flora and fauna. The Himalayan people have always been statists in the visit-the-Himalaya-scenarios published in New York, Paris, Munich and Sydney and they are described through western eyes.

But there have been generations of thinking and writing Nepalis, Indians, Bhutanese and Tibetans who have written and published hundreds of books and magazines in their own languages. In Patan’s Madan Puraskar Library alone, which Mr. Kamal Mani Dixit, Patan’s Man of Letters, describes as the “Temple of Nepali language”, there are 15,000 Nepali books and 3500 different magazines and periodicals about which the western world hasn’t heard or read. A start was made by Michael Hutt of the School of Oriental Studies London, in his English translation of contemporary Nepali prose and verse in Himalayan Voices and Modern Nepali Literature. It took him eight years to write his book and he took the trouble to meet most of the Nepali authors in Nepal and Darjeeling. The readers in the western world will know more about Himalayan literature as more and more original literary works are translated from Nepali, Tibetan, Hindi, Bhutanese, Lepcha, Bengali into English, German, French and other languages of the EU. The first foreign language, however, will remain English because the East India Company got there first.

This book compiled by Alice Grünfelder creates sympathy and understanding for the Nepali, Indian, Bhutanese, Tibetan, Chinese psyche, culture, religion, living conditions and human problems in the urban and rural Himalayan environment, and is a welcome addition to the slowly growing translated collection of Himalayan literature penned by writers living in the Himalayas. I wish her well in her function as a mediator between the literary worlds of Asia and Europe.

Satis Shroff, Freiburg

STILL WALKING (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

satisshroff — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:35:04 +0000

GORDON STILL WALKING 2009 (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

‘I will not walk away,’

Said PM Gordon Brown.

His ministers had walked out on him.

Disgusted with his inner circle

Of soccer-fans

And other fads.

Manchester is United,

Labour isn’t.

Was he walking by a rule?

Mr. Brown ruled with two circles:

His soccer-crazy inner circle

With Ed Balls,

An outer one with grey mice.

He was walking down a lonely road,

It seemed.

When he walked in,

He walked into Blairites.

Gordon was walking into his political savings.

Could he steer Britain’s economy

Out of the big recession?

He walked his legs off,

Pleading to Labourites to stay.

It wasn’t a walk over

For Brown’s pride,

When ministers refuse to walk

Together with him,

After the debacle at the Euro polls.

He racked his brains,

Came up with a belated inquiry

Into the Iraq war,

To save his skin.

In a last bid he reshuffled

His cabinet cards:

Darling, Miliband and Balls

Held their jobs.

Gordon promoted:

Johnson, Jowell, Mandelson,

Cooper, Burham, Ham.

Eh, was it worth to promote Ainsworth?

A soap-opera supper,

Where guests prefer

To sit and walk out at will.

Gordon is certainly walking on air.

It’s become more a walk

On a razor’s edge.

If this silly Labour circus goes on

In Downing No. 10,

He is most likely to walk

On all fours.

The battle is lost,

Er steht auf verlorene Posten.

The rats have sprung overboard.

Councils like Lancashire, Derbyshire,

Stafford, Nottinghamshire

Have become Tory counties.

Labour lost 250,

Conservatives gained 217 seats.

Captain Brown remains adamant,

And runs his ship.

I’m afraid it’s not Trafalgar.

Perhaps Cap’n Bleigh?

He clutches his crutches

And mutters:

‘I will not walk away.’

Brown has a strategy:

He hopes to limp towards autumn,

Defying the wind against him.

Can he bend it like Beckham?

Captain Brown, still at the helm,

Insists: ‘I will not waver,

Or walk away.’

Britain doesn’t know:

Whether to be awed

Or amused.

And thereby hangs

A tale.

* * *

Drinking Darjeeling Tea in England 2008 (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

Beware the Ides of March

Manchester will be a milestone

In Gordon Brown’s polit-life.

Your economic ‘competence’

Has become an Achilles heel,

Your weak point.

The people’s party of New Labour

Wants to get rid of you.

These are the rumours

Heard in the trendy streets of London.

Twelve months ago Gordon Brown

Was the Messiah of Brit politics,

After Blair’s disastrous role in the Labour.

Alas, the new Messiah

Lost his face,

Within a short time.

His weakness: decision making.

England is nervous, fidgety,

For Labour fears a possible loss,

Of its 353 Under House seats.

Above the English cabinet

Looms a Damocles sword.

Will Labour watch,

Drink Darjeeling,

Till a debacle develops?

Labour is in a dilemma.

Hush, help is near.

David Miliband is going vitriolic.

A silly season indeed,

Drinking Darjeeling tea in England.

* * *

About the Author:

Satis Shroff is based in Freiburg, Gemany (poems, fiction, non-fiction) and also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (University of Freiburg where he is a Lehrbeauftragter for Creative Writing). Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

Lyrik & Prose: THE GHOST WRITER (Satis Shroff)

satisshroff — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:03:49 +0000

The Ghost Writer (Satis Shroff)

When I close my eyes,

I see everything in its place

In the kingdom of Nepal.

