Kat Out of the Bag Chapter Seven By Steve Rudd

Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Time spent away from the daily grind forces you to assess where, in life, you have been - and where you would like to go. Back in England, perversely, I had always wanted to return here to Nepal, but now I was back here, I wanted to get back home to the UK. I wanted to make amends with my family, but for the time being I was out on a limb with a crick in my neck and very little to eat.

Resting up in the extraordinary, relatively high-altitude village of Langtang, the importance of family hit hard. Myself and Yogesh breezed in on a sunny-side-up Saturday afternoon in high spirits, just as the entire village effectively shut down and turned its back on any outsiders.

The village was in mourning for one of the community's elders who had just died a few days previous, and the only thing on the minds of his peers was ensuring that his soul made a swift, smooth and overwhelmingly safe passage into the sanctuary of the spirit world.

Oblivious to the intensity of various Buddhist beliefs, upon arrival in the charmingly eccentric village I simply watched a fevered throng of humanity (every man, woman and child who lived for a good five miles around) gather together in a closed courtyard. As they collectively prayed so did I, feeling lost and lonely and sorry for myself. The chants rose and fell, as sing-song rhymes underscored the pain and grief that these people were passionately expelling. I thought about how death is embraced in the Western World in comparison. Out West, death isn't so much 'embraced' as it is 'feared.'

Yogesh knew people who lived in Langtang, and thus joined in with the proceedings, leaving me to set up camp (which consisted of one poky tent a piece). As the beautifully enchanting wails continued long into the night, long after darkness had fallen outside and I had been fitfully sleeping for a couple of blessed hours, I awoke with a sudden shudder and felt a striking compulsion to thrust my head out of the tent flap.

A low murmur of voices were detected, though my ears did need syringing badly. But the voices were getting louder, and as I certainly wasn't approaching the voices that could only mean on thing… the voices were headed my way. They were coming for me, but I had no idea why.

As I was being dragged head-first out of my tent just a minute later, I was still none the wiser. Three men and six hands made light work of my supple frame. Far from being aggressive, the men acted assertively, and for some bizarre reason, I never felt as though to fight against their advances was in any way a necessity. I went with the flow, just like I always had done in life. Hauling me to my bare feet out in the open, I couldn't see any of the faceless men before me. It was pitch black, and the only thing that stirred was my interest in these men who couldn't wait to see me until the morning. Saying not a word between them, a phantom pair of hands gently bound mine behind my back in one swift majestic gesture. They didn't want me going anywhere, and that was fine by me. Where on earth could I have gone?

The one outstanding image of that deep dark night that did stand out was a far-off shelf of alluringly stark snow that looked to be ethereally suspended mid-distance between heaven and earth. The mountains upon which the snow so gracefully rested could not be detected… just the brilliant white snow, visually providing a bed for the stars above to marvellously cluster upon.

Ironically, in the dead of night I had never before felt so alive. Indeed, there really is tenderness in malice, just like there is beauty in the face of the ugliest compromise.

© Steve Rudd 2004

Continued on www.thisisUll.com...... Chapter 8

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