EINE REISE NACH GORKHALAND (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

Die Fahrt von Kathmandu nach Kakarbhita in Ost-Nepal war ein eigenartiges Erlebnis. Die Sicherheitsvorkehrungen waren streng. Ein Nepali Polizist verteilte Karten auf denen die Reisenden ihren Namen, Adresse und Bestimmungsort angeben mußten. Das Gepäck wurde identifiziert und zur gründlichen Untersuchung geöffnet.

Mugling: In Kathmandu starten Busse nach Birganj vom zentralen Busbahnhof aus. Es gibt auch Nachbusse. Von Birganj fahren Busse nach Kathmandu über Mugling (272km). Außerdem kann man die alte Strasse hinder Hitauda über Daman benutzen, ist 100 km kürzer aber sehr kurvenreich. In Mugling hatten wir um 22 Uhr einen Aufenthalt um eine kurze dal-bhat-tarkari Sitzung abzuhalten. Man bekommt einen Löffel nur auf verlangen, da die meisten mit den rechten Hand essen. Die Stadt machte den Eindruck eines Grenzortes im Wilden Westen. Als Toilette dienten jede Winkel und dunkle Gassen. Das ununterbrochene Plärren der penetranten indischen Filmmusik im Nachtbus sorgte dafür, da viele Reisenden wach blieben, während einige wenige davon auch eingeschläfert wurden. Nepali Musik ist ja so weich, dezent und unaufdringlich. Der Busfahrer und sein Angestellter diskutieren und gestikulieren. Letztere schien der Sündenbock zu sein und wurde regelrecht angefahren.

Tribhuvan Rajpath: Die Tribhuvan Rajpath erschien als eine Berg und Talsilhouette, ab und zu zeigten ein oder zwei kleine Lichter die Existenz von Nepali Höfen in der Gebirgswildnis an. Die Rajpath ist 200km lang und verbindet Kathmandu mit Raxaul an der indischen Grenze. Sie wurde mit indischer Hilfe erbaut und 1956 eröffnet.Wir erreichen Itari um 6 Uhr 30 und halten bei einem Graben, gefüllt mit stehenden grünlichen Wasser, an dem acht Enten herumstanden, schweigend und in Gesellschaft eines Wegweisers: Kathmandu via Mugling 519 km. Itari war am Expandieren, was von halbfertigen Neubauten angezeigt wurde.

Ein Sadhu schlenderte heran um Geld zu erbetteln. Es gab Strassenhändler mit nepalesischen Gebäck. Heruntergekommene Hütten waren in Teehäuser verwandelt worden, geschmückt mit Coca Colareklame. Eine elegante Nepali Frau in einem Bakhu-kleid aus dem Norden war dabei sich zu waschen.

Im Bus gab es fünf Thakali Schulkinder, die auf dem Weg nach Kalimpong waren, zu Dr. Graham's Home. Scharen indischen Touristen tranken Tee. Das ist das vernünftigste um den Kathmandu Quickstep (Durchfall) zu vermeiden.

Hitauda: Schon um 2 Uhr 30 erreichten wir Hitauda. Das steile serpentinenreiche Abenteuer namens Tribhuvan Rajpath war überstanden. Vor vierzig Jahren wurden Autos von gewaltigen Trägerkolonnen auf dem Rücken aus Indien nach Kathmandu gebracht. Man könnte die Geräusche von anderen Bussen, die ankamen oder abfuhren vernehmen. Straßenhändler schrien sich die Kehle heiß und verkauften heißen Tee, hartgekochte Eier, Papad, Orangen und gerösteten Mais.

Leibesvisitationen: Es gab eine Kontrollenstelle und Leibevisitationen. Ich erinnere mich, dass in Mai 1985 reifen die Nepali Congress Partei und die Nepal Communist Party zu einer Satyagraha-Bewegung (wie einst in britische Indien) auf und viele Mitglieder dieser Parteien wurden damals verhaftet. Die Situation eskalierte am 20. Juni, als Bombenanschläge in Kathmandu und anderen Städten Nepals acht Tote und 22 Verletzte forderten. Zu den Anschlägen bekannten sich Organisationen wie: Janvadi Morcha (Volksforum) und Samyukta Mukti Bahini (NepalsNaxalite Gruppe. In einen schäbigen Hütte mit zwei Türen fühlte der Gendarm die Schlüssel in meiner Tasche und Fragte mich was das sei.

"Meine Schlüssel" antwortete ich auf Nepali, woraufhin er mich aus der Schlange winkte. In der Nähe wartete eine ältere tibetische Frau ebenfalls darauf abgetastet zu werden.
Kakarbhita: Kakarbhita war eine kleine Grenzstadt, schäbig, armselig und mit einer Menge kleiner Restaurants, die Linsensuppe, Reis und Curryhuhn anboten. Sie hat 3000 Einwohner, eine Polizeiwache, kein Krankenhaus, nicht einmal eine Apotheke, einige Drogerien und unzählige Stroh oder Bambushütten.

Siliguri: Siliguri ist ein Eisenbahnnetz und das Tor zu den Darjeeling Bergen. Beim Sukunawald sah man die Plantagen in der Nähe der Straße und Gorkhali Pflücker, die "drei-Blätter-und-eine-Knospe" um 11 Uhr morgens sammelten, die Mahanadibrücke und dann, in Richtung Hochland, Tindharia, wo es eine Werkstatt für die berühmte Darjeeling-Himalayan-Eisenbahn gibt, ein niedlicher 'Spielzeug', der malerische kleine Gurkha Städte passiert, wie Ghayabari, Kurseong, Sepoydhura, Tung, Ghoom und schließlich Darjeeling selbst.

"Der ganze Weg bis dahin war noch vor zwei Jahrzehnten dicht bewaldet, aber jetzt werden die Berge nach jedem heftigen Monsun ein Stück weiter abgetragen", sagte Mr.Dixit, ein Ingenieur im Ruhestand den ich in Kurseong traf. Der Andrang in die Berge sei die letzte Zeit sehr groß gewesen. In der Nähe von Ghoom zog sich eine hässliche Narbe durch die Landschaft, die von einem Erdrutsch herrschte. Straßenarbeiter waren damit beschäftigt sie mit Steinen und Zement wieder zu befestigen.

Tiger Hill: In Darjeeling hatte ich bei einem Reisebüro in der Nähe des Capitolkinos den Tag vorher eine Karte reserviert nur um dann herauszufinden, dass es mehr als ein Dutzend Jeeps und Landrovers vom Zeiten Weltkrieg Richtung Tiger Hill um 4 Uhr morgens gab. Der Gurkha Angestellte sagte, "Es ist besser ein bisschen früher zu kommen. Die ersten Kunden bekommen die besten Plätze." So ging ich um 3:30 dorthin.

Der Gurkha und seine Fahrzeugflotte war nirgends zu sehen. Ein Einheimischer mit mongolischen Zügen und einem Bart wie Djengisch Khan erschien um 4:15 und sagte, dass wir zu einer anderen Stelle gehen müssten, wo der Jeep geparkt wäre. Indische Standard Zeit, dachte ich. In einem solchen Urlaub muss man cool bleiben. Ein Indischer Mitreisender mit einer Deutschen Frau meinte: "Wenn ihr so spät kommt, ist es kein Wunder, dass ihr Gurkhas kein Fortschritt macht." Der taktlose dunkle Reisender, der das sagte war ein Flachländer.
"Wie zum Teufel können wir Fortschritt machen, wenn ganze Darjeeling Bezirk zum Sperrgebiet erklärt wird, und wenn alle Teeplantagen den Bengalis von Kalkutta gehören, und wenn die indische Regierung Geld nur in Sikkim investiert, und wenn unsere Gorkhalisprache bis neulich nicht anerkannt wurde?" erwiderte der Gorkhafahrer.

Das war ein schlagfertiger, verärgerter Gorkha, der keinen Spaß verstand. Das ist was ich an den Gurkhas von Darjeeling bewundere. Sogar ein Jeepfahrer spricht ausreichend Englisch, Hindi und Gorkhali (Nepali).

Die Gorkhas von Darjeeling haben seit Oktober 1988 ihre Waffen nach 28 Monaten andauernden Kämpfen mit der indischen Regierung niedergelegt. Der Gorkhaland Aufstand kostete 200 Leben und brachte eine Ergänzung (Amendment) zum Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council Erlaß.

Schließlich wurden neun Leute in den Jeep gepackt und wir fuhren in Richtung Tiger Hill. Es gab ein großes Tor mit den traditionellen tibetischen Schnitzereien--zwei Tigern--durch welches die Fahrzeuge den Berg hinauffuhren. Manche Jeeps hatten Schwierigkeiten und keuchten wie Asthmatiker.

Der Jeep hielt 300m unterhalb des Gipfels und wir gingen zu Fuß zum Gipfel. Ein Sherpa mit Moon-Boots lief mit einem großen Stein den Hang hinauf um sein Jeep zu bremsen, der gerade begann rückwärts die Straße hinunter zu rollen. Die Bremsen schienen nicht so gut zu funktionieren, bei dieser Steigung jedenfalls.

Kanchenjunga Massif: Dann konnte man sehen wie sich die Spitze des 8598m Kenchanjunga Massif plötzlich Rot färbte, die ersten Sonnenstrahlen. Nach kurzer Zeit wurde sie Orange und nahm allmählich eine Gelbe Färbung an. Man konnte die Vögel des Himalaya in den Büschen und Bäumen zwitschern hören und zugleich das Klicken der Touristenkameras.
Nach einer kurzen Fahrt durch Pinienwälder und blaue Berge wurden wir durch eine Aussicht auf das Kanchenjunga in seiner ganzen Majestät belohnt.

In Ghoom, das ist der höchste Ort auf der Old Hill Cart Road, besuchten wir das buddhistische Kloster aus dem 19.Jahrhundert (circa 8km von Darjeeling). Im massiven, pompösen Pagoda ähnlichen Gebäude befanden sich ein Altar des Maitree Buddha, Butterlämpchen und tibetanische Khadatücher in leuchtendem Rot, Weiß und Gelb. Es war ein Fest für den Augen. Tibetische Kunst im Exil. Eintritt 0.50 Paise. Wir warfen einen Blick in das Museum mit wertvoller Buddhistischer Literatur, traditionellen rituellen Masken aus dem Himalayaraum und einer numismatischen Sammlung in der Mitte des Raumes, mit Münzen und Banknoten aus dem Tibet, die bis 1959 im Umlauf waren.

