Maya (26 page)

The tricky thing about a beyul is that it cannot be discovered through any kind of intentional search. No map will ever point the way. As the British imperial forces well knew, a map is primarily a tool of conquest, a visual embodiment of the desire to capture and hold a specific territory. To imagine forced entry into a beyul is like planning to storm the gates of Neverland. Even to harbor a desire to find such a place is to be irredeemably lost in an oxymoron; the valley of T'ao Ch'ien's
Peach Blossom Spring
will never be found through yearning and striving but only through unconditional surrender. In Manali—if only for a short while—I stumbled into just such a magical world.

The ride from Delhi was a grueling twenty-four hours by bus through the dusty, flat expanse of Haryana and the Punjab, up into the Terai and, finally, along a poorly maintained road that wound northward through the Kullu Valley. It was almost dark by the time we reached Chandigarh, and there was still an entire night and part of the next day in front of us. Most of that time I was half-awake, smashed upright into a crowded seat, my head bouncing and jerking with the motion of the bus as it rounded one sharp turn after another, following the switchbacks that clung to the steep walls of the Beas River. By the time we arrived at our final destination, early the following afternoon, I had long since sunken into a kind of hypnogogic trance. My eyes itched and burned, and the muscles of my neck and back were contracted like iron straps. It was pure joy to climb
off the bus and find myself standing in the relative silence of the Manali bazaar, breathing in cool, clear mountain air.

On both sides the valley rose in a network of terraced rice-paddies and apple orchards that gradually gave way, at higher elevations, to deep forests of Deodar pine, fir, and spruce. To the east was the towering peak of Deo Tibba; to the west a craggy line of snow-covered mountains leading off into the Solang Valley and the source of the Beas River—an immense amphitheater of glaciated ice and rock situated over twenty thousand feet above sea level. Looking northward, I could just make out the striated cliffs of the Rohtang Pass, an angular rock wall thrown up against the mind-boggling emptiness of the Lahauli sky. The Rohtang is closed by snow most of the year, but as I stood there outside the bus, I could sense the presence of the vast Tibetan plateau as it spilled over the pass, charging the northern Kullu Valley with its elemental power. The village of Manali stands guard like a sentry here at the boundary between this world and another, alien realm of monstrous proportions, a land of ice and stone sliced by frigid torrents of foaming whitewater.

Outside the wooden storefronts, men in baggy woolen pants and short coats clustered in the street smoking and talking, every one of them wearing a kind of small, brimless cap with a swatch of brightly colored fabric sewed along the front. The women, too, were all wearing versions of the same dress: a plaid wrap-around blanket fixed in place at the shoulders with two brass pins. It seemed like every other person was carrying an amorphous ball of fluff tucked into the waist-belt of their clothing. While they talked, they worked it with their fingers, stretching and pulling the fuzz into a single long strand that led downward to a whirling wooden top that twirled just above their feet. It took me a moment to realize that they were spinning yarn.

I had no idea where to stay; all I wanted was to find a room where I could stretch out and get some sleep. I figured I'd start looking around for a more permanent place the next morning. I was trying to decide which way to go when a teenage boy emerged from nowhere and approached me just outside the bus. He was wearing blue jeans and a shabby, chocolate-brown suit coat. Under the coat was a V-neck argyle sweater emblazoned with the name of an Indian cricket team. The toes of his grimy rubber thongs were scuffed to a thin edge. His hat—the same style as the other men were wearing—was cocked at a rakish angle, which gave him a breezy, confident air. Tufts of unruly hair poked out over his ears.

“Hello sir.” He pronounced the English words with great confidence, simultaneously extending one hand. “My name Ramnath.”

I shook his outstretched hand.

“You want good room?” He smiled ingenuously, as though he desired nothing more than to assist a needy traveler.

I looked him over. My immediate impulse was to tell him to get lost. He was obviously a hustler—a kid accustomed to working the hippies and the occasional tourist who somehow got this far up into the mountains. He probably had a contract with a local hotel owner from whom he collected a commission. But I was desperate.

