FISHTAIL MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’m glad the monsoon is over,’ Dorje told his father, on their way to the market in the centre of Kathmandu. They were going to buy some lokta paper for his kite.

     ‘Yes, so am I,’ his father replied, squeezing Dorje’s hand. ‘Look at the damage the rains caused,’ he said, pointing to a crevice in the road.

     Dorje stared at the hole which lay gaping, like a split pomegranate, raw, cavernous. Plastic bags, rotting food, shoes and a bicycle lay twisted and rusting at the bottom of the gap. Colossal raindrops had fallen relentlessly through July and August leaving behind them chaos and debris. But now the earth was drying out and dirt-infested puddles appeared everywhere. It was the beginning of September and everyone was looking forward to Dashain, the harvest festival which ended on the night of the full moon.

     Dorje’s father tugged his hand. ‘Come, we have to go.’

     They reached the market and found the paper stall. Dorje stood in front of the towering piles of paper. A whole array of colours piled up before him.

     ‘Why do we need to buy lokta paper, pa lags?’ Dorje asked his father.

     ‘Because it’s special paper, Dorje. The best kites are made with lokta. Dashain lasts two weeks, and only the strongest kites will make it to the end. That’s why no other paper will do.’

     Dorje looked up at his father, held his hand tighter.

     ‘Is this the type of paper you used when you were a small boy?’

     ‘Yes. I only used lokta. Grandfather Jiang Jup brought me to this very stall when I was much younger than you.’

     ‘Did he use lokta, too?’

     ‘No, they didn’t have lokta in Tibet. He only discovered it when his family escaped to Nepal and he’s used it ever since.’

     Dorje looked back at the piles of different-coloured paper.  He spent a long time sifting through it but, in the end, he decided on red. Dorje liked red. In fact, he liked red a great deal. And this particular red had thin fibrous strands of gold running through the weave of the paper. It caught the sun as Dorje picked it up and twisted it.

     ‘This is the paper I want, pa lags,’ Dorje held it up for his father to see. ‘I will make a perfect kite with this paper.’

     They bought the lokta and made their way home through the soggy, dirt-covered streets. The weather was mellow, the sky a crisp aquamarine, the wind cool and refreshing. Each year, families stayed together, schools closed and children sat down with their parents to make their kites.    

     ‘I’ll make the kite myself, pa lags,’ Dorje announced. ‘I’m ten years old now. I don’t need any help. I’ve seen you do this many times before, so I’m sure I can do it.’

     His father looked at him. ‘Are you sure you don’t need any help?’

     ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Dorje glanced at the paper rolled up under his arm. ‘I’ll do this alone.’

      Dorje’s father ruffled his hair and nodded. ‘All right, then. But if you need help, just ask. Is that a deal?’

     ‘Yes,’ Dorje said.

     They had reached their small brick house. His father left him there and went to his clothes’ shop to work.

     Dorje sat on the floor and, for a while, studied his red paper. He rubbed his chin and wondered where he should start.

     He put two sticks of equal length that he had found outside one of the monasteries on Swayambhu hill together, tying them with a bit of string to form a cross. He surrounded the cross with sticks, fixing them one piece at a time, until he’d formed a diamond shape. So far, his kite looked as it should.

     Dorje unrolled the paper he had bought with his father. He placed it on the diamond-shape. The rough, grainy paper felt like thick cotton. He picked up the glue and stuck the paper on the sticks. Dorje held the sticks down so the kite would not come apart. He cut the surplus paper that was dangling off the sides, as neatly as he could and attached a string to the centre of the cross. This led to a big reel with two spools either side. His kite was ready. Dorje left it propped up against the kitchen entrance wall, where he knew his father would see it.

A little before lunchtime, Dorje’s father came home and took off his shoes. His mother, who had been cooking rice, dhal and meat momos in the minuscule kitchen, came out to greet her husband. Dorje, who was sitting on the kitchen floor, remained seated.

     ‘Ta-shi deh-leh, my husband.’

     ‘Ta-shi deh-leh, Kamala.’

     ‘How was your day? Did you sell anything?’