I see the highest building in Kathmandu,

What looms higher than the Dharara,

Swayambhu, Taleju and Pashupati?

The former King’s Narayanhiti palace,

Built by an architect,

From across the Black Waters.

Therein lived Vishnu,

Whom many Hindus still call:

The unconquerable preserver.

The conqueror of Nepal?

No, that was his ancestor

Prithvi Narayan Shah,

A king of Gorkha.

Vishnu is the preserver of the world,

With qualities of mercy and goodness.

Vishnu is all-pervading and self-existent,

Visited Nepal’s remote districts

In a helicopter with his consort

And militia.

He inaugurated buildings

Factories and events.

Vishnu dissolved the parliament too,

For the sake of his kingdom,

As I was told to write.

His subjects and worshippers were,

Of late,

Divided.

Alas, Ravana and his demons

Have besieged his land.

The king was obliged to go,

And with him I lost my life-job

As a ghost-writer.

I cannot remember

How many articles, speeches, decrees,

Proclamations I’ve penned

In His Majesty’s Service.

Who would have thought

That I’d have to look

For another job?

Towards the end,

My boss not only lost his shirt,

But also his land,

And blamed me,

His sincere ghost-writer,

For my bad verse and prose.

He barked in a tirade:

“You are to blame for the misery

In my country.”

I, who had praised him,

Written admirable speeches,

Full of love, pathos and empathy

For his poor subjects,

Was now a mere scapegoat.

I, who had written

Soothing lines for the unruly masses,

Who were in revolt,

After centuries of feudal hierarchy,

Mismanagement,

Bad governance,

Corruption and nepotism.

I, who had sought a voice

To pacify the lynch mobs

In the streets of Catmandu,

Biratnagar, Dolpo

And Janakpur.

That was the unkindest cut of all.

The royal newspapers and the paid-press

Were blooming with news

Of development in Nepal.

But the people knew better.

They were waiting.

The dam of development

Had been broken,

A word play on ‘development.’

When the royal dam collapsed in Pokhara,

The people had a big laugh.

The king’s dying father said:

‘When I die,

My country should live.’

On still moments,

I hear the refrain:

Ma marey pani,

Mero desh,

Bachi rahos.

Nepal is now a republic

With cantons instead of zones,

We even have a fish-tailed mountain

That looks like Zermatt.

We have tourism too,

But where are the bankers,

The executives and firms?

We have an Aid Industry,

Cashing in dollars

From foreign governments

And NGOs.

Nepal exports carpets,

Human labourers

For the emirates,

Sherpas for the climbers

And Gurkhas for the Brits

And flesh for the Upper and Lower Grant Roads.

When I open my eyes,

I see Vishnu still slumbering

On his bed of Sesha,

The serpent

In the pools of Budanilkantha

And Balaju.

Prithee, where is the Creator?

When will he wake up from his eternal sleep?

Only Bhairab’s destruction

Of the Himalayan world is to be seen.

Much blood has been shed

Between the decades and the centuries.

The mound of noses and ears

Of the vanquished at Kirtipur,

The shot and mutilated

At the Kot massacre,

The revolution in front of the Narayanhiti Palace,

When Nepalese screamed

And died for democracy.

And now the corpses of the Maobadis,

Civilians and Nepalese security men.

Hush! Sleeping Gods should not be awakened.

I, who wracked my cerebrum for the King,

Am sickened by the royal demeanour,

For Mr. Shah is now a mortal,

A politician to boot.

I, a royal ghost-writer,

Who once smelt the air

Of the Narayanhiti Palace,

Have nowhere to go.

I’m a writer no more.

I’m a ghost

Under the shadow of the Himalayas.

* * *

The Chance to Change (Satis Shroff)

“Education is the best thing in the world for Nepal’s children, be they Gurkhas, Sherpas or Madeshis. And what Nepal needs most in this crucial transitional period is peace, co-operation between the different ethnic groups, a craving to mend ways, build bridges between its cultures, connect and find common goals.”Satis Shroff

Mr. Swaroop Chamling, who is a Rai and ex-Gurkha settled in UK, is gathering signatures for a Gurkha petition on www.Darjeeling Forum (google or yahoo search will do) and I find it interesting that the Gurkhas, civilians and military, are getting organised to fight for their rights at last, after years of discrimination, hiring and firing, and low-pay on the part of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in Britain. What I found interesting was the inference of a Gurkha reader on www.Gurkhas.com that it was Bahuns and Chettris all the way in Nepalese history and even today, whether in the opposition or in the ruling parties. The same sort of infighting that you see in Delhi between the Punjabis, Bengalis and other Indian ethnic groups is to be seen in Catmandu’s ministries. It’s always Newars versus Bahuns and Chettris, with the rest of the ethnic groups as onlookers. If you want to make a career in Catmandu you have to learn the local lingo, which is a language with monosyllables—Nepal Bhasa.

