Wednesday 1 January 2014
Green City Freiburg: Einbürgerungsfeier & Integrationspreis (Satis Shroff)
Monday 19 March 2012
Satis Shroff: MEMOIR
I could see Madame Defarge knitting the names of the noblemen and women to be executed. Dickens was a great master of fabulation. I was ripe for those stories and was as curious as a Siamese cat I had named Sirikit, reading, turning page for page, absolutely absorbed in the unfolding stories..
I like writing which means sitting down and typing what you’ve thought about. Writing is a solitary performance but when I sing with my croonies of the MGV-Kappel it is sharing our joy and sadness and it’s a collective song that we produce and that makes our hearts beat higher during concerts. When an idea moves me for days I have the craving to pen it. I get ideas when I’m ironing clothes and listening to Nepali songs or Bollywood ones. When I don’t have time, I make a poem out of it, for poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity. When I prepare my medical lectures I’m transferring knowledge from my university past and bringing them together verbally, and I realise it’s great fun to attain topicality by connecting the medical themes with what’s topical thereby creating a bridge between the two. That makes a lecture interesting, which is like a performance, a recital in which you interact with the audience. At school I was taught art by a lean, bearded Scottish teacher who loved to pain landscapes with water-colours. Whenever I travel during holidays, I keep an ArtJournal with my sketches and drawings, and try to capture the feelings, impressions of the place and people I meet, and it’s great fun to turn the pages years later and be reminded how it was then. I like doing all these things and they’re all near to my heart.
* * *
Literature is translating emotions and facts from truth to fiction. It’s like a borderline syndrome; between sanity and insanity there’s fine dividing line. Similarly, non-fiction can be transformed into fiction. Virginia Woolf said, ‘There must be great freedom from reality.’ For Goethe, art was art because it was not nature. That’s what I like about fiction, this ability of transforming mundane things in life to jewels through the use of words. Rilke mentioned one ought to describe beauty with inner, quiet, humble righteousness. Approach nature and show what you see and experienced, loved and lost.
* * *
At school I used to read P.G.Wodehouse (about how silly aristocrats are and how wise the butler Jeeves is) and Richard Gordon (a physician who gave up practicing Medicine and started writing funny books). For me Richard Gordon was a living example of someone who could connect literature with bio-medical sciences. Desmond Morris, zoologist (The Naked Ape, The Human Zoo) was another example for me. He has also written a book about how modern soccer players do tribal dances on the football-field, with all those screaming spectators, when their team scores a goal. That’s ethnological rituals that are being carried out by European footballers.
Since I went to a British school I was fed with EngLit and was acquainted with the works of English writers like Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy, Walter Scott, RL Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, HG Wells, Victor Hugo, Poe, Defoe, Hemingway, and poets like Burns, Keats, Yeats, Dante, Goldsmith. Since we had Nepali in our curriculum it was delightful to read Bhanu Bhakta, Mainali, Shiva Kumar Rai and other Nepali authors. At home I used to pray and perform the pujas with my Mom, who was a great story teller and that was how I learned about the fantastic stories of Hindu mythology. At school we also did Roman and Greek mythology. My head was full of heroes. I was also an avid comicstrip reader and there were Classics Illustrated comic with English literature. I used to walk miles to swap comic-books in Nepal. It was mostly friends from the British Gurkhas who had assess to such comics, gadgets, musical instruments they’d bought in Hong Kong, since it was a British enclave then.
Science can be interesting and there is a genre which makes scientific literature very interesting for those who are curious and hungry for more knowledge.
In Kathmandu I worked as a journalist with an English newspaper The Rising Nepal. I enjoyed writing a Science Spot column. One day Navin Chandra Joshi, an Indian economist who was working for the Indian Cooperative Mission asked a senior editor and me:
‘Accha, can you please tell me who Satis Shroff is?’
Mana Ranjan gave a sheepish smile and said, ‘You’ve been talking with him all the time.’
The elderly Mr. Joshi was plainly surprised and said, ‘Judging from his writing, I thought he was a wise old man.’
I was 25 then and I turned red and was amused.
As I grew older, I discovered the works of Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Authur Miller, Henry Miller, Doris Lessing and James Joyce. The lecturers from the English Department and the Literary Supplements were all revering his works: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake. His works appealed to be because I was also educated by the Christian Brothers of Ireland in the foothills of the Himalayas, with the same strictness and heavy hand. God is watching you..
