The pilgrim and the Lungta
If you ever find yourself walking down the mall road in Darjeeling on a sunny afternoon in December, turn back and walk up the slope until you reach the old Post office building. A huge mall stands towering over its delicate walls and hastily renovated brickwork now. Just beside the board that says "heritage building", an old Lepcha woman ambles up through the deluge of jackets and perfume with a characteristic look of determination over her wrinkled face.
A few steps from where you stand, a ferocious Kaal Bhairava mask guards a red door. A curio shop stacked with rare, vintage items and forbidden relics from the high Himalayas, curated by the old Kashmiri owner's father and his only son. The man is busy bundling up a set of brass statues of Avalokiteshwara and Taras in an effortless abandon, characteristic of his cramped establishment. He will try to pull you in through the red door into his world of mystery. He will weave his charm smoothly through the delicate reflections off of the occult symbols and the musty air of a time that resists memory.
Do not give in. Do not lose yourself in the sights, sounds and scents that trap you in a limbo between the present and an intangible past. Do not lose sight of our woman now. She quietly moves through the crowd in a rhythm honed over decades, now etched into her thinning bones and dried cartilage. Where is she headed? What is that strange silver amulet she wears on her left wrist? Does she know you're looking? Does she care?
On the dome of a carefully preserved femur sits an ornate skull carved out of silver. Its eyes are tiny dark pits, its neck is a ring of Lapis Lazuli. You fell into the old man's trap. You walked in through the red door, all while following the woman as she vanished into the crowd. Her amulet intrigued you, and before you realized, a set of stout arms with white hair invited you, no pulled you into the creaking red door.
"Ah, so you like Silver, do you? Good, good, here have a look at this. Rare, very rare, yes. You fancy?" His words cut through the dark interiors of the shop like an icicle through soft flesh. You hear him, you mumble something but your ears let in only a drone. A distant memory of a tantric prayer trickles down through the open mouth of a richly engraved Dungchen. Its body lined with rings of Lapis Lazuli. The old man's voice breaks through the monks' prayers: "..this is one-of-a-kind sir, you will not find another unless you go hunting through the old brick-houses in Lhasa. Yes sir, my father procured this when our ponies used to graze high up in the Tibetan grasslands and sacks of Chinese opium would mysteriously end up in Nainital's black markets. Ah the old days...this will be just thirty seven thousand rupees, cash."
The Tibetans had mastered the craft of shaping death into innocuous pieces of art. An intricately carved femur. A dazzling Oboe. A silver-blue amulet, its surface worn down into a delicate pattern of time and decay, much like the wrinkles on its wearer's face. You try craning your head out through the red door, hoping she turns around and you catch a sight of her in the sea of faces. But you are now the unwitting buyer of a Dungchen that still carries the rarefied air of Lhasa. The old man's face has suddenly turned a decade younger in the yellow light. The piles of brass and silver appear to have come alive - but only from the indirect lines of your flickering eyesight that never meet anywhere.
Two Chinamen, behind them a third, Are carved in Lapis Lazuli, Over them flies a long-legged bird A symbol of longevity; The third, doubtless a serving-man, Carries a musical instrument.
Up in the Tibetan plateau, hushed voices and hidden messages course through the red web all the way up to the Potala. In the main market, neat rows of shops display ornaments, artifacts and edibles - all tightly curated by the occupying army to hide all those renegade symbols of history that prick the giant red bubble. Faces, words, music, all those coveted symbols of the human spirit are pieces of an algorithm. These masks that line the market are crafted to hide any shape of death that may remain. The brilliant blue stones that adorn them only remind you of the stark mountains of Afghanistan - their brutal landscapes and painful histories etched into each fracture line and crevice.
A suspicious pair of eyes looks at you from inside the crowd. You are on thin ice, negotiating the price for fractures that you cannot afford. Here too, an old woman quietly walks up with her prayer beads in sync. Her back is painfully bent into an arch, and her eyes gaze down at the hundred-year dust. With each step, her silver amulets travel over her wrinkled skin - just enough to leave a permanent fade on the tan.
You wish you could read her eyes, the memories that each bead of Lapis Lazuli holds. The music of the highlands that now live as hushed tones in between the distant drone of a prayer for peace. What does she pray for? Her return to Mayal Lyang? Or perhaps a route to one of the Beyuls - hidden lands of prosperity - hidden somewhere in the folds and cracks of the greatest mountain range on Earth.
The old Kashmiri man knows his trade. He has no love lost for the memory of a fractured peace. His land too, has been cut up and sold off for the price of an elusive freedom. The price of a dream is a bullet mark on the wall and the silent waves on Hunza's alpine lakes. He shall not walk on those brown alleys of nostalgia anymore. He shall now proceed to wrap the Dungchen in a page out of an Urdu newspaper, and make a bill for you. I warned you, do not cross the red door.
The old woman keeps walking, regardless of your interest in her amulets or her wrinkled face. She prays, counts a bead and places one foot ahead in a rhythm that lives in her blood. She doesn't know its origins. She could care less.
Up ahead in her blurry vision she sees a light. A faint afterglow surrounds her in a warm embrace. An invisible hand guides her through the crowd, carefully away from your eyes and those of the Kashmiri trader. Her amulets and her Yak-hair hat are not to be sold off. Her wrinkled face is a living map of a homeland that has been lost.
You cannot trace this map anymore. Only she will be gently carried off through Mayal Lyang into the hidden paradise. The flame of her life will be carried off by the white horse she once saw in a dream. A wind shakes the stalks of grass and wraps her in a sweet embrace. You or I cannot feel it on our faces. We cannot run our fingers over her beads of Lapis Lazuli. We cannot buy our ticket to the Beyul.
Dusk arrives on Mall road. Kongchen is now a streak of gold on a sea of clouds. You are walking with an antique wind instrument under your arms, dazed and wandering with a vague sense of purpose. You'll try to play it, hoping it creates that characteristic sound you'd heard in a Chham dance on Losar. But it shall not be the same. This wind has vanished with the old pilgrim. Only a faint memory of her song remains, always an enigma, always a story with no end.
Every discolouration of the stone, Every accidental crack or dent Seems a water-course or an avalanche, Or lofty slope where it still snows Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch Sweetens the little half-way house Those Chinamen climb towards, and I Delight to imagine them seated there; There, on the mountain and the sky, On all the tragic scene they stare. One asks for mournful melodies; Accomplished fingers begin to play. Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.