It is a fact that there are only bahuns and chettris on both sides: among the maoists and political parties in Nepal. The reason why bahuns & chettris dominate the political, economic and other landscapes in Nepal is that they have been privileged through Hinduism and its raja-praja set-up and its caste-system, with its purity and pollution implications that have swept and divided the families in Nepal and the Nepalese diaspora for centuries (as in India even today), and I think that Dor Bahadur Bista has illustrated this amply in his writings, and was cursed wrongly by critics in Catmandu and elsewhere as a ‘Nestbeschmutzer.’

One can combat this discrepancy by uniting to create a new, ethnic-friendly Nepal by decree of law, and by observing the new democratic developments in Nepal as a chance to change the old, federal structures and bringing in a secular state, like our big neighbour India. India did, what Nepal is in the process of doing, by introducing Privvy Purse for the Royals fifty years ago. The king has been sacked and the Narayanhiti Palace now a museum, just like the Hanuman Dhoka palace which can be viewed by Nepalese and tourists alike, and should act as an incentive for young Nepali school-kids to preserve the democratic rights of the country, lest it fall in the wrong hands, and not let history repeat itself.

The Nepalese society finds itself in a period of transition and has yet to decide which form of government is suitable and practicable for the society. Naming the former anchals or zones as cantons alone won’t make a Switzerland out of Nepal, but the will of the people to live under a governmental form based on public opinion and votes might bring this Himalayan country closer to the wishes of its people.

I remember the first page of The Rising Nepal bore the latin words: vox populi, vox dei. That was a time when a king and reincarnation of Vishnu ruled the land. The king had to sadly realise that the voice of the people was not the voice of God. And the voice of the king was certainly not the voice of the people. It was perhaps the voice of the ghost-writer. And thereby hangs a tale.

Education is the best thing in the world for Nepal’s children, be they Gurkha, Sherpa or Madeshi. And what Nepal needs most in this crucial transitional period is peace, co-operation between the different ethnic groups, to mend ways, build bridges between its cultures, connect and find common goals.

But there’s the beginning of democracy in Nepal now, and the tribes and castes that were neglected in the past should get their rights by creating a federal form of government, like in German or in Switzerland, whereby the country has to be formed administratively as federal, local government with the power to carry out trade and commerce with neighbouring countries or states. Only then will there be a freedom of trade and commerce in all geographical and ethnic sectors.

The way it has been in the past: Kathmandu was Nepal. It was too centralised, the King lived in Kathmandu, the parliament was, and still is, in Kathmandu. Even for small things one had to have Kathmandu’s blessings. I hope the new governments will see to this matter and think of Nepal holistically, and not like in the past. I say government, because the political situation hasn’t shown much stability in the past for observers abroad.

Nevertheless, there is hope, and this torch of hope will be carried by the children and youth of Nepal. Whether we are Gurungs, Tamangs, Chettris, Bahuns, Bhujels, Kirats or Madhesis we have to unite and make Nepal a land that we can be proud of through our own endeavours. To borrow a line from JFK ‘ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ After all, we are a republican democracy, aren’t we?

The comity of nations would only be too willing to see a politically and economically stable Nepal and render assistance as in the past, before the war between the government troops and the maoists began.

So let us unite above the communal feelings and ideologies, and think in terms of Nepal as a nation, and not in terms of the opposite of democracy, namely anarchy. Let the children of Nepal from the plains and the hills have the same educational opportunities and work under human conditions. Let us show the world that we have a word for negotiation in our language, and that we also have the ability of carrying out a dialogue in the parliamentary sense of the word.

Peace, trust, faith, character, integrity, tolerance, dignity are qualities that cannot be attained by nurturing communal feelings and ethnic hatred. It is only through peaceful means, trust, honesty, cooperation and coordination that the long arduous task called development can be attained and the people can attain mental, physical and social wellness in the tedious march towards progress. To this end, we have to decide to change. Revolution is change, and the young men and women who were fired by their imagination during the decade long krieg have to do so in a constructive way, or else Nepal will forever remain ‘a yam between two rocks’ and a perpetual member of the least developed countries, in every sense of the word.

Change or perish should be the battle-cry of democracy loving Nepalese. Yes we can, if we want it strong enough.

About the Author: Satis Shroff teaches Creative Writing at the University of Freiburg and is the published author of three books on www.Lulu.com: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelgue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. Satis Shroff is a member of “Writers of Peace,” poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS) and The Asian Writer. He also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (University of Freiburg). Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

European Ethnology: Wessies and Ossies (Satis Shroff)

satisshroff — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:58:18 +0000

European Ethnology:

THE RHÖN: WESSIES AND OSSIES (Satis Shroff, Freiburg im Breisgau)

It seemed to me that the Rhön might not have the attractiveness of the Black Forest in southern Germany, but it was, nevertheless, a beautiful area to walk around for it had the most beautiful flora of Germany. And the people were so hospitable.

