Monkey Business

Monkey Temple

Today was one of those sneak-attack days that started like every other but ended up kicking the shit out of me.

As usual, I woke up well before my alarm to the defiant cock-a-doodle-doo of insensitive roosters (who I swear are in cahoots with Matt to carry out his life-long work of pissing me off first thing in the morning). Instead of rising, I remained cup-like under stiff musty blankets, awaiting my shrill alarm.

When it finally screeched, Ba (Nepali for “dad”) knocked gently on my bedroom door as he does every morning, giving a slight bow as he passed me a cup of black tea (with 600 tablespoons of sugar). Groggily, I smiled, knuckled the sleep from my eyes, thanked him, and began my daily ritual of forcing down the hot glucose in undiscerning gulps as I hopped clumsily around the cold stone room pulling on my baggy floor length skirt and equally shapeless, unsexy, top.

Laundry

Upon emerging, I brushed my teeth and washed my face with a cup of cold grayish water from the large plastic barrel in the kitchen (we haven’t had running water in ages), and left for work at around 9:30am. Nepalis generally work very approximate hours bookended by daal bhat meals; if I had to assign actual times, I would estimate most people saunter in and out of offices around 10:00am - 4:00pm (six days a week). Though in the winter, the daily 10-16 hour power cuts further compress the workday (and the Nepali government wonders why multinationals aren’t banging down their doors?)

The fat white sun frayed onto our winding dirt road, eclipsed on both sides by labyrinths of cramped three-story three-family Newari homes. Lines of laundered saris linked small shuttered windows. Faded, forgotten offerings of dried-up marigold garlands slung themselves sloppily over wooden doorways and black iron gates embossed with bronze/gold swastikas (an ancient symbol of well-being or good luck).

Marigold garlands

As I walked, high-stepping chickens scavenged  the perimeter and the black-glass eyes of matted street dogs glanced up from heavy lids to follow me without bothering to lift their heads. A halo of flies hummed busily overhead. Bare-bottomed nut-brown babies with dark downy hair (all eschew) waddled drunkenly into their mothers’ calves. Glossy crows leered from the rooftops as I turned onto the main road to wait for the bus (by bus I mean white unmarked rapist van with Nepali passenger holding a wad of rupees and rapidly shouting out landmarks). As usual, it was packed tighter than Aaliyah's last flight.

Sari laundry

As I stood hunched with my rear stuck out, half-crouching (half playing that lovely dropped-soap prison game with the guy behind me), I stared out the window with a mix of exhaustion, boredom, and perpetual fascination. It was time for my daily worry session. Here's a sample of my mind's potpourri: there was a huge infrastructure issue at work and I wondered fleetingly and frustratedly how to "think outside the box". Could I sell my body to a customs official, or maybe even the Minister of Finance himself? Would CNN somehow get wind of it? My family and native society shun me like a second-string Lewinsky? What picture would they use for my headline? My facebook default? Should I change it first? Of course not--this is silly. Even if extorted with just cuddling a customs official, I think I'd prefer to continue with my streak of failure. Does that mean I'm not invested?

Next I wondered about my Aama (Nepali Mom), who had just been hospitalized for 2 weeks after an emergency gallbladder operation--would she be able to leave the house in time for next week's Lalitpur festival? Did she even give a shit about the festival, or was I being selfish? How was she still smiling after all that continual unrelenting drug-less pain? She should be screaming/ throwing herself into a hot vat of daal. Do I have that kind of grit? Am I a pussy? Are all Westerners pussies compared to Nepalis? It is not the first time I've wondered this. Interesting. Maybe there's a Western pain killer I could smuggle her. Is it arrogant to wonder that? Would she take it, or would she spat disdainfully at my cushy American decadence? I can't picture her ever being disdainful--let me try. What is it with Nepalis and spatting?

Our house gate

But most of my ride that day, like most days, was spent worried about Siema (my Nepali younger sister) who had just started on heavy-duty anti-depressants after an emotionally turbulent few weeks of red-rimmed eyes and sincere, flambuoyant, hysteria. It was upsetting watching her physically dwindle over the past few weeks, cloaked in oppressive sadness. How was she today? What if we eliminated the white rice from her diet--stabilized her blood suger--would that help? Is that idiotic? Why must I always meddle?

And lastly, as I caught sight of a Nepali woman at the front of the bus lovingly squeeze her daughter's chin, with a small poignant pang I reflected that it had been far too long since I’d sat down with someone who spoke native English. Someone who hugged.

