The Mystery of the Kailash Trail - Chapter 3 - Part 5

Chapter 3: Part 5:  He who could not recite his prayers through the night.

The tented eatery at Darchen was crowded with pilgrims and local villagers queuing up for hot soup and tea in the morning. The rainstorm had ended an hour earlier and the pilgrims began to move around. The vehicles were moved out of the tents, where they had been kept to protect them from the hailstorm. The tables were rearranged and two additional hot water dispensers were kept outside the tent. Pilgrims came up to the hot water tanks and filled up their bowls to help them wash up and get ready for the day. This was not a daily provision, but after the rainstorm, the eatery owner felt that it would help the pilgrims feel welcome at his establishment.

Shenshe, the Chinese policeman, had slept in the eatery, while waiting out the rainstorm. He had chosen a good warm corner, and had used the large round bolsters and the mattress in place of the sleeping bags that others were using. The Buddhist monk from Nalanda and the Sikh holy man from Amritsar in India had slept nearby. Their luggage was kept between them. The presence of the Chinese policeman inside the tent had prevented any enterprising quick-fingered thief from exploring the bags while the pilgrims slept through the stormy night.

This was a strange world, thought Shenshe. His family and his elder relatives had warned him about not going crazy in Tibet. He had expected that he would be posted to some remote location in Tibet and would not be able to get back to his family as often as he would have wished to. He had however not expected to be posted in this remote circus, as he often called it. Everyday was different. It was not like Lhasa, where every policeman was supposed to be extremely alert and watchful. This place was a different country each day, as he had determined.

Every day he saw new people, from different places in Tibet, from other countries and from all communities. Each visitor had his own reason for coming here. For every visitor, it seemed to be a journey of a lifetime. Most people came from places that did not have high mountains. For Tibetans also, this place was an important pilgrimage. Chinese tourists and pilgrims from other parts of China had begun to journey here. Shenshe wondered about this strange meeting place. The highest in the world, as he often heard others discussing the pilgrimage.

Yesterday, he had learnt something quite new. The Buddhist monk from Nalanda was Tibetan, but he was not from Tibet. He was third generation born in India, and came from a monastery that was not within a Tibetan exile enclave. He was traveling with a person from an entirely different religion, very unlike the one that he practiced. Was it allowed? Every pilgrim from India seemed so very different. This other pilgrim was from a community that he had rarely met. He had seen them in other cities in China, very occasionally, and sometimes in Lhasa. He had also seen a couple of them on the newly introduced train to Lhasa. But he had never met one in Darchen or heard of a Sikh pilgrim on the kora.

The Sikh pilgrim seemed to know everything about the kora and about the Kang Renpoche Mountain. He called it the Sumeru Mountain. That was something new, Sheshe thought. He had memorized all the names for the mountain, and when he had thought he had them all, this Sikh pilgrim had called it by yet another name. They were sleeping peacefully. However, he had noticed that the Sikh pilgrim had not slept during the night. He had been sitting up through the night, facing the mountain, meditating or chanting. He had been using his prayer beads and reciting slowly. The Buddhist monk had sat up once or twice, and watched him quietly, and had gone back to sleep.

Once the Sikh had gone out of the tent, dressed up in a good rain jersey, and had stood at the entrance area. Shenshe kept watching him. The Sikh seemed disturbed and he had kept moving in and out of the tent, with his prayer beads. He would go outside the tent and stand, looking around and searching for something. The Buddhist monk from Nalanda woke up twice and looked at the Sikh pilgrim and smiled at his restlessness, and went back to sleep. Shenshe wondered about it. He assumed that it must have been because of the strange location and the proximity of the holy mountain that he had come this far, in search of answers to questions within his religion.

Shenshe waited for the two pilgrims to wake up. He sat nearby, in a relaxed manner, suspecting that the day would be very long and there would be too many things to attend to. He wanted to pick up on the opportunity of sitting down in peace that he had obtained, and he would maximize it. The police outpost was nearby, but the other police constables had gone away to Shiquanhe and had been expected to return. They would have been held up due to the rainstorm, he thought.

He joined the owner of the tented eatery for breakfast at his invitation. The hot noodles, soup and tea was extremely welcome. Meanwhile, the two pilgrims had woken up and cleaned up. They packed up their sleeping bags and haversacks. They seemed to be carrying separate tent kits also, observed Shenshe. At his gesture, the owner of the eatery invited the two pilgrims to sit with them for breakfast. The Sikh pilgrim sat down next to the Chinese policeman, and placed his hands together in prayer, and recited a couple of sentences to himself.

Not able to contain his curiousity, Shenshe asked, “O Mr. Singh, you did not sleep well. I saw that you were sitting up and meditating through the night. You were walking around and went out in the rain also. Something was disturbing you. Are you ok? Everything ok? No problem? Is your stomach doing fine with the miserable food of this Tibetan hotels? Not like Beijing, you know.”

The owner of the tented eatery and the Buddhist monk from Nalanda did not respond to the bait of the Chinese policeman about Tibet. Everything about the high mountains of Tibet seemed to be miserable to the Han Chinese, thought the monk from Nalanda, for he had been told of the years of oppression and the persecution of Tibetans over the past many decades. He had not expected that it would be so deeply ingrained amongst the common everyday people of China and Tibet. They should be grateful, he thought, for all their waters come from Tibet. If not for the Kang Renpoche, the people of China would have been destroyed in history, a long long time ago.

“Sardar Amarpal Singh of Amritsar”, said the Buddhist monk, and translated the questions that Shenshe had asked, “I had also noticed that you had a very disturbed night, though you were in constant prayer. Do tell us what was it that was disturbing you, so very badly. I had thought of asking you at night, but each time I woke, I saw you with your prayer beads an prayer books. I did not have the courage to disturb you at that time.”

The Sikh pilgrim bowed to Sheshe, and with the Buddhist monk translating for him, he spoke slowly. He said, “Yes. You are a true policeman, I can see. In India, also, I am always watched. People do not understand me. My brothers, Sikhs in service to the temple understand what I can experience. I cannot explain in detail. I am able to sense or experience or go into a trance when I focus on divinity. I can sit peacefully for meditation. I do not need food or water until I come out.”

“But, what happened yesterday, at night, during the rainstorm, was very strange. I am usually able to sit down for meditation even on a crowded street or inside a railway train. There are always people at our temple, and yet, I keep reading the holy books with peace in my heart. But, yesterday, I could not pray at all. I tried my best. I kept stopping and starting and stopping and starting all the time. I could not even complete one round of my prayer beads.”

“I went out of the tent, many times,” Amarpal continued, “I tried to seek strength from the Sumeru mountain. I called out to my Guru. But there was something that prevented me from talking to my God, from doing my prayers, and from reciting the holy name, as I have been taught to do so, and as I have done for so many years, in my beloved Amritsar. I went out to try to see the holy mountain, and failed to do so.”

“And then, at one time, when I closed my eyes and focused entirely on my waheguru, my guide and my inspiration, I saw a miracle. In the midst of the rainstorm, I could see the Sumeru mountain, shining in the moonlight. The rain had stopped falling on Sumeru and the moon was out there, shining brightly. The snowy cap of the Sumeru was so brilliant, I was lost for words to myself, to describe it. And then, it was gone. The rains were back on the Sumeru. The peak disappeared from view, once again. I was, once again, not able to recite my prayers properly. What would have happened out there? I need to go to the Sumeru mountain and explore.”