Through the Looking-Glass #6

Published November 7, 2006 in the Telluride Watch

Many Westerners have become enchanted with Nepal since it opened its borders some 50 years ago. Before I first traveled here in 1998, friends talked of having ‘fallen in love with’ Nepal. I didn’t quite grasp the concept of falling in love with a country, until I fell in love myself.

Nepal is a poor country, ranked 200^th of 233 countries in terms of GDP per capita, with an unemployment rate of 42 percent. The roads in Kathmandu are pock-marked and littered with trash; the roads leading out of Kathmandu are worse, and many people die every year when buses fall of precarious cliffs. Cities are dusty and polluted, and drinking the tap water can bring on intestinal distress that can last for days. Politicians are believed to be corrupt and bureaucrats nearly impossible to deal with. So why is it that we love Nepal?

The Himalayas are a huge draw, especially for us Telluriders used to the jagged peaks of the San Juans. Even from Kathmandu, the Himalayas shine majestic on clear mornings. When you travel close enough to touch them, their grandeur renders people speechless. Many travelers also came to Nepal on their search for the mythical Shangri-La, especially in the 1970s, lured in by the free-flowing hashish and mystical Hindu holy men inhabiting the temples. Others than are drawn here to give something back to the world by volunteering for various social causes in a country where the need for such help appears endless.

But much like in Telluride, where we came for the skiing and stayed for the summers, in Nepal it is something else entirely that keeps drawing us back. It is the people – ever smiling, ever hospitable, ever willing to share with someone they’ve known only a moment. That’s what makes us fall in love Nepal and keep coming back again and again. Nepalis are a fun-loving people, able to overlook daily hardship to share a joke, a dance or a song with friends. This is especially prevalent during the Tihar festival.

On the third day of the festival, Kathmandu is alive with light. It is the night of Laxmi Puja, and Kathmanduites light candles and butter lamps in every window and doorway in their homes to invite the Goddess Laxmi to bless their homes with prosperity. The legend behind this holiday tells the story of a selfish king who became angry with her daughter and banished her to the forest to live as the wife of a penniless man. One day the king removed his priceless pearl necklace while bathing and a crow picked it up in his beak and flew away with it. The crow flew to the forest and dropped the necklace near the princess’s home. The princess recognized the necklace as her father’s and promised to return it if he met one condition. On the night of the Goddess Laxmi’s annual tour of the kingdom, every house was to sit dark except for the princess’s. The king agreed to the condition and on the night of Laxmi’s visit, every house in the kingdom was dark except for the princess’s small hut in the forest. Laxmi was drawn into the princess’s house by the light and bestowed endless prosperity on the princess and her husband. The king ultimately became poor himself, while the princess reaped the benefits of Laxmi’s charity.

Laxmi Puja is also the night that groups of women visit houses in their neighborhood to play Bhailo, which is similar to the American Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating, but with much more theatrics. In modern-day Kathmandu, non-profit organizations have started playing Bhailo to raise money, and I have joined the Buddhist Child Home, an orphanage in Kathmandu, on their Bhailo tour.

A handful of adults leaves the Buddhist Child Home in the afternoon with 30 young children, some in costume, all clambering to hold the adults’ hands. Santosh and Sonam, boys of about ten years, lead the procession with a banner proclaiming their Bhailo program. The orphanage staff lugs speakers and a sound system along, while a few adults play the madal drum. We make our way to the first house and the group begins by singing a traditional song, and the whole group joins in singing the chorus, “Bhaile Re,” a phrase meant to spread good wishes of prosperity. Then the children take the stage, performing the dances they have been practicing for weeks, all to traditional Nepali folk songs. First Saru and Sapana perform the most traditional Bhailo dance; then Sapana and Sarita are joined by Saroj and Sudip to do a couples’ dance; finally Sanjay, Sabin, Samir and Suman perform a comical men’s dance where they flaunt their strength. The dancing and singing continues for another 30 minutes, and then the homeowner emerges from her home with a bamboo tray stacked with fruits, rice and money. The children sing a thank-you song and we pack up and move on to our next destination.

This pace continues until well into the night, and as the evening wears on, the children become a little more weary. The adults do too, and so at one home, the orphanage chairperson’s husband Rudra puts a different Nepali folk song in the CD player and the adults have their turn at the dance. I am sitting on the ground with the children, and demure when they ask me to come up, just like a good Nepali girl would. It is only after they insist for the third time that I stand up and join the group of dancing men. I let my arms flow to the music, and jump and hop about, doing my best imitation of a Nepali dance. The crowd loves it and I am told later than some neighborhood spectators went to get more people to come watch the kuirini dance like a Nepali.

After visiting a few more homes, the group finally calls it a night at midnight and returns to the orphanage for dinner, where the staff serves up obscene quantities of rice, dal and greens and the exhausted Bhailo participants eat it up quickly before turning in. Throughout dinner, though, the joke-making and laughing continues, among the adults and children. As long as there is food to eat and fun to be had, this group is happy. That is the lesson that Nepalis teach Westerners, and that is what draws us back time and time again. The chance to laugh freely with friends and enjoy a moment for the moment itself, without worrying about worrisome things.