Ein kleiner, freundlicher Lamanoviz posierte vor den Touristen, und ein anderer Lama mit schwarzem Haar sprang hinter einer Dämonenmaske hervor um für die Nachwelt festgehalten zu werden.

Eine blaue Darjeeling Himalayan Dampflok gebaut 1881 von Sharp & Co Glasgow, ratterte bergab auf ihrem weg nach Kurseong, einer weiteren Bergstation. Einige Jungen aus Ghoom vergnügten sich, indem sie bei fahrendem Zug hinaus und wieder hinein sprangen. Der hilflose Schaffner schrie sie an, tat es ihnen gleich und versuchte einen zu erwischen. Die Ghoom-Jungs waren frech und flink. Es war ein herrliches Spektakel wie aus einem slap-stick Filmstreife.
Entlang der mini Schienen, die einen an die Schwäbische Eisenbahn denken ließen, waren scharen von Verkäufern von tibetischer Herkunft die Altkleider, Halsketten, Gürtel, Taschen und viele andere Gegenstände verkauften, wie sie üblicherweise an der Laden La Straße in Darjeeling angeboten werden.

Eine kurze Fahrt zum Batasia loop, wo die Eisenbahn bei der abfahrt nach Darjeeling, ein paar Schlaufen fährt, erwies sich als interessant. An diesem dunstigen Morgen sah man die Wolken langsam aufsteigen von den berühmten Teegärten in den Tälern.

Bei den Gorkhas: Am nächsten Tag fuhr ich mit einem Gorkha Freund, Susil Basnet, nach Dow Hill über Kurseong an den Tbc Sanatorium vorbei, in einem Jeep noch aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, der von einem Gorkha namens Norden Lama, mit Alkoholfahne gefahren wurde. Es gibt keine Promillen-Kontrolle in Darjeeling oder Indien. In den kalten und regnerischen Monsunmonaten ist es nicht unüblichen zu beobachten wie Jeep und Lastwagenfahrer anhalten um einen Schluck Raksi (Reisschnaps) zu trinken um sich warm zu halten. Ich muss zugeben ich war erleichtert als wir unser Ziel erreichten. Wir wurden mit einer vorzüglichen Rai-Mahlzeit bestehend aus Dal-Bhat-Shikar (Linsen-Reis-Ziegenfleisch) belohnt.

Nepalis bzw. Gorkhas sprechen normalerweise nicht beim Essen. Aber moderne Nepalis (Gorkhas) neigen dazu, die neue fremdländische (westliche) Angewohnheiten anzueignen, was von der ältere Generation nicht so gerne gesehen wird. Es gehört sich nicht. Mein Gorkha Freund sagte, er hatte sowohl Gefallen gefunden an den letzten Harold Robbins, Alstair Maclean und John Grisham Romanen, als auch Bhanu Bhakta Acharyas "Grasmäher Verse", Babulal Pradhan's Kurzgeschichten, Shiva Kumar Rai's "Dak Bungalow", Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s "Muna Madan" und Guru Prasad Mainali's Kurzgeschichten. Die in Indien Lebenden Gorkhas zitieren Urdu shahari Verse, Gedichte und Dialoge aus Indischen Kinos und Videofilmen.
In Kurseong traf ich Mr. Snehalata Roy, ein liebenswürdiger alter bengalischen Herr, der etwas vom intellectuellen Flair eines Nirad C. Chaudhuri hatte. Er hatte graues Haar, war korpulent und fochte einen immerwährenden Kampf gegen Rheumatismus, Arthritis und Tuberkulose, denn er war Kettenraucher. Er war ein vielgereister Versicherungsangestellte aus Kalkutta und hat sich schließlich in Kurseong niedergelassen. Mr. Roy sprach Gorkhali mit einem starken Ballygunj-Akzent aus Bengal. Er spöttete: "Die Gorkhas erschienen immerhin in den Schlagzeilen und erreichten es die Aufmerksamkeit in Delhi auf sich zu ziehen." Er zeigte mir sein Bibliothek und wir tranken Tee und plauderten.

TV und Video-Sucht: Fernsehen ist geradewegs zu einer Sucht geworden, was ein Besuch bei einer in der Stadt lebenden Gorkha-Familie deutlich sichtbar wurde. Video und Fernsehen scheinen Gespräche oder Spiele im Kreis der Familie ersetzt zu haben auch in den kleinsten Ecken des Landes. Die ganze noch-intakte Grossfamilie, die aus drei Generationen bestand, war im Bann der Mattscheibe. "Dallas", Cricket-Matches und politische "Sketch-up" am Sonntagmorgen. Zwischen den schlüpfrigen Intrigen JRs und einer Tasse Darjeelingtee sprach ich mit Mr. Chettri, einem pensionierten Inspecteur der Darjeeling-Himalaya Eisenbahn. Er meinte: "Die Tage der Wildschwein- und Fasanenjagd im Sukuna-Dschungel (Terai) sind vorbei." Er fuhr fort, die Patronen wären in Indien so teuer, dass er sein altes Winschester-Gewehr verkauft habe. Video, Fernsehen und lange Spaziergänge interessierten ihn nun am meisten. Erstere seien sein neuen Spielzeug.

Die klaren blauen Berge um uns, aus denen Tälern Wolken, die überbleibsel des Monsuns, emporkletterten, waren überwältigend.

Unmengen von Photographen aus Darjeeling, bewaffnet mit Polaroiden oder andere Kameras, versuchten schnell zum Zuge zu kommen. Einer näherte sich einem älteren einheimischen Gorkha und fragte, warum er denn die Kappe nicht von seinem Teleskope nehme und der erwiderte mit großem Ernst: "Schauen Sie Sir, ich bin nicht wie die anderen. Wenn die Aussicht schlecht ist und es wirklich nichts zu sehen gibt, mag ich den Leuten kein Geld abnehmen um sie dann den Dunst betrachten zu lassen. Ein Mann von Charakter und Ehrgefühl, wollte man glauben. Über 90 % der Touristen auf Tiger Hill waren Inder aus dem Flachland.
Tenzing Norgay’s Bergsteigerinstitut: Nach einem kurzen Frühstück strebte ich Richtung Chowrasta zu. Dorthin geht man zum Ponyreiten, um die Auslagen in den Schaufenstern zu betrachten oder um den Mall entlang zu spazieren bis zum Regierungsgebäude (Governor's Palast) und wieder zurück. Es ist der selbe Ort wo englische Damen und Herrn promenieren und ihren 5 O' Clock Tee in Keventer's oder Planters Club zu trinken. Danach ging ich zum Tenzing Norgay's Institute für Himalaya Touren, das sich in Birch Hill befindet, welches von den Indern heute Jawahar Parbat genannt wird. Der Eintrittsgebühr betrug eine Rupee. Es gab einiges zu sehen: Hochgebirgszelte, Bergsteigerausrüstung, Andenken, Glückwünschkarten und eine Fotoausstellung von Bezwingern und Alpinisten des Everest, welche an den verschiedenen Expeditionen und natürlich jener mit Reinhold Messner teilgenommen hatten.

Eine Plauderei mit einem Gorkha bediensteten des Himalayan Mountaineering Institut (HMI) erwies sich als interessant und führte zum Kauf eines Heftchens über "grundlegende, fortschrittliche und abenteuerliche" Kletterkurse. Seltsamerweise waren diese Kurse nicht für Ausländer gedacht. Vielleicht deshalb, weil die Inder seit ihrem Krieg mit China 1962 im Himalaya die Regionen Darjeeling, Sikkim und Bhutan zum Sperrgebiet erklärt haben.

Im Zoologischen Garten gab es gähnende sibirische Tiger zu sehen, Schwarzbären, Lamas, die bei der kleinsten Provokationen zu spucken anfingen, Pandas und exotische Vögel. Auch gab es im Gymkhana Club ein ausgestopftes Lama: Es fand gerade eine Ausstellung statt--mit der Aufschrift: "Bitte haben sie Geduld. Ein Cousin dieses Lamas wird sich bald einstellen". Das Naturgeschichte Museum zeigte ausgestopfte bengalische Tiger, Krokodile, den Wilden asiatischen Büffel und Reptilien.

Vom Hotel, wo ich mich eingerichtet hatte, hatte man einen überblick auf die Dächer und die Hinterhöfe von Darjeeling. Die meisten Häuser waren heruntergekommen und die Stadt konnte eine Schönheitsoperation gut gebrauchen. Es macht Mühe zu glauben, dass diese Stadt die Perle im Jewel der Britischen Besitzungen gewesen sein sollte. An allen Ecken gab es Momo- und Thukpaläden mit schmuddeligen Vorhängen vor dem Eingang und Marktschreien und Kleinhändler aus der Gangesebene, die in den Straßen der Bergstation ein bisschen zum Leben suchten. Es scheint als wachse Darjeeling, wie Kathmandu, ohne Plan. Die Häuser schießen in die Höhe, wie Pilze nach einem Monsunregen. Die Bevölkerung hat sich ebenfalls vergrößert und natürlich haben die Preise angezogen. Die Einwanderung von Leuten aus der Gangesebene, auf der Suche nach Wohnraum und Arbeit in der Bergen vergrößert das Elend noch weiter.
In Darjeeling gingen wir ins Simla-Restaurant. Kein Ort für Touristen, sondern für die Gorkhas. Gorkhas sind trinkfest und sie trinken gewöhnlich Raksi oder Chang, aber auch Rum oder Scotch. Die Rechnung war beachtlich aber mir wurde nicht erlaubt auch nur eine einzige Runde zu bezahlen. "Du bist ein Gast und Gäste von Gorkhas zahlen nichts," war die Antwort. Ich bekam dennoch eine Gelegenheit zur Gegenleistung am nächsten Tag bei Lobos, wo ich Kuchen und anderes Gebäck bestellte. Wie überall in der Welt, wo die Gorkhas zusammenkommen, gab es ausgedehnte Trinkgelage.

Am nächsten Tag wurde ich von einer Gorkhafamilie zum Mittagessen ins "Glens" eingeladen. "Als wir noch Schulkinder waren, waren wir verrückt nach einem Essen und Date bei Glenary's," sagte Mrs.Rai, die eine der teueren, von ausländischen Nonnen geleiteten Klosterschulen besucht hatte.

