An Orphanage
Somewhere in Tibet
June 1999
Cremations
Katmandu, Nepal
November 2017
The first time I came to this site was in 1999. I was with a group and our tour guide would not let us go any further out of respect for the moment. There were several cremations going on this day. The moment intrigued me.
I returned to Katmandu in 2017 and I told me Nepali friend that I had been here before but had to keep my distance out of respect for the dead. She was surprised by that and couldn't understand this mandate from my previous guide.
So she took me here for the afternoon and encouraged me to get as close as I wanted. She went across the river and laid down on a bench and took a nap. I sat close to a family who were cremating a grandmother. I didn't see any outward demonstration of grief or sadness. It seemed more like they were in a hurry to get the task down.
I later learned that this sense of hurry was a reflection of their desire to allow the grandmother to begin the process of reincarnation. She couldn't start this rebirth until her body left this earth. And so, this afternoon, she was now free to return.
A Confrontation At The Market
Somewhere in Tibet
June 1999
Our guide dropped us off at our hotel and said he would be back in tow hours to take us to dinner. The other group members went up to their rooms to relax but, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an open air market that I wanted to explore. So, off I went by myself.
There were probably 50 merchants here and the venue was empty. As a matter of fact, I think I was the only customer. So all eyes were on me. There were all sorts of things for sale: food, clothing, trinkets, artifacts, etc.
I picked something up out of curiosity. It looked to be bronze and I couldn't tell if it was a tool or an ornament. And that was a mistake. The merchant leapt out of her corner and charged at me, begging me with hand gestures to buy this thing that I could not identify. I tried to tell her that I wasn't interested but she just rubbed her stomach to indicate that she was hungry. "No sale today", she struggled to tell me in her broken english.
"No, no," I tell her. "just looking" and I attempt to move on as I put this thing back in its spot. I stepped away and planned on moving on. But she wasn't accepting my response. She came right up to me and grabbed my arm, holding the thing and begging me. "No sale today" she pleaded again.
Now, a second woman appeared out of nowhere. She, too, had a similar object in her hand and she appeared to start a bidding war on her object. She, too, had no sales today and she too was hungry. And she, too, gripped my other arm.
All eyes were on me. The place became silent and the moment was intense. The three of us were connected and had become one unit. Their tight locked grip on my arms became stronger and stronger and more desperate. I couldn't get away from them as they continued to beg and beg. I used all my might to break away but I wasn't strong enough to break their grip. I began to panic a little.
I looked around and saw two police officer in the distance. But I wasn't going to call them. They were Chinese and the Chinese government looks for every opportunity to harass the Tibetans. If I yelled out for help, these women would pay too big a price. They could be beaten or arrested. And all they wanted to do it eat. And I couldn't give them any money at this point or I would have been mobbed by all of the other merchants who had dropped everything they were doing and now were watching to see if they had a potential opportunity to earn some money today.
The moment was tense. I never thought the women would harm me. But their desperation was so strong, they couldn't help themselves.
I decided to just wait it out. I stopped resisting. I continued to give a clear message of "no" and I hoped they would finally surrender to reality that I wasn't buying anything.
And then suddenly, they did surrender and I took off. I hurried back to my hotel as fast as I could, hyper-ventilating the whole time.
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