I believe I underestimated the importance of this last bit. The sorrow was a surreptitious one. When people back home asked over rushed catch-up emails if I ever got lonely surrounded by Nepalis all the time, I responded with a cavalier “psssh—no way, I’m in Nepal!” Yet after the first few novelty months passed, I began to feel a small sneaking heaviness take root. It was as though there were an empty room at the back of my chest that someone snuck a hose into and was gradually, continuously filling with icy water—patiently waiting for an overflow. There was nothing loud, dramatic, or urgent about it; it was just something I learned to carry. Holiday weight.

But this was nothing new (or even noticeable), and everything went on as usual today until I left work and began my daily journey home via the bus stop. I was walking along my familiar high-traffic route past meat shops boasting decapitated pig heads and goats’ feet (hooves and all) swathed in hot-red blood, and tea stalls emanating the sweet scent of creamy masala, when I tripped over a jagged torn-up section of sidewalk (one of many).

Butcher's proud sidewalk display 

I saw the fall happening, slow as George Bush. I could see my flip-flop locked on the chunk of cement, and I could feel myself gradually moving forward at an angle, but all I did was allow it. I hit the ground diagonally with a hard skid—pens and notes scattered from my flung bag, my skirt bellowed out like a parachute and settled dramatically around me (luckily covering everything), and at long last my plummeting left jaw joined my still, splayed, limbs on the dusty cracked concrete.

Everything stopped. Everything quieted. A few seconds of dazed confusion passed (or was it hours?) before a man ran to help me up. With shy fingertips I clutched his coat sleeves as I tried out standing as if I were a toddler discovering her legs. After a bit of wobbling I had the hang of it and he left me to balance while he began picking up my belongings, which people were indifferently stepping over (my money is always on body so the rest is of no interest I suppose).

Street leading to my office

This gave me time to examine my wounds: two large bloody circles of raw hamburger meat stood where my knees had once been, so swollen it was as though my legs had sprouted hills. My left arm took the brunt of it; blood began to bloom out of the scrapes as if from nowhere, ousting itself in large patches and sliding down my bicep (or lack thereof) in meandering rosy trickles; voluptuous droplets collected on my elbow and swayed before falling off.

The city’s volume returned the same time as my thoughts. It was like someone had replaced a pulled speaker-cord. A cacophony of car horns haaaaanked in exasperation and motorbikes vroomed in and out like flies. I had no first aid on me and not enough money for a cab. I was acting like a robot programmed to return home (Eeeeeeeee Teeeeeeee phooooone hooooome). My thoughts were simple, direct, and in the imperative: make steps,  get to corner, board bus, walk, bedroom, must (MUST) clean. I knew my calm focus would start to unravel if I let myself picture all the bacteria and filth that had just been mashed into my vital streams.

The neighborhood corner store

I nodded a breathy, stunned thanks to the man, slung my bag across my good shoulder, and with both hands holding my floor-length skirt out in front of me at the knees so they wouldn’t stick into the wounds, I began to limp ahead (I suspect I looked and was walking not unlike Chuckie’s bride). If only I had been in a country where showing one’s knees was not slutty!

Eventually (very awkwardly), I made it to the bus stop and managed to squeeze and grope my way into a single seat on the right-hand side of the van about halfway back, where I sat with my hands gently holding my skirt out away from my bloody knees and (now) calves.

As the bus drove on,  I re-entered my usual mental diatribe, adding a little section about my injuries, when the bus stopped again and a silver-haired Nepali woman wearing a grasshopper-green sari and covered in a pantyhose-layer of filth sat squat-dab on my lap (not uncommon on Nepali buses, but usually impolite to do without a confirmatory nod/smile).

My charming microbus commute

I winced loudly from the pain of my raw knees being panini-pressed, but she did not seem to notice or care. We still had over 30 minutes before my stop and just as I feared, I was starting to lose my shit: how can people just step right over me/my things? Sit on me? Watch me get sat on? Spit so much? Not bathe or show their knees or celebrate Easter or use utensils? Or hug? What is wrong with this place?!?

The bus was trapped in a standstill traffic jam. I looked over my right shoulder to check the van for blood when out the window I could hardly believe my eyes! (I've always wanted to say that, and in this case it was true). Across the street I saw a giant ape-sized monkey (I’m no monkey expert) trying to balance on top of a messy mix of about 20 different telephone wires way up in the colorless pre-dusk sky. I had seen monkeys clamber up telephone poles and walk the wires before, but never had I seen one this large—he was as big as Justin Beiber! Even now as I recall him, I’m not sure who would have won in a fight, him or Kim Jong-un.

As I looked on, he (definintely he, with bragging rights) was beginning to garner some attention from the crowded streets below because of his sheer size and because of how clumsy and uncertain he seemed. He was about 25 feet high now, standing with both feet on the tangle of black wire, one hand on a shaky parallel wire and one arm still nervously curled around the pole behind him. He looked positively human. A man in an orange-brown fur coat.