     ‘Yes. Four silk chuba dresses, three chuba shirts and three aprons. Everyone is getting ready for the festival.’

     ‘That is good,’ his wife replied. She turned her head to where the kite was resting. ‘I think someone left something for you,’ she said with a faint laugh, and left the room.

     Dorje’s father noticed the kite. His cheeks were red like small shiny beads, his eyes smiled as he picked up his son’s handiwork. He noticed Dorje sitting on the kitchen floor and smiled.

     ‘What do you think, Dorje? Shall we try it out? Will you help me fly it?’ his father asked him, holding out his hand to his son.

     Dorje hesitated for a moment, then got up, took hold of his father’s hand, and together they went to the roof of the house.

     There was a bit of wind. Dorje held up the kite and his father held the large reel of string.

     ‘Hold it up as high as you can, Dorje, and hold it tight, until you feel a strong gust of wind,’ his father said.

     Dorje nodded, curled his fingers tighter around the kite. He felt a pull and glanced at his father.

     ‘Now,’ his father cried, and Dorje let go.

     His kite swayed from one side to the other then fell abruptly to the ground.

     ‘Let’s try one more time,’ his father said as he picked the kite up. He handed it to Dorje. ‘Hold it higher.’

     Dorje tightened his fists and gritted his teeth with the effort. His father was about to let go when he let out a small laugh, and lowered his hands.

     ‘Something’s not quite right,’ he said, studying the kite. ‘The string attached to it is too short, and it’s also placed unevenly. I wonder why I didn’t notice that before.’

     He tugged at the string pulling it this way and that, but it wouldn’t settle in the right position. His father gave Dorje a smile, ruffled his hair.

    ‘This is a good effort, Dorje! It’s a strong kite, but we just need to reposition the string or else it won’t fly. And it could do with a tail. But it’s a good effort. It’s a good effort.’

     Dorje looked at his father in silence. Without warning, he ran downstairs and out of the house. He could hear his father calling after him.

      ‘Hey! Where are you going? Come back, and we’ll fix it together! Dorje! Come back!’

Dorje found his grandfather sitting outside the house in the sun, on a little stool, gazing at the people going by. As soon as he saw Dorje, his grandfather opened his arms wide.

    ‘My little Dorje! Come here so I can hold you! I don’t see you for a few hours and you grow up to look like a man!’ the aged man chuckled.

      Dorje fell into his grandfather’s arms, burying his head in his chest. His grandfather gently pushed him away, gazed into his dirty tear-stained face.

      ‘What’s the matter, my Little Thunderbolt? What are these tears for? Tell your old granddad. Come on….tell me what’s making you so sad.’

     Dorje’s proper name was Sonam, ‘The Gifted Fortunate One’. But he used to run about so fast, that it reminded his grandfather of a thunderbolt racing through the skies, so he had also been given the name Dorje.

     The little boy told his grandfather about his efforts to make a kite, how his father tried to fly it and said the string needed fixing. His grandfather looked at him for a moment, sighed. His long, thinning white hair fell over his shoulders in a frail pony tail; it looked dishevelled, tangled. His turquoise and coral earrings hung from his droopy ear lobes which had stretched through the years and made Dorje think of melting clay.

     ‘I’ll never be able to make a kite. Pa lags was right to tease me,’ the small boy cried.

    ‘Ah, Dorje, if only all problems were this simple. Of course you can make a kite! You must go back and fix it. Your father wasn’t teasing you. Go ask for his help. I know he is waiting to help you. Go. I’d help you out, only my fingers aren’t as nimble as they used to be. But go to your father and have fun making your kite together. Run along now.’ He wiped his grandson’s cheeks with his palm. It felt warm on Dorje’s cheek. He looked at the little boy.

     ‘No, Grandfather Jiang Jup, I wanted to do this alone. I don’t want anyone to help me,’ and with that the little boy got to his feet and whizzed away.

