Mingmar's grandfather

After spending my morning muttering "good luck, bad luck? Who knows... and chilling out (literally,  wearing a fleece and a shawl on top of my thermal t-shirt), Mingmar, my guide and translator in Kathmanu, took me into town.

A 20 min walk through the neighbourhood, that gave me a head-rush at least twice with the disbelief that I am here, led us to  a dusty, busy road and onto a ride on a ‘micro”. Micros are essentially decrepit mini vans that collect people along theca way the way and stuff them in like sardines, until burtsting to the hilt.  The conductor, a boy that looked about ten years old, but my guess is that he is fifteen, bossed everyone on and off with an assertive, cocky attitude, demanding that passengers squeeze closer and tighter to get more on. In between “stops” he perilously hung out of the window and incessantly shouted the route. Imagine the equivalent of ooxfoordstreetregeeentstreetmaaarbleaarchreeegentstreetooooxfoordstreetmaaaarble in a monotonous, loud, indecipherable Nepali.  Unbeknown to him it became a mental game between us trying to anticipate when he would next abruptly and violently slide the van door open and burst through the still moving car, grab  a passenger or two from the roadside and shove them into the already full van. I balanced one cheek on the edge of my seat fighting claustrophobia whilst trying not to squash the baby's head that somehow worked its way under my armpit and at the same time  admiring the Nepali passengers sang froid. They'd get on, squeeze in calmly and at some indiscriminate moment in time, uncorrelated to their getting on or off, they’d decide to pay him by passing the money from passenger to passenger, until it reached him and vice versa with the change. Guessing when it was the right time to pay the fare became my second pastime on the ride. 

Thirty min later, we finally and thankfully, arrived in Boudhanath or Boudha as everyone calls it here,  one of the holiest stupas in Buddhism. In the monastery behind it, Mingmar's 84 year old grandfather has lived as monk for the last 40 years. After making an appointment to see a Lama there tomorrow and talk about Bardo (the in between stage-or is it state-between life and death), we went to visit with her grandfather. 

 We found him sitting cross-legged on his bed, preparing a snack of champa (barley flour) mixed with milk.  The room was freshly painted a cream yellow with numerous beautiful thangas hanging on the walls. The bedding was clean and the room was tidy and spotless. Mingmar shares this room with her grandfather and looks after him.

He is 84, stone deaf and ill. Still, there was a twinkle in his eye and as his story unfolded he became more and more animated. Via Mingmar, who leaned right into his ear (and hearing device!) and shouted on the top of her voice whilst he responded in the barest wisper, he told of his time as an army soldier in Tibet and of his  escape to Sikkim.  He was only one of thousands of Tibetan men who in the second month of 1959 started a walk that lasted for three months  through the Himalayas, persecuted by the Chinese army from both land and air . They ate only one day out of four a little champa.  They were being shot at by their persecutors and had to fight off  their own who tried to steal their meagre food supplies and were prepared to kill for it. He finally reached Sikkim and decided to become a monk to expunge his karma from the killings of his army time. He never saw his wife again, although he kept in touch with her and once she was moved to India too, he paid for the schooling of his only daughter. 

The story then got a bit hazy. His memory, the translation or my understanding? 30 years on from ordaining as a monk Sikkim he moved to Boudha in Nepal. I figured out that his daughter, Mingmar’s mother, whom he hadn't seen since she was a child, died at the birth of her fourth daughter, Mimgmar. Her husband who was a contemporary of Mingmar’s grandfather, had already moved with his daughters to Nepal soon after that and then passed away too, leaving the girls alone. Mingmar’s grandfather asked for permission from the Rinpoche of Boudha for Mingmar and her eldest sister to live with him.  And so they did for a number of years. Now Mingmar has returned to look after him.

Then the talk turned to his preparations for his own death. In the Buddhist culture, remembering the dead, commissioning blessings for them and  praying ensures that their spirit is reborn in good karma. He showed me the Buddha statue and the thanga that  Mingmar will offer to the monastery after his passing. When I asked him how come he was not afraid of death he looked at me as if I was really naïve. “What is there to be afraid of in death? We die and we are reborn”. He talked for a long time about how doing good actions in this life, leads to good karma and a good next life. Mingmar told me of how he tells her off when she is texting or looking at the internet or talking on the phone to her friends: “ You are wasting your time. Spend the time reading scriptures, praying, meditating. Say a few Om Mani Padni Hums instead. It is far more valuable”.  It falls of course on the deaf ears of a 23 year old, who despite the fact that she lives in a monastery, takes superb care of an 84 year old and works for a living,  is still 23.

After a while we left him with the promise that I would visit him again soon. Mingmar thanked me for lifting his spirits by asking him about his life and his religion. For some unfathomable reason that left me feeling embarrassed and slightly ashamed. 

Through a narrow alley we stepped into the square where the stupa reigns majestically. It is as imposing as when I first saw it and circumnavigating it still  brought calm and peace to both my mind and heart. I thought of last time whenI was there with Frank  and wished he was here now too. 

As we were leaving the stupa, we ducked into a temple and  lit ghee lanterns for both the living and the dead.

Then jarring back into a different reality, we hit the main road with its cacophony of cars and vendors, its melange of colourful sari clad women and dishevelled assortment of men, piles of vegetables, grapes, melons, clothes, cooking utensils, sacks of lentils and rice and black clouds of pollution, to catch the micro back to the volunteer house.

I got here as dark was settling. No electricity. We ate our dhal and potato curry with roti in the candlight.