The
electric whizz of a circular saw cuts metallically into my dreams. Beneath that a hammer bangs a dull
rhythm. Cries of people on the street
echo up to our room, shouting above the continuous bursts of beeping from
vehicle horns. I roll over onto my good
ear, trying to muffle the sounds out, but I find no solace of sleep in the soft
down of the pillow. Alex ruffles behind
me, tugging the sheet, my tolerance for disturbance terminated. Peeking through my reluctant eyelids, I seek
out the clock. 7.20 am. Back in the land of perpetual noises. Where the peace of spirituality that is
sought by the disillusioned Westerner, is ironically absent in any audible
sense. After a resentful hour, trying to
ignore the noise and escape back into the quiet of slumber, we relent.
‘Might
as well get up.’ I say.
‘Yeah,
I guess so.’ Alex replies.
‘Who’s
turn for the cold shower?’
‘Yours.’
‘Of
course.’
It
takes until the end of my excruciatingly cold shower for the hot water to
trickle through.
The
narrow streets outside are wet from the heavy monsoon rain that fell
overnight. The large calf-deep potholes
are filled with muddy water. Attempts
have been made to fill some of the deeper ones in with bricks, gravel and sand
bags. The trishaws, scooters, white
Suzuki-Maruti taxis, and pick-ups beep endlessly to alert all to their
presence, inching their way past each other, cyclists, dogs and indifferent
pedestrians. Despite the rain the air is
hot and thick, the water vapour carrying the grime of the streets, depositing a
layer of the city onto our skin.
‘Look!’ I say pointing up at the low skyline.
Above
us are large knots of power lines, and above them the jumbled roofs of the
buildings. Four storey concrete cuboids that
overbear the rickety tiled slopes of the traditional houses, with small,
ornately carved windows, surrounded by crumbly brickwork, survivors of the 1934
earthquake. A monkey sits on the apex of
one of the roofs of the old houses, his head cocked, black tipped tail curled
around him, staring at us. The tring of
a trishaw bell sounds close by.
‘Watch
out.’ Alex says, gently guiding me
towards the side of the road as the trishaw pulls up next to him.
Behind
that is the impatient beep of a taxi.
‘No
thanks.’
I
hear Alex say. He repeats it with a
gruff tone when the trishaw cyclist pesters him further into a tour of the
city.
‘Maybe
it’s Hanuman.’ I say.
‘I
don’t know why they just can’t take no for an answer.’ He says.
The
monkey shows the redness of his sore looking posterior and bounds across the
unimpeded roofs of the city.
We
continue walking down the road, Alex trailing behind; there is not enough room
for us to walk side by side. Entering
into Thamel, the tourist ghetto of Kathmandu, the offerings of the small shops
set into the buildings along the sides of the streets begin to target the
tourist. The butcher shops with sheep
heads buzzing with flies sat on counters, the dingy, mould blackened rooms with
low, worn, plywood tables, surrounded by stools, that serve as restaurants for
the locals, and the shops that serve more as cupboards of clutter, containing
great pots, heavy ladles and dented metal plates come to an abrupt end. The fare being peddled, sometimes with
aggression, other times with indifference, repeated randomly along the
streets. Fake Northface trekking gear,
‘antiques’, cheeky wooden carvings of mischievous looking sexual frolickers,
beautifully coloured and intricate mandalas, book shops, alternative clothing,
ethnic jewellery, khurkuri knives, restaurants, generic paintings depicting
scenes of mountain ranges and peasants and felt slippers. Each product has its own store. All of it the same in like stores.
Behind
me I hear the increasing exasperation in Alex’s tone as he fends off trekking
guides, bead sellers, weed sellers, taxis, rickshaws, shoe shiners, henna
artists and city guides.
‘No
thank you.’ ‘No thanks.’ ‘No.’
‘Look, I said no.’ ‘Just no.’
Escaping
the perpetual and physical bustle of the streets we duck into the Momostar for
breakfast. Similar to the many
restaurants around. Modest and dark,
with rudimentary furniture that offers no comfort, and smiling, ‘Namaste’
greeting waiters.
