Applied anthropology

"I was born a poor black child...then one day I heard my first Mantovani record, and realized - *these* are my people!"
- Steve Martin

White people just can't catch a break. If you stick with Strauss and the Civil War, you're a closed-minded ethnocentrist. However, if you express interest in some other culture, you're some kind of orientalist. I guess we should all just stay home and read De Bible, maybe join Daughters of the American Revolution.

I went out to Bhaktapur to exploit the natives this week. Here are some photos. Thank god I'll probably never make any money from them...then I'd be a neo colonialist.

::Bisket Jatra is a nine-day blowout festival in Bhaktapur, the second Every day features a different event. This is the raising of the Lingo (Lingam), a sort of Maypole equivalent (fertility/phallic symbol). When the Jesuits arrived centuries ago in their attempts to convert the Newars, they were so happy to see the lingo - they thought Christianity had already come to Nepal. Boy were they wrong....
::One of the focal points of Bisket is the tug-of-war chariot pull between lower Bhaktapur and upper Bhaktapur. This ancient chariot gets nearly pulled apart like a rag doll. I've seen at least a dozen Hindu chariot pulls and I've never seen anything like Thursday night's chariot wars.

::One of the guardian elephants (nearly life-sized) on the steps of Nyatapola Temple, overlooking the Bhairab Mandir in Taumudhi Square.

::Yummy daal bhatt - the Nepali national dish - at the Newa Family Restaurant in Sukul Dhoka - highly recommended. All this for 110NRS (about $1.50).
::The elaborate medieval style lock on a temple door.

::The Newars created their own brilliant art, wood carvings (above), metal work and Paubha religious paintings. However, most of what sells in places like Kathmandu, Boudha and Bhaktapur is Tibetan, or should I say "Tibetan." All this is junk created by Nepalis and sold by Nepalis. The real Tibetans are all in hiding from the police these days.

A real Tibetan, for instance, would probably never leave a sutra lying out uncovered as seen above...or sell it for a souvenir. Tibetan script itself is considered sacred, not to mention religious writings.

I went to visit a Thangka shop (Thangkas are Tibetan traditional religious paintings) called "Refugee Camp Thangka Painting School."

"Where are the refugees?" I asked. Of course, there were none. All the paintings are done by Tamangs, also Himalayan Buddhists, who learned the art from Tibetans after the 1959 exile.

I asked where all the Tibetans were. One painter guy told me "they're all staying in their rooms these days...they are scared of the police." It didn't seem to bother him at all that his own painting master was being persecuted and driven into hiding.

::Despite its image as an overwhelmingly Hindu traditional town, Bhaktapur also has at least one mosque and many Buddhist viharas, including one Theravada Buddhist vihara supported by a Thai donor.

Chariots of the gods

The gods must be lazy
Kathmandu, Nepal


Finally, the towering chariot of Rato Machhendranath, a Buddhist Bodhisattva figure who is traditionally regarded as bringer of the seasonal rains, was pulled to its resting place in Jawalkahel, Patan.

At last, after a delay of nearly 1.5 months (and even for Nepal, that is a big delay), the traditional Bhoto ceremony took place, with the Patan Kumari (one of the Kathmandu Valley's living goddesses) giving her blessings.

The eight-storey Rath (Chariot) of the deity, assembled of archaic wooden parts and a whole lot of bamboo and pine boughs lashed together, resembled a beserk Christmas tree careening through the crowded streets. Its massive wheels are about 2 metres, or 7 feet, high, each painted with the trademark "Kathmandu eyes." Now that's a big wheel.

Tradition clashed with modernity (literally) when the pine-topped peak scraped telephone and power lines. I wondered about the symbolism of the great piney tower. Sure, you could say it is phallic, but I saw more of a beacon. It's like they've constructed a literal skyscraper, maybe to reach cloudward and beseech the rain gods to come on down to earth. Maybe poking at the clouds with a big earthbound finger.

Such a primordial mega-spectacle takes a great deal of communal involvement and coordination every year. I could really see the practical role that such festivals play in bringing all parts of a diverse community together. Certain elements of the festival have traditionally been allocated to various castes and families, and this is a chance for them all to cooperate in a show of unity, sweat, incense, animal sacrifice, and heave-ho.

While the men pull the chariot en masse with giant ropes, the women now have an active role in the procession - linking hands as a security line to prevent onlookers from getting too near the crushing wheels. In Indian tradition the elderly and destitute used to throw themselves under the wheels, hoping for an auspicious death at the mercy of the gods. Don't know if they ever did that here in Nepal.

However, the rain gods may not be pleased. This year for the first time since the 7th century (!), the appointed Prime Minister, GP Koirala, presided over the Bhoto puja, rather than the King (or the Crown Prince).

While the papers are full of gloating crows like "King stripped of his cultural privileges," "Adieu monarchy" and so on, nowhere is addressed the issue of who decides these things.

Who, after all, gets to decide who participates in this ritual of primeval fertility and festivity?
Did the King decide not to go for security reasons (a wise move, really, considering all the anti-monarchy protests outside the palace on His Majesty's birthday)? Did the rain god Indra come to the high priest in a dream and demand the king's absence? Or did the Patan Guthi (community organization in charge of the event) just decide somehow?