Dorje went home. He stood behind the kitchen door for a while, listening for any noise. He didn’t hear anything so he crept into the kitchen to see. It was empty. The meat momos, like inflated crescent moons, waited on a plate ready to be steamed. They looked luminous, doughy, inviting. He entered the room, walked up to the stove. The pot of dahl simmered rhythmically. He lifted up the rough metal lid, looked inside. It smelt good, and he felt hungry. He looked at the orangey-brown colour of the lentils bubbling up and down and replaced the lid. Then, he searched around for something to nibble on.

     He found a dried piece of chapatti bread, left over from the morning, which he quickly consumed. However, he was still hungry, so Dorje looked around the kitchen for something else to munch on. Instead of food, he noticed his red kite, like a piece of unwanted cloth, on the kitchen floor.

     His little fists curled into tight balls, his lips gathered together at the centre of his face, his breathing became loud. Why didn’t it work? Why? He walked to the kite, picked it up in his hands. He was just about to throw it to the ground. That’s where it belonged. He would stamp on it, grind it to fine red powder. But he didn’t do anything, because something inside the actual grain of the paper caught his eye.

      He squinted.

     ‘Huh? That’s very strange!’ he said out loud.

     He moved his face in closer to the kite, so that his nose almost touched the paper.

     ‘Ah!’ he cried, dropping the kite to the floor. ‘There’s a face in the kite! And it’s smiling at me!’ 

     Dorje stood very still, unable to move for some minutes, shaking his head. He stared at the kite. Nothing strange appeared to him, so he picked it up, again, and climbed the narrow wooden stairs to the room he shared with his older brother, Sangye. He sat on his bed, holding his little failure tightly. He thought he should sulk for a bit.

     He threw the kite to the floor, pushing it with his feet.  Dorje rested his chin in his hands, and just sat there. He didn’t do anything.

     My brother will laugh at me, he thought. He can make kites. He knows how to make perfect kites’

     And he was going to make sure that he knew that.

     ‘Why am I so stupid and clumsy?’ he grumbled.

     Dorje sat on his bed, not noticing time passing by. This was a terrible disaster. His brother would never let him forget about his failure. That’s all he could think about as he sat on the edge of his bed, feeling sorrier and sorrier for himself with each minute. He would have sat there all day, oblivious to everything, were it not for the muffled sound he heard somewhere in the room. It was small, dry, scratchy. He couldn’t make out where it was coming from. It startled him.

     ‘What was that?’ he whispered.

     It sounded like a voice.

     He listened closely to see if he could hear anything. He squinted, and listened.

     ‘I’m imagining things. That wasn’t a voice. Probably cats outside fighting over a mouse,’ he said, swinging his arm in the air.

     He lay down on his back and closed his eyes. Soon he was asleep.

He woke up with a start, breathing heavily. He didn’t know where he was for a few moments. He rubbed his face.

     ‘That was a weird dream I had,’ he mumbled to himself.

     He thought of the strange paper face that had loomed up in front of him in his dream. He could see its every detail. The red, scrunched-up paper mouth grinned at him. It told him something, a strange poem, almost like a chant, but it didn’t make any sense.

     The voice said:

Form is emptiness, Emptiness is form.
Form is the same as emptiness, Emptiness is the same as form.
That which is formed is empty, that which is empty has form.
So it is also with sensation and thought and activity and consciousness.

     In his dream, he found a piece of paper and wrote down the words he’d heard. He read them over and over again, but he could not make out what they meant. Dorje tried to understand what the voice of the paper face had uttered but, before he could do that, the dream continued and he found himself flying over the Kathmandu Valley on his red kite. He flew over the Annapurna range, almost touched Machapuchare, ‘Fishtail Mountain’. The face appeared in the paper again. He tried to make out what the paper face was saying, but he couldn’t. The dream snapped away from him, like the heavy lid of a box shutting tight.

Dorje got out of bed and looked for the kite. It wasn’t where he had left it. It wasn’t on the floor by his bed. He looked towards his brother’s bed. Nothing. He went downstairs to the kitchen, and saw his brother sitting on the floor eating. His parents and Grandfather Jiang Jup were sitting on the floor, too.

    ‘Finally, you’ve woken up!’ his father exclaimed. ‘We tried to wake you but you were snoring so loudly it made the house shake!’