‘I
mean does it look like I smoke weed? I
have been asked about 15 times just walking from the hotel.’ Alex asks.
‘Well,
you are quite hairy.’ I reply
At
the door of the restaurant a grubby looking child sits leant up against the
door frame. His hair is matted, and his
clothes torn and dirt damaged. With
fingers pinched to his thumbs he raises his hand to his mouth and mimes
eating. The expression on his face says
please a thousand times over. Our food
arrives, a delicious steaming plate of momo’s, Tibetan style dumplings, and
glasses of hot honey, ginger and lemon.
The pleading arch in the space between the boys eyebrows heightens,
seeing our food. Looking at the
guttersnipe I shake my head at him, staring into the hunger in his eyes, that
gnaws at my heart.
‘It’s
so hard to say no.’
Alex
looks rounds at the boy who ups his imploring.
‘Not
much of a life is it.’ He says.
A
monkey drops down from the roof, swipes a squashed piece of fruit from the
gutter and scampers off with a swish of a black tipped tail, back up the building out of sight. The boy watches it. He gets up, head low and slopes away in the
hope of finding softer tourists.
Often
the streets open into a crossroads, at the centre of which are shrines to
Buddha, Shiva, or any other of the pantheon of Hindu deities. Glances down alleys reveal hidden secrets,
treasures of temples, plied with pigeons, tempted by the grains scattered by
children. Gold plated, wrought iron,
guiled gompas in squares that exclude the constant chatter and hum of the
streets they hide behind.
We
sit briefly in one of these squares, listening to the relative silence, smiling
at the fraction of peace we have found.
But before too long we see the buckled figures of beggars, creeping from
the shadows, dragging their frail forms towards us; healthy beasts of
privilege.
‘Let’s
go before we get mobbed.’ Alex says.
I
nod, arming myself with a couple of 10 rupee notes to pass with a smile and a Namaste
to the ones who manage to make it over before we stride back into the
throng.
At
Durbar Square we sit upon one of the staggered stages of one of the many
temples that fill it. Many others have
the same idea. Across from us is the impressive
nine stage Shiva temple, with depictions of carnal appetites carved into the
struts that hold up the roof. Many of
the buildings in this large square that was home to the Nepalese royalty date
back to the C16th.
‘It’s
nice to see architecture that isn’t influenced by the ancient Greeks.’ I say.
‘Yeah. It’s beautiful.’ Alex says.
Then he laughs. ‘Naughty little
monkey.’
I
look to see a monkey scamper using his two legs and one arm, glancing behind
him as he runs. In his other hand is a
big fresh piece of cucumber. Behind him
is a man aiming a catapult at him. The
man shakes his head as the monkey moves out of shot, and goes back to tending
his stall, hoping to better defend his wares from the quick thievery of the
monkeys.
‘It’s
the same one as before. Look, it has the
same black tip on the end of his tail.’
I say.
‘He’s
staring at us again.’
And
he was. Sat with limbs wrapped around a
salacious wooden support, the monkey watched us as he nibbled on his
procurement.
Up
the high steps of the temple stages, three grimy looking children clambered
towards us. Their spindly limbs levering
their tiny bodies up and over the tall steps.
As they approached us the two smaller ones hid behind the older one,
unsure as how to proceed. The older
child was only around 6 himself. They
smiled nervously at us revealing rotting stumps of teeth. Dirt ground into the shallow creases of their
supple skin. Mud embedded under and
around the nails of their hands and feet.
‘Two
rupee Mr.’ The older one says.
The
other two giggle and skip around behind him.
I
shake my head and smile.
‘Sweet. Sweet.
Give sweet.’
Again
I shake my head, and poke my tongue out at them. They giggle more. The silliness of an adult is an unusual
surprise. For a while we exchange funny
faces with each other, and then they bounce down the steps of the temple to
find another to test their confidence on.
‘I
think it might rain soon.’ Alex said
looking at the dark cloud seeping across the sky.
