Tibetan Foothold (11 page)

It’s pathetic to see how the children, despite being forced to wear Western clothes, insist on carrying their few possessions in Tibetan style. Even when a Western garment has pockets they ignore these and improvise Tibetan pouches above the waist by tying something very tightly around their middles – how they survive this constriction is beyond my comprehension.

Today, being Sunday, I’ll take the opportunity to introduce you to Pooh-Bah. (Perhaps his name should be spelt ‘Puba’ – but the temptation is irresistible!) This three-year-old effortlessly dominates the camp, though in physical stature he is the smallest object outside the Babies’ Room; everyone adores him, and any child-psychologist would go grey overnight at the irresponsible adulation and pandering to which he is exposed. For no apparent reason, except that he is Pooh-Bah, a special ayah personally attends him. He should be in Room Six with the three-and four-year-olds, but as this accommodation is rather gloomy, with more than its share of bed-bugs, he has chosen Room Two which leaks badly yet has a delightful outlook. And here he lords it over one hundred eight-and nine-year-olds.

Pooh-Bah is the most beautiful child in the camp. His features are meltingly cherubic and the knowledge that in this case appearances deceive adds piquancy to the large, liquid brown eyes with their long, upsweeping lashes, and to the round, golden-tanned face, complete with dimples and slightly pursed lips. When one analyses Pooh-Bah’s character a number of unpleasant and very un-Tibetan traits are soon discovered – but somehow one doesn’t often stop to analyse it because the little wretch possesses more charm to the cubic inch than any other child in the place.

He is aggressive yet this is readily forgiven, since those he attacks are always considerably larger than himself. Tibetans are not bred to fight back so it is a common occurrence to hear howls of agony from some corner of the compound and then to find Pooh-Bah sitting on a prone eight-year-old’s back, sadistically pounding his victim’s head with an empty pill bottle. He accepts adult intervention with a good grace and even permits a certain amount of consolation to the afflicted, but if he judges that the situation is getting out of control, and that he himself is in danger of being forgotten, he will take your hand and with an imperious gesture convey that enough is enough.

He is also a hypochondriac, and diseases taken for granted by the other children are a source of absorbing interest to him. His scabies, his
rotten teeth, his worms, his dysentery, his trachoma, his bronchitis, his otitis media – all are cunningly used to excite the sympathy and generosity of the camp, as though he alone were suffering. But his greatest pride and joy was a cut forehead, adorned by three stitches. This, being exclusive to Pooh-Bah, was shown individually to every member of the camp, and one frequently saw people being solemnly led by the hand on a sort of pilgrimage to the Scene of the Accident, where the martyr would explain just how he fell off the table and acquired this grievous wound. Yet his is not a morbid personality, though – again unlike the average Tiblet – he rarely smiles. But when he does the smile is of such a ravishing sweetness that everyone privileged to come within its radius feels that their day has been made.

Normally, however, Pooh-Bah expresses his good humour by singing an interminable solo – and in this at least he is a true Tibetan. Not being gregarious he saunters alone around the compound, occasionally pausing by a group of children to consider their activities. Then, if a musical mood comes upon him, he wanders off to the edge of the compound to sing his song while gazing down on the Kangra valley 4,000 feet below – with his little pot-belly almost protruding over the precipice.

Undisguised greed is another of Pooh-Bah’s failings, and this is indeed unique among Tiblets, who so often share with their roommates whatever few delicacies happen to come their way. Pooh-Bah’s delicacies, however, are neither few nor shared. At every hour of the day he may be seen clutching some biscuit or sweet or piece of cheese, and instead of discreetly consuming these ill-gotten gains in a quiet corner he struts up and down loudly sucking, or sits at some prominent vantage point conspicuously munching. By all the laws of human nature he should be universally detested on this count alone.