I found the old houses so pretty and the town gates, stone bridges and markets so charming. The Rhön hills were made of basalt, calc and sandstone. Alexander von Humbolt, the renowned German scientist and explorer, even praised the Milseburg, which lies opposite to the Wasserkuppe, as the most beautiful hill in the country.

Be that as it may, my sojourn in the Rhön was memorable due to Onkel (uncle) Adolf, who was untiring and took pains to explain to them the sights, sounds and smells and historical aspects of the Rhön during the countless excursions by car to Munnerstadt, Bad Neustadt, Nuremburg, Heustreu, Bischofsheim, Mellrichstadt, Fladungen, Hilders, Milseburg, Wasserkuppe and Mittelstreu.

We also went to the former East Germany border towns because Onkel Adolf thought it would be interesting to compare the West with the East (Germany), or the “wessies and the ossies”, as he put it. He was naturally a thorough-bred wessie, but he seemed to have a heart also for the ossies, and wasn’t like the TV character ‘Motzki’, an egocentric, arrogant bloke, who seemed to be railing upon the ossies perpetually. The BBC found it so amusing and typical of the German trait that they showed it in TV in England.

“The only thing that we people of the Rhön have, and can be proud of, is the beauty of the countryside and the historical villages and towns,” explained Onkel Adolf almost apologetically.

“In the 30 years war came Wallenstein and took everything. Then came Tilly and he took what he could. The Croatian Isolani came in 1634 and also plundered the Rhön. In the meantime, there was an outbreak of plague”, said Onkel Adolf scratching his receeding forehead and driving his car.

Then came the Swedes and plundered again. Two centuries later in 1866 there was a German civil war between brothers: Prussians against Austrians and Bavarians. The villages of Rhön were the ‘killing fields’ then. The beaten Bavarians had to hand over a piece of the Bavarian Rhön because the Prussians wanted a strategically important border near Bavaria.

‘Eighty years later in 1945, the able men of the Rhön were sent to die in the Volga, Tobruk on the river Seine (Paris), Belgrade, Elbrus and in the Atlantic coast. And then again in the Rhöne, because the then Nazi military fanatics thought they could build a strategically important Rhöen-Wall. The people of the Rhön were always the losers: whether Earls, Dukes, Barons or Nazis ruled the land’ said Onkel Adolf laconically with a shrug of his shoulders.

I’d been to the Rhön twice, which is a Celtic word meaning ‘hills’. There are not only hills but also valleys, basalt quarries, forests, bogs, trout-rich rivers and streams. The Rhön area is shared by the Franks, Hessen and Thuringer people. According to an old verse:

You have there the Rhön circle

Bischofsheim is industrious

Fladungen has the wood

Neustadt has its pride

Munnerstadt its money

Melrichstadt has its fields

Kissingen is famous for its salt.

We drove around the Rhön and went to Mittelstreu’s town graveyard, where Albert and the other Hankes were buried. We entered the small chapel, which was rather frugally decorated with an altar and a few benches, and church magazines and donation-slips for the Third World countries. After that we went to the old church and school, where Heidi, Dolf and Heinz learned their ABCs, or “ah-bay-zees” to put it in the German way of pronouncing them.

An exhibition dealing with lifestyle and the people of Mittelstreu in the early days was on. Heidi was rather moved by the exhibits for she’d recognised a lot of things from her past, and started telling us about the people in the old, faded silver nitrate prints. There were old, torn and worn out bibles and tattered flags, ladies underwear and corsettes and primitive agricultural implements there were used manually in those days, on display.

“And that’s a threshing machine which we kids used to pull from one farm to another for a few sweets. Sweets and potatoes were a treat in those days, after the Second World War, and we were always hungry,” said Heidi, her eyes sparkling with old memories. And once we were outside, Adolf showed me the Luftschutzkeller, which was an underground cellar built in the church lawn, with big wooden doors that would open from the ground, and served as an air-raid shelter for the community.

After that we drove to brother Heinz and Astrid Hanke, where we had coffee and German cakes baked by Astrid, an elderly, bespectacled lady who was a genuine Mittelstreuer. The Hankes had moved in after the World War II. They were originally from a town in the former Czechoslovakia, and were disliked a bit, as all strangers are, in the old German town of Mittelstreu. However, they’d gone to school there and were well integrated in the small town community, for they were ethnic Germans after all. It was Heinz, the printer, who had married in Mittelstreu.

The rest of the Hankes were scattered from Munich in Bavaria to the town of Heidelberg and Melbourne in Australia. Albert the eldest son had dodged the draft and had headed for the open spaces of the Australian continent, somehow sick of the German politics and society. He wanted to discover new frontiers and meet new people and new challenges, and not be tied up and stifled with family matters and the Bundeswehr.