Or, as I suspect, was this at least partially a cowardly kowtow to Prachanda and the Maoists, who have "vowed" to abolish the monarchy (not that it's up to them, or the political parties, to decide - supposedly, it is up to the people of Nepal. Supposedly). Prachanda's Young Communist League, a sort of Red Guard formed in the past 8 months, have been very active in the Valley, with all sorts of extortion, abductions and protection rackets. My Nepali friends say that because of the YCL, they do not feel as safe after dark as they did even six months before.

At any rate, it makes little sense for a Prime Minister of a proclaimed "secular" state to preside at an ancient ritual that represents Buddhist, Hindu and folk religions all rolled (literally) into one.

Let the King take his place in the rituals, for Peetha's sake. That's what Hindu monarchs are for, after all - Ritual, ceremony and tradition.

Monsooner or later
Thank all the gods (and there's one on every street corner here), the monsoon appears to have at last set in, in earnest. That means, it rains at least once a day for at least an hour. Not the non-stop type of downpour we'll be getting in, say, Dharamsala, which has the second highest rainfall in all of India (after Darjeeling, I think). Back when Alex Frater wrote Chasing the Monsoon, Cherrapunji was #1. I guess shifting weather patterns have something to do with it.

It's wetter, cloudier, and the days are cooler. Bad for photos, but good for walking around exploring.

My friends in the Sakya community say Sajani Sakya, the (perhaps former) Living Goddess of Bhaktapur (reported here last week), is still touring India with her parents. Right now she is said to be in Gujarat. I am hoping to interview her when she returns to Nepal.

Two ancient traditions broken in one week. It may be hard to fathom the significance of this if you are sitting in America (perhaps London would be more sympathetic). But Nepal is a country that often appears to exist for the sole purpose of festivals and religious observances; a place where the old gods and devis still walk the streets and are brought to life with these seasonal cycles. I personally think there's plenty of room for the Old Gods in the New Nepal.
south asia
nepalkathmandu

Dry spell

Who'll start the rain?
Kathmandu, Nepal

The monsoon season has supposedly begun. No big deal. It rains for about an hour, every other day. That just isn't enough rain. Come ON man, this is Asia in the monsoon! It's spozed to be up to our ankles already!

Maybe it's because the chariot festival of Rato Macchendranath was halted for nearly two weeks. Rato ("Red") Macchendranath is one of the local deities propitiated to bring rain and keep the agricultural cycle on track. Every year they drag a skyscraper-like (really, it's about eight storeys high and looks like a giant rolling Christmas tree) contraption around Patan to honour him. This is supposed to mark the beginning of the rainy season. But this year, the makeshift wooden chariot (which is quite a - did I already use the word contraption?) broke down on May 23 and had to be repaired. It just got rolling again yesterday.

All I have to do is cross the border, and I start thinking like a Nepali ("maybe it's because the chariot broke"). I wish it were so simple. In fact, monsoons get shorter and later every year, it seems....throughout the region. Could it be because they're cutting down all the trees in the Tibetan plateau - which happens to be the weather-generator for the entire south Asia region?

No. Must be just a coincidence.....

Well, if you think we're dry now, wait till China dams and diverts all the rivers that originate up there. That's where all the water in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan comes from. I predict the next world war will be a Water War.

In the meantime, between rainfalls, it's really, really hot - even here, in the temperate Kathmandu Valley. When I say "really hot," I mean, anything above 80F.

Right now, the planets are aligned in a near-perfect row. It's cool, even from the city, to be able to look up and see the Moon, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter all in a row. If we were in the countryside I could probably see Mercury too.

Flickring
Since the days are hot, I 've been spending a lot of time on Flickr.com organizing and uploading photos. I did so much in the past six months in India, I almost forget till I look at the photos. Here are just a few. (below)

My friends in the United Arab Emirates say they can't open Flickr.com there. Well, at least in Dubai you have really good air conditioning .

I've also spent a lot of time online in my role as Co-Administrator (wheee!) of the 50 Million Missing Project, a photo project to raise awareness of the gender genocide ongoing in India. Because of a traditional preference for sons, Indian couples are using ultrasound to detect the gender of a fetus, then aborting it if it's female. This has resulted in a "skewed sex ratio" of as much as 800-1000 (female to male) in some areas of India.

Here's the link to 50 Million Missing (above). Check it out - there are now nearly 3,000 photos of Indian women and girls, from all communities and walks of life, and some great ongoing discussions of the gender-ratio issue, as well as links to news stories about it.

Okay, here are a few shots from my past 6 months in Buddhist India, and a few you haven't seen before from the Kathmandu Valley.

Young Sri Lankan monks read the sutra of Buddha's first-ever sermon at Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh, the place where the Buddha first delivered the first sermon. (there has got to be a better way to state that....)

Butter lamps and water offerings at the Kagyu Monlam prayer ceremony, Bodh Gaya, Bihar

Tibetan monks going home after preparing the stupa for the ceremony; Bodh Gaya

Ladakhis in their trademark black robes, walking round the Dhamekh Stupa in Sarnath.

Tso Pema, or Rewalsar, in Himachal: site of an ancient Buddhist legend linking the lake to Guru Rinpoche, and home to a number of Tibetan monasteries.


Tiny dancer - these minstrels from Rajasthan had set up shop in Bhaktapur's Taumudhi square, Nepal.