Since my college friends left for Moscow University and Lumumba Friendship University after college, I started taking interest in Russian literature and borrowed books from the Soviet library and read: Tolstoi, Dostojewskije, Chekov and later even Solzinitzyn’s Archipel Gulag. I spent a lot of time in the well-stocked American Library in Katmandu’s New Road and read Henry Miller, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Thoreau, Whitman.
Favourite books and authors:
Bhanu Bhakta Acharya’s ‘Ramayana,’ Devkota’s ‘Muna Madan,’ Guru Prasad Mainali’s ‘Machha-ko Mol,’ Shiva Kumar Rai’s ‘Dak Bungalow,’ Hemingway’s Fiesta, For Whom the Bells Toll, Günter Grass ‘Blechtrommel,’ Zunge zeigen, Marcel Reich Ranicki’s ‘Mein Leben,’VS Naipaul’s ‘ ‘Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness,’ James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses, Stephan Hero, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Faust I, Faust II’, Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace,’ Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Briefe an einen jungen Dichter’ Goethe’s ‘Die Leiden des jungen Werther,’The Diaries of Franz Kafka’ Carl Gustav Jung’s ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections,’ Patrick Süskind’s ‘Perfume,’ John Updike’s ‘The Witches of Eastwick,’ ‘Couples,’ Peter Matthiessen’s ‘The Snow Leopard,’ Mark Twain ‘A Tramp Abroad,’John Steinbeck’s ‘The Pearl,’ Rushdie’s ‘Midnight Children,’ Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections,’ John Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River.
Position of Nepali as world literature in terms of standard:
Nepali literature has had a Cinderella or Aschenputtel-existence and it was only through Michael Hutt, who prefers to work closely with Nepalese authors and publishes with them, under the aegis of SOAS that literature from Nepal is trying to catch the attention of the world. We have to differentiate between Nepalese writing in the vernacular and those writing in English. Translating is a big job and a lot of essence of a language gets lost in translation. What did the author mean when he or she said that? Can I translate it literally? Or do I have to translate it figuratively? If the author is near you, you can ask him or her what the meaning of a sentence, certain words or expression is. This isn’t the case always. So what you translate is your thought of what the writer or poet had said. I used to rollick with laughter when I read books by PG Wodehouse and Richard Gordon. I bought German editions and found the translations good. But the translated books didn’t bring me to laugh.
Tribhuvan University has been educating hundreds of teachers at the Master’s Level but the teacher’s haven’t made a big impression on the world literary stage because most of them teach, and don’t write. Our neighbour India is different and there are more educated people who read and write. The demand for books is immense. Writing in English is a luxury for people who belong to the upper strata of the Nepalese society. Most can’t even afford books and have a tough time trying to make ends meet. The colleges and universities don’t teach Creative Writing. They teach the works of English poets and writers from colonial times, and not post-colonial. There are a good many writers in Nepal but their works have to be edited and promoted by publishers on a standard basis. If it’s a good story and has universal appeal then it’ll make it to the international scene. Rabindra Nath Tagore is a writer who has been forgotten. It was the English translation that made the world, and Stockholm, take notice.
Manjushree Thapa and Samrat Upadhya have caught the attention of western media because they write in English. One studied and lived in the USA and the other is settled there. Moreover, the American publishing world does more for its migrant authors than other countries. There are prizes in which only USA-educated migrants are allowed to apply to be nominated, a certain protectionism for their US-migrants.
(The lecturer with his Creative Writing students in Freiburg)
Motivation to write:
The main motivation is to share my thoughts with the reader and to try out different genres. Since I know a lot of school-friends who dropped out and joined the British Gurkhas to see the world, it was disgusting to see how the British government treated their comrade-in-arms from the hills of Nepal. On the one hand, they said they are our best allies, part of the British Army and on the other hand I got letters from Gurkhas showing how low their salaries are in the Gurkha Brigade. A Johnny Gurkha gets only half the pay that a British Tommy is paid. Colonialism? Master-and –Servant relationship? They were treating them like guest-workers from Nepal and hiring and firing them at will, depending upon whether the Brits needed cannon-fodder. All they had to do was to recruit more Brigades in Nepal. This injustice motivated me to write a series on the Gurkhas and the Brits. I like NatureJournaling too and it’s wonderful to take long walks in the Black Forest countryside and in Switzerland. As a Nepalese I’m always fascinated and awed by the Alps and the Himalayas.