He was of the opinion that enough blood had been shed in the last World War with 45 million dead. He was a pacifist. The four western powers and the Soviet Union, the Ostpolitik, the RAF terrorists, the countless demonstrations had made him lose his patience with his country, and he’d turned his back and was footloose. He’d gone to Hamburg and then taken a ship to Australia.

Heidi had visited him with her sister Friedlind, and she had to admit she had liked the Australian way of life because it was different. But she preferred her life in Germany with its sense of order and security, her job and her small circle of friends and, of course, her family.

“Let’s go to the ex-DDR,” said Adolf after we’d bade farewell to Heinz and Astrid, and since there were no objections from any of us we made for the former German Democratic Republic, even though there had never been such a thing as democracy in that country. We drove to Römhild, an old East German town, past a snow-covered Rhön landscape.

“If an East German soldier was stationed in Römhild, it was just as bad as a second Siberia,” said Dolf, scratching his silvery head. Whenever he had to say something funny or exceptional he had to scratch his head.

We went to the previous Stasi (secret police, the East German equivalent to the Gestapo during the Third Reich) villa, now a mountain holiday inn for dollar and euros paying tourists from the west, for dance-and-refreshments. A three-man Ossie band was playing a melange of German and English songs, the latter sung with a terrible Saxon accent. It reminded me of the Anglo-Indians trying to imitate Frank Sinatra and Elton John in the hotels of Bombay (Mumbai) and Calcutta (Kolkotta).

After that we went to Fladungen, which lies at the end of the High Rhön road, a town enclosed by old Roman walls. Though it was cold and windy, we strolled along the ancient town walls. This idyllic town, with its fortification walls, was built in the year 789 AD. It was an impressive little town with a small stream flowing through it, and had pretty shop fronts, like the ones that you see only in the ancient towns, unscathed by the Krieg and well-preserved by the local Denkmalschutz organisation, which is responsible for restoring and protecting cultural and historical monuments and buildings in Germany.

Every trade had its own sign outside, like in the Middle Ages, cleaned and polished with loving care: the bakery, the apothecary, the butchery, the town archive and the museum. There was always that German sense of order to be seen. After all, a German is brought up to believe that order is the essence of life. Actually ‚ Ordnung ist das Halbe Leben. And on holidays you could also see some people wearing their traditional dresses, or trekker’s trappings and going for walks, either in their towns or out in the forest, despite the cold Rhön winter.

We decided to go to Salzburg (which has nothing to do with its namesake in Austria) where there was an impressive castle with a pine and birch forest nearby. The visitors and locals living near the spas and medical complex were out for walks. After a short dekko at the castle and the town below, they decided to visit Heidi’s nephew Bruno and his wife Inge, where they had Christmas cookies, potato chips, peanuts and played indoor games with their kid. Thomas, the blond 4 year old son had scores of toys: gameboy, chopper, missile truck, with a pair of mounted missiles ready to be launched and crash-cars. The child was aggressive, couldn’t concentrated and given to screaming and crying. Bruno said almost with pride that his son was recently in the Kindergarten with his 250DM helicopter, and another kid wanted that chopper too and had cried buckets of tears.

I thought it was a strange status-race even at infancy, thanks to the power of ads in TV. I was right because after a moment Inge said, ‘Our son watches TV and wants the kind of toys he sees in the ad-spots.’ With Ninja-turtles, prehistoric dinosaurs, monsters and dragons, missiles, laser-guns, crash-cars and non-stop cable TV, DVDs at your disposal. A wonderful childhood.

“Na ja, phantastisch!” said Heidi softly with an ironic grin as they left.

A few days later, Adolf suggested it was high time we paid Inge and Sepp a visit in their residence at Mellrichstadt, which is a bustling town now, but which was an old Frankish settlement in the 8th century.

We took a brisk walk around the town before going to Sepp’s residence outside the town. The St.Killian church was impressive. In the part of the town called Muhlfeld was a castle built in 1725 on the ruins of a burg. Rossrieth was another picturesque 16th century castle with a moat.

The welcome was traditionally hearty and we were greeted with a wee glass of the excellent Rhön schnaps (raksi). Inge, a fat old lady with red hair, had a penchant for decorating her every available room in her specious house with that touch of feminism: flowers and porcellian, and all sorts of traditional kitsch. Without all that she’d probably feel uneasy, and the way she moved around in her familiar environment, and talked with her relatives and guests. She plainly enjoyed it and felt elated.

Inge’s husband Sepp, an abbreviation for Joseph, was a German with some Jewish blood in him, and he said, “If I feel that I’m being threatened by the neo-nazis, I’ll just pull out my revolver and shoot them. And plead self-defence.” That meant that old Sepp had been brooding about the neo-nazis all the while, because Melrichstadt also had its share of old and new nazis, and he’d been following the developments of the rightists in German TV rather closely, as he told me.