Ein Gelübde: "Während der 60iger Jahre hatten die Fentones, eine Musikgruppe aus Shillong und die "Diamonds" aus Darjeeling großen Erfolg mit ihren Beatlesstücken wie "Yesterday", "Can't Buy Me Love", und "Pretender" und "Satisfaction" von den Rolling Stones. Glenary ist nicht mehr was es einmal war. Es hat seinen Glanz, seine Eleganz und auch seine Gäste und Ambiente verloren", meinte Mrs.Rai, eine hübschen, schlanke Frau, während wir irgendein unbeschreibliches chinesisches Gericht mit unseren Essstäbchen zu uns nahmen.

Mrs.Rai hatte ein 'Bhakal' (ein Gelübde) abgelegt mit dem Versprechen an eine Gottheit ihre Gedenkstätte aufzusuchen, sollte ihr Wünsch in Erfüllung gehen. Ich konnte mir vorstellen, dass sie die Erfüllung einen ganzen Reihe von Wünsche nötig hatte. Wir gingen zum Mahakal-hügel. Den Weg säumten tibetische und indische Bettler. Im Tempelgelände flatterten Hunderten von orange-roten, gelben und weißen Gebetsfahnen fröhlich im Wind. Und in etwas, das eine Höhle ähnelte, befindet sich der Lama mit Abbildungen von Buddha, Avtars, Boddhisattvas, der verstorbene Panchen Lama, Dalai Lama und dem König von Nepal Birendra Shaha Deva, der als eine Inkarnation des Hindugottes Vishnu betrachtet wird. König Birendra hat in Darjeelings St. Joseph die schulische Ausbildung absolviert.

Kleine Fortschritte: In Darjeeling trifft man überall auf Plakate mit Willkommensgrüßen: Welcome to Gorkhaland. Und Mr. Dhurba Mohan Rai meinte: "Der Grund warum wir keine Fortschritte unter der indischen Regierung gemacht haben, besteht darin, dass wir untereinander so zerstritten sind. Überall gibt es Gorkhas:in der Kongress Partei, im CPI (Marxist), GNLF (Gorkha National Liberation Front), GVC(Gorkha Volunteer Force) und so weiter. Wir sind zu stark verstreut. Jetzt ist es das erste mal, dass sich eine größere Mehrheit in der Front der nationalen Befreiung der Gorkhas unter Subhas Ghising zusammengeschlossen hat. Vereint sind wir stark. Getrennt können wir uns gegenüber den anderen politischen Parteien von West Bengalen nicht behaupten."

Nach einer kurzen fahrt vom Haltestand der Taxis in Darjeeling zum North Point, bestieg ich Indiens älteste Kabinenseilbahn, die von Österreichern gebaut worden war und welche zum Singla Bazaar führt, gelegen im Tal des Little Rangit Flusses. Überall neben und unter einem könnte man die Teebusche (Thea sinensis) der Takdahplantage sehen. Man sah Gorkha-männer und Gorkhafrauen in ihren traditionellen Kleidern beim Wiegen und Rollen der Teeblätter, die sie nach der Herbst-Lese zum trocknen ausgebreitet hatten.

Es waren die Engländer gewesen, die die Nepalesen zur Einwanderung in den östlichen Himalaya ermutigt hatten, um in den neuangelegten Teeplantagen von Darjeeling und Assam zu arbeiten. Allein zwischen 1983 und 1986 beschäftigten die Plantagen 84,000 Menschen. Allerdings ging die Darjeeling Teeproduktion während der Gorkhalandkrise um 65% zurück.
In der Kabine der Seilbahn traf ich auf einen australishen Entwicklungshelfer aus Ost-Nepal, der gerade Ferien machte und stolz auf sein gebrochenes Nepali war; und eine ortsansässige Didi (große Schwester), welche einen Teeladen in Singamari betrieb, war ebenfalls auf dem Weg nach Takdah.

Direkt der Seilbahnbergstation gegenüber befindet sich die britische Schule St. Joseph, an der, unter anderen, die Königlichen Familie von Nepal ihre Cambridge Schulabschlussprüfungen abgelegt hat. Die Prüfungsarbeiten werden nach England ausgeschickt, dort korrigiert und die Zeugnisse werden ebenfalls in England ausgestellt. In den nahegelegenen Frazerhalle gibt es Zusammenkünfte, die von europäischen und amerikanischen Priestern (Jesuiten) und Nonnen organisiert werden, wo Jugendliche der indischen, nepali, bhutanesischen und sikkimisischen Elite Walzer, Tango und Mambo tanzen lernen.

In Singamari, auf dem Weg nach Lebong, wo sich eine der höchstgelegenen Pferderennbahnen der Welt befindet, konnte man sehen, wie erfahrene Sherpas am Tenzingfelsen Unterricht gaben--ein Felsen, der eine ziemliche Herausforderung für Möchte-gern-Kletterer und Alpinisten darzustellen schien.

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About the Author: Satis Shroff is a writer & poet based in Freiburg. He writes regularly for http://www.americanchronicle.com/ and its twenty-one affiliated newspapers in the USA. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and Manchester. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

DRINKING TEA IN DARJEELING WITH THE GORKHAS (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

The 126 year old cobalt blue coloured narrow-gauge Darjeeling Himalayan Railway train chugged and snorted its way from Kurseong to Darjeeling via Ghoom along the serpentine route, against the silvery backdrop of the 8598m Kenchenjunga Range, past the tea gardens, shanty tea-shops and tin-roofed huts. And painted across white-washed hillside walls you could still read the words:"Jai Gorkha! Jai Gorkhaland! Jai Hind!"

Hind is an anachronistic, pre-partition name for India, namely Hindustan: the land of the Hindus. After independence India became a secular state, because it didn’t have much of a choice due to the Muslims, Jains, Sikhs and other religious communities who all started demanding their own rights under the constitution. And the 750,000 Gorkhas in the 70 odd tea-gardens of Darjeeling District (north Bengal) also made it clear that they didn't have autonomous ambitions like: the Sikhs and their fight for Khalistan, and the Nagas with their Nagaland claims. The Gorkhas, who are ethnic Nepalese, only wanted a Gorkhaland within India's framework and the recognition of Nepali, pardon me, Gorkhali, as one of the languages of the secular Indian Constitution.

After a 28-month fight which began in the spring of 1986, the GNLF (Gorkha National Liberation Front) submitted their arms, and pledged to join India's mainstream.
Darjeeling (2123m), like in the hey-days of the British Raj, has remained a cool moun­tain resort for rich Indians and a few foreigners with its fresh air, British fashioned public schools, churches, Planter's Club, Gymkhaha and the blue-domed Governor's summer residence. The English schools bear names like: Victoria, Dow Hill, St.Jo­seph's, Goethals, St.Helen's, St.Paul's...reminiscent of a nostalgic era of colonial British establishment. My parents had sent me to the Kindergarten at St. Helen’s, near Kurseong and I have pleasant memories of that convent school. The morning prayers, breakfast with porridge and toast-marmalade and the sumptuous Indian cuisine at lunch, because we were Hindus and didn’t prefer to eat at the English refectory, where they served beef.

Darjeeling is a dying Queen of the Hills, ignored and neglected after the British left the Raj. Its streets have become mean and violent, and you see the economic decline on the faces of the Nepalis living in the small towns and the sprawling tea gardens. The obsolete infrastructure is corroding. It never received the much-needed financial shot-in-the-arm (like Sikkim did from the Central Government) from the ego-centric, troubled and arrogant West Bengal government.
"The British sahibs have gone. And now we have Indian brown sahibs who try to be more English than the English", said a Gorkha waiter at the Glenary’s near Chowrasta.

Today, a visitor to this restricted area in the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas will be witness to a sad, depressing scenario. The houses look dirty, rusty, poor, dilapidated and neglected. And the tea garden worker has a hard time trying to make ends meet. The wages are low. Even the mono-culture tea-production in Darjeeling went from 25,503 hectares in 1935 to 19,739 hectares in 1983. The Gorkhaland conflict reduced tea harvests by about 65%.The breakdown of the Soviet Union market has caused a total slump in tea-export. The price for Darjeeling tea was never so low, due to the heavy reliance on the Soviet consumers.

In the past Darjeeling has been neglected by the Central government in Delhi. And Sikkim received top priority. The administrative offices are all occupied by the Bengalis. The Newar community in the Darjeeling district has been pushed out by the clever Behari businessmen and shrewd Marwari money-lenders from the plains of India. The Gorkhalis attend the schools and colleges, but the only university of the district still lies in Siliguri in the plains, and they have to compete with the Bengalis, Beharis and the rest of 1000 million Indians for seats in the different faculties. And for jobs.

In the jungle of Indian bureaucracy, where corruption, nepotism and communal feeling is rampant, the common, honest Gorkha hillman cuts badly and gets a bad deal. No wonder the Gorkhas were enraged. Their very existence was being endangered. Their demands were apparently justified, for they only wanted to stay inside the Indian Union on better terms.
"The longstanding friction between the Nepalis and the Bengalis was always there", said my school-friend Sushil Basnet, a burly Gorkha hillman with a public school background, over a cup of excellent Darjeeling tea at his home.

"But when the Meghalaya State Government threw out some 7000 Nepalis from As­sam, the matter really exploded and took the present form of the Gorkha National Liberation Front headed by Subhas Ghising as its president".

He only stops to catch his breath, because he’s wheezing with asthma, and says, "The evicted Nepalis were mostly from Darjeeling and some were from Nepal. When this happened, the age-old treaty between British India and Nepal, which was ratified later in 1950 between Independent India and the Kingdom of Nepal, was violated. As a result, it placed the Nepalis residing in India at an insecure position with dual nationality or without any nationality."
He explained further, "Actually the Clause 7 of the Indo-Nepal Treaty states that the citizens of both countries can do anything under the sun, but have political rights, like asking for a separate state.

"In fact a Gorkha can be labelled as a Nepal-ko-raity (Nepalese subject)and thrown out of the country, and you can't do anything: like the Nepalis of Assam.
How's that for calling oneself Indian all these years?" he says with bitterness. Sushil Basnet was born in Darjeeling and so was his father and grandfather.

