S empre equal, Kathmandu. The only difference being that the road that passes in front of the Palazzo Reale is strangely empty. There are colored bedspreads hanging along the railings of the garden of the king, nor the sadhu dressed in orange with the bucket in her hand full of red dust. The road that leads to Thamel, then, is literally covered with waste. Some one must have hung out to art because they cover the entire track. The following day at breakfast, read on the Kathmandu Post that the rug pickers, stirred the garbage, blocking the gates of a central repository of the city. Challenge the new government's disposal that prevents them from working. To stir in the garbage, then, looking for plastic bottles to sell, yet edible vegetables, rubber, pieces of wood.
F very hot, humid heat of the monsoon, and the street stands a sweet smell unbearable.
The Kathmandu Guesthouse is just like I left three years ago. Maybe a little less organized. The palm trees in the garden were the last dry plumes, and when you sit in patio for a drink waiters is overdue. Customers are few, but it is still early for the summer season. I know a mixed couple that I had met some years ago. She, un'occidentale fifties. He, an Indian, with long hair that fell over her shoulders. They talk on the patio of positive and negative energy with a middle-aged German who played the guru. Meeting Sohan, the head of customer relations. He is missing a front tooth and this is perhaps the reason why does not smile much. The bouncers at the gate usually in uniform with the air of a retired general. Even the room that give us the same. No. 204. S tandard facing garden. One of the most coveted of the guesthouse. Exit onto the balcony, you sit on a wooden chair and watch the garden that lies beneath. Maya also found, the femme de chambre, with its beautiful gray sari with a red edge. I "namaste" and smiles abound. As always.
In New Orleans, where we go for a snack to give us news Razu, the waiter who three years ago had an affair with a German volunteer. Not if the past is well Razu in recent years. His wife, who was married we knew even then, it was on fire by pouring a can of gasoline. He was not dead, for his misfortune. The news had come down to Thamel and Razu had been fired. Nobody knew anything.
At Yin and Yang also find Shiva, communism.
He managed to put aside the money to go to study in America. He lacks the visa the next day and has an appointment with the U.S. embassy for the interview ritual. He says he does not know if they will give you a visa. There are no rules. Sure, it has protection and a sponsor in America, has a great deal. And he, unfortunately, not them. But he speaks good English and can prove that the bank shall be deposited in his name the $ 39,000 that will allow him to pay the fees and the first year on campus. Faced with a cup of coffee, at Northfield, I am training to respond to hypothetical questions of the interviewer and I realize that will not make it through. Too naive. Not credible. With a past member alla YCL, la Young Communist League, che di certo non lo aiuta. Ha dei bellissimi occhi Shiva. La pelle scura e un sorriso onesto. Mi dice che, se Dio vorrà, se ne starà in America quattro anni. Senza mai rientrare a casa dalla moglie e dai figli. Che cosa ne pensa la sua famiglia? Dice che al villaggio tutto il clan si è tassato per raccogliere il denaro necessario a farlo partire. Lui studierà business administration. Per amministrare cosa? , gli chiedo. Il negozio- farmacia che la famiglia di sua moglie possiede al villaggio, risponde. Non ho il coraggio di suggerirgli di tacere agli intervistatori americani che è questa la sua ambizione. Troppo fiducioso, troppo entusiasta. Finita la colazione mi chiede: Come ti sembro? Ce la farò a passare? Col sorriso che hai, nessuno ti chiuderà la porta, gli dico. Non esagerare troppo con le lodi all'America, sii serio e sottolinea il fatto che hai moglie e figli qui e che loro non hanno nessuna intenzioni di raggiungerti là. Lo saluto con una pacca sulle spalle e un nodo alla gola.
A Kathmandu trascorriamo due giorni a sbrigare la questione dei permessi per il Mustang. Il nostro referente è Navyo Eller, un meranese che vive a Kathmandu da venticinque anni. È lui che si occupa dei permessi e che ci fornisce i portatori. Lo andiamo a trovare a casa sua, in un quartiere non lontano dal tempio delle scimmie. Le scimmie gli arrivano fin dentro casa. Corrono in perfetto equilibrio lungo la palizzata di legno del garden and swinging nimbly from one wire to another light. Navy presents Ram, who is a pruning of the garden. It is his personal porter and knows the mountains where we like his pockets. He will not be our sirdar, he says. He does not speak enough English and has not yet passed the exam to become a guide. Will Goma, which will meet in the evening to the guesthouse. Ram is a little guy with two legs dry and thin. If I had not already been in the Himalayas I have doubts about his ability Alps. But the Sherpas now know them and know they are made of iron. Do not know, Navio, many carriers will be with us. It will decide the sirdar, he says, in line with needs. Six, ten, twelve ... We do not have to worry about.