‘With a Jewish background, you never know,” was his standing. Sepp’s parents were gassed by the Nazis at Ausschwitz.

The conversation had centered on neonazis because he’d asked me whether there had been any such Teutonic terror on non-Germans in south-west Germany. I told him that there had been little or no rightist terror. There had been a case of Friedhofsschändigung at Ihringen, in the vicinity of Freiburg, carried out by a few drunken youth. They’d overturned the gravestones of the dead Jews in Ihringen’s Jewish graveyard, and smeared them with nazi slogans like: Jude verrecke (Jews should rot) and the swastika, Germany for the Germans, Jews go home! (Where? When the Jews are German nationals). In neighbouring Basle the Jews were surprised to find an antisemitic poster with the words. ‘Schweizer wehrt euch, don’t buy in Jewish shops!’ The Jewish owner of the shop brought the matter to the organisation David, which is a centre against antisemitism and the state attorney has been informed. It was no coincidence that the poster was put up a day after the Reichskristallnacht. It was on the night of the Reichkristallnacht from 9^th till the 10th of November 1938 that the organised mass-murdering of six million Jews began.

Did the neonazis mean that the Jews should leave for Israel? But the few Jews living in Germany are Germans, so where should they go? That’s what a German politician asked Ignaz Bubis once during a press-conference: whether he would go to Israel?

Sepp was a soft-spoken, bespectacled, corpulent German with quite a few gerontological problems and normally shunned guests in the house. But this time he’d enjoyed drinking the excellent Franken wine with us and talked about the past. He was a passionate collector of Jewish religious books and crucifixes, which you could find in every corner of the house. He took pride in telling us that he’d inherited not only the house, but also a vast collection of books. He also showed us his medical compendium and said he could diagnose diseases and showed me a materia medica dated 1985.

Old Sepp was opening up and began talking about the Nazis in Mellrichstadt. He said he knew people who had been communists at first, and became nazis in 1936 and then catholics after the Krieg. As if to bear testimony to this fact, he produced two books written by a Mellrichstadter professor. The first edition of the book was published in 1936 and was dedicated to the Führer and had extensive pages on the “Jews and how to eradicate them and make Mellrichstadt a city free of Jews…”, with connotations that were similar to Rostok, Leipzig and Hoyerswerda in 1992, which was a small-scale Crystal Night. It sent waves of shock, angst and disgust not only in Germany but also elsewhere.

I remember going to watch a play at St. Joseph’s College North Point (Darjeeling) “Judgement at Nuremberg” staged by Nepali, Mizo, Naga, other Indian and US students. And here I was in this historical German town. The poet E.T.A.Hoffmann called the rebuilt Old Town of Nuremberg “the apple of our princes’ and lordships’ eyes”. The Old Town had been almost razed to the ground by Allied bombings during the Second World War.

Yvonne, who’d visited Nuremberg often said, “A document issued by Emperor Henry III on July 16, 1050 mentions Nuremberg for the first time. The town was then called Norenberc.” I learned that it was a politico-military royal town created by Emperor Henry III, who reigned from 1039 to 1056. The town had been repeatedly besieged and captured and the settlement below the royal castle had been destroyed by fire in 1130. It was towards the end of the 13th century that Nuremberg’s defensive walls were captured.

We’d put up at the Vier-Jahres-Zeiten hotel, near the railway station, and were in the Old Town after a short walk. We could enter the ancient complex over a drawbridge, and below us was what had been a moat to fend off the enemies, but was now dry and green with well-kept grass. Inside, there were dwellings, shops and workshops of the clever Nuremberger craftsmen of those bygone days.

I was told that the Nuremberg craftsmen carried out 50 different craft and there were more than 1,200 master-craftsmen working with copper and brass in those days. The town became a leader in many area of technology and in the manufacture of scientific instruments and even the pocket-watch, the globe and the flintlock of which a good many were on display at the German Museum, in addition to the Nuremberger trinkets, and from the 17th century onwards even toys.

It was delightful to visit the toy museum where hundreds of toys from different periods were on display. And exquisite hand-made dolls and doll-houses.

As we approached the monumental edifices of the Reichsparteitag, or the remnants thereof, which the US troops had destroyed and part of which was used to build Nuremberg, Uncle Adolf said, “It was the economic crisis of 1931-32 and the political foolishness that brought the Nazis to power. These sad monuments are a dark reminder of the Third Reich. There are still hot-heads who dream of a Greater Germany.”

“When these tanks appeared in Nuremberg, we lost the war,” said Adolf laconically, as we went past the vintage Sherman tanks.

