Shiva's Night

It's been building up for the last few weeks now. The number of babas with their long beards, hair like a birds nest, bare feet and orange robes has been increasing. The Indian snake charmers - all now banned from India as it is considered cruelty to the snake - have appeared in town. Pashupatinath temple has been building tents and organising itself for this day. And all the junkie westerners who think Nepal is the mystical Shangra-la are sitting around with the shakes waiting (I'll explain why in a minute...). It is the festival of Mahashivaraatri - otherwise known as Shiva's night.

Shiva is one of the trinity of Hindu gods, at the top of the pantheon along with Brahma and Vishnu (or Bishnu as Nepali doesn't have the 'v' sound in their phonetic system). Shiva's consort is Parbati, and legend has it that his home is the holy mountain, Mount Kailash in the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Shiva is well known in the Hindu world for many things - linga, his giant bull Nandi, how he cut of his son's head and replaced it with an elephant's head, his trident, blue throat and snake that lives around his neck. But the thing most westerners know him for is the mystic bhang that he smoked. And on this day each year, bhang - otherwise known as marijuana which grows abundantly in Nepal's hills - is legal.

Pashupatinath temple is the largest temple in Nepal, and one of the 4 most important temples in the Hindu dharma. It is supposed to be the place where Shiva spends his time during the winter. So every year for the Mahashivaraatri festival thousands of Shaivites (Shiva's followers) make the pilgrimage to Pashupatinath, along with hundreds of thousands of other onlookers and junkies.

I didn't make it Pashupatinath this year, as I was in my office, but when I was in Nepal 2 years ago, I went and took some photos. Below are a selection of my favourite:

The road to Pashupatinath is packed with the hundreds of thousands of people who go there to visit the temple and worship Shiva.

Inside the temple complex, it is also packed. However, there are some areas that only westerners can pass through, fortunately, so that you don't have to body surf through the crowds.

People queuing up for the temple. The queue was over 2 km long, and hardly moving at all...

...so people sat on the other side of the river and watched the queue not moving...

...and also the people trying to sneak in. Whilst we were watching, one man fell off the pipe they are standing on into the filthy Bagmati river, much to the amusement of everyone watching.

There were many Baba's sitting round their fires, wearing very little, selling their ganga, gaining a little more enlightenment and trying to trick gullible westerners out of their money.

The Baba's have given up their worldly possessions, and live a life of self-imposed poverty. I wonder what their parents think of their careers choice?

Some of the Baba's are showmen. This one, covered in ashes from the fire, was surrounded by a thronging mass of people, and lifted stones from his genitalia. Nice.

The Indian snake charmers dancing and bewitching their charges. The crowd was packed around the small group of temples above the main Pashupati complex. So packed, in fact, that people actually climbed on me to get a look at the display.

The temple has a real party atmosphere, and there are many different places where the Hindu stories are told through dance and song. This is telling about Hanuman, the monkey god from the Hindu epic, the Ramayan.

And of course, the inevitable drug dealers. This one was selling small balls of ganga to anyone who wanted to buy it. Needless to say he had good business. I suppose at least it's better than the dodgy guy in Thamel sidling up to you and asking if you want anything.

The thing I remember most about Mahashivaraatri a Pashupatinath is the smell. Pashupatinath is a pungent place at the best of times, the Bagmati river filled with garbage adding to the faecal remains of the monkeys and pigeons. Then, by the river side are the people being cremated. Add to that the smoke from the hundred of fires keeping the Babas warm and the intoxicating smell of weed in the air and you have a recipe for a really appalling nasal assault.

As for me, we watched the TV in the morning, as Pashupati woke up to its biggest day of the year. The best bit for me was the man being dragged out of shot by a hand as the camera panned around. But then, I am childish and immature. There was one thing I forgot happened on Mahashivaraatri as well - children create roadblocks in order to extort money out of people. So, on my journey into the office, we passed through at least 10 different pieces of string. Fortunately Achut knew how to deal with them, blow your horn loudly and say you're not paying. The problem is that a clothes-lining is very much possible, and I had no desire to be lying on my back in the middle of the road. But, in the end only one rope got caught around our waists, and that left after a brief minute.

It looks as if I'm off on a field visit at the end of the week, which will be cool. Just want to get out of Kathmandu for a few days and get my head in gear.

SAM

Democracy Day

Today is democracy day in Nepal. It has a rather ironic ring to it for me. It was on this day in 2005 that the then King Gyanendra took over the country, stating that the government had done nothing to quell the Maoist insurgency. The day is actually to celebrate the fact that former autocratic rulers of Nepal were replaced by the equally dictatorial monarchy. Democracy never appeared in Nepal until last year's elections - and to be honest, it still feels if it is a long way from settling here.

The fun of democracy day is that it's a holiday - so my office is shut... However, people who have to work for themselves to make money are still out on the street - selling, repairing, begging.

A game that I've been playing with a friend walking around Patan is called dead or alive. The game is fairly simple - you have to decide whether something is dead or alive, state the fact and then, if brave enough, prove it. Pigeons are fairly simple to tell, as if they are dead they normally have a tyre track across their body. Humans too are fairly easy. Most are just sleeping - you can see their chests moving up and down. Those on fire at Pashupatinath are dead. Dogs are the most difficult and present a game as dangerous as Russian roulette. They look fairly dead most of the time, even though they might only be sleeping. To prove you are correct though requires skill, a will of iron and a big stick. The Russian roulette part of the game is that you never quite know if the dog has rabies. So, when it bites you for waking it up prematurely, a trip to the doctor is needed fairly rapidly (or should that be rabidly...).

