AUG-B-6
LEAVING LEH:
FAREWELL DINNER AT THE TIBETAN KITCHEN,
FAREWELLS AND SCRAMBLE THROUGH THE EXCESSIVE SECURITY
OF IRRATIONAL LEH AIRPORT ELECTRONICS CONFISCATION,
FLY JET AIR TO DELHI, AND ARRIVE AT AJANTA FOR THE INTERVAL
IN DELHI: “IT’S NOT THE HEAT, IT’S THE HUMANITY!”
BEFORE THE LONG RETURN AROUND
THE WORLD
AUG. 22, 2002
Not everyone is standing this morning. Cullen, in fact, had been down and out, having to leave the Tibetan Kitchen, billed by Lonely Planet as the number one dining establishment in Leh, site of our farewell dinner. The speeches given by Hem and even Dr. Sid were nearly emotional, in their gratitude for the services we have donated on behalf of the peoples of Ladakh. A souvenir memorial wall hanging was given to each of us, and the emblems on it were exactly the Tibetan symbols of auspicious design I had copied earlier in the day, with the eight emblems of “golden fish” a “vase of treasure” and a right-turn white conch shell, etc. These emblems were the ones I had seen on the special Gaylsten, a “windsock-like” special ceremonial display banner that is hung up when a famous lama comes by, and there has been adequate reasons for such celebration in the past week, with His Holiness the Dali Lama XIV visiting Leh and environs. This special Gaylsten is hung out in all its red (fire) and yellow (love) symbols embroidered with the eight auspicious signs of the kind I just mentioned above on the banners we received as souvenirs of our stay in Ladakh.
AN UNUSUAL SHOPPING TRIP,
WITH THE PURCHASE OF A MAJOR SOUVENIR
OR TWO FROM ANTIQUE KASHMIRI AND TIBETAN SOURCES
In the afternoon of our Leh layover day, I tried to email the message that I had returned from the wilderness of the Zanskari Valley and the mountains of the Great Himalaya Range, and was in the staging mode to return all the way home. I bought a bag I had seen before leaving on trek that I had decided I might need if I had acquired any purchases here, and I realized that I would need extra capacitance just for the abundant film in mailers I had accumulated. I sorted out the whole of my photojournalist’s record into the 14 rolls of Ladakh-02 to include Tso Morari and Tangste before my takeoff on the Lingshed-02 Trek, which was packaged separately in mailers for the rolls 15-32. A separate batch of six rolls of slides of the medical mission component of Lingshed was grouped together, and four PhotoWorks Internet and disc pictures were also packed, along with the six audiotapes for the Ladakh experiences. I then went up the street and bought the zippered bag for an extra check-in besides the Action Packer that I had assembled of all the items I would be packing along with me for the return home. I also got a new hat, which is a substitute for the white hat I had given Norbu, who was always hiking with his sweater covering his head, having had no hat to cover his head in the desert sun. I thought I must be through with my purchases, and only had to return to see my Kashmiri merchant to pay him for the miscellaneous stuff I had purchased for birthday present sent off before the trek.
I also packed my duffel bag and my check-in box I had carried in with medicines I had received before the Ladakh trip, and left it all with Anuj, to be carried of storage3 for the next Himalayan Health Exchange missions of 2003. I then went up the street to help Anita and Sheila in the purchases of a series of presents they had wanted to buy for friends and family. I saw the Gaylsten when they were out buying bracelets and such items, and went back to get it. We walked over to the Women’s Auxiliary of Ladakh to see their arts and crafts kinds of stuff they sell for support of their programs, and took a picture of a woman weaving on a loom with her child playing around the shuttles. We also went to see the displays of the Ecologic Center where they are advocating the use of solar ovens and ram pumps, etc. But, I had a debt to pay, and went to the Kashmiri shop to see my merchant friend and his helper Hassan.
