Matinee of the Dreisam Valley Choirs (Satis Shroff)

Fictional Shortstory: TWO WORLDS (Satis Shroff)

I look at the Himalayas and feel peace and joy sweeping over me. I don’t see the valleys, spurs, tarns we learn about at school. I see the eternal snows as the home of Gods and Goddesses: Shiva, Parvati, Meru, Kailash, Annapurna and Sagarmatha.

At home I lived in a Hindu world in a house that is actually a two-storied bungalow. At school I inhabited a western-oriented, Catholic world.

My Mom said that the Ganges river, also known as Ganga, was brought from Heaven by the sage Bhagirath. Ganga was received by Shiva on his head, and from her mouth flows the water to the earth, down the Ganges delta.

But my Irish teacher said the Ganges has its origin in a Himalayan glacier. One was mythology, I was told, and the other was Geography and I had to learn to keep the two apart. Growing up was learning to live in two worlds, two cultures, two languages, norms and values, and sometimes I was muddled up in my thoughts.

Why was I scared when I saw crows and mynahs?

My Mom says: ‘When a crow comes to your house it brings you bad news. The crow is never dies.

– Why, Mom?

– Because it has drunk amrit, the elixir of life.

– Mom, why does Dhaney spit thrice when he waters the lawn?

– To drive away unknown spirits that lurk around. There are boksas and boksis behind nooks and crannies. So one has to be careful.

Oh, dear. Is that the reason I’m so careful whenever I meet people or encounter Nature?

My Nepali soul is so sensitive. I’m so loyal to my near and dear ones, even to people who have eaten my salt and those who’s salt I have eaten.

Mom taught me to do Vedic rituals and I loved how she washed the bronze statues of the Gods and Goddesses, dried them, put scarlet clothes on them. She’d make a paste of sandle-wood, sitting cross-legged in her small temple.

 I’d sit near her on a pillow, with folded hands. She’d recite verses from the Vedas and I’d repeat them. I didn’t understand much then because they were in Sanskrit. But it was a serene, sincere prayer, a monologue with the revered ones. She’d light oil lamps and perform an aarati, beckon and revere the deities and give them offerings of flowers, sweet-meat, incense sticks and nuts. Then she’d blow a conch, ring the bell in prayer and beat the hand-drum by shaking it rhythmically.

At school we were obliged to listen to Catechism.

* * *

“You Uncle Krishna’s coming to visit us tonight,” said Mom. Uncle Krishna was named after the hero of Bhagavad Gita, which is a celebrated episode of the Mahabharata. Krishna is the main speaker in the story and explains to Arjuna his philosophical story of the world.

Uncle Krishna was a salesman and he knew how to create suspense, and how to haggle with a customer in his own Newari way, after all his father was also a salesman.

Newars acquire business acumen in their mother’s wombs akin to the shrewd Marwaris, who come from Rajasthan in India. A big German tourist wanted to buy a lot of things from him at a wholesale price, but Krishna was adamant and insisted on selling the statues, thankas and other curio objects only as single items.

Uncle Krishna was like a magician, and one never knew what he’d pull out of his big traditional Nepali bag. One needed patience with him when he was in his element—-selling souvenirs.

At a point when the German thought he’d bought off the last item from Krishna’s bag, he would reach down into his bag and pull out another valuable looking object, a Budddha statue, a Manjushri statue with the sword with which he cut a gorge, so that the water of the lake, which was then Kathmandu Valley, could flow out, leaving behind a fertile basin, which we know today as Kathmandu Valley with its three former kingdoms: Kathmandu, Bhadgaon and Lalitpur.

Krishna was very pleased with himself that day, for he’d done a good business with the German businessman, who was so impressed by the items he’d bought that he asked as a repartee, “Does he have more of such things in his apartment?”

But Krishna, the namesake of the most celebrated hero of Hindu mythology, said:

– Das nächste mal! Another time and joined his hands in farewell and reverence.

* * *

Uncle Krishna, this soft-spoken and gentle Newar, came that evening. He wore European clothes as most males do in Catmandu, and a Nepali cap. He greeted my parents, my siblings and me heartily by touching our heads and blessing us. You don’t shake hands in Nepal. You just join your hands and says: ‘Namaste’ which mean ‘I greet the Godliness in you.’

The house had a wonderful view of Patan’s skyline, with hundreds of erratically built houses and motley styles—and to the right the green foliage of the Nagarjun Forest.

The sun was setting in the Mahabharat mountains in the distance and the monsoon clouds seemed to be gathering in the north, promising a torrential rain the next day.

– Kasto hunuhuncha? How are you? Are you doing well?

– Ramro cha hamro hal khabar, meaning thereby that we were all doing well.

He really seemed to be pleased to meet us. Like a sorcerer, he asked us to be seated and he made a slow movement and fished out two Pashmina shawl for my parents and put them around their heads.

My parents were overwhelmed and thanked him. This was warm, heartfelt Newari hospitality.

My Dad came to me and whispered in my ear:

– Want to bet? Krishna will want me to drive him home tonight.

– Isn’t there any bus or taxi later? I asked him naively.

– There are no buses and taxis later and he’s scared of the spirits that lurk in Kathmandu and Patan. He hates walking home. You must ask him. He’s really scared of ghosts.

At a good moment I asked Uncle Krishna:

– Are you afraid of ghosts and evil spirits in Catmandu?

Krishna looked at me unbelievingly, as though he was trying to say how could you ask such a silly question and said with an earnest face:

– Apaii! Chaa ni hau, of course, there are evil spirits!

Himalayas: the Abode of the Gods and Goddesses #satisshroff