His tirade went on: "It was in protest to this Clause 7 that the GNLF dished out an 11-point programme, and it was supported by all sections of the people of Darjeeling. This irritated the Communists (CPM)and so violence and killing broke out on both sides. Like the police shooting down people, women and children included, and midnight arrests. At least 200 people died.
"What we really wanted was the creation of a Gorkhaland district and the recognition of Gorkhali (Nepali) as one of India's national languages and better job opportunities. But the Bengali politician Jyoti Basu and Rajiv Gandhi made a hash of it" says an angry Sushil Basnet.
Gorkha is a fortress in Nepal belonging to the House of Gorkhas,from where the Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan Shah led his troops to conquer the whole of Nepal.In 1810 Nepal's domain extended from the Tista river to the Sutlej, that is from present day Sikkim to Kashmir.The word 'Gorkha' is derived from the Sanskrit work 'go' which means a 'cow' and 'rakh' which means 'protector,' and the Gorkhas are the 'protectors of the cows', that is, they are Hindus primarily. The Indian Army uses the term 'Gork­ha`which is correct, and the British Army uses the term 'Gurkha'. The English also say 'Nepaul' when they mean 'Nepal'.

The Gorkhali population of Darjeeling is made up of: Tamangs, Rais, Newars, Thapas, Poudels, Gurungs, Topdens, Lepchas and Sherpas. In 1800 the British encouraged the migration of the Nepalese to the eastern Himalayas to work in the newly opened tea gardens in Darjeeling (West Bengal) and Assam (Meghalaya).

At Glenary’s I met Riddhima Pradhan, who said: "I can assure you, it was more than a storm in a tea-cup." She was a 26 year old college student from Darjeeling, referring to the Gorkhaland crisis. She went on to say, "The town was crawling with Sikh soldiers armed to the teeth and there were Gorkha civilians getting arrested, and night-raids that made us pretty uneasy. I was scared to go out in the streets even during the day."

Akin to the British Raj, the Central Government sent Sikh soldiers to Darjeeling to fight down the Gorkha demonstrators. The British, it might be noted, deployed Gorkha troops in the 1857 Indian Sepoy Mutiny and the Jalainwalla massacre. In April 1919 troops under the command of the British General Dyer fired on civillians killing 379 people and injuring 1000 in Amristar (Punjab).

Pitching one ethnic group against the other seems to work even today, after the age old divide-and-rule tradition so well practiced by the British in its colonies.
Reynold Gurung, a 32 year old Gurkha soldier on leave says: "My father was a British Gurkha who fought against the Japanese in World War II in Imphal and Burma. He died in action in the jungles of Burma. We'd settled down in Burma. Later, we were driven away by the Burmese nationalists from Rangoon and came over to Darjeeling. I'll be damned if the Indians can drive me away from these hills", he says.

"In 1961 our school soccer team defeated the 2/8 Gurkha Rifles," he says with a boyish twinkle in his Mongolian eyes. "Yessir, that was a terrific match in Kurseong: School-team Beats the Gurkhas!" A year later, the 2/8 Gurkha battallion, which was then stationed in Lebong, was wiped out in the Himalayan war against China in a decisive battle at Nathu La (Sikkim). It was India's Himalayan blunder. After that Nehru and Menon were dubbed "the guilty men of '62," said Reynold Gurung, whom I chanced to meet near the Rink cinema. He lost an elder brother in the war. He took me to his home and told me the story of his family. He invited me for a cup of tea in his house, which was a one-storied, with lots of windows and a lovely garden full of marigolds, because it was the Nepali festival season of Dasain.

A Gurkha-hat that hung on the wall of his spartan sitting-room, a few regimental swords, a khukri in silver and a Naga spear were all that remind him of his dead Gurkha father and the Burma war. Huge well-polished artillery shells serve as vases for mari­gold flowers. He supported his mother with his small Indian Gorkha payroll, and said he was stationed in Punjab with the elite Black Cat battallion.

Soldering still seems to be the best profession for a Gorkha in the hills of Darjeeling.
"You can at the most be a low-paid teacher or a clerk here, says Adip Rumba, "but you can't climb higher. There's always a Bengali blocking the carrier ladder." The poly­technic school in Kurseong produces only junior engineers (overseers). The senior engineering schools are located in the plains of India, and financially too expensive for Gorkha pockets. Even the medical college is located in Siliguri and thus accessible only to the Bengalis.

At high-school age, a lot of young males tired of learning boring subjects like integral calculus and the Moghul Dynasty took off till recently for Dharan's British Gurkha Recruiting Depot or enlisted at the local Indian Gorkha office in Kurseong or Darjee­ling.

Take Kunjo Moktan for instance who joined the British Gurkhas and "saw the world beyond the mountains" namely London, Gibraltar, Hong Kong and Brunei. Or Ganju Tamang who joined the Indian Army and landed in Sri Lanka with India's Peace-keeping Force. Keshab Namgyal, a 1961 Congo blue-helmet veteran, who was disgusted by the war in Katanga, said he gave up soldiering, and worked for the Indian Railway as a clerk, and looked forward to his railway pension.

There are quite a few Nepalis from Darjeeling who have gone to Nepal seeking better jobs after the Darjeeling district was declared a 'restricted area'. Jobs were scarce in Darjeeling after 1962. A sizeable number of Gorkha civilians car drivers with experience in the heights of Darjeeling, Sikkim and Bhutan were hired for their driving skills in the difficult mountain areas of Ladakh, Bomdila and Tripura in the wake of the Himalayan conflict with China.

Lain Singh Bangdel, a talented artist went to Nepal and became the president of the Royal Nepal Academy. Likewise, Amber Gurung ,a singer and composer, has carved himself a niche in the Nepali world of music in Kathmandu. Banira Giri is internationally known for her poetry and lives in Kathmandu. The air-hostesses for the expanding Royal Nepal Airlines were mostly girls from Darjeeling and Kalim­pong. Tourism was booming in Katmandu, and English-speaking smart Gorkha-guides and hotels personnel were in demand. Not in India, but in Nepal.
Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa from Darjeeling and the first Nepali to climb Mt. Everest with Edmund Hillary, was an exception who stayed on in Darjeeling and was made the Field Director of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute located in Birch Hill, now dubbed Jawahar Parbat. The principal of the institute was naturally an Indian from the plains. I can still hear the refrain of Dharmaraj Thapa's song praising Tenzing's feat and his glory:

Tenzingga timi, sansara bhari.
Amara huney chau (refrain).

However, the plight of the Sherpas, Lepchas and Tamangs of Darjeeling hasn't im­proved since then. You see them carrying heavy loads for Indian tourists from the plains and foreigners from abroad with their namlo-ropes for almost a song.

"The Indians take almost a sadistic delight in putting down the prices," says Maila Tamang, a porter at Darjeeling's Chowrasta.

'Ayo Gurkhali!' is a blood-curdling cry in the battlefields when the Gurkhas attack with their Ghukris and guns, but "Pairo Ayo!" is a dreadful cry that is often heard in the Darjeeling hills when a landslide occurs. The Gorkhas have mixed feelings about the landslides in the monsoon period because of the endless suffering caused by the disastrous and torrential rain. The mon­soon is good for the tea, but bad for the humans living in the hillsides, for they live in the angst of being swept away in a landslide. The forests in the Darjeeling area are denuded and the ecological balance of the hills is threatened caused also by the monocultu­re: tea. Thickly wooded forests are a rarity. The flora and fauna have dwindled.

"Here's to the Pagla Jhora, the Mad Torrent!" is a toast that you hear frequently in Darjeeling. The local contractors rejoice secretly when a major landslide sweeps away the railway tracks and blocks the only road leading to Darjeeling. Gorkha contractors rush to file tenders at the junior engineer's office bureau of the Public Works De­partment. The tenders go to the chief engineer, who is inevitably a Bengali gent who takes the cream of the bribe.

"It's a game called: oiling-up-the-Bengi-babu", says a Gurkha contractor who chooses to remain anonymous. Corruption is as common as tuberculosis in the government offices and at the border check-posts at Kakarbhita and Manebhanjyang. The Bengali policemen take bribes from both sides: Nepal and India.

A home-coming Johnny Gurkha from Hong Kong was telling his woes to a sari-clad Nepalese woman about the corrupt Indian customs officers at Kakarbhita, for his pro­blem was getting his worldly belongings across the border to Darjeeling where he lived. Since the Gorkha bride has a high affinity for gold from Hong Kong (in the old days it was Lhasa), it's a big headache for a Gorkha to get his gold through the Calcutta customs. The Bengali customs officers do their best to confiscate the luxurious (by Indian decree and standards) and jewellery brought into the country by the thrifty and spartanic living Gurkhas, and probably hand them to their own Bengali wives in Calcutta. It is a never-ending tale of corruption and injustice.

"It is this harassment at the Indian customs that made me build a house in Katmandu than in Darjeeling, and now my family is all the more happier", says Wangdi Lama, a Hong Kong retired Gurkha-major.

Due to the early exposure to the British, the Nepalese of the Eastern Himalayas (Darjee­ling area) tend to be smart, extroverted, street-wise, intellectually awakened, and generally well-informed about current world affairs. The level and percentage of education is also much higher than in eastern Nepal.

Most Nepalese in the Darjeeling area have a school or college background. Even a simple jeep-driver or policeman speaks a smattering of English, in addition to Hindi, Bengali and Gurkhali (Nepali).

The influence of Hollywood and Bollywood's masala films shown at Darjeeling's Rink and Capitol cinemas and make-shift, mushrooming video-parlours is evident in the streets of Darjeeling. A Gorkha is well-dressed, his shoes are polished, his trousers well-ironed and he has a certain smartness about him, despite the fact that he may be living from hand to mouth. The Nepalis take delight in joking about themselves and you hear often: bahira rumaley, bhitra gundruk umaley. It's his positive attitude towards life and his indomitable cheerfulness that distinguishes him from the rest of the ethnic groups in the sprawling Indian subcontinent.

"A Gorkha never begs. We are too proud of ourselves and of our self-respect," says Kiran Singh Rana who runs a photo-shop in the Laden La Road in Darjeeling. He seems to hate haggling with what he calls "deshi" customers from the plains. We're having a chat in his shop and a Bengali babu (civil servant) wants him to reduce the price of a picture of 'sunrise from Sandakphu' done in black and white print and hand coloured. The Bengali speaks in the typical tactless and arrogant Indian manner. Kiran tells him in no uncertain terms to "take it or leave it" in no uncertain terms.