I’d seen photographs of a destroyed Nuremberg at the Frauenkirche and asked Adolf how many people had died during the Allied air-raids and he replied,”Nuremberg suffered the heaviest air-raid on the 2nd of January 1945, and a greater part of Old Nuremberg was destroyed. And of the 420,000 inhabitants, there were only 175,000 Germans living in the town. Most of them had either fled or died. Nuremberg was gutted down to 10.7 million cubic metres of rubble!”

It was unbelievable. The massive rebuilding programme started in 1948 had changed the face of war-torn Nuremberg. The Old Town had been rebuilt in the old style, especially the Kaisersburg, St.Lawrence’s church, the Frauenkirche, St.Sebaldus’ church and the town hall. New factories had cropped up, and the town linked up with the autobahn network, a harbour built to connect it with the Rhein-Main-Danube canal and soon Nuremberg was economically growing prosperous again.

In the Old Town we went past shops selling antiques, toys (Zinnfiguren), and porcellain worked out in the finest details. There were window decorations in antique styles. And in the city were fashionable shops.

We had lunch in the city in a traditional restaurant where you could order even Bratwuerst and Franken-wine among other delicacies. There were a lot of Czechs, Slovanians and Poles taking turns at being photographed in front of parked Porche and Mercedes Benz cars, and women posing in front of shops selling wedding gowns. It was like watching the poor man’s and woman’s dream being documented in a fleeting photograph and the words: “We were in the West” to be cherished in a family album for posterity. But with the former East Bloc countries becoming increasingly EU and Nato members, history is changing fast in Europe.

*********

Satis Shroff is a writer living in Freiburg (Germany) and has written textbooks on Nepali: Sprachkunde for Germans (Horlemann Verlag, Bad Honnef) and has written for Nelles Verlag’s guidebook ‘Nepal’(Munich), articles in The Christian Science Monitor, The Fryburger, The Rising Nepal, Radio Nepal, Himal Asia, the Nepalese Perspective and Nepal Information (Cologne). He has studied Medicine and Sozialarbeit in Freiburg and Creative Writing (Writers Bureau, Manchester). He is the published author of three books on www.Lulu.com: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelgue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. Satis Shroff is a member of “Writers of Peace,” poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS), Boloji and The Asian Writer. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. He is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Nepal’s literary heritage and culture in his writings and in preserving Nepal’s identity in Germany. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

Love Songs on a Misty Morning (Satis Shroff)

satisshroff — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:53:37 +0000

Love Songs On a Misty Morning (Satis Shroff)

Do You Remember?

On a misty morning at Pokhara,

We sat in a dugout canoe

With our college friends.

The misty veil slowly disappeared.

Mirrored on the torquoise waters

Of the lake Phewa,

Were the virgin white peaks

Crowned by Machhapuchare,

The fish-tailed one.

Placid, serene, majestic,

A moment of magic.

Do you remember?

The love songs I sang from our canoe,

Strumming on my guitar

Were meant for you.

For you alone.

Even the Himalayan birds

Stopped chirping

To eavesdrop at our wondrous melodies,

Like at a Rodighar.

Our friends sang in chorus:

Nepalese folk-songs,

Bollywood, Urdu

And English lyrics

On that misty morning.

Songs sung in chorus

To share our feelings

Of the beauty of Nature

And human attachments.

Breaking the tranquillity

Of the misty morning in the Lake Phewa.

A motley morning symphony.

The elderly Phewa-fisher with myriads

Of wrinkles on his Tamang smiled,

As he rowed the long canoe.

A knowing smile,

For he too had sung love lyrics

When he was young.

The jhaurey and ghasi songs

A frugal life in the Annapurna hills,

Trying hard to make ends meet.

He had his life behind him,

We had ours before us.

Life was cruel in the hills,

But love was everywhere.

Madamoiselle von Neufchateau (Satis Shroff)

I see you,

Madamoiselle von Neufchateau.

Your winning smile,

Your head bent to the side,

Your charming French accent

From the Vosges.

You invited me to your apartment,

Took you with all my senses.

I smelt you,

Looked at you,

I felt you

With my fingers,

My face,

My lips,

My extremities

Reminiscent of Süsskind’s Protagonist.

Holistic anatomy

In our moments of bliss and joy,

Away from text-books, lectures,

And pedantic professors,

In a provincial town in France.

Red wine, baguette, Dulcimer,

Neil Young,

Dolche vita,

A Bohemian lifestyle.

*****

Madame Chanel (Satis Shroff)

Somehow,

It wasn’t you.

You smelt of Chanel 10.

You wore it when you went out of the door,

You had it on when you entered your chamber.

The smell of formalin still lingered in my nose,

After all those anatomy dissections

In the wintry afternoons in Germany.

Short days and early darkness.

I felt the same caustic smell

Of frogs, dogfish, crustaceans

That died horrible deaths,

Drowned in formaldehyde.

We were students of zoology,

Were obliged to dissect them.

Self instilled, sadistic post-mortems,

Studied their nervous, digestive systems,

In the Vale of Catmandu.