I always assumed animals just instinctively knew what they were doing when climbing. They’re born surefooted; it’s their nature. 

I watched with mounting interest as he took one tentative step forward onto the sloping wobbly wires and tried to trust in their presence as he let go of the pole. But it was all wrong. None of the wires were predictable, they were splayed in different directions and too lax to hold him. He bobbed slightly, for what seemed like an eternity. Then his arms went up and out in an attempt to restore balance, just as most humans do in my yoga class when they are about to fall out of tree pose, and he stood flailing on the wires, wavering like water, before plummeting --yes, he was actually plummeting!-- as if in slow-motion, back-first onto the pavement.

(My monkey was bigger. #thatswhathesaid)

Everyone halted (for real this time, not like my fall). As he lay there, a giant hairy statue, the jam cleared and the bus rolled forward like nothing had happened. And in a way, nothing had. I twisted my neck back far as it would go, wringing it like a towel to get some kind of last-minute closure. I glimpsed a blur of colorfully-robed people converging in on a motionless orange-brown lump.

And just like that the world both broke me and fixed me. That's right, I cried. First shyly and then unapologetically. Right there on the bus beneath a dirty old lady, I cried like a child. Plump loose tears slid eagerly out both corners of my eyes like they were fleeing someplace awful.

At first I wept for the monkey—so senseless! The terror and pain he must have felt, the confusion, the uncertain death. But once I started, I realized my list was much longer. Personal. Someone had hooked a vacuum into that icy inner water-room of mine and was pumping out all the sorrow. I wept for the monkey’s family (Did he have babies? A hot monkey wife?). I wept for all the animals who suffer untimely deaths from urban jungles. I wept for my probably-infected knees, for Ama, for Siema, for the women I help who were born into utter squalor, for my deep and unquenchable loneliness, for the repulsive goddman sugary tea I have to swallow every morning, for the countless devastatingly poor, deformed, degraded people I see every fucking day and cannot save. That no one can save. I cried for failing and I cried for crying. 

I cried silently the whole way as people shifted uncomfortably and looked on in thinly-masked fascination. A white girl riding the bus is already interesting, but a white girl crying on the bus is like a fucking unicorn. I could already hear the way they’d recount it for their families over evening daal bhat, the children pausing with wide unbelieving eyes and necks craned in enthrallment as they imagined the sight of a squashed bloody weeping blonde riding alone amongst their people.

Holy Bagmati River,  cremation ghats (right)

And at this thought I laughed. I laughed because of how devastating and at the same time, utterly ridiculous, the whole thing was—I was making a public spectacle of myself over a dead monkey I did not know and a scraped knee. I’m twenty five years old for chrissakes! Get it together!

So there I sat, laughing and crying until I was mostly just laughing. And I was so relieved that I could see the absurd again. The laughter was fantastically freeing. It unburdened me. I felt deliriously light and buoyant and unafraid. Drunk and slap-happy. 

But here's my point. I don’t know what happened to that monkey (though even now it is upsetting to ponder), but that big dumb beast managed to teach me--a supposedly evolved version of him--two important things from it all; first, that it wasn’t his fault. Monkeys were never meant to climb wires. It was the world that fucked up, that owes him, that has to answer for to the price of a life. But so what? It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t his fault. Not one bit. You can blame the world for your failures and, like the monkey, you can be well-founded--horribly, unjustly wronged--but it does not change anything. It doesn’t erase the city, and it doesn’t make you nimble on wires.

Nothing makes you feel smaller than the Himalayas

The world might want to, but ultimately, it cannot care about you. It just can’t. It has too much pulling it forward to be interrupted by anything, let alone little old you. Whether you fall or manage, laugh or cry, live or die, the traffic will still unjam. The bus will roll away. People will go home to their dinners and their families and their dreamless sleeps. Squirrels will scavenge and fish will fornicate and the sunflower seedlings will stubbornly emerge every spring. Protest: flail, kick, scream until your throat reddens—whatever you want—you are entitled. Just as long as you understand that when you put yourself up against the world, you’ll always come away feeling tiny and disposable.

Blame, of any kind, is an aside, a footnote, a useless afterthought muttered out of the corner of your mouth. Perhaps we would all do to forget the why and get to work with the wires at our feet. Because when we’re done screaming and pointing fingers, we’ll still be up there in our unfairly precarious pickle. 

And in honor of my possibly deceased primate friend, we can choose to do what he so desperately wanted but couldn’t do. When the stakes are high and our knees are bloody, our hearts icy, our failures painful and abundant--when we reach that tipping point and want to surrender to self pity--collapse crying--when we think it is all just too much and we might not be able to manage anymore, we can find it in ourselves to hang on.