Not in the hot zone

Not having a blast
Kathmandu, Nepal

Hi everyone, just dropping a line to say I have been unable to connect via the laptop for several days here. I'm not too worried, no one else could either....so have finally made my way to the rickety cyber cafe.

Also letting everyone know that, though there were tragic bomb blasts in both Kashmir and Bombay today, I was nowhere near either. (I am lucky enough to have people worry about me every time a bomb goes off anywhere in South Asia. That's a good thing.)

So far, 200 people are said to have died in Bombay; and at least 7 people including some tourists died in Kashmir in five separate, synchronized explosions. The reports I've read say they believe these attacks - occurring in two very distant cities - were related. You can read the full stories here, but these links will be outdated in a few hours: Blasts hit Bombay commuter trains Five tourists killed in Srinagar attacks

Happy Birthday to Who?
Biggest news here was that the King's birthday wasn't. That is, it was not a holiday, for the first time ever in the history of Nepali government. They had a celebration at the palace and even a 21-gun salute, but the government offices, schools and so on stayed closed. This is big news.

Strangely, it was July 7, the day following the Dalai Lama's birthday. Even more strange, the Dalai Lama and George W. Bush share the same birthday. (Eleven years apart, but still.)

What really pissed me off was waking up the next morning seeing photos in the paper of *civilians* lined up to come inside the Palace and greet the King. The Palace! Inside! you mean, if we had KNOWN about it we could have gone and met one of the very last sitting monarchs in the world?!?! Now I've lost all my sympathy for the newly liberated Nepali press. What good are they if they can't give me advance notice of such photo opps?

Live music fusion with sunny terrace

Buddha Bar
Kathmandu, Nepal

Or so says the sandwich board outside my favourite WiFi spot. Kathmandu is a good a place as any to be stuck with an illness; it's international enough in population and cuisine that on any given day, you feel at the crossroads of Asia, and indeed the world.

A small but steady trickle of tourists come through daily. Guest houses offer fifty percent discounts at this rainy time of year, and trekking is sometimes limited by the weather (the clouds obscure higher snowy peaks). Even though I don't feel like much movement, it's rarely boring; there are world travellers each with their own story, adventures, itinerary and interests showing up every day.

I have some new travelling companions. Ming, a Malaysian working in London; Florienne, a Belgian woman who's travelled here to study the lives of working Nepali women for three months; Kit, Ming's friend from London, and Dave, a hardy Australian who just biked (yes, an old fashioned bike...not a motorbike) from Chengdu to Lhasa, then from Lhasa to the Nepali border. Yes, his butt is very, very sore. (He preferred to stand rather than sit on the hard metal bench the other day.)

In my recuperating state, I am just a headline away from history-making events. The Nepali Prime Minister, 85-year-old Girija Koirala, just returned from a getting life-saving medical procedure in Bangkok (that would be SO like Nepal - for him to die right now and leave the Democratic parties without what little leadership they have). Maoist "supremo" Prachanda talks a good plan in the papers - no more enforced collection of "donations," no more commandeering the excise offices (in many areas the Maoists are the government, and have taken over commercial offices, even requisitioning materials from contractors, and accepting bids on public works projects). In spite of this, the papers carry daily reports of abductions by the guerillas and continued extortion of funds - most famously from Chitwan National Park, Nepal's Yellowstone. (The Maoists in that area reportedly demanded 50 million Nepali rupees revenue from the park, a wildlife refuge for endangered species such as rhin0.)

Prachanda also requested that his comrades cease holding "People's Courts" (aka kangaroo courts) - but only in "the large towns and cities." So it's okay to have guerilla justice in the remote areas, I guess. Yesterday I read an account of a man, appointed mayor of a small town by the royal regime, who had been humiliated, tarred and feathered, lead around the village, and forced to renounce his office. (He was rather elderly; still they forced him to do 10 sit-ups in penance for his sins.) Who knows, maybe this geezer was a corrupt bastard who had terrorized innocent people, but the precedent of ad-hoc justice is unsavoury.

The majority would really like to give the Parties a chance, but the democratic forces are lacking unified leadership and a strong "face." (Sound familiar, American Democrats?) The Maoists have Prachanda & Co. with their snazzy red shirts and slogans. The few remaining royalists (mostly a bunch of withered old men) have the King, who is hiding out in the palace these days and hasn't peeked out for a month, literally. But the Parties have only GP Koirala, who as much as admits he is on his way off of this mortal coil. In an interview last week he listed restoration of peaceful and effective democracy at the top of his to-do list, "before taking retirement from this life."

The million mutinies continue. Many ethnic groups are now demanding various levels of autonomy and regional independence, most notably the Tharu in the Terai or flatlands bordering India. They don't seem to trust that they will be properly represented in a new federal government. I personally feel that some level of regional autonomy within a greater Nepal would be welcome, considering how alienated the villages have always been from the Centre. Complete independence, however, would further fragment the country; as the famous "yam between two boulders" - a tiny nation sandwiched between the giants China and India - they need to remain unified.

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A million mutinies now

"...to get my fair share of abuse...."
Kathmandu, Nepal

"Do you go to the riots?"
"Nah, just one to get a few photos of burning tyres was enough."
"Oh, well I was thinking of going tomorrow, just to say I'd been you know...."

This was common coffee house conversation last fall, when planned altercations between college students, political parties (not sure I want to call them all activists, some are just opportunists) and the police were routine in Kathmandu. Naturally, they were not intended to be riots, but demonstrations. As often as not, someone would overreact, and violencet would ensue...and a peaceful demo became a riot.

Usually these occurred in very prescribed locations (Maiti Ghar, areas of New Road) and were easily avoided; sometimes even announced thoughtfully in advance in the papers ("the Seven Party Alliance will be staging an agitation tomorrow from 11am till afternoon; avoid driving in the area of....").