Inevitably, Pooh-Bah has first pick from the clothing gift-parcels and he is at the moment attired in a slightly improbable plaid jacket of Scotch tweed and in tight-fitting, royal blue breeches. Unfortunately this sartorial elegance is marred by his incredible facility for attracting vast quantities of filth to his person within minutes of the daily bath. Incidentally, he resents this unnatural intimacy with soap and water
even more bitterly than does the average Tiblet and will only allow it on being heavily bribed in edible currency.

Life here would be hell if all Tiblets were Pooh-Bahs – but one little devil among hundreds of angels can have quite a pleasant leavening effect.

This afternoon Oliver and I went for a long hike through the forest, around the back of this mountain. We brought our bathing-togs as Doris had told us that a suitable swimming pool could be found if one kept walking long enough – and after about two hours we did reach the spot. Never have I bathed in such glorious surroundings. We were now at the head of a long, deep, narrowing valley, between high green mountains, where the splendour of this region’s scenery reaches a superb climax. Here ends the precarious shepherd’s path we had followed and the pool is suddenly visible, lying like an emerald between giant boulders. Above and below it the mountain torrent is fierce and foaming – a contrast which makes the tranquillity of the pool itself seem almost magical. Through the sparkling crystal of the water one sees its bed of silver sand, and in my haste to scramble down to this swimmer’s paradise I very nearly broke an ankle on the wilderness of boulders. Oliver, I noticed, was a little less enthusiastic about immersion in Himalayan waters. However, he jumped in briskly and swam twenty yards to the other end of the pool – but there he jumped out even more briskly, roaring like a wounded lion. When he had thawed sufficiently to be able to articulate again he yelled frantically – ‘Dervla! Dervla! Come out of that wretched hell of water or you will begin to be not alive!’ (In moments of stress he rather loses his linguistic grip.) I yelled back reassuringly that I hadn’t felt so alive for months – which was perfectly true, though I don’t think I ever before swam in such icy water. Yet on emerging after about twenty minutes I felt not the slightest chill, despite the fact that the pool was now in shadow. Obviously this proves something, though I’m not sure what: possibly that the body stores heat and that after enduring horribly high temperatures for some months one is rewarded by developing an anti-chill device?

It’s two months today since I came to the camp, yet because of weather
and work this has been my first real exploration of its surroundings. Actually the region above and beyond Dall Lake is a lost little world of its own – high, still and very lovely, with the beauty of remote, unhurried places. One passes a couple of tiny farming hamlets, between Dall Lake and the pool, where the people are fair-skinned and aloof and tragically poor. The women’s colourful costumes and massive jewellery reminded me of the nomads I met up the Kagan valley and the men, who wear home-spun clothes, usually have about twenty yards of cow-hair rope wound around their waists; most of them shepherd large flocks of sheep and goats on dangerous pastures at high altitudes. Around the hamlets these hill-folk cultivate the near vertical slopes with great skill, planting maize and potatoes on the narrow strips of laboriously irrigated terracing. (Incidentally, the potatoes here are as good as in Ireland, which is saying something!) Many of these families possess buffalo – beasts which I should have thought singularly unsuitable for such terrain – yet even a brief glimpse of the people and their dwellings shows that they live in virtually sub-human conditions of poverty, dirt and disease.

It’s probably unavoidable that when working with refugees one becomes obsessed by their particular distress – but what a minor problem the Tibetans present in relation to the Colossus of misery that bestrides Asia! And in many ways refugees have an advantage over the rest since their homelessness and the political upheavals that make them refugees arouse sympathy and interest all over the world – whereas the pitiful Indian peasant is an unglamorous wretch representing a stale, dull problem in which public concern is not easily sustained. However, what one ordinary individual can do remains strictly limited, and by now, after my two months among the Tibetans, I know in my heart that I’m committed to them – much more for what they are giving me than vice versa. So it can profit me little to contemplate the vast arena of misery outside Tibland and – as Oliver would say – ‘It might become depressive’ to think too much about it. Only people like Jill, with a genius for dedication in all directions at once, can effectively have a finger in every pie of need; yet perhaps it’s wise to keep things in perspective by occasionally looking outside one’s own little sphere of action.