Writing style:
Every writer in his journey towards literature discovers his own style. Here’s what Heidi Poudel says about my style: 'Brilliant, I enjoyed your poems thoroughly. I can hear the underlying German and Nepali thoughts within your English language. The strictness of the German form mixed with the vividness of your Nepalese mother tongue. An interesting mix. Nepal is a jewel on the Earths surface, her majesty and charm should be protected, and yet exposed with dignity through words. You do your country justice and I find your bicultural understanding so unique and a marvel to read.' Reviewed by Heide Poudel in WritersDen.com.
I might sound old fashioned but there’s lot of wisdom in these two small words: Carpe diem. Use your time. It can also mean ‘seize the job’ as in the case of Keating in the book ‘Dead Poets Society.’ When I was in Katmandu a friend named Bindu Dhoj who was doing MBA in Delhi said, ‘Satish, you have to assert yourself in life.’ That was a good piece of advice. In the Nepalese society we have a lot of chakari and afnu manchay caused by the caste-and-jaat system. But in Europe even if you are well-qualified, you do have to learn to assert and ‘sell’ and market yourself through good public relations. That’s why it’s also important to have a serious web-presence. Germany is a great, tolerant country despite the Nazi past, and it’s an economic and military power. If you have chosen Germany, then make it a point to ‘do in Germany as the Germans do.’ Get a circle of German friends, interact with them, lose your shyness, get in touch with German families and speak, read, write and dream in German. If you like singing then join a choir (like me), if you like art join a Kunstverein, if you like sport then be a member of a Sportverein. If you’re a physician, join the Marburger or Hartmann Bund. Don’t think about it. Do it. It’s like swimming. You have to jump into the water. Dry swimming or thinking alone won’t help you. Cultural exchange can be amusing and rewarding for your own development.
Current and future projects: I always have writing projects in my mind and you’ll catch me scribbling notices at different times of the day. I feel like a kid in a department store when I think about the internet. No haggling with editors, no waiting for a piece of writing to be published. I find blogs fantastic. Imagine the agonies a writer had to go through in the old days after having submitted a poem or a novel. Now, it’s child’s play. Even Elfriede Jelenek uses her blog to write directly for the reading pleasure of her readers. The idea has caught on. In a life time you do write a lot and I’m out to string all my past writings in a book in the Ich-Form, that is, first person singular and am interested in memoir writing, spiritual writing, medical-ethno writing and, of course, my Zeitgeistlyrik . Georg F. Will said: A powerful teacher is a benevolent contagion, an infectious spirit, an emulable stance toward life. I like the idea of being an ‘infectious spirit’ as far as my Creative Writing lectures are concerned, and it does your soul good when a young female student comes up to you after the lecture and says: ‘Thank you very much for the lecture. You’ve ignited the fire in me with your words.’ I love to make Creative Writing a benevolent contagion and infect young minds with words.
To my Readers: Be proud of yourself, talk with yourself as you talk with a good friend, with respect and have goals in mind. If your goal is too high you must readjust it. My Mom used to say, ‘Chora bhayey pachi ik rakhna parchha. When you’re a son you have to strive for higher goals in life. I’d say a daughter can also adopt this. Like the proverbial Gurkha, keep a stiff upper lip and don’t give up. Keep on marching along your route and you’ll reach your destination in life. But on the other hand, be happy and contended with small successes and things. We Nepalese are attributed with ‘Die Heiterkeit der Seele’ because we are contented with small things which is a quality we should never lose. Keep that friendly Nepali smile on your face, for it will bring you miles and miles of smiles; and life’s worthwhile because you smile.
On literature: When you read a novel or short-story, you can feel the excitement, you discover with the writer new terrain. You’re surprised. You’re in a reading-trance and the purpose of literature is to give you reading experience and pleasure. Literature is not the birth-right of the lecturers of English departments in universities where every author of merit is analysed, taken apart, mixing the fictive tale with the writer’s personal problems in reality. The authors are bestowed with literary prizes, feted at literary festivals and invited to literary conferences and public readings.