“What kind of ‘good' room?”

“Very good room, sir.” Again the smile. “You come with me. See this room.”

He gestured for me to follow, then started walking. After a few steps he turned back and saw me still standing. “Come. This way, sir.” Again he motioned for me to follow. “You no be sorry.”

What the hell
, I thought, lifting my bag, which was full of heavy books and dictionaries.

He watched me struggle, then came over and took the strap from my hands. I protested, but he waved me off and eased the bag over his shoulder. “No vurry, mahn!”

I followed him for a block or so down the main street, keeping close behind. We turned left into an alley between two buildings, scattering some chickens that ran squawking and fluttering ahead. He was walking surprisingly fast, considering the weight of the bag, and within moments we were free of the buildings, heading out of the bazaar and up the western side of the valley, plying our way along a well-trodden maze of pathways that led between the flooded rice paddies. All the while my guide was whistling and singing. Every now and again he glanced over his shoulder to make sure I was still there, flashing the same innocent grin. After twenty minutes or so, we took a fork in the trail that led up to a two-story, wood and stucco house enclosed by broad, covered porches at both the lower level and above.

The room Ramnath offered me was in his own home. It was one of two on the ground floor; the other was used for storage. Inside I found a small, wood-burning stove in one corner and a straw sleeping mat on the floor. In the course of our negotiations, it became clear that the boy could speak very little English, and when I switched into Hindi he was
genuinely thrilled. He agreed to rig me up a desk, using a few old crates, and the deal was closed.

Ramnath and his family lived in the single, large room above. His mother, Durga, was a sturdy, strong-featured woman with ears pierced all the way around and hair tied back in a bright red scarf. His father was a raw-boned, cheerful man, with stubbly cheeks and bad teeth, someone who had obviously worked hard all his life. Both Ramnath's parents departed for the forest early every morning and came lumbering back home after dark, buried under two mountains of wood strapped to their backs. When not busy with the wood, they worked the small vegetable garden near the house or tended to a few chickens that scratched around in the dirt. Ramnath's sister, Kaladevi, also lived upstairs. She couldn't have been more than twelve years old. Most of the time she carried their younger sister, a toddler named Priya, on her hip. Among themselves the family spoke a Kullu dialect virtually unintelligible to me; but when we conversed, they effortlessly shifted into something approaching the language I had studied in Chicago and Delhi. During the month I lived with them, I barely used a word of English.

Water for drinking and washing dishes had to be hauled from a nearby stream in a twenty liter plastic container, and I was responsible for splitting my own firewood. All this took up a significant part of my afternoons. Since I was cooking for myself, I had to get fresh vegetables every other day. It took a couple of hours to hike down to the bazaar, purchase what I needed, and get back up to the house.

I learned that a Tibetan refugee community had settled at the south end of town, around a Geluk monastery and a smaller Nyingma temple. To the northeast, a steep hike up from the river, there was another monastery that belonged to a famous Kagyu meditation master named Apo Rinpoche. He was renowned for his teaching of
tumo
, a form of meditation designed to recalibrate the body's thermostat. People told me that hermits who know this practice could survive subzero weather in a cave without firewood or warm clothing. I heard stories about how Apo Rinpoche trained his monks outdoors in the dead of winter. While the lamas sat cross-legged in the snow, absorbed in meditation, he would walk back and forth, upending buckets of freezing water over the motionless row of bodies. Ramnath and his mother both insisted they had seen—all the way across the valley—clouds of steam rising from the courtyard of the monastery.

I had no idea what to make of such tales, but I was taken with the Tibetans, spinning their prayer wheels, chanting mantras, and laughing. Their broad, weathered faces, framed by black braids, turquoise earrings, and necklaces of coral and silver reminded me of Edward Curtis's old photographs of Native Americans. One afternoon I stood for the better part of an hour watching a group of men huddled on their knees in a tight circle, gambling. They took turns shaking several dice in a small wooden cup, which they slammed down with great flourish onto a leather mat. The slap of the cup as it struck the mat was accompanied by enthusiastic cries of
AH-LAY!
and
TSOK SUNG!
followed by a great deal of cajoling, teasing, sighing, punching, and shoving.
Who are these people?
I wondered. Like so many other Western visitors to the Himalayas back then, I desperately wanted to pry into the secret source of their joy.