Since discovering the pool I’ve gone for a swim every Sunday and Tuesday (my day off) and last Sunday the excursion took a very zoological turn. To begin with I saw another – much bigger – troop of monkeys coming down from the heights. They flowed overhead like a grey river of fur, making odd twittering noises, and their passage from tree to tree created a lovely sound as of the whole forest swishing softly. Next, about half-a-mile further on, I saw my first Indian snake (apart from Delhi charmers’ specimens). It was only about eighteen inches long and no thicker than your thumb, with very beautiful bright yellow markings on its nigger-brown skin. I’m told that 78% of the world’s snakes are harmless and this was probably one of the majority but I didn’t pick it up to find out.

Arriving at the pool, I disturbed a fascinating water-bird which I’d first observed up the Kagan valley. Somewhat larger than a thrush it has a jet-black back, snow-white top of head and cardinal red tail and breast – an enchanting sight as it flashes from the clear green water to the silver-grey rocks and back again. I was so intent on studying it that I had undressed and plunged into the pool before a movement from the top of a nearby rock caught my eye. Then I nearly drowned with excitement for there, lying in the sun about twenty-five feet above the water, was a magnificent leopard. His long tail and one big, soft
cat-paw
hung over the edge of the rock and his right ear was twitching backwards and forwards – but otherwise he showed no sign of being alarmed by my intrusion. This seemed very remarkable to me;
however
, Big Game Hunting is strictly prohibited in this area so perhaps he had no reason to think that the proximity of humans would interfere with his plans. Of course at that stage I didn’t realise that he had plans, but later, when returning along the path, I could see that he was in fact closely observing a small herd of goats and kids grazing under the care of three children in a grassy depression on the far side of the river.

Leopards don’t attack humans unless injured or cornered, or in defence of their young, but they cause havoc among the herds, and
during the winter often kill village dogs. Apparently dog is one of their favourite foods and hapless live mongrels are used as baits when the locals want to trap and kill a particularly destructive marauder. Last week we heard that His Holiness had lost four of his tame deer to a leopard, and everyone in the camp was very upset about this, deer being especially precious animals to Tibetans because of their association with the Lord Buddha.

Today my expedition to the pool provided excitement of another kind. When I left the camp after lunch the sun was hot and brilliant, but on the other side of the mountain, an hour later, big black clouds were visible, threatening the head of the valley. At first I thought nothing of this, assuming that it meant just one more brief
thunderstorm
such as we often have nowadays; yet I did notice that it got darker and darker as I went east up the valley, though behind me the sun was still shining with summer fervour from a blue sky. When I stopped halfway to survey the whole scene the lighting effects were tremendous – to the west the broad valley looked placid and innocent in golden light but to the east its narrowing depths were sullen and sinister beneath a mass of black cloud which had by now obscured the overhanging peaks.

As I reached the pool shattering thunder-crashes began to echo and re-echo between the mountain-walls, and soon after entering the water I was almost concussed by the most gigantic hail-stones I’ve ever seen – they were the size of ping-pong balls. I swam underwater to the shelter of a rock and then peered out hopefully, feeling that this sort of thing could not go on for long. Nor did it – a moment later the hail ceased, to be replaced by swirling snow. And that, as you might say, was the end of my swim. But the freakish thing is that the temperature didn’t drop appreciably and I was quite warm walking home clad only in a shirt and shorts. Of course Oliver and Juliet were politely disbelieving when I reported my misadventure; the camp had enjoyed a flawlessly sunny afternoon, disturbed by no more than a few rumbles of distant thunder, and ‘travellers’ tales’ of blizzards around the corner were just
too
incredible.