I’m with you now,

Madame Chanel,

To forget the corpses,

Of animals and dissected Germans

In my life.

The elegant, sweet, warm nuance

Of your well-trained body,

Your long brown hair,

Your fair epidermis,

Mingled with soft French words

Of love.

Your Je’taime

Reminds me of Jane Birkin

And her passionate song,

That we cherished three decades ago.

Je’taime,

Cherie.

*****

The Symphony of the Morning (Satis Shroff)

I discern the recurring chirps and whistles

Of the birds in the vast foliage of an oak tree,

A German Eiche.

Whistles, chirps, hoots

And melodious symphony,

Like the incessant waves

Slashing on the shores of the Atlantic.

A single bird gives the tact,

A strong monotonous chirp.

The others follow suit,

Not in unison

But still in harmony.

You notice so many melodies

When you eavesdrop,

In the quiet comfort of your bed.

The natural symphony of the morning:

Adagio, crescendo,

It’s all there

For your fine ears.

——————–

BOMBAY BURNING (Satis Shroff)

Munjo Mumbai!

Bombay’s burning.

All Muslims are not terrorists,

Although some Muslims are.

Not all Hindus are honourable,

But many are.

Whether one is a terrorist,

Lies in the eyes of the observer.

Are the eyes

Those of Hindus or Muslims,

Jains or Sikhs,

Christians or Parsis,

Buddhists or Bahais,

Animists or atheists

Or the Dalits of the Hindu society?

Are the 130 million Muslims of India

To be judged by the Hindus,

Because Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel blew up

At the hands of the ‘Deccan Mujahidin?’

The ghost of Osama’s al-Qaida

Makes the rounds again.

India’s liberal, secular status

Is at stake,

When anti-Muslim resentiments

Are fired

By emotional Hindu nationalists.

Is it Hafiz Saeed versus Babu Bajrangi?

There’s more to it

Than meets the eye.

The USA can bomb

Al-Qaida and Taliban

Hideouts in Pakistan.

But India cannot follow suit.

The wounds in the consciousness

Of Indians and Pakistanis,

Caused by the division of the subcontinent

Haven’t healed yet.

The Babri mosque,

The slaughter of Muslims in Gujerat,

The war in Kashmir

Still linger in the memories

Of the Pakistanis.

An attack would only

Open old clots

And trigger a nuclear war.

Have not the Muslims

Of this subcontinent

Shown solidarity and loyalty

When China waged a Himalayan krieg,

When India freed the people of East Pakistan,

When India fought against the Nizam of Hyderabad?

Hindus and Muslims

Can be friends,

Just as Buddhists and Christians.

Let not communal strife

Pollute our minds.

Let us live

And let live.

Togetherness,

Miteinander,

Should be the cry of the day,

Not bloodshed and mayhem

In the name of Allah, Shiva or Christus.

It is humans,

Fanatical humans,

Who create crimes,

Injustice and folly

On human souls.

Gewalt breeds only Gewalt.

Hush, read the holy Koran,

Bible, Vedas and Upanishads

Between the lines,

And struggle for more words of love,

Understanding, tolerance, dignity

Of humans and animals

In this precious world.

Shanti!

About the Author: Satis Shroff teaches Creative Writing at the University of Freiburg and is the published author of four books on http://www.storesLulu.com.satisle: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelogue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff) and Kleine und Grosse Nepali Sprachkunde (Horlemann Verlag). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. Satis Shroff is a member of “Writers of Peace,” poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS) and The Asian Writer.

He is a regular contributor on The American Chronicle and its 21 affiliated newspapers in the USA, in addition to http://satisshroff.Gather.com etc. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) and the Zentrum für Schlüsselqualifikationen (University of Freiburg). Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

“I was extremely delighted with Satis Shroff’s work. Many people write poetry for years and never obtain the level of artistry that is present in his work. He is an elite poet with an undying passion for poetry.” Nigel Hillary, Publisher, Poetry Division – Noble House U.K.

Satis Shroff's ZEITGEIST

Commentary: Falklands & the Gurkha Issue (Satis Shroff)

An e-mail from Argentina

News: Brown’s government: arrogant & indifferent to the Gurkhas

THE GREAT GURKHAS (Satis Shroff)

GOETHE IN NEPALI (Satis Shroff)

Schwarzwald Lyrik: Aurora borealis (Satis Shroff)

GURKHAS IN LONDON 200 YEARS LATER (Satis Shroff)

An e-mail from Argentina

News from the Past: Brown’s government: arrogant & indifferent to the Gurkhas

BOOK REVIEWS By Satis Shroff

STILL WALKING (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

Lyrik & Prose: THE GHOST WRITER (Satis Shroff)

European Ethnology: Wessies and Ossies (Satis Shroff)

Melrichstadt has its fields

Love Songs on a Misty Morning (Satis Shroff)

Madame Chanel (Satis Shroff)