Literature belongs to the folk of a culture, but the academicians have made it their own pride possession. Would like to hear Hemingway telling you a story he had written or an academician hold a lecture about what Hemingway wrote? I’d prefer the former because it belongs to the people, the readers, the listeners. In India and Nepal we have story-tellers who go from village to village and tell stories from the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita. Story-telling has always appealed to simple people and the high-brows alike, and has remained an important cultural heritage. The same holds for the Gaineys, those wandering minstrels from Nepal and Northern India, with their crude violins called sarangis. They tell stories of former kings, princes and princesses, battles, fairy tales, village stories, ballads accompanied by the whining, sad sound of the sarangi.
Literature has always flown into history, religion, sociology, ethnology and is a heritage of mankind, and you can find all these wonderful stories in your local library or your e-archive.
My first contact with a good library was the American Library in Katmandu. A new world of knowledge opened to me. I could read the Scientific American, Time, Newsweek, the Economist, The New York Times, National Geographic, the Smithsonian, the Christian Science Monitor. The most fascinating thing about it was , you only had to be a member and you could take the precious books home.
OMG! It was unbelievable for a Nepalese who came from a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas. Nobody bothered about what you were reading: stories, history, new and old ideas, inventions, theories, general and specific knowledge. The sky was the limit. I had a voracious appetite, and it was like the opening of a Bildungsroman.
Historical novels tell us about how it was to live in former days, the forms of society involved that the writer evokes in his or her pages. In ‘A Year in Provence’ Peter Mayle makes you almost taste the excellent French food and wine, and the search for truffles with a swine in hilarious, as well as the game of bol. On the other hand, James Joyce evokes a life-changing experience with his protagonists Leopold Bloom and Stephan Daedalus in Dublin on June 16, 1904. Ulysses is a modern interpretation of Homer’s Odyssey, an inner monologue recalled as memories of places, people, smells, tastes and thoughts of the protagonist . The Bhagwad Gita is a luminous and priceless gem in the literary world, possesses world history character, and teaches us the unity in diversity. It is a dialogue between the hero Arjuna and Krishna, who is the chariot-driver. Krishna is an incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu. The Mahabharata alone has 18 chapters and the epic has 18 books with legends, episodes and didactic pieces that are connected with the main story. It is a fascinating reading about the war between relatives, written in the 4th and 3rd centuries before the birth of Christ. He who reads knows better than to be indoctrinated, for he or she learns to think, opening new worlds and lines of thought.
In my school-days I read Charles Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and it became alive when I went to the Bastille Museum in Paris with a fellow medical student. My memory of A Tale of Two Cities took shape there, as I peered at the old, historical exhibits and the guillotine. Later in the evening my friend Peter’s sister, who was married to a Parisian said, ‘Oh, Satish, there are so many things to see in Paris than a museum the entire afternoon.’ For me it was like time-travelling to the times of the French Revolution, because I’d soaked up the story in my school days. I could see Madame Defarge knitting the names of the noblemen and women to be executed. Dickens was a great master of fabulation. I was ripe for those stories and was as curious as a Siamese cat I had named Sirikit, reading, turning page for page, absolutely absorbed in the unfolding stories. Time and space and my personal demands were unimportant. It was the story that had to be read, even with a midnight candle when the local hydroelectric power supply failed. That happened to me when I read ‘The Godfather’ (Der Pate) while visiting a friend from Iceland. I couldn’t put the book down.
I felt sad when a 14 year old computer-crazy schoolkid said: ‘Who reads books these days? Everything’s in the internet.’ The question is: do kids read books on their laptops and eReaders? School websites, Facebook and You Tube and their apps have added new hobbies for children who’re growing up. Does the cyberspace-generation have only time for games? I tell them they should use: Google Scholar, Pubmed etc. to gather knowledge and learn to transfer it.E-books are in: I think it's great to have such a lot of authors in e-format in your pocket. Never a boring moment: the world of lit, science-fiction, thrillers all unfurl as you read or even listen to these, plugged in to your MP3. Watch the traffic though..
Friday 6 January 2012
European Culture: Messages in Bottles and Facebook (Satis Shroff)
Messages in Bottles and Facebook (Satis Shroff)
It was during one of my holidays in the North Sea isle of Langeoog that I came to know about a certain family Bley, who were on holiday too, discovered two bottles with messages.
It was the morning after a stormy night in September, when the pair from St. Augustin went for a walk along the beach with their 3-year old son Benedikt. Besides the usual mussels, dried up Portugese man-o-war, and sea-weed there was nothing of interest, when Mr. Bley picked up a plastic bottle. You can buy these flat plastic bottles with a paper to certify its origin and some sand at the many souvenir shops in Langeoog.