We had terrific fun and games today. ‘Meals for Millions’ have decided to use us to test the value of their new protein food – an experiment which involves choosing 200 children, dividing them into six groups, and obtaining urine and stool specimens from each child.

First you take 200 little glass bottles and 200 little cardboard boxes and label them and write on each label a child’s personal number, room number, age and sex. This is, shall we say, tedious – but at least you can get on with it. Next you sally forth to find your 200 Tiblets, present them with their containers and explain that now life is real, life is earnest and these so carefully labelled objects are not – repeat
not
– ‘gumchus’, but are for the conservation of ‘chimbathombhi’ and ‘chakathombhi’. The two-and three-year-olds regard such instructions as so much hot air and go off delightedly clutching their new toys and doubtless marvelling at the fact that Authority is actually
giving
them glass to play with.

In eighty-six cases we haven’t yet found the children to match the waiting boxes and bottles. This is not altogether surprising, as in one room alone there are five ‘Lobsangs’; unfortunately these are all boys, whereas the Lobsang we yearn for is a girl. Each child has at least two names (one given by its mother and one by the Lamas) and often a nickname as well for good measure, so by the time you’ve spent an hour looking for Pasang Thondup, only to find that he’s really the child you’ve known for months as Sonam Dorje, your nerves are giving way. Nor are they restored by the discovery that about 25% of the personal numbers are now either lost or indecipherable. The whole experiment is farcical – what’s the point of writing names and numbers
on boxes and bottles when neither ayahs nor children can read? It’s quite impossible for us personally to supervise the capturing of 400 specimens in the relevant containers; yet eventually these containers will be filled and solemnly handed over to the doctor in charge, who can only take the ayahs’ word for it that their contents are according to specifications. Which just shows what reliance should be placed on the statistics so confidently announced after such experiments.

Last Saturday I was appalled to see a group of seven-and
eight-year-olds
poring over four American comics of the worst ‘sex and violence’ type. These degrading rags had been imported from Madras by one of the ayahs’ sons – a fourteen-year-old who is at school there and has recently returned to the camp on vacation. With a splendid disregard for the Rights of the Individual I immediately confiscated the lot, gave their indignant owner a new biro to fill the void and dumped the things in the kitchen stove. I can stand so much but I cannot stand American horror-comics being distributed among Tiblets. Granted my action was that of a crank; but for hours afterwards I was simmering with rage – not, obviously, against the Tiblets, but against the futility of my own gesture. These children really do have something worth preserving and the only name for it is innocence. It’s difficult to enlarge on this without sounding like a minor Victorian poetess, but compared to the Tiblets our children, with their sophistication and precocity, are terrifying indications of the depths to which Western civilisation has sunk.

The other day I chanced on an interesting discovery. A father had come to visit his daughters and around his neck hung two handsome silver medallions – each about the size of a half-crown – which at once attracted my attention. I asked if I might examine them more closely and was considerably astonished to find that they were very old Catholic medals, inscribed in Latin. The inscriptions were no longer entirely legible, yet their Catholicity was beyond doubt. My enquiries as to their origin led nowhere; the owner only knew that these were powerful religious charms which had been in his family for many generations. His home village lies between Lhasa and Sikkim so the medals may well be mementoes of the seventeenth century French Jesuits who visited Lhasa.

This man was one of those parents who occasionally come to take their children away for a holiday with the family. He disappeared down the track to Forsythe Bazaar looking very happy, with four-year-old Pasang riding on his back and six-year-old Thondup grasping his hand firmly while chattering away nineteen to the dozen. In about a month’s time they will return from the Kulu valley, accompanied by their young brother Norbu, who has just been weaned.

Some Westerners strongly disapprove of these vacations, arguing that it is unwise for the children to return to their squalid parental tents. But health is not an exclusively physical thing, and unless a child is seriously ill it’s difficult to believe that reunion with an affectionate family can do anything but good.