"I have my own local customers and don't have to rely on these seasonal hagglers", he says. He and his brother have opened a lodge below the Chowrasta at the Danth Koti, and seem to be doing well in comparison to others. The strange thing was that when I visited Kiran in his shop a decade ago, he was also having a jolly row with three customers from Calcutta. Another friend of mine, a Gurung, runs a travel agency and takes French tourists to Sandakphu and the Kanchenjunga base camp during the tourist season.

"Survival isn't much of a problem for a Nepali", says Sushil Basnet, who has a pot-belly and looks like the Italo-German actor Mario Adorf. He ex­plains: "Once a year during the Maghay Sangrati festival, we eat sweet-potatoes and other boiled stems and roots in memory of our ancestors, who lived on such roots and stems from the forest".

Maghay Sangrati marks the turning point between the winter and summer months, and Nepalis bathe in the tributaries of river such as the Narayani and Bagmati and chant religious hymns.
"The beggars in Darjeeling or Katmandu are never Nepalis or Gurkhas. They're mostly Bhutias or Indians from the plains," says Ajit Subba, another Gorkha teacher.

In my childhood, I remember seeing a lean old Limbu Gorkha lady wearing a glove in one hand, and brandishing a sickle with the other, busy cutting stinging-nettles for lunch in a wayside bush. Sisnu-ko-jhol (nettle-soup) is a Nepalese delicatesse. Nettle-soup, which is called Brennesselsuppe is also used in Germany and other Alpine republics. Hunger makes one creative. And the Nepalis are creative. Gundruk-ko-jhol is another frugal but delicious speciality, which is dehydrated salad served as a soup with rice. Sikuti-machha (dried fish) is another fine dish.

Unlike in Nepal, where it is forbidden to carry out missionary activity, the Gorkhalis in the Darjeeling hills have been proselytised into Christendom by the British Jesuit priests in the major hill towns like: Kurseong, Kalimpong and Darjeeling, where they opened dispensaries, 'English Medium' schools, chapels, grottos and churches. The British missionaries have left but even today it isn't common to find Gorkhas with names like: Lawrence Gurung, Benjamin Rai and Nelson Mukhia. Darjeeling also has its own Gorkha bishop.

The Nepalis in the hilly tracts of Darjeeling have certainly arranged themselves with Bengalis, Beharis, Marwaris, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians. Inter-caste and inter-ethnic love-marriages are also not uncommon. Though not without problems. Raj Basnet, who has married his college girl-friend Geeta from the Rai tribe has problems with his pollution-conscious high caste parents with their orthodox attitudes. He left his father's house and eloped with his Rai-girl and lived like an outcaste in Thimpu (Bhutan). "But my wife and I are happy, so what-the-heck!" he says with a shrug of his shoulders and an air of optimism. "It's not my problem. It's their 's". He now lives in Darjeeling and recalls nostalgically the many traditional Bhutanese gates and bridges he built during his tenure as an engineering and contractor in the Himalayan Kingdom.

It is understandable that Subhas Ghising is rather sulky and disappointed with Nepal because of ist neutrality during the Gorkhaland-crisis, and hence wishes to have nothing to do with the Himalayan Kingdom. But in view of the fact that the Gorkhas of Darjee­ling wanted to be officially recognized as an autonomous district within the Indian Union, especially West Bengal, the reluctancy on the part of Katmandu to respond to Ghishing and his GNLF`s gestures, was diplomatically perhaps the best solution.

The Gorkhaland struggle cost 200 lives and brought a new amendment to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council Act. The Gorkhas have their Gorkhaland and the Indo-Nepalese relationship and cooperation flourishes, without any evident changes whatsoever in the 1950 Treaty between India and Nepal. And Nepali has been recognised officially in the Indian Constitution.

It's all quiet in the Gorkhaland front, despite the poverty and discontent.
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Reader's response:

Satis Shroff's article remains the finest ever written on Darjeeling. It brought me memories of the young people of Darjeeling,Kalimpong and Kurseong who always remained smart even in the worst crisis. My heartiest congratulations to him. Having stayed and worked in Bhutan for a number of years, I am aware of the politics in North Bengal and the exploitation by the Marwaris and Bengalis of the simple hill people of this area. In the eighties I was surprised to meet a Member of Parliament from Darjeeling who was a journalist and never belonged to Darjeeling or North Bengal. In fact he was from Punjab and stayed in Delhi.
Regards
Dr. Amitabh Mitra

BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS IN THE EAST AND WEST (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

Whereas the older people in Asia pray the whole day and are in communion with God because the life-span in Asia is shorter, I had the impression here in Europe that the older generation are still living it up.

You’re pensioned at 67 years in Germany and are still robust and not very old. This new acquired freedom is used for coffee-hours in the afternoon, trekking, sight-seeing and even ballroom dancing and pursuing interesting hobbies like gardening, fishing and bird-watching. Others, like the late Toni Hagen and the impeccable Sir Edmund Hillary, even went on working as development workers in the Himalayas, where old age is regarded as an asset and not a liability.

And late, second or third marriages are not uncommon due to the fact that older people are left to themselves, and the younger generation would rather see their parents, grandparents in houses for old people rather than share a house in a joint-family. The family units have become smaller and smaller with the passage of time and industrial development.
Take Frau Bender’s family for instance. All the sons and daughters have their own families and they are scattered over Germany and, till recently, even in Australia. The only time they get together is when a silver or golden jubilee or birthday is being celebrated, or when someone in the family gets married. And whether it’s a child’s ‘confirmation’ ceremo­ny at the local church, a marriage or whatever: the costs are tremendous, because the Germans do it with style.
I had the impression that it isn’t only the Asians who spend a lot of money on such occasions. Even the Germans seemed to go to extremes. A modern marriage for instance has the aura of a royal marriage and the German brides are dressed up like Lady Diana Spencer and the bridegrooms like Prince Charles. What staggers the costs is the party in a Gastwirtschaft or rented hall afterwards, with the choicest menus and unlimited drinks: sekt, wine, beer and schnaps.

Mrs.Bender’s mother, was an 82 year old corpulent, grand old lady with failing eyesight, who watched TV sitting only five centimeters in front of the tube, for instance lived in an annual rotation scheme with all her married sons and daughters traveling from Heidelberg to Bad Waldliesborn, and down to Nuremburg, and then up to Neustadt. She didn’t have a permanent home of her own. The children took turns in doing granny-sitting. The family called her ‘Queen Victoria’, as she had a rather commanding tone and was resolute in her decisions over family matters and what was best for her.

It reminded me of my own maternal grandma, who was the central figure in the family, after the death of my grandpa, and who operated from her spacious bed in Victorian style, which had curtains of multicolored glass-pearls. Visiting her was like entering into a world of 1001 Nights.
The indomitable lady would sit perched high, like an incarnated Rimpoche, and sip her Darjeeling tea, and lay her hands on the foreheads and heads of the many relatives and acquaintances, who wanted to pay her their respects or ask for favors. She’d cover her mouth with the end of a sari and would ask them uncomfortable questions about their families, demanding obedience and respect from them. And the relatives would comply with due submission. I found it always a spectacle the way people greeted her, presenting her white silk scarves (khadas), bowing their otherwise proud heads, and receiving either a pat on their heads, almost a slap if the grand old lady was disappointed with them. She was their moral instance, their conscience. And she had her spies and informants in the extensive family branches. .
She still had a lot of land, despite the so-called land-reforms introduced by the government in Kathmandu and her tenants and their families were still heavily dependent on her. She could be a kind soul at times and show compassion but most of the time she was very stern and shrewd towards her ‘subjects.’ Her subjects were divided into two religious groups: Buddhists-cum-animists who were called Bhotays and Tamangs and Hindus.

But she didn’t show much respect towards the Hindus. In her mind the achievements of a person in this world were more important than lineage and heredity. She’d always come up with, ‘What you make out of life, and what you are, is more important than what your father or ancestors were. Don’t come up with your high-birth. Not with me.’

Despite her crude ways in dealing with people, I admired her secretly. After all, respect was something that had to be earned and didn’t come with one’s age. She was going contrary to the norm of her society, in which old-age was regarded with reverence and admiration. In her eyes, a person had to defend his or her right with his wisdom, for according to her, wisdom was something that couldn’t be stolen by thugs and robbers in the society, and she laid great emphasis on the importance education, even though she couldn’t read English. She could read and write Tibetan and Nepali though. It didn’t help her in her interactions with the British, but her knowledge of Tibetan and Nepali were an asset in dealing with the local people, and she used it with a great deal of skill.

In the living room hung a huge sepia photograph with a heavy gold-colored wooden frame of her husband and his British friends posing in front of a vintage car, which was said to have been carried on the backs of porters, all the way from Siliguri. The British ladies wore quaint hats with long feathers, flowing skirts, and blouses with buttons right up to the throats, where they gave way to frills around the collars. And whereas grandpa talked with his British guests, grandma was mostly confined to the kitchen where she supervised the Indian, Nepali and British cuisine. Another huge and massive-framed photograph showed him with his British guests with their heavy-duty elephant-guns in their hands, proudly posing in front of an enor­mous tiger that they’d shot in the terai during a hunt.

After the death of Grandpa she’d grown fond of a tall, gray-haired British physician with a goatee who used to treat the people from the hills and give them pills, tablets, mercurochrome on their wounds and tonsils, and zinc oxide salves smeared on a piece of The Rising Nepal or The Gorkhapatra.

I found Grandma Bender’s story familiar, because it was exactly what happened to my own paternal grandpa who had to live in Kathmandu, Dharan, Darjeeling and Bombay because his children who ‘looked after him’ were scattered in two countries and five towns.
My paternal grandpa would sit in front of his Hindu altar, eternally engaged in praying to the Gods. He’d sit in his lotus position take a mala in his right hand and start reciting the names of as many Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon and paying tribute to them. With 33 million Gods and Goddesses he would be busy for the better part of the day.

There were interesting moments when he’d be also listening to the conversation in the family kitchen, despite his prayers, and suddenly he’d switch in and start talking as though he hadn’t missed the conversation from the beginning. The only people who were genuinely interested in our grandpa were us kids.