For
a couple of hours we wander back through the centuries, admiring the
beautifully carved, but modest, palace of the old Nepalese royalty. Climbing vast numbers of steep, uneven steps,
we find vistas of the city spanning 360o, lofty viewing rooms for
the kings to survey their kingdom. There
are silent courtyards, where only the sound of the pigeons fluttering to the
rafters to roost can be heard. It is a
palace of ascetic pleasure rather than the gaudy grandeur found in those found
in Europe and Nepal’s more ostentatious Indian neighbours.
We
take a different route back towards the hotel.
The roads of the old city, a maze of similarly looking streets, where we
are never quite sure if we have walked along it already or not. In the distance I spot the monkey, watching,
waiting.
‘It’s
him again.’ I say.
‘Are
you sure? That seems unlikely.’ Alex replies.
‘Maybe
he likes us.’
‘Maybe
he wants to rob us. Is your bag zipped
up? They’re quick. They’ll have your camera before you even
notice.’
‘Let’s
follow him.’
‘Do
we have to?’
I
walk towards the monkey, who shows me his raw bottom again and leaps forward,
turning around occasionally to see if we are following. He leads us down quiet streets, lined with
tiny eateries, the proprietors either nattering to each other or asleep at one
of their own tables. The first patter of
rain splats down onto the precarious cobbles.
‘Come
on Wendy, this is stupid. Let’s get back
to the hotel. It is going to piss down
soon.’
‘No
wait. Look, there he is. At that doorway.’
The
monkey slipped through a rusted metal door marking the outside territory of a
small tenement. The sign above it read ‘Langtang
Children’s Home’. I follow the monkey
in. Alex goes to sit in one of the
little cafés.
‘I’ll
wait for you.’ He says. ‘I’ll trust your judgement and match it.’
‘I
won’t be long.’
Inside
the monkey is gone, and from the end of a long path I see two happy people
waving at me. A man with one of the most
genuine smiles of love I have ever seen comes to the gate and welcomes me in.
‘Namaste. Please.’
He says pointing towards the tenement block. ‘How did you hear of us?’
‘I
was just passing.’
The
man leads me to the entrance where a woman with beauty radiating from her soul greets
me. At the door a child with obvious
learning disabilities was wiggling out on his belly. A girl came to the doorway, and the child
giggled as the girl hoisted him back inside again with cheerful tut. In the clean, carpeted room, were six
wriggling children, all mentally disabled.
‘We
opened 7 years ago.’ The man, Jamak
said. ‘My wife and I took in 22 normal
children from the rural villages that had either lost their families, or whose
families were too poor to look after them.
We live here with them. Come see
the place, please.’
Jamak
took me around the building and showed me the comfortable dorms where the
children, along with his own daughter slept, the small dining room with low
tables lined along the walls to maximise space, the kitchen, the computer room,
which was home to a machine some fifteen years old, a small reading and TV room,
and a basic room for the physiotherapy of the disabled children. He explained that he has the help of a Dutch
NGO to help him fund the running of the place.
There were pictures on the walls of the children when they first
arrived, looking rigid, solemn, scared, and their evolution over the seven
years to bright beaming children with a future.
Even after the children are required by law to leave, at 15, they are
supported by Jamak and his family, to ensure their future remains certain.
Jamak
never stops smiling, it increases when he tells of something that warms
him. Like the progress of the disabled
children he had started looking after.
‘I
have no training in looking after disabled children. But we have started to take in 6 during the
days. We hope that in a year we can take
them full time, when we have learnt more.
Their families lock them in rooms during the day. The parents have to work, and a disabled
child is a burden. When they first came
here, they couldn’t eat on their own.
They couldn’t use their hands.
Now they can.’ Jamak beamed.
I
almost cry I am so moved by the love and selflessness of the amazing man in
front of me. Before leaving I make a
donation, doubling it to include Alex’s contribution.
‘I
figure you can do more good with this than would come of it if I gave it to the
street kids.’ I say.
Jamak
smiles, its warmth penetrates and exposes the weak selfishness within me.
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