     Everyone laughed at that, even Dorje.

     His mother got up from the floor and filled his plate with rice, dahl and spinach. She scooped up a few steaming momos with a ladle and placed them in a bowl. She handed them to Dorje, who started devouring his lunch. By now, he’d forgotten about the kite. The food tasted good. It was hot and warmed him up.

     ‘I want more dahl, a ma,’ Dorje said, and he ate until his belly swelled up like the belly of a well-fed puppy.

     He finished his meal, closed his eyes and smiled. This is what he had needed. Food. After he had eaten, he decided to give his kite a second chance. He got up to get it, but realised he didn’t know where it was.

     ‘Has anyone seen my kite?’ he asked his brother, parents and grandfather.

     They all shook their heads. No one had seen it. Dorje’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Sangye.

     ‘Are you sure you don’t know where it is? A red kite with little gold bits in it. You haven’t seen it?’

     Sangye shook his head once more, his eyes round and open. ‘Why would I need to take your kite? I’ve made my own.’

     Dorje looked at the floor. For some reason, he believed him. He didn’t look like he was teasing him.

    ‘Well, I left it on the floor by my bed and now it’s gone. Where is it if no one’s touched it? I want to fix it and I can’t do that if I can’t find it. A ma, you didn’t pick it up, did you?’

     ‘Why would I take your kite, Dorje?’ his mother said.

     ‘Never mind,’ he replied, and got up to leave. He could hear his grandfather sipping the momo juice.

     He left his home and went in search of his friends, Narayan and Shamar. On his way to their house he changed his mind. He didn’t feel like seeing his friends after all. They would, most likely, be flying the kites they’d made and would ask him where his was; he didn’t feel like telling them about his kite.

     So, he went to Swayambhu temple instead.

CHAPTER TWO

Below Swayambhu hill, there was always a lot of commotion. Hindu women, dressed in brightly-coloured saris, ambled by. Vermillion red tikkas adorned their foreheads, bags stuffed to their utmost capacity with fruit and vegetables, bounced at their sides. Tibetan ladies, in raw silk chuba dresses and stripy aprons, spun prayer wheels as they walked, chanting prayers under their breaths. Buddhist monks sat cross-legged, chiselling out mantras on flat, smooth mantra stones; some monks chiselled, others painted the mantra stones with vibrant colours. Silk chemises and light cottons wafted behind moving people. Intricate patterns, flowers, stripes all paraded in front of Dorje’s eyes. Tourists, water bottles in their hands, climbed up the three hundred and sixty-five uneven, slippery steps that led to the top of Swayambhu. They stopped every now and then, panting loudly, wiped the sweat off their brows with their forearms. Dorje saw this every day. He enjoyed seeing the commotion, the colours, hearing the noise. He would usually mingle with the hundreds of people going up and down the steps. But that day, he decided to climb up to the top the back way.

     Dorje found the hidden path amidst the trees that covered the steep Swayambhu hill. Monkeys jumped from tree to tree above his head, darted between his feet. He laughed, as one nearly made him lose his balance.

     ‘You remind me of my grandfather, monkey’ he cried out, and laughed. ‘Otherwise I’d chase you.’

     When he reached the top he saw the countless prayer flags flapping in the light autumn breeze. Red, blue, green, yellow and white flags – some new, the colours still fresh, lively; most of them faded by the sun and the rain, corroded by exposure to the weather.        

     Dorje walked up to one of the monasteries that lay hidden behind the Swayambhu temple and pushed the heavy wooden door. He entered the asbestos-coated inner courtyard. It was empty. He sat by the trunk of the solitary tree that grew in there.

The monastery was a small one. Low, two-storied buildings made up three sides of it. A wooden staircase led up to the gompa. Dorje looked up at the coloured windows. He heard chanting. He was about to get up and go to the gompa to pray, but a door creaked from the building opposite him, and he saw one of the monastery’s masters emerge.

     ‘Ah! Dorje! Namaste,’ Lama Geshe said, and with palms pressed together he raised his hands to his forehead.