He had the habit of going for long walks in the evening, and he’d buy sweets as offerings for Gods like Ganesh, the pot-bellied God with the elephant trunk, who has an affinity for laddus and other sweet things. We’d enter the premises of a temple, he’d ring the huge bell outside, and the whole neighborhood would reverberate with the sound of the bells. There was always the smell of incense-sticks burning, the smell of milk, yogurt and freshly made sandalwood paste with which we’d be blessed on our foreheads as a receipt after making the offering. A portion of the offering would be kept by the brahmin for himself and the Gods, and I’d get the major part of the delicacies for accompanying him to the many temples.

Grandpa was a robust old fellow with a sense of humor, and loved to hum the tunes of Bollywood films through his white starched moustache, whether Nepali, Hindi or Bengali, and could be rather embarrassing at times, for he’d persist even though he didn’t know the tune and lyrics at all. I tried to hold him back, but he didn’t care: ‘Dherai ramro melody chha’ was his reply. He just loved humming the tunes.

Every Indian or Nepali film has at least 14 songs and it’s more like a melodramatic musical with dances, seductive vamps, fights and rescues with liters of tears, screams, shouts and groans and happy ends---when the lovers are united at last after an endless series of ordeals. It’s kitsch but the masses in India, Nepal, Dubai and even Germany love them. The audience applauses, whistles and claps hands, and is moved to tears. The film functions as a safety- valve for the poverty-stricken people, and for two hours they identify themselves with the protagonists, and live their posh lives in palace-like houses, flying first class, drinking champagne, wearing the newest creations, doing the newest dances and suffering with the protagonists, feeling for them, and finally thanking them for enticing them to another fantasy world.

They take home the wonderful images, and perhaps hope and courage to make something out of their own lives. If not, at least have the satisfaction of identifying themselves with someone else’s fantasy-world. When the poor soul comes out of the cinema-hall, the blazing sun glares at him or her, the terrible noise and chaos of the traffic, the stench from the alleys, and he or she is reminded of the struggle for existence and survival within the family and in the social surroundings. The cinemagoer may be in Bombay, Dacca, Karachi or Kath­mandu: the brutal and sad reality in developing countries is, and remains, the same. The rich become richer and the poor become even poorer.

In winter grandpa was glad to be in sunny Bombay, and in summer he could retreat to the cool foothills of the Himalayas. That was the problem of industrialization and population migration, when the men went looking for better jobs and pastures, or through marriage in the case of women. It’s always the women who follow their men, leave their hometowns, and not the other way round. The future of the bride is always uncertain and depends on the dowry, the sympathy and mercy of the mother-in-law, and the behavior of her arranged-husband.
Irrespective of the fact whether you’re a Hindu, Buddhist, Christian or Muslim, the desire and craving to ask God for help and protection has always been evident, be it at the house altar or Herrgottwinkel, at the shrine, temple, pagoda, church, chapel and cathedral and mosque. Sacraments and blessings have always been received from priests, brahmins and lamas. And pilgrimages have always been undertaken by Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs and Jains. Ritual ceremonies like baptism, bratabandha, communion and marriages have brought along a good many customs with them, each specific to one’s ethnicity and religion and, nevertheless, similar and familiar in their basic meanings and purposes.

When I see the many votive pictures, gifts and offerings to the churches, temples, pagodas and mosques, I see how strong the clamor for heavenly guidance and succor is and how varied, and yet similar, the distress is in the daily lives of people all over the world.

It was interesting to note that despite the marked Christian piety, the Black Forest people and the people in the Alpine countries like Switzerland, South Tirol, and Austria still cling to their so-called pagan customs, sayings, superstitions, beliefs and customs.

This is also typical of the people living in the foothills of the Himalayas with tantric, Bon-religion and shamanism and shaktiism as accepted and tolerated forms of life and religion.
It was amusing to learn that the fear of ghosts, demons and spirits was widespread in the Black Forest and the Alpine Republics. The spirits were sometimes said to sit on a man’s chest or on his back, and in this way bring him to the ground. We, Nepalese, call this phenomenon ‘aithan paryo’ and speak of ‘boksas and boksis’, that is, witches of both sexes. If there’s a female witch, there has to be a male one too.
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Copyright © 2007 Satis Shroff
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Satis Shroff has been writing, lecturing, editing professionally for more than 30 years. A regular contributor for the American Chronicle and its affiliated 21 newspapers in the USA, he is also the author of a travelogue-novel Through Nepalese Eyes and an anthology of poems Under the Shadow of the Himalayas: A Gurkha Mother, A Broken Poet and Mental Molotovs.
For more articles, essays and poems by the author please visit: www.Americanchronicle.com and his Swiss blog KATHMANDU BLUES at www.Blog.ch, or just google at www.google.com and search under: satis shroff.

IMPRESSIONS FROM VENICE (Satis Shroff)

It was a bright sunny morning when Claudia, Giacomo, Silvana I headed for Italy from Freiburg. The first Swiss town we went through was Basel, which is known for its university and chemical firms near the Swiss-German border.

The sky was a cobalt-blue as we sped through the Arisdorf tunnel. In Switzerland you have to go through a lot of tunnels. The Swiss have introduced a vignette system whereby every car has to have a sticker pasted on its windscreen at a cost of 30 Swiss francs annually. The Swiss autobahn (highway) was surrounded by breath-taking scenery, with green pastures and rounded hillocks. In the distance you could see the Alps. As you speed along the well-maintained highway you see picturesque tiny towns and hamlets with their cute church-tops. There are extremely romantic settings ahead as you watch the mountains reaching out to the lake. You see the mountains right in front of your nose with their pine forests and snows tops. You drive past the Seelisberger lake and view a magnificent mountain scenery.

There are pretty petite Swiss huts on the lush green slopes of the hills with pine trees and jagged peaks, which have often served as backgrounds for scores of Bollywood films. With Lata Mangeshkar’s touching and sad version of ‘Kabhi khushi, kabhi gham’ blaring from the car’s stereo CD player, we certainly felt like Bollywood stars. I was a Nepalese from the middle mountains of Nepal and Claudia was from Germany’s Black Forest and we’d met at a ballroom and latin dancing class at the university town of Freiburg. Giacomo was from Brescia, a town in northern Italy and Silvana was from Sicily, and had, as expected, a lot of jovial, southern temperament.

Near Luzern, the Alps appear suddenly in their majesty. When we went past the Sempucher lake I was reminded of the equally beautiful Phewa lake at Pokhara. Then came a series of tunnels. Every time you came out of a tunnel you were rewarded with a panoramic view of the Swiss Alps. Near the Vierwaldstätter lake in Luzern we went past the William Tell chapel. Tell, it might be noted, has become something of a Swiss institution ever since he shot the apple from his son’s head.

The Gottard tunnel turned out to be a feat of engineering but also 17 kilometres of exhaust gas inhalation. It certainly was good for the environment and local scenery but bad for the traveller’s lungs. The air was thick. There were SOS-telephones and video-cameras at regular intervals in the well-lit tunnel. And finally we arrived in Lugano: an extremely stylish and elegant city with a waterfront--the lake Lugano. A board with the notice ‘Funiculare angiole’ cropped up. Lugano and Tessin are the Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland, in addition to north Tirol in Italy. In south Tirol the Italians of German descent, like the climber Reinhold Messner, prefer to speak German and are proud of their Teutonic traditions. A pretty blonde Swiss policewoman was busily distributing tickets for wrong parking. I had the impression that she did it with a sadistic delight.

The Italian highway is called the autostrada. It read Milano 64 km, and after Milano came Chiasso, the border town and then the San Nicolao tunnel. In Italy we had to pay an autobahn tax. ‘I love travelling to Germany by car,’ Giacomo had said once. It was only now that I understood why. In Germany there was no road tax for the autobahns, except for heavy-duty lorries, and you could drive non-stop from one part of Germany to the other without being stopped. A lot of Swiss Ferrari-owners test their newly bought cars along the route, because one is not allowed to drive so fast in Switzerland.

Milano had mostly brown or ochre coloured houses with bed-sheets and other clothes hanging out of the windows, like in Naples. That’s Bella Italia, I thought. There was a traffic-jam along the Milano road at 4:30 pm (rush hour) with commuters impatient to get home. We drove past the not-too-picturesque river Adda and an area with big factories coughing up a lot of smoke. There was a lot of smog in the vicinity of Milano. Suddenly, you could see the Italian Alps in the distance to the right.

Bergamo turned out to be a city on top of a hill and heavily cemented like a citadelle, with its pompous church-spire. You could see the marble blocks stacked together in front of a marble-quarry. A series of hillocks appeared to the right with small fortified towns on their summits and a vista of the Alps in the background. And we arrived in Brescia, the Nepalese base-camp, for further excursions in Italy.

It was already dark when Giacomo suggested that we drive to a small hill overloo­king the town of Brescia or Brixia, as the Romans used to call it in the old days. There were myriads of gaudy lights winking at you. One couldn’t help thinking about Kathmandu, as seen from the temple of Swayambhu. After a typical rustic Italian dinner we descended to Brescia.

The next day we went with Giacomo, our young amiable, bearded Italian friend, to see the Roman ruins of Brixia which proved to be very interesting. There was a Roman theatre with reconstructed pillars and tombstones. I had the impression that they were still excavating the ruins. Giacomo said that old Roman city of Brixia lay at least four metres deep under the present-day Brescia.

The town-council and theatre buildings were imposing. There was a bustling vegetable and fruit market in the middle of the city and it was fun to watch the gesticulations and mimics of the Italians haggling with each other. It was like the market scene at Asan Tole in Kathmandu, except that there were no cows roaming about and the women wore skirts and showed their legs and shoulders, and were not draped in colourful saris.

Giacomo suggested we try out a typical Brixian lunch at Sovenigo which was some 50 km away. It was a homely restaurant and it began with a soup with tortelli. The polenta proved to be a thick yellowish dish made of maize-flour.

‘It’s the staple diet in the north,’ explained Giacomo. And went on to explain that the word ‘polentona’ is regarded as a terrible insult when people from the north are confronted with this word by those from the south. The northeners retort with: ‘terroni’, which means something like a country-hick who’s bound to the terrain. It was akin to the eternal problems between the madhisays and paharis, the flatlanders and the highlanders in Nepal. A mixed-grill dish appeared next with roasted fowls, pork, canines and small birds. And all this was consumed with Tura and Valpollicella wines.