Not withstanding all the novel distractions of life in Manali, I made an effort to resume my work with Sanskrit and Pali, and my meditation practice. It quickly became apparent that Ramnath would be a problem. No matter what I happened to be doing or how engrossed I was in my work, he would simply invite himself into my room and announce the plan of the hour. Driven from the room, he would then pace back and forth on the veranda just outside my open window, observing me from the corner of his eye as I sat on the floor in front of my makeshift desk, reading and writing. For the first few days I did my best to ignore him. But on the third day after I moved in, he explained to me that he was going to help a nearby family plant rice and asked if I would like to come along. Before I knew it, I was wading knee deep in water behind two slick, wet buffalo, clutching at the handles of a wooden plow, with black muck oozing up between my toes. I had not had so much fun in a long time.

What really took me away from my books, though, was the discovery of an entirely unanticipated pleasure. There were two handcrafted looms on the veranda outside my room, and when there was no more pressing business, everyone took their turn weaving. The blankets made by the family were sold wholesale to a vendor, who then—from what I gathered—would pass them along to a buyer who traveled up from the plains. Ramnath put in several hours a day, which seemed to be his main contribution to the domestic economy. When he offered to teach me, I immediately accepted.

The very next morning we hiked to the old village of Manali, some
forty minutes away, to help shear a herd of sheep. Everyone was involved and having a good time. Even the small children made a game of it, gleefully collecting the wool and stuffing it into burlap sacks. Along with several other men, I was given the task of restraining the sheep while the scissors did their work. The animals were bleating and wild. I wrapped my arms around their chests and plunged my fingers into their thick, tangled coats, down through twigs and grass and hard pellets of shit, hugging them tight against me. Their warm bodies smelled of rain and snow, pine needles, grass, and earth.

Late in the day, after the work was done, I sat around a fire with the others, chewing on doughy paratha and drinking
chang
—a kind of milky, homemade beer. A few of the men began to sing, and before long the whole group joined in. Someone suggested that I sing an English song, and in a moment everyone was yelling and clapping, insisting that the videshi perform. The only thing I could think of was
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
, so I went with it. The moment I began to sing, everyone stopped talking—even the children wandered over to listen. The only sound, other than my voice, was the crackling of the fire.

Ramnath and I came home sometime long after dark, wobbling drunkenly through the woods. I was filthy and exhausted and absurdly happy. Over my shoulder I carried a bag of wool that I would spin into yarn, for a blanket that I myself was going to weave.

The next morning I skipped meditation and slept in. I awoke with a manageable hangover, made a cup of Nescafé, and spent the morning sitting on the porch with my host, relaxing in the sun, lost in aimless conversation. From that day on, for the remainder of my stay with Ramnath and his family, I never opened another book.

We soon developed a routine. While my tutor worked at the loom next to me, dispensing occasional instructions and encouragement, I sat ensconced behind an intricate network of strings and levers. Two peddles at my feet controlled the mechanism that lifted and dropped the combs, separating the strings of the warp in alternate directions. Gradually I learned to synchronize the movement of my feet with the back-and-forth motion of the shuttle as it slid between my hands. It did not take long before I fell into a natural rhythm that required no conscious thought. From where we sat on the front porch, I could look out for miles north and south along the valley and all the way down to the bazaar. Far below, people went about their business like Lilliputians, moving among streets
lined with tiny houses and shops. Now and again the faint sound of a bus horn would reach my ears. Otherwise there was only the hypnotic swish of yarn and the expanse of Himalayan sky.

One morning, about a week after the sheep shearing, we were sitting together on the porch having coffee, and during a lapse in the conversation I spotted a bright green lizard on a boulder just in front of the house. It was doing pushups on its front legs, moving up and down on the stone in deliberate, jerky motions. I asked Ramnath if they were dangerous.