Hassan turns out to be the son and nephew of the master carpet weavers of the area in Kashmir that relates to the Holy City of Q’um in Iran. As I waited for my team to arrive to get the antique knife I had recommended to Sheila as a present for her father, I watched them present to me a few very good antique items and a couple of rugs made by Hassans’s family. One of the golden silk Q’um carpets was made in 9 by 6 feet and another in 6 by 5. They also had a couple of pure silk Kashan pattern rugs, but they were too precious to be walked on, at 32 by 32 (over 900 knots per square inch). Since he trusts me and I had brought him a few customers and promised my return for a later consideration of a very large rug, he was willing to have me look further at the middle size Q’um golden carpet which is startlingly different in lightness and richness in color in different attitudes toward the sun. It might stand up under some wear on the floor if it were not in a major traffic flow, such as in the proposed game room. I did not wan something so precious as to be only useful as a wall hanging, since I have several such rugs now from very different parts of the world, all hand crafted. This is not an antique but made by Hassan’s family with two people working full time on it for a period of four years. So, after a bit of negotiation, I settled on the golden Q’um carpet, getting a far higher quality rug for much less than the rather readily skinned group of eager shoppers that left Leh after the Ladakh expedition.
I was still looking at antiques, and a series of Thangka paintings were presented, with gilded silk extremely fine detailed work of a master lama one hundred years ago. The Thangka is a “mandala” for contemplation of the wholeness of life, and this one is superb. Since I have held off buying any kind of Thangka until I got a very real and very good one, I decided that this would be an appropriate time and place, and I bought the “Ava Lati Lokesh Vara” Thangka as a museum piece quality a gilt on blue silk with a golden cover to be bunched like a lotus flower in display behind the yellow (love) and red (fire) ribbons. For two purchases, I have secured the devoted work of a gifted artist lama over a hundred years ago of several of his best years in making it. This is like the Q’um carpet, a distillation of the many years of skilled artistry in producing something that now can be displayed as far away as Derwood. Intaz wants me to send him a picture of it in its new location.
I came back to the Hotel Khangri with little time to lose. I tried, again, for a hot shower—my sixth consecutive time “at bat” with a 100% strikeout. So, my three weeks hot shower deficit continues, with only a cold water head ducking preparing me for the evening’s farewell dinner at the Tibetan Kitchen. When I took off the wool pants, and packed it into the duffel bag which is one of the two bags that will b e stored in Simla for the next year’s Himalayan Health Exchange, as yet unknown to me as to the dates and the number and sites of the medical missions to which I have not yet agreed or even acknowledged, I brought down the packed duffel to go into the jeep that would be going to Simla with Anuj. The door blew shut, locking my keys inside the room. I asked the desk manager of the Hotel Khangri if he had the Master Key to let me back into the room. He shrugged and said “Is your window open?” Yes, in fact it was, since I had unlocked it to open it to tape the muezzin’s call to prayers. The Master Key turns out to be the three junior employees shinnying up the drain pipe and reaching over to grab the window ledge and swinging themselves in through the unlocked window—a masterful performance, considering that we were all standing and waiting for the group to walk up the street to dinner, and I had only enough time to run in to get the key, grab the medicines out of my personal bag I had promised to give to Abdul, and then to stuff the final summary one page letter I had just written to Milly to send from the Lingshed-02 experience, a copy of which went to my travel log and to Hem as a summary one page double-sider and the last of my Ladakh mailings.
Four of last night’s Tibetan Kitchen celebrants were slow in getting up this morning, despite our early takeoff time and the warning about the tight security restrictions on the baggage out of Leh. No problem: I have two checked bags, and one carry-on, right?
IN THE HIGHEST JET AIRPORT ON EARTH
I had to carry each bag to the X-ray unit for an image made of each---and then, a hand search. I was told only then that there were no “carry on” handbags allowed, and each would have to be checked. OK I had my carryon bag inspected and a security sticker was issued. When I got to the Jet Airway’s desk for check-in, I identified myself as the leader of the group, and the whole of our baggage at twelve pieces went in under one set of tags all on one ticket. Then, the good news. “There is no room in coach, so I am upgrading you and your group to first class!” OK, on that.