Mr. Bley opened the bottle, took out the paper: it was a document for ordering from a fish-monger based in Peterhead (Scotland), on the back of which someone had scribbled the nautical ordinates with a date.
After a short while, Jan Bley found another bottle, also with a message from Brora, a town in in the East Coast of the Northern Highland in Scotland. Both messages had been underway for a period of ten weeks. After scrutinising the messages, the Bleys sent two picture postcards in the hope of receiving a reply. The family went to their home near Bonn after their North Sea holiday was over.
They were delighted and excited to find two letters from Scotland waiting to be opened.
The first was a letter from a fisher who lived with his wife and two children in Peterhead. He said he’d been bored in his trawler and had sent the message on July 1, 1993 some thirty miles north of the Butt of Lewis in the outer Hebrides.
The second message-in-the-bottle was from a young man from Sheffield who’d sent the bottle during a holiday in Brora. The young man lost interest in the correspondence after a while, but the other family from Peterhead responded warm-heartedly and the friendship grew. The Bleys even went to Scotland via Amsterdam, to Newcastle and ultimately to the Scottish town of Peterhead. The German and Scottish families embraced each other, and since the children were of the same age, they became good friends. Family Bley brought wonderful memories of Scotland, and it wouldn’t have happened if John the fisher handn’t sent a message in a bottle.
The other story is about a guy named Werner Kühnis, who was 18 years old when he dropped a message in the Rhine near Oberriet. That was in 1980. He’d forgotten about it and last weekend he received a mail from South Africa.
A young lady had found the bottle in Capetown, and since the message was in German, she’d asked a German-speaking girl-friend to help her to translate and send a reply. The bottle must have crossed the Atlantic a couple of times. When you throw a bottle into the Rhine it has to be a robust one to outlive the fierce cataracts of the Rhine-falls in Schaffhausen (Switzerland).Werner now has contacts with the female finder of the bottle in South Africa.
Since I’m a contributing-writer on the American Chronicle, Facebook and elsewhere, I have brought people together. The first tie it was a US-lady who’d been to Zermatt (Switzerland) and had bought a painting by an artist I’d interviewed. I’d written two articles about my Swiss trek and the lady sent me an e-mail requesting if I could kindly help her contact the said artist in Switzerland because she wanted to buy more of his works. I complied. The other was a Swiss graphic designer who’d wanted to have the film-rights of a cartoon book by my MGV-colleague Franz Keller about whom I’d written an article on the American Chronicle and sent a link to FB. Then there the story of Klaus and Frederique who went to school at Kolleg St.Sebastian in Stegen. After school they’d lost contact and one day Frederique chanced to read my article about the men’s Choir from Freiburg-Kappe ‘Liederkranz,’ and asked me on FB whether it was the same Klaus Suetterle who went to school at the Kolleg St. Sebastian in Stegen. She was delighted when I answered in the affirmative, and I’ve become a good friend of both. She comes every year from Paris to our Weihnachtskonzert and we celebrate our get-together with French and Spanish wine.
Friday 30 December 2011
MGV & Satis Shroff: From Blue Spanish Eyes to Nun Ade, du mein Heimatland (Satis Shroff)
European Culture: From Adiemus to Blue Spanish Eyes (Satis Shroff)
This year’s Christmas Concert in Kappel’s Festhalle began at 8pm with a song from Spain sung by the MGV-Kappel with the title ‘A la nanita nana,’ with Johannes Söllner as its conductor, a serious-looking young man with a bald head, and a goatee, but with an elegant gait. The way he sways his torso and extremities, you’d think a panther is about to pounce you. Johannes is a perfectionist and he has the talent to coax out the best performance from his singers of the men’s choir from Kappel. Every song bears its characteristic lilts, sudden burst of energy in the form of loud men’s voices that peter away. Ah, it’s a delight to watch this dynamic conductor lead his charges to new heights and it’s an honour and a pleasure to sing under his baton.
Next came a song from neighbouring France but in the German version with the title: ‘Hört der Engel Jubellieder.’ It begins slowly but I love the part when you have to sing ‘Gloria’ in excelcis deo..’ You do hear angels sing.
We went back to the 16th century and sang ‘Gaudete’ with much pomp and gusto. Söllner calls it ‘mit schmackes!’ That was our share of spiritual songs for the evening.