     ‘Namaste,’ Dorje greeted the Lama in the same way. Lama Geshe came and sat next to his young friend.

     ‘It’s good to see you again. How are you today?’

     ‘I’m well, thank you, Lama Geshe,’ Dorje replied, and smiled. He fell silent as he looked into the old man’s earth-coloured eyes. The Lama smiled back.

     Both sat without speaking. Lama Geshe occasionally turned to look at Dorje, but for a long while neither of them spoke.

     ‘You seem a little pensive today. Is something on your mind?’

     ‘Well…I tried to make my kite today, but it was a failure. I’m no good at making kites.’

     Silence fell between the boy and the Lama again. The monks could be heard chanting mantras in the gompa. Lama Geshe cleared his throat.

     ‘You know, Dorje, the egg can only hatch when it is ready.’

     Dorje sat quietly concentrating.

     ‘Our failures are our greatest teachers. They show us how far we’ve come, how far we still need to go.’

     Dorje still did not reply. He just listened.

     ‘I know you tried your best. Your next kite will work out better, you’ll see,’ Lama Geshe said, tousling Dorje’s hair.

     Dorje smiled. ‘Yes. I will try harder next time.’

     ‘But something is still troubling you.’

     Dorje nodded, looking at his feet. He was wearing his old leather sandals and his toes suddenly seemed very dusty. His skin had a blue grey hue.

     ‘I fell asleep during lunch,’ Dorje said. ‘I fell asleep and had a dream. Only, it didn’t feel like a dream. I don’t know. Strange things are happening today.’

     ‘What strange things? What’s happened today, Dorje?’ Lama Geshe asked the boy. ‘Tell me your dream. Maybe I can help you explain it.’

     ‘Well…no…,’ Dorje giggled. ‘You’ll laugh at me. It’s a silly dream.’ He glanced at his feet, and chuckled.

     ‘No dreams are silly, Dorje, no dreams are ever silly. All dreams are gateways. It’s up to you to understand the paths that open up in front of you. You have to see them, to be able to follow them. All dreams are lessons. They are real. No dream is silly, you must never think that.’

     ‘Well…,’ Dorje scrunched up his eyebrows, and scratched his ear, ‘If they’re not silly then how come they make no sense? I was flying over mountains and seeing faces in kites and hearing strange chants in my dream!’ Dorje said in one breath. ‘Nothing made sense!’

     ‘What did you hear, Dorje?’

     ‘I don’t know,’ the little boy exclaimed. ‘Something about form and emptiness and, I don’t know, everything being empty and yet not empty and I got all confused! I tell you, my dream made no sense at all!’ Dorje rested his head on his fist.

     ‘It might not make sense to you, Dorje, but it makes sense to me. Tell me your dream. I think it is important.’

     Dorje looked at the Lama in silence. He studied his furrowed face. Dorje told him the dream he’d had. He told him everything he could remember. When he had finished, he looked away. The chanting in the gompa had ended; it was silent. The breeze rustled the leaves above their heads. Dorje bit the inside of his cheek and kicked his legs rhythmically.

     ‘You must go back and bring me your kite,’ Lama Geshe said.

     ‘My kite?’ Dorje asked in amazement. ‘But it doesn’t fly! It’s a failure. Besides, I think I must have misplaced it somewhere because I can’t find it.’

     ‘No, Dorje. Your kite is not a failure, it’s special. You must bring it to me. Go back home and look for it. I’m sure you’ll find it, and when you do, bring it to me and you will see that your dream wasn’t silly at all.’

     ‘You really think my kite is special?’

     ‘Yes, bring it tomorrow.’

     ‘Well, all right, I’ll look for it,’ Dorje mused. ‘But you’ll see, it doesn’t fly. It’s a stupid kite!’

     Lama Geshe’s smile broadened. He placed his hand on Dorje’s head. ‘Bring me your kite tomorrow and we’ll make it fly together.’ Dorje nodded.

     ‘I must go now. Namaste, Lama Geshe. I’ll come back tomorrow with my kite.’

     ‘I shall be waiting, Dorje. Namaste,’ the Lama said, as the front gate creaked behind the boy.