Now for the bad news. You cannot check in your carryon since it has a laptop, and we will not be responsible for that in checked baggage. OK, I will then carry it on. So, waved through by the first set of inspectors, and hand searched in the third frisking since I entered the secured area, I got the fourth dose of X-ray to the carryon bag, before it was pulled aside and the especially offensive items removed. First to go was the tape recorder, now stripped of its batteries. Next, in a very full alarm, was the computer transformer, charging unit and its cords and adaptors. Then out came my electric shaver (You should have checked all this in your check-in baggage! Was the claim. “I did intend this to be checked, but you won’t let me do so!” was my response.)
But the piece of greatest fascination and offense was my magic little Petzel Headlamp. “”What is this, and take the batteries out of it!” “They are inside, and it is a special headlamp, and very expensive.” “We will have to destroy it, along with the other contraband you should never have been carrying!”
No way. Especially since the computer is worthless without the very difficult to replace charger transformer, and for sentimental value alone, they will not be destroying my Petzel, and it is absurd to think that they believe I will give up my electric Remington shaver “to be destroyed,” and I refused. Shafkat then got into the act, since they removed his alkaline batteries, and told him if he wanted them he would have to go back to the terminal and check them in a separate bag and re-enter into the security process, so he said “throw them away.” But, when they got his special rechargeable Nicad batteries he refused also.
I had a solution. There is my locked checked in bag outside awaiting identification before it is loaded on the plane. Here is the key. Just put the items into the checked bag now. No way. They are not allowed even to touch the bags once checked. They could not issue a gate check claim for the items either since all the other passengers who had had batteries or other electronic gizmos confiscated had been assured they would be destroyed, so they could not make an exception for my stuff. Finally, a compromise was reached when one of the Jet Air agents heard from a dependent of his that they had been treated by this team, and he worked out the following “gray area” compromise. My electronic components of such high hazard as my Petzel, shaver and the computer cord would be put in a trash bag, and Shafkat’s expensive batteries would just mysteriously happen to fall in with them. There could be no gate checking, so that the trash bag would be unmarked and just found on the carrousel in Delhi circling around, but we would know to look for it. To give it a higher chance of making it, it was tucked under a corner of the tape on the Action Packer, which they still were not allowed to touch, so we actually tucked it in. Having thanked our “going by the book” agents who all acknowledged that everything they were ordered to do was irrational but necessary, we loaded the Action Packer and its accessory trash bag dangling off the side and got on the bus for the plane.
Takeoff roll was extra long, but otherwise the Boeing 727-700 series jet handled the long upslope on the takeoff to thread the angle between the mountains at the end of the long runway strip—the same mountains where Ravi’s brother, Sikh military pilot was killed on a takeoff crash. I noted later that the two water bottles (from which I had to take a sip to prove they were water) which were round and full at Leh, had collapsed to two thirds of their volume when they were next checked at the lower, thicker, much denser air (in every sense of that term) in Delhi.
TEAMING, SWEATING, DELHI:
“IT’S NOT THE HEAT; IT’S THE HUMANITY!”
We collected our bags, the trash bag still stuck off the side of my Action Packer, with the offending electronics inside it. We walked out into the steambath of humid Delhi, and a driver was holding up a sign “Dr. Glenn!” We loaded two taxis and drove in in the random peristalsis of the Indira Gandhi access boulevard, where five of six vehicles abreast occupy what should be three lanes, a delimitation concept universally ignored. As we came to a curve, a full lorry was overturned with crates of its load scattered all over the road—not resembling anything so much as “traffic as usual” in horn-happy Delhi. We threaded the narrow dirt lanes around the Rail station into the Ajanta Hotel to arrive in the real Metropolitan Heart of Delhi.