Goma, il sirdar, ci raggiunge di sera, alla guesthouse. Anche lui è piccolo, ma molto più solido e compatto di Ram. Viene da un villaggio delle colline del Nepal orientale ed è di etnia mongola. In effetti, assomiglia più ad un cinese delle montagne dello Yunnan che a un nepalese. Capisco subito che è un uomo delle molteplici possibilità. Non vuole controllare la nostra attrezzatura. Non vuole controllare se i nostri sacchi a pelo sono abbastanza pesanti. Se le nostre scarpe vanno bene. Se gli zaini sono facili da caricare. Vedremo, dice. Non c'è problema. E se farà freddo di notte? Troveremo delle coperte, ci dice, e sorride. E quanti saremo? Chi lo sa. As required, cryptic answers. She smiles again.
The day before leaving we decided to make a jump to Pasupatinath. It is there, along the Bagmati river, which the followers of Shiva burned the corpses. And that's where the Milk Baba lived for years. Bizarre character, half saint, half cunning, Milk Baba is an object of great veneration by the local and especially tourists. The reason is contained in his holy name: Milk Baba, the man who has always fed on milk. Across the Bagmati lives instead Tea Baba, who, like preaching the name, boasts a diet based exclusively on tea. Tea Baba, no one knows why, not the same success as its neighbor. Some ash-covered sadhus who live around there, I am informed that Milk is currently on tour in America. To make the conference, they add.
The ghat Pasupatinath are exactly as I had left three years ago. The monkeys running up and down the roof, the boys naked plunge into the brown waters of the river with her hands pushing trails of garbage floating the dhalit dressed in white who prepare the funeral pyres, burning some bodies here and there, a child who rummages among the embers, looking for rings and gold teeth, the corpse of a woman with her feet in the water waiting to be burned, the families who mourn the dead a sprazzi, nei momenti topici della cerimonia funebre. E poi collane di fiori arancioni, incensi, donne vestite di rosso accovacciate sotto grandi ombrelli neri che le proteggono dal sole, bambini che tentano di catturare le scimmie. Nessuna tristezza a Pasupatinath. C'è il sole, il cielo azzurro, e sembra in tutto e per tutto una giornata di festa.
A qualche chilometro da là, a Bodnath, c'è tutta un'altra atmosfera. Meno confusa. Più raccolta.
Bodnath è il più importante centro religioso buddista di tutta la valle di Kathmandu. È a Bodnath, attorno all'enorme stupa circolare, che nel pomeriggio si ritrovano le migliaia di Tibetan refugees living in camps in the valley. Rotate clockwise around the stupa, widening the rosaries of wood, bone, ivory, dangling from his left hand. Li gin cotton without reflection, almost a forced gesture. Shall find the same shell in the valleys of the Mustang. Some of the most pious, jumping forward to the ground every three steps. Have a callus on his forehead. Forearms and knees along the wooden boards to protect your joints.
There we walk to Bodnath along the path that climbs over the hill Pasupatinath. Gradually we get closer to the shrine houses are becoming increasingly dilapidated and along the dirt road you begin to see the barracks. Or rather the slums. Tuguri perché oltre ad essere fatte di assi, fango e lamiera, stanno qualche metro al di sotto del livello del selciato, con le finestre, buchi più che finestre, all'altezza della carreggiata. Una giovane tibetana guarda fuori all'altezza delle mie scarpe. Un'americana si sta facendo benedire da una vecchia sdentata seduta vicino ad un altare lungo il perimetro dello stupa. Mi invita a ricevere la stessa benedizione. Dice che la vecchia se ne sta là da anni e che con le benedizioni racimola qualche soldo. Mi avvicino. La vecchia mi tocca le mani, mi tocca il viso, mi tocca la testa. Ha le mani ruvide. E un cattivo odore. Poi mi scioglie il fazzoletto che ho sulla testa e mi massaggia i capelli. Mentre lo fa pronuncia strane frasi in Tibetan. I recognize the names of various places of pilgrimage. Muktinah at the foot of Thorong Peak, Derhadun, India, Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. In the old practice that does not rattle off the names of the great pilgrimage destinations in the Indian subcontinent. I do not know if I will bear the blessing of the altitude, the fatigue, the monsoon rains that lie ahead. But I let go, because the old one has a nice look and introduce it all. We are at
Bodnath watching the incessant pilgrims gradually until the first drops of rain. It's almost evening. Tomorrow we leave for Pokhara.
B odnath, from the central stupa
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