After the sumptuous lunch we headed for Verona.

Verona was a beautiful city, with old houses and a pompous amphitheatre in Roman-style. The alleys were crowded, it being Sunday, and the Veronese were wearing their Sunday-best and the women were dressed to kill, if one might say so, looking elegant, proud and oh-so-self-conscious. Embroidered net-stockings, black lack shoes and scarlet lips were in.
Who hasn’t heard of Romeo and Julia? But few people know that the Venetian writer Luigi Da Ponte created in 1500 the tragic Romeo-and-Juliet story. And William Shakespeare made the eternal drama out of it. Every year you see tourists on their way to Julia’s memorial, to the famous balcony of Julia and to Julia’s grave.

You still see the buildings from the Roman times in Verona such as: the Roman theatre, the Borsari gate, the Porta dei Leoni, the arch of Gava. And the bridge that was frequently destroyed and repaired: the Ponte Pietra and naturally the arena. The big amphitheatre with its 72 arcades, which functions today as a summer stage for world-renowned operas and ballet, was built in the first century. During the Roman times, it was the arena where ferocious animals and gladiators fought. Today, the streets approaching this arena are packed with camera-wielding tourists and strolling Italians.

Outside the city, you still see the ancient city-wall, which was constructed for defence purposes. At this stage their car had developed thirst and started snorting and fuming. It had to be cool down and watered. We stopped near a sprout and admired the pedestrians and the buildings and then drove on towards Venice.

There was an impressive castle to the left with walls that conjured up images of the Great Wall of China. Castles cropped up every 20 kilome­tres. There were miles and miles of vineyards. In the Monti area we went through at least three tunnels. We had to pay another highway-tax up to Chiogga. There were dry patches of land along the way which normally get soaked up by the sea during the tide. The waterway was marked with wooden poles painted red and white.
Chiogga is a picturesque and romantic fishing-town in the southern part of the lagoon. It dates back to the Roman times. The main attraction is the Corso del Popolo, where the most important buildings are located: the Barock church St. Andrea, the gothic grainary. The St. Martino church is an excellent example of brick-gothic architecture.

Chiogga is connected with Sottomarina by a dam, which in turn is an Adriatic bathing resort with a beautiful beach. At the entrance of the Adriatic harbour in Chiogga, where we intended to spend the night with some Italians friends, we had to go past a check-post. I naively asked the purpose of the check-post, to which Giacomo replied, ‘Oh, from here it is possible to take a boat to Yugoslavia.’ Our charming and garrulous guide talked the Italian police over and we drove past in no time. I wondered how Ludmilla Tüting would have faired with her polaroid-number at the Italian check-post, because she mentioned in one of her Nepal guide-books that it helps to have a polaroid camera when one goes to the Nepalese countryside. ‘The Nepalese just love to see themselves in instant photographs,’ was her explanation two decades ago. It’s digital pictures now.

We were given a warm welcome by the skipper Luigi, who ran a 5-boat sailing school, and his German-speaking wife in their beautiful cosy house with a fire-place that was already crackling. We had, what the Germans call Schollen (plaice), tasty self-made Italian bread with butter, cheese and noodles with parmesan cheese and a birthday cake too. Giacomo, who turned out to be an excellent troubador, played Luigi’s guitar and we sang English and Italian songs late into the night.

We slept in one of the school’s boats, a moderate affair with six sleeping berths. I slept very well in spite of the fact that it was a bit chilly. There was a strange toilette on board where you had to use a handle to pump the water. The tap had to be pumped with a foot-pedal, like in one of the oldfashioned French trains and not the TGV, which is sleek and modern.

The next day we went to Chiogga, which has three parallel canals cutting through the town. There were pretty arched bridges, and nearby there were Italian vendors with stalls displaying Mediterranean fruits, vegetables and fish. It was a bright day, and we could feel the bustle of this small sea-town as we went about our errands. There were fishermen drying out their nets and Italians talking animatedly. I took a photograph from the bridge and a burly moustachioed Italian in a two-piece suit who came in the way and said, ‘ I’m sorry’ with a smile and touched the tip of his hat and walked away, like in a Fellini film.

As we took a walk through the town’s main street, we noticed the Italians talking in small groups. Most of them were men. A macho society, one is likely to say. The women were probably in the kitchen or in the church or with their children. You see old, dilapidated houses, people staring at each other from windows and balconies. We noticed, however, that there was life there. The noise coming from the street, the children playing and emitting screams of delight. In the narrow lanes you saw the ubiquitous clothes-lines stretching from one house to another, a sight that’s unusual in German towns, except during the carnival celebrations (Fasnet) when the houses are decorated with colourful flags, like the ones during the Buddhist Losar celebrations.

We changed money at the local bank in Chiogga and learned to our dismay that it was dead slow with its service and pretty crowded too. The Nepal Rastriya Bank isn’t fast either, I thought. From Chiogga we headed for Mestre, a colourful harbour town on our way to Venice.

MASKS AND COSTUMES: ‘Jetzt sind wir bald in Venezia,’ said Giacomo, after all we were out to enjoy life in Venice, as we went past the Guarda di Finanza building. "Bella Venezia!" shouted Silvana, stretching her hands in the process. I remembered the time I’d come to Venice in a bus from Rottweil. Most of the passengers had spoken with heavy Swabian accents. The Swabians are a jolly folk with business acumen, and they’d laughed and cracked jokes and poked fun at all and sundry. The British would have looked stuffy in their presence, I had thought.
I read aloud, "Linea direta autostrada" written on a big sign-board. It always fascinated me to read boards written in foreign languages. In Italy you still have to pay toll on different parts of the highway because they are owned by private persons. We went past Mailand, known for its Theatre Scala, the Verdi museum and one of the biggest railway junctions in Europe. There were endless rows of factories to be seen en route, and then we were relieved by the sight of the snow-capped mountains of the Italian Alps against a blue sky.

We were excited about the carnival in Venice. Unlike the noisy carnival in Germany and Switzerland, in Venice it is serene and this ancient, historical town in the lagoon with its many bridges, palaces and buildings, waterways, gondolas becomes a magnificent background for the festival of costumes and masks. As Shakespeare said in "As You Like It": All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. Venice at carnival-time suddenly becomes a stage with performers from all over the world, each playing his or her role with dignity and cool, in exotic and extravagant costumes. Nonchalance is the order of the day.

Venice has always had a special meaning for everyone. For Nietzche it was another word for music. When you see all those costumed and masked people from Italy and other parts of Europe, you are inclined to ask: do they hide their daily lies and lives behind them? Even the ugly become beautiful during the carnival, adorning themselves with finery in brocade, chiffon and yards of silk, and the beautiful wear hideous masks. The ghastlier the better.
As our car approached Venice and went past the graveyard of St.Michael, Claudia and Silvana said that they smelt the sea. A huge Campari ad appeared to the left as we sped along the bridge to Venice. There were seagulls circling around hoping for tit-bits from the tourists. A series of rusty cranes appeared and right near the harbour was a turquoise coloured boat, loaded with kegs of red wine. The cost of the ferry to Venice was 10,000 lire, before the euro was introduced.

We drove through Mestre, which was rather polluted and had a number of dilapidated and unfinished buildings. That's because the Italians haggle while constructing their houses. The more you haggle the more it takes time, and the lesser the costs? Giacomo said, ‘They try to press the price of cement, wood and building materials.’

The lagoon to Venice was closed and the Venetians were breeding mussels and clams. The colour of the water reminded me of the Bagmati and Vishnumati rivers of Kathmandu valley. There were a few ships and containers at the ferry harbour, which was connected by train and road.

We put up at the Sheraton in Padua, because it was rather difficult to get rooms in Venice itself during the carnival. In the evening we went to do the sights of Padova, as it is called in Italian. The huge dome of the Basilika was impressive. In front of the Basilika were scores of pigeons and the tourists were photographing them. There were pretty cafes and restaurants around the Basilika. We entered a building and saw a huge congregation of Italians attending the mass. There were priests at every corner and the pious catholic Italians were doing their confessions with earnest faces. It being a university town, like Freiburg, there were many young students in the streets.

We then left Padua and drove past the blue snow-capped mountains of the Monte Crappa. Typical Italians houses fleeted by and industrial complexes appeared and all the while we had canned music: Eros Ramazotti`s scratchy, passionate Latin-lover voice. In Germany his fans call him "Ramazottel".

We left our cars and headed for Venice. It was an enticing, ravishing Venice full of fantasy, illusions and excitement. At the Piazza San Marco there were extravagantly clothed people with and without masks to be seen. Faces and costumes that conjured up images of the times when Venice was flourishing and was a world power. There were sheikhs with a row of beautiful harem ladies, children dressed in the fashion of Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor", Gieshas, Robotcops, Batman and Robin, Spiderman, Mr. Incredible and his whole family, Swiss and German tourists dressed as barocque noblemen and ladies with powdered faces and a lot of silk. There were at least a dozen people dressed as the Doge, bearing masks and dark clothes with cloak. It was the Doge who ordered all the gondolas to be painted black in 1562.
We crossed the Bridge of Sighs and there was laughter as the passengers emitted feigned sighs. The unique Venetian atmosphere had captivated them. We headed for the Piazzo San Marco and further in the direction of the Piazza Academia through wind-swept alleys and crossed a good many bridges.

You have to slow down your pace in this lagoon-city to take in the optical fare spread for your delight. Every now and again you come across people in breathtaking costumes from another century, and you look at them deep in their eyes. The pair of eyes behind the mask stare at you. You feel it. And in a moment the magical contact disappears. Thoughts swerve in the air. You realise you need more than a pair of eyes to take in the ancient backdrop of Venetian palaces, houses, bridges and captivating canals of Venice.

Claudia, Giacomo, Silvana and I walked along the Academia corner, crossed the Canale Grande and admired the many Venetian art galleries and the Guggenheimer collections with works of: Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Klee, Miro, Moore and Pollock to name a few.
After all that we were a bit tired of walking around and entered an Italian cafe and discovered that there were a lot of American tourists. Some thick-set Venetian fishermen dropped in and the atmosphere became lively. It was interesting to watch the Italians talking and discus­sing. The gesticulating hands, the facial contortions and the pitch of the voices rising in crescendo along with the consumption of grappa and wine was amusing. Even if they have nothing of relevance to say it sounds important and passionate. The coffee, chocolate and sandwiches and grappa (Italian raksi) were excellent.

