TALES FROM SHANGRI LA (Satis Shroff)

TALES FROM SHANGRI LA (Satis Shroff)

Bagh Chal (Tiger Moves)

The man was gathering blubber around his waist

He had become strong

For he was left alone

To do what such people do:

He invented rules and standards

As he pleased.

This was a small kingdom,

A publishing house of the King.

Two dailies in English and Nepali

And a lit mag.

He had workers under him:

Journalists, reporters, editors,

Copywriters and peons who ran errands.

Perhaps he had a nephew,

Whom he wanted to give the job I had.

In Nepal we call it ‘afnu manchey,’

In Germany it’s called ‘Vitamin B,’

The ‘B stands for Beziehung’ or connexions.

And now he had someone else,

An outsider,

As Nepalese from outside Catmandu Valley are called.

What ensued was a popular Nepalese bagh-chal game,

Whereby the tiger tries to eat as many goats as possible.

He was the tiger and I was the goat.

After every article I wrote about a visiting

American or British writer or cultural artist,

I was summoned by an apologetic and haggard-faced peon,

To appear downstairs

Before the obese, moustachioed, bespectacled bureaucrat.

A Newar whom I loathed.

I was obliged to explain

Why I’d written  about the said person.

He seemed to hate people from the West.

He wanted me probably to write

About the fictive wonders of communism and socialism.

I never complained but gave him a nonchalant stare,

Listened to what he had to say

And left.

No word of praise was to be expected,

Only a sarcastic smile.

He was a bureaucrat practicing black pedagogy

In a Third World publication.

I just didn’t suit his idea of a journalist

What he expected was a karmachari,

Who stoops low when greeting him,

And says: ‘dhanyavad’ and ‘hajur hunchha!’

After each of his sentences.

I wasn’t from the Valley;

I was from the hills of Eastern Nepal,

Where people learn to be smart early,

And lack the servility found in a sovereign’s hierarchy.

I’d gone to an English school with a prince from Shangri La

And saw this oaf as a bead in a long garland.

Glossary:

karmachari: civil servant

dhanyavad: thank you

hazur hunchha: yes, sir

* * *

HEALING HERBS AND LANDLUFT (Satis Shroff)

You breathe in the Alpine Landluft

And experience the power of nature.

The mountain panorama overwhelms you,

As you walk along the hillside.

You see waterfalls on the huge chasm wall,

From the giddy height you observe

A silvery river snaking its way to the valley below.

One careless step and you’re lost.

But this is also the place where you feel

The almighty Nature

If you only open your mind, heart and soul.

This is the moment to let go

Of all the attachments in your earthly existence.

Just like the mineral-filled air of the sea,

You breathe in the clean mountain air,

Which has a healing effect,

In the deepest alveoli of your lungs.

Walking in the Alps, Himalayas and Schwarzwald

Stimulates your nerves and your organism.

You open your eyes keenly,

And see the tree shapes, fern and moss

Around the stony paths.

There’s magic in the plant world around you;

The flowers and herbs are aromatic,

And the people in the Alps and Schwarzwald

Use these healing herbs to cure their illnesses.

There’s a renaissance of Kräuterfrauen who gather them,

Akin to the shamans in the Himalayas,

Who collect and try such herbs, petals, stems and roots.

Glossary:

Landluft: country air

Kräuterfrauen: herb women who gather medicinal plants

* * *