We went to the Heimat chest and fished out a German folksong ‘Nun Ade, du mein lieb Heimatland’ about a son who remembers his beloved country while travelling to foreign shores. The Heimat laughs benignly with its azure sky and greets the traveller with its meadows and fields. God knows, my heart is always with, sings the wandering son, but he has to go afar to seek his fortune.
The fifth song was another volkslied, as a folksong is called in German, penned by Friedrich Silcher: ‘Durch’s Wiesental gang I jetzt na,’ a long song with a sad ending sung in a light style with a heavy refrain: I have no treasure anymore. The treasure implied is the lover who doesn’t seem to be in his grave because he wasn’t true in his love towards her. The roses and the carnation have to wilt away like my love, she says, for I have my Schätzele no more.
Then came a jolly song about plantation workers from Jamaica: the Banana Boat song made popular by Harry Belafonte. Johannes Söllner sang the lead part and the labourers of the banana plantation were the men of the MGV-Kappel. The song was sun with the usual swing and a good piano beat. The song came to an end and suddenly the choir members had Bio-bananas in their hands as a gag. The audience raved and loved it.
The ‘Day-O’ song was followed by a love-song about a Mexican beauty and her ‘Blue Spanish Eyes’ sung by Satis Shroff with the Kappeler men’s choir singing the chorus. This brought the house down. The people love schmaltz and quite a lot of elderly Germans could remember the hit from the sixties composed by Bert Kämpfert and made famous by Al Martino.
The evening of international songs was ended with Karl Jenkin’s ‘Adiemus.’ An encore ensued with a song from Israel: ‘Hine ma Tov,’ with lovely, manly Hebrew intonation. The moderation of the men’s choir ‘Liederkranz’ was performed by Johannes Söllner, who established himself as an animator and made the audience answer his quiz and pranced and hopped around on the stage. The audience was putty in his hands.
Since Karin Peters was busy with her family affairs, a moderator of the South-West 4 did her job and received a lot of appreciation for his im promptu interpretations and announcements. The Musikverein began with ‘A Celtic Christmas’ with music by James L.Hosay and the conductor was Manfred Preiss, a thick-set man with a bald head, who has been conducting the Musicverein Kappel orchestra since over 30 years. Noah Schroeder’s rendering of ‘alla Milanese, Siciliano, Rondo Veneziano on his fagott was a treat for one’s ears with music by Kees Vlak, accompanied by the brass-orchestra. Other notable numbers were: ‘The Bremen Town Musicians (Hayato Hirose), the Images of a City (Francesco Sessini, Op.42) and the New York Overture (Kees Vlak). The last piece was one with feeling: percussions, clarinets, flutes reaching a crescendo only to melt away in recurring waves. Samba rhythm in the first half, followed German brass in a slow tempo mingled with bells chiming, a trumpet solo reminiscent of Milies Davis, a foxtrott played on the clarinet and the evening vanished like stardust on a dark Schwarzwald sky.
The history of the MGV-Kappel dates back to 1920 and initially it carried the name ‘Musik und Gesangverein’ under the leadership of Hermann Steiert. However, it was in Mai 1, 1932 that the official MGV_Kappel ‘Liederkranz’ was founded. Whereas in those thrifty days the membership-fee for the singers was 1 Reichsmark, today it is 15 euros per annum. Politics brought new changes in the vereins of Germany in general and on November 23,1933 the Singers’ Association (Bund) demanded that a meeting be held whereby the key word in those days of the Third Reich was ‘Gleichschaltung’ meaning thereby that all associations in the country had to have a common function: to serve the nation under Adolf Hitler. New terms were introduced: Vereinsführer, vice vereinsführer.
The World War II broke out on September 1, 1939 and a lot of MGV singers had to go to the battlefields. It was on may 8, 1945 that the big ethnic murders were brought to an end in Europe. Where ever you looked, you saw piles of rubble, dust and ashes left by the krieg. It was on July 13, 1947 that the MGV-Kappel ‘Liederkranz’ was given permission by the French military government to re-start the men’s choir.
Since the Musikverein and the men’s choir in Kappel have a common origin and split up later and hold the annual Weihnachtskonzert together, it would be wonderful if the two vereins would cooperate and coordinate music and songs together in future. Miteinander instead of hintereinander or nebeneinander, for through togetherness we can win the hearts of the audience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y7qzckzfWw