Recently we have had a few tricky cases, when parents wished to remove very sick children who were receiving treatment in the
Dispensary
. The parents did not realise that taking their offspring to a road-camp could have fatal consequences and they remained
unconvinced
by Oliver’s arguments. This brought us up against the problem of a Parent’s Right to Decide but in the end we threw such abstract speculations overboard and simply refused to allow the children to leave. I’m by no means sure that this is the correct thing to do; yet in such a situation one tends to assume that superior scientific knowledge automatically confers the right to defy parental wishes – just as on Saturday I took it upon myself to censor the Tiblets’ reading matter. The consequences, when dealing with adults, are rather distressing, involving an unavoidable degree of bullying and the treating of the insistent, anxious parents as though they were inferior beings.
Fortunately
in all these cases the children recovered, which they most probably would not have done had they been moved. However, even this does not satisfy me that our action was justified. Perhaps in the West we lay a little too much emphasis on the preservation of life at all costs and we never can understand why everyone else doesn’t share our demonstrably ‘sensible’ views on such subjects. But other people have other standards and who are we forcibly to replace them merely because they contravene our sense of right and wrong?

The ‘Meals for Millions’ fun and games continued today. All bottles and boxes had to be delivered at the Dispensary by 7 a.m. this morning, and at 9 a.m. the doctor, with his team of laboratory technicians, came sweating up the hill. An hour later I heard a roar of rage from the mobile laboratory and the doctor came striding towards me, furiously brandishing a test-tube and almost foaming at the mouth. His anger made for incoherence, but I soon gathered that in a bottle supposedly containing the urine of a two-year-old boy he had found the urine of a pregnant ayah. He was not soothed when I collapsed with laughter and showed no sign of surprise or resentment – after working among Tibetans for two and a half months one knows exactly what degree of co-operation to expect from them in conducting a scientific
investigation
. And personally if I were an ayah in charge of fifty or sixty children and were given thirty or forty bottles and boxes, neatly labelled in a language I couldn’t read, with instructions to have the right specimens in the right containers at the right time, I, too, would do exactly what the harassed ayah did. There’s a place for everything and Dharamsala Camp is not the place for large-scale experiments.

We’ve had quite a number of visitors here since the monsoon ended. David Williams from Kasauli has been three times, in connection with the building of the new dispensary, and Stuart Menteth has twice come from Simla on SCF business. Various other characters also drift in and out, since His Holiness’s presence in the area has turned
Dharamsala
into a place of pilgrimage or a tourist attraction – depending on the visitor’s outlook. One young Englishman named Mike stayed with us for three weeks and was a tremendous help; being a practical type he worked like a navvy, yet still had time to form a most successful Mutual Admiration Society with the Tiblets. But some visitors are merely a nuisance, as they float around making obvious remarks and impeding the routine. And worst of all are the Febs and Fabs (Female European Buddhists and Female American Buddhists) who flock here to have an audience – or if possible audiences – with His Holiness, and who are apt to come all over Theosophist without warning and to
stare fixedly at you asking rude questions about your soul. It’s a sad fact (doubtless of profound psychosomatic significance) that when anyone starts talking to me about my soul I am sorely tempted to giggle: a reaction which Theosophists cannot but regard as impolite, or blasphemous – or both. I don’t for one moment doubt these women’s sincerity, but my opinion on the matter was very precisely expressed by Carl Jung when he wrote: ‘I have serious doubts as to the blessings of Western civilisation, and I have similar misgivings as to the adoption of Eastern spirituality by the West.’ Febs and Fabs make me feel as uncomfortable as do Indian Christians – in both cases one is aware of something artificial somewhere, of a strange unease and of a vocal self-consciousness about aspects of life that most of us can at least appear to take in our stride, though we may have inward conflicts about them. But the involuntary hostility aroused by those who adopt alien philosophies is probably mainly due to a basic suspicion that they are guilty of attempting to escape from their inherited
responsibilities
. It may be argued that the majority of Westerners are no longer true to the traditions of Christendom, and are perhaps all the worse off for this, but instead of leaving the sinking ship they do at least make what they regard as the necessary modifications within the traditional framework of their own civilisation.