We strolled towards the Piazza San Marco. Dusk was falling and the Italian monuments took on a new golden hue. Every few steps you could see costumed people walking by leisurely. We couldn't care less that we had cold feet. Gusts of icy wind blew in every alley. We were out to celebrate, and be a part of the Venetian carnival, and nothing was going to stop us. Ah, Venice, where Thomas Mann wrote his ‘Death in Venice’ in 1911 and now a Donna Leon writes fiction about murders in the canals of Venice.

At the Piazza San Marco, which is the saloon of Venice, there was a great deal of tumult, and a sea of humanity was gathered there. Costumed figures were posing elegantly in front of the historical buildings. As soon as someone started posing, a swarm of professional and amateur photographs would swoop down on him or her with their digital and auto-focus cameras, camcorders and throw-away ones. The costumed and masked figures would change their positions slowly and gracefully, moving their upper extremities with controlled gestures.
The Venetians have worn their classical costumes from the times of the Serenissima and the Doges. The entire court was present. And the tourists came from another epoch. There were younger tourists who were having a good time disguised as dollar-coins, scarlet plastic shampoos, or ecology-conscious ones carrying garbage bags draped around their torsos.
Later, Giacomo said at the Sheraton, "If I were a Venetian I would run away from this revelry and artificial merry-making." He hails from Brescia and shuns the tourists. When the Karneval tourists come, the Venetians make for the open spaces, especially the Alps to do a bit of skiing. Far away from the maddening crowds. Venice receives 12 million tourists per year.
Some German tourists were rather rude, as they jostled for better camera angles like the paparazzis running after prominent people, but the costumed figures were kind, patient and graceful as they posed near the Venetian fountains and pillars. It was so wonderful to discover the various alleys and water-lanes with their cute little shops.

There were gondolieros waiting for passengers and hotel guests with immaculately dressed bell-hops, waiting for the water-taxi to arrive. A gondoliero earns 75 euros for 25 minutes, and 1000 euros per day. Venice’s canals are rather congested with its 20,000 boats. And there’s a speed limit of 11 kmph in the lagoon, and the water-police are always around the corner with their laser speed checks. However, the biggest waves in the lagoon are caused by the police themselves.

In Venice you try to take in the visual feast that is spread in front of you with your all-seeing-eyes. You look at the masked ladies and gentlemen dressed in the clothes of the Doge and Marco Polo and the Middle Ages, and if you look deep enough you might see the blue, brown or green eyes flash back, or twinkle at you. This flirting and coquetting is done in Venice with dignity and a certain nonchalance. Claudia danced with an elegantly dressed Doge and I danced the fox-trot with a masked lady to Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York, New York.’ After the danced was over I thanked her for the dance and asked her if she was a Venetian lady. She replied in English with a heavy Bavarian accent, ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m from Munich’. I told her Claudia and I were from Freiburg and we had a good laugh. One meets tourists, and not Venetians, in Venice.

There is no chance of getting lost in Venice because there are yellow signs pointing to the Piazza San Marco, the Rialto Bridge or the other sights at all important junctions and corners. But at night it is a different matter. It's dark and you might get the creeps, with all those long shadows thrown in the alleys of Venice. Venice sleeps at night.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------About the author: Satis Shroff writes in German and English, and lives in Germany according to the motto: once a journalist, always a journalist and has written over a period of three decades, what the Germans would call a “Landesumschau,” for his readers with impressions from Freiburg, Venice, Rottweil, Prague, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Basel and Grindelwald. Satis Shroff has worked with The Rising Nepal (Gorkhapatra Corporation), where he wrote a weekly Science Spot and wrote editorials and commentaries on Nepal’s development, health, wildlife, politics and culture. He also wrote weekly commentaries for Radio Nepal. He has studied Zoology and Geology in Kathmandu, Medicine and Social Science in Freiburg and Creative Writing under Prof. Bruce Dobler, Pittsburgh University and with Writers Bureau (Manchester). He was awarded the German Academic Prize.
Read his articles, essays, poems and book-reviews at http://www.americanchronicle.com/ and its associate of twenty syndicated newspapers, http://www.boloji.com/ http://www.yahoo/ & http://www.google/ under: satis shroff. His anthology of poems and prose ‘Between Two Worlds(Satis Shroff)’ has been published by http://www.lulu.com/ and his German anthology will be shortly published by the Frankfurter Verlag..

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

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 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 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 is on its way to becoming a democratic state and the government will have to make positive ammendments or scrap the treaty and draw a new one with 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 receiving 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 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 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 onced 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 1/7th 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 GCE '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 Gurkhas 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 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, 3rd 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 for 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 45,000 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 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.
If you don't know the impact that the death of a Gurkha can have on his near and dear-ones, then please read the following lyric and think of the plight of the Gurkha mother:

A GURKHA MOTHER (Satis Shroff)
(Death of a Precious Jewel)

The gurkha with a khukri
But no enemy
Works for the British Gurkhas
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
Argentinians 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 battalion.
A letter with a seal and a poker-face
"Your son died on duty," he says,
"Keeping peace for Her Majesty
The Queen of England."
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

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Dear Satis,

Namaskar! I am a retired Gurkha soldier, currently residing in Nottingham. I read your recent article “The British and the Gurkhas: Worlds Apart”. Many thanks for this and I really appreciate your article which is very informative. I have several contacts and will certainly pass this article to them.
I served 20 years under the flagship of the Union Jack in the Gurkha Regiment, but never had a chance to deploy in active war. During my 20 years experience, there were so many discriminations being laid in between British and Gurkha soldiers. I always asked myself, why they are treating us like this even when we deploy in the war alongside British counterparts, the enemy never spare us because of our cheap status. But we were sought to keep remaining quiet. Our Senior Officers were British, trained at Sandhurst Academy and the way they were treating us very painful in terms of comparing the way of life in Britain and Nepal.
As you had written 111 Gurkha soldiers were sent home without pension from Hawaii incident. The main cause was their Company Commander, the British Major (no name). He was so cruel and always been treated the Gurkha soldiers as slaves and he gave a speech to the American soldiers highlighting that the Gurkha soldiers are very poor in Nepal, uncivilized etc…. Although we were taught hard and respect our seniors, 111 soldiers could not bear this humiliation and the incident took place.

After having been fighting against with the British Government by the series of Ex-Gurkha Servicemen Organisation more than a decade, finally the British Government has given green light to settle the Gurkhas in the UK, but setting the magic cut off date of 1997. Those who are retired before 1997 are not allowed to settle in UK. Now, the British Government has reviewed the new terms and conditions of the Gurkhas after much pressure delivered by the some Ex-Gurkha Servicemen Organisations. The British Government reviewed and this special news of treating same footage of British counterparts been spread all over the world via media, but they did not review as per British soldiers.

Tul Bahadur Pun, VC, 84 arrived in UK on 5 July for his medical treatment. He was barred by the British Embassy to grant settlement visa a month ago. His application was rejected by saying” He has no close tie with Britain”, what a shame! This was the man who was awarded the Victoria Cross during World War II saving the Gurkhas and British soldiers in the battle field and he was fighting for Britain, not for Nepal or other countries. He was later granted a settlement visa after much pressure created by the British public. We have many widows, orphans and Gurkha veterans without pension. This is how we do not understand that the BritishGovernment can move the gaol post at any place and at any time he wishes, negating the human rights and delivering injustice to the Gurkhas who have fought for Britain and given their lives by the thousands.

Satisji, again. Thank you very much for your article.


G. Rai
From : Nottingham

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Sir,

A friend forwarded an article you had written about the Gurkhas and their British masters. I am impressed by your knowledge of the 'internal going-ons' within a Gurkha regiment and that the facts in your article reflects the true goin-ons in a Gurkha regiment.

Yet again, we have lost out on our demands for equal pensions. The government has on 08 March 2007 announced equal pensions that have once again fooled the general public. My British friends congratulate me that finally I will now receive equal pensions with my British counterpart.

The real picture is now that the British Government has given equal pensions to Gurkhas I as a Warrant Officer 2 get an annual pension of £3138 for 22 years service against my British counterparts annual pension of £12,114 for 22 years service. The British Government calls this equalpension! Could I please request your kind assistance in spreading this word far and wide.

I hope you have the time to study the attached British/Gurkha Pension rates.
With kind regards.

G. Limbu

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About the Author:

Satis Shroff is a writer and poet based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) who also writes on ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes, and writes regularly for The American Chronicle (http://www.amchron.com/), and is a contributing writer on www.boloji.com and also Blog.ch. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Science in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and Manchester. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.He is a lecturer in Basle (Switzerland).

Writing experience: Satis Shroff has written two language books on the Nepalese language for DSE (Deutsche Stiftung für Entwicklungsdienst) & Horlemannverlag. He has written three feature articles in the Munich-based Nelles Verlag’s ‘Nepal’ on the Himalayan Kingdom’s Gurkhas, sacred mountains and Nepalese symbols and on Hinduism in ‘Nepal: Myths & Realities (Book Faith India) and his poem ‘Mental Molotovs’ was published in epd-Entwicklungsdienst (Frankfurt). He has written many articles in The Rising Nepal, The Christian Science Monitor, the Independent, the Fryburger, Swatantra Biswa (USIS publication, Himal Asia, 3Journal Freiburg. Also read his poems, articles in http://www.yahoo/ & http://www.google/ search under: satis shroff freiburg.

What others have said about the author:

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. In 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, poetess, Germany). An anthology of poems and prose ‘Between Two Worlds’(Satis Shroff) can be read at www.Lulu.com/content/247475.

.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).

Since 1974 I have been living on and off in Nepal, writing articles and publishing books about Nepal-- this beautiful Himalayan country. Even before I knew Satis Shroff personally (later) I was deeply impressed by his articles, which helped me very much to deepen my knowledge about Nepal.Satis Shroff is one of the very few Nepalese writers being able to compare ecology, development and modernisation in the ‘Third’ and ‘First’ World. He is doing this with great enthusiasm, competence and intelligence, showing his great concern for the development of his own country. (Ludmilla Tüting, journalist and publisher, Berlin).

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)

Satis Shroff writes with intelligence, wit and grace. (Bruce Dobler, Associate Professor in Creative Writing MFA, University of Iowa).
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satisle@myway.com