A couple of weeks ago on the TV, Prachandra - Nepal's former terrorist leader turned Prime Minister - was bemoaning the lack of forward movement his Maoist led government had made in improving the 'New Nepal'. He, of course, took little responsibility on his own shoulders, but instead placed the blame firmly on the feudalists and royalist forces that are trying to prevent the revolution. At the end of his speech he declared that several new policies would be in place by the end of that week - including the crippling dowry system, where parents must give extortionately large amounts for their daughter to marry to the boys family. However, none of these have happened. Just last week I heard of a wedding cancelled as the boys family demanded so much gold and money from the girl that her family just couldn't afford it. So much for the 'New Nepal'...

Another interesting article about this here.

Some other rather odd things that have been happening here in Nepal for the last couple of weeks is that 2 people have been killed by Rhinos charging in Chitwan - the national park we visited in November. The people who died were all locals, but still, shows that this really is wild life.

Anyway, I'm off to sharpen my stick and top up my rabies vaccination.

SAM

A visit to the Dentist - Part 1

It was at Bidroha's wedding, I just couldn't take the pain any more. I had had enough. So, I went to the dentist.

I don't like dentists very much. It's nothing personal, but having spent long sat in dentist chairs, being put in large amounts of pain, being told off and then being charged extortionate amounts it has slightly soured my feelings towards them. And having naturally awful teeth doesn't help as well.

So, the thought of having to go to the dentist - and one who's first language wasn't English - terrified me.

I had been contemplating the visit for a long time. My teeth are always a little sore, but here they seemed to get a little worse. Since June last year I've had in the back of my mind to go and see the dentist. But I didn't because I was just too scared.

I went to Patan Hospital, where I was told the dentists are quite good. So I arrived for at 8 am. I walked in to find a huge queue of people and my heart sank. Fortunately, I found out that that was the queue for other medical things, only after 20 minutes of queuing though...

The queue for the dentists was already quite long - 7 or 8 people in front of me - although compared to the general medical admissions this was nothing. On the walls around me were posters telling of ways to keep your teeth clean and the benefits. Somethings never change. I went to the reception and was told I needed to get a ticket. When I asked where I could get a ticket from, the receptionist told me she could give me one. A bit of a pointless conversation? Maybe, but this is Nepal, and bureaucracy runs deep.

So, I got a ticket, and paid my consultation fee and sat in the queue. It seemed as if none of the dentists had come in yet, as there were just cleaners going around, and people sitting about waiting. After some time, the dentists turned up and the first person was called. I spent my time reading the posters around the walls. One had a women with a lump on her tongue saying "This is cancer, make sure you see your dentist if you find a lump". Comforting. Other posters extolled mothers feeding breast milk to their children, and another declaring "Healthy teeth, Healthy life".

I looked around the room to see who else was here to see the dentist. There was a women who had a white bandage covering the whole of her cheek. Maybe she had a cancerous lump removed from her tongue. A child was sitting sedately in his father's lap, one side of his mouth swollen as if someone had given him a golf ball to suck on. There was an old lady, who was looking as scared as I felt, and a young lady who held her hand to comfort her. Running around was a child, who would go to the curtained door of each room and look in, before moving on to the next. I hoped she wouldn't do that when I was sitting in the chair.

Then, completely out of sequence I was called. I felt a bit ashamed - why should I be given any preferential treatment - but I didn't complain. I wanted to be out of there as quick as possible. I was sat down in the dentist chair, and they asked me what was wrong. I explained. I did my best in Nepali, but when my Nepali failed - as quite often it does still - they started to speak in English.

They gave me an x-ray and then called me back to say that one of my fillings was close to the nerve, so it was probably just a bit sensitive. But, just to be sure, they would give me a scale and polish and make sure nothing else was causing pain.

A few days later I was back for my teeth cleaning. Now, in the UK I can imagine that the dentist will give you a plastic coat and some see through glasses while they are scaling teeth. However, in Nepal they gave me two face cloths - one placed on my chest and one over my eyes. So, there I was in darkness and all I could hear was the revving up of what I assumed was the drill. Why were they going to be using a drill?

Open your mouth, the lady said. Now, I don't know whether anyone else has this problem when they go to the dentist, but it always causes me a large amount of embarrassment. Where do you put your tongue? I try and make sure it keeps out of the way, but inevitably it gets in the path of the dentist's drill/poky stick/mirror and then I give out a yelp. Not only this, but my mouth slowly closes over time, as I forget where I am and revert to the daydream where I am sitting by the beach making sandcastles and watching the world go by. Then with a quick reprimand I am brought back to reality with a request to keep my mouth open if I want them to do their job properly.

As the sound of the drill increased in my ear, suggesting the impending meeting between it and my teeth, I started to fear the worst. All I thought I was here for was a clean, not a filling. And then impact. I flinched out of instinct more than anything else. But nothing happened. The drill wasn't a drill. It was just a grinding wheel - or a dentist equivalent of it. The hygienist passed the grinding wheel up and down my teeth, little bits of my teeth flying everywhere. After spending time going across all my teeth, getting caught up in my tongue and telling me to open my mouth, she then got another tool, some sort of toothbrush, and started to clean my teeth. The months of turmeric that had been staining my teeth slowly disappeared into a froth of what I can only assume was bicarbonate of soda and salt.

And with that it was over.

A week later, I was back in the dentist chair - after several compliments of how white my teeth looked. I didn't know whether that meant they were very yellow beforehand, or just everyone wanted to make me think that I hadn't wasted my money. The dentist looked at my teeth and told me I had hyper-plastic teeth and they were just sensitive. So, just get on with it. A very Nepali response.

However, I still have a feeling I'll need a little 'work' done on my teeth - and to be honest, I'd prefer to do it here than in the UK where it'll be 10 times more. So the dentist story has only just begun...

SAM