It's no longer as simple (if indeed it ever was) as The People vs. The Man in the Palace. Nepal is now host to its own Million Mutinies Now. There are women, long oppressed and woefully underrepresented in government, clambering over statues of ancient kings to demand their place in the new government. There are victims of Maoist violence as well as victims of police and army violence demanding restitution and justice. Bhutanese refugees gather in front of the UNHCR to protest the lack of clear policy on their status. Members of the traditionally "lower" castes (Dalit, Janajati) also hold sit-ins to draw attention to their need for representation in the New Nepal.

The feeling now, though, is different; there will be no more police opening fire on peaceful demonstrators. Most of these protests are being done in the spirit of tolerance and newly-embraced free speech (previously, it was a crime punishable by imprisonment to criticize the king). The only exception I know of, sadly, was the pro-Hindu-theocracy, anti-secular agitation in Birganj. They seemed determined to stir up violence in the name of "protecting" Nepal's traditionally Hindu status. Since only elite members of the upper castes have truly benefitted from that status (the majority of Hindus are of lower castes and still experience discrimination in rural areas) this doesn't seem to have garnered much popular support. The Hindutva-type opportunists may not find the fertile soil here that they did in India; Nepal is a multi-faith country that has managed to never experience religious violence or ethnic conflict. (It's about 70 Hindu, 20-plus percent Buddhist, and the rest traditional animist/shamanist, with about 3% Muslim and Christian. Many families in the countryside practice both Buddhism or Hinduism along with their traditional shamanic faith).

For tourists who'd like to get in on a little of the activist action, today's protest is Tibetan refugees and their sympathizers protesting the new Chinese railway, which launches its maiden voyage today. It will link the farflung western regions (ie, Tibet) with Beijing, and undoubtedly lead to a flood of ethnic Han Chinese, further displacing the Tibetans.

I'm going to the Chinese embassy gates to catch what I can of today's regularly scheduled demonstration, then to a concert by Tibet's own "singing nun" Ani Choying Drolma.

Eye knew it....
Turns out that Lawrence & Mayo, the old and distinguished opticians who referred me to the old and distinguished (and faulty) opthalmologists Shroff Eye Center in Delhi, have been distributing a product (gave one to me) that has been under worldwide recall by the manufacturer since April this year.

Renu with Moistureloc has been shown to cause fungal keratitis (ie, corneal infection - sound familiar?) leading to partial blindness and necessitating corneal transplantation in over 30% of affected patients so far. The manufacturer recalled it months ago and there's a class action lawsuit. Yet here they are in the capital of India merrily handing it out with best wishes.

Someone should tell those protesting med students that if they lose a seat, they're really not missing out on much. When a Tennessee cracker with nothing but moxie and a Google search can show up the Indian doctors, it doesn't say much for their medical schools.

Photo opportunity

A place to see my pictures
Kathmandu, Nepal

Since Blogger hasn't been uploading my photos for, oh, about a month now, I have uploaded a bunch to my good old Trekshare page. So if you want to see photos of the Maoist rally, Rishikesh, Dehra Dun, and the Kalachakra, just go to http://www.trekshare.com/members/sirensongs

If you click on the camera icons next to the story title, you can turn the "pages" of photos like a book. Have fun.

Mystique of Mustang

The Last Shangri-La
Kathmandu, Nepal

Nothing like spending your precious time in Shangri-La lying flat on your back with an eye infection in a darkened hotel room. Thank god (can we still do that in a secular country? some people I met actually believe that a "secular" Nepal means no one is allowed to be religious anymore) - thank god there's cable TV. At least I can lie there and listen to CNN - my eyes hurt too much to read. Suddenly, every other damned thing on the TV seems to be about blindness. The Ray Charles biopic comes on HBO, and Standard Chartered keeps running that commercial about the blind marathon runner. I go to Tom & Jerry's and Stevie Wonder is playing.

The romantic in me laments the loss of the last Hindu kingdom, though I believe that due to the caste system's literal enshrinement in the Nepali law as of 1854, secularization is really for the best in terms of social progress. Now I discover there's yet another Himalayan kingdom tucked away within the Nepalese borders - the district known as Mustang (Moo-stahng).

Despite being part of Nepal, Mustang still has its own king, the Buddhist monarch Jigme Somebody. He's a true monarch and daily life begins with the locals circumambulating his palace. Mustang lies up on the Tibetan Plateau beyond the rainshadow of the mountains. Unfortunately, it costs $700 US dollars just to get a ten-day permit to visit Mustang. And that's before you pay for the porters, food, tents, mules and so on since there are no tourist facilities. Needless to say, Mustang will not be graced by my presence this year. Instead, I am looking into the adventurous route to Thailand and Burma, overland from India. This should require getting all kinds of permits in order to travel through Nagaland and other restricted northeastern states; then a special permission to cross the land border into Burma, assuming they will give it. I'm going to the Burmese Embassy tomorrow to check it out (hell, if I can't go to the last Shangri-la kingdom, Burma By Land is the next most exotic-sounding thing within reach).

Meanwhile, as I lie in darkness in the hotel, historic happenings abound virtually just outside my window. No less than the Maoist Brother #1 Prachanda came to the Prime Minister's residence a few blocks away last week for negotiations with the interim government. The Maoist leadership are pragmatic, they are not idealists and firebrands, and seem committed to joining the political mainstream. However, I don't know that their field ops will feel so enfranchised, and I predict that once the head honchos join the power structure in Kathmandu, the field marshalls will be alienated from the centre and take matters into their own hands. The history of Nepal has traditionally been Kathmandu vs. the hills; I see no reason for it to change now. You heard it here first.