I left my bags downstairs as we consolidated several to a room, and just planned to use them for later showering before the taxi to the airport. In the meantime, everyone but me was eager to get out and pound the “pavement” and walk o over to the Connaught Place to—what else? —Shop. I had warned them that a little bit of real Delhi goes a long way. They learned very quickly, too, in the damp oppressive streets, crowded with oxcarts, peddling rickshaws and CNG powered pedicabs, and human bodies spread everywhere on the pavement like the high tide had receded and left a litter of bodies on the beached curbs. Fruit stands alternate with fetid garbage piles; sacred cows holy excrement makes the pedicabs wheels slip. Hucksters, hawkers and the passing beggars and guides offering essential services abound. Even after my warning, the two young girls were groped and fondled even with the male escorts. Little kids snapped at them—“I will go away for five rupees.”
I began by absorbing the circulating fan of the Hotel Ajanta while avoiding turning on the frigid A/C I remembered from the very same room last time, so as not to walk out from one extreme to the other. I typed up the first half of this story, then walked over to Connaught Place, to find the B-45-47 block of the Kashmiri Rug merchants to [pass along the greetings and thanks of my Leh Kashmiri rug merchant to his friend and benefactor Mister Faorooq. The boss was not there, but I relayed greetings anyway, and noted that the twenty salesmen were sitting idol, not even having a prospect of a customer to warrant turning on the lights.
I seemed to pick up “guides” offering services, such as “Where are you from? Oh, very good, good…” and then hanging on for the rest of the time you allow them within sight. One young man decided that he needed to show me the places where I could buy such wonderful things from the vast store of my resources that he took me to the Cottage Arts Emporium and I checked inside, with a gauntlet of a long queue of desperately hungry sharks awaiting a customer—any customer—to see if my crew of eager shoppers had arrived here. They had not, so we swat and talked about how badly business was affected by the conflict. The “guide” who was waiting outside, insisted when I returned that they were at Mac Donald’s. I figured he thought all such Americans ate only at MacDonald’s’, but when he insisted for the fifth time that we were not going to go to MacDonald’s, he broke as far away from everyone as he could and then explained that he had not had anything to eat for three days and that he had no job and no money, and wouldn’t I help him---me, this Manna from Heaven that had fallen on him to day? I told him I would after I got on my way back toward the rail station and my hotel. I will go with you to your hotel, he insisted. I said that was not necessary, and I would only need him as far as the roundabout before the rail way station. When I did pull out a fifty rupee note, and told him that this should buy quite a few lunches with his ingenuity, he tried kissing my hand.
As we crossed the roundabout, a woman whom I did not see clearly except that she had a gold sari, caught him and called out to him that she needed to see him. He scurried back and asked me, “Do you want to fax something?”
I said, “Fax? Fax what?”
He said, “You know—fax, fax!” going through motions that made it clear that his pronunciation was a little bit off. “She said she really liked the beard.”
As I went on a bit further, I got another set of complements that had more to do with my choice of Indian haberdashery. “Good hat!” one said. To avoid the direct overhead Delhi sun, I had put on my new khaki hat, just bought in Leh, with a new bootlace as a hat halyard.
I was soaked with sweat in my long sleeved safari shirt, one of about six I now have in their still new, Sportsman’s Guide packages that I have kept bringing to India to leave in the duffel bag so that I can wear them and leave them behind. I have a stock of fresh new shirts for the foreseeable future in the bunch I have still left here, and pulled one out for a suitable fresh start on the multiple venues of the long return flights. I met the group having lunch in the Ajanta, as I came in more wringing wet than if I had been outside in the puddles that are standing everywhere on the street, mixed with the faintly uriniferous smells. I suggested to the group that they might be interested in seeing Mahatma Gandhi’s crematory plinth in the new park dedicated to him, and then go on to the Bahai Temple from which they can also see a large Hindu Temple. They all planned to do that as soon as they could get up for trying out the dense Delhi human traffic, but they were going to first take naps, and they are still doing that as I type this up in preparation for going downstairs to the 24-hour Internet Café I had last used on reporting out from my departure from Nepal three trips ago. If you have this message now, it is proof that the urban wonders of facilities and services of this teeming city of crowded desperate masses of smelly mankind scrabbling hard to make a bare existence out of their crowded polluted environment has worked at least this technologic wonder!