At last it’s getting really cold after sunset and now I sit wrapped in a blanket when writing. This morning Juliet decided that we would have to abandon the daily bathing; under present weather conditions it becomes a straight choice between pneumonia and scabies. We all regret this bitterly, as great things were being achieved; when one compares the scabies situation three months ago and now, the improvement is almost unbelievable. In an effort to keep the mite under control, despite the cold weather, Oliver has had mud ranges built in the open, both here and outside the Dispensary, and on these the children’s clothes will be boiled regularly – a reversal of monsoon conditions, when the bodies could be washed but the clothes couldn’t!

Other heartening improvements have also taken place, including
some alleviation of the overcrowding problem through the reduction of the total camp numbers to about 700; the other hundreds have been transferred to Mussoorie or Dalhousie. Most important of all, sufficient pressure has been brought to bear in the relevant quarters, and from now on every child in the camp is to receive one piece of fresh fruit per diem – at the moment a banana, later in the season an orange.

The first day’s distribution of fruit ended in chaos because of the aforementioned Tibetan tendency to hoard food. That night we found scores of peeled, half-eaten bananas concealed in the children’s ‘pouches’ – and it’s difficult to think of anything less suitable than a peeled banana for storage next to the skin
outside
the stomach. So next day Juliet got things organised and now, at 3 p.m., it’s the accepted routine for all the children to line up on the compound, receive their banana, peel it and
eat
it in its entirety before the ranks may be broken. As yet the Tiblets haven’t learned not to drop the peels on the ground, and the sweepers have an extra job each day. But Juliet plans to combine a lesson in civic spirit with the absorption of vitamins and by tomorrow litter-boxes will be installed and their purpose explained so, knowing Tiblets, I’m sure a banana-skin will never again be seen on the compound.

Today was cloudy and, once the sun had disappeared, just about as cold as late October in Ireland. This was disappointing as it’s a day of celebration in the camp – the forty-ninth day after Rinchin’s death and so the end of her ‘Bardo’ life and the beginning of a new life in another incarnation. I’ve just paused to check on the calendar, which tells me that in fact it’s only forty-three days since the death – a typical Tibetan calculation! The little hut on the mountainside was reopened this morning (Dubkay now lives elsewhere – or nowhere) and again became a shrine where all day three Lamas sat chanting prayers opposite the effigy, while hundreds of butter-lamps flickered beneath a picture of the Lord Buddha, and outside, on a level, grassy ledge, a mud-stove was built to cook the celebration banquet. The entire kitchen staff migrated up for the day and here our lunch and dinner were prepared, since on this occasion Dubkay was host to everyone in the camp. I can’t imagine what most of the dishes were, but each
tasted more delicious than the last and one felt quite immobilised after the final course. The children were given ‘tormas’ and released from school this morning and all the adults spent the day sitting in rows near the stove, either preparing or eating food while drinking immeasurable quantities of ‘chang’. To my great sorrow no one offered us any of this – perhaps it isn’t considered fit for Western
consumption
. But at least one Westerner would have been very glad to consume a pint of it …

Yesterday the Indian radio broadcast a report that a widespread revolt against the Chinese is imminent in Tibet and today the Tibetans here are discussing the possibility of Russia moving in to ‘help’ their country should any organised uprising take place. Recently All-India Radio also announced that since China annexed Tibet the death-rate there had risen by 50% as the Lamas, with their herbal medicines and charms, had been replaced by quack Chinese doctors. This statement amused us intensely. Disregarding any comparisons between modern and Tibetan medicine, how does anyone know what the death-rate in Tibet was before 1950? Listening to the solemn voice of the announcer one would think that Tibet had held a national census every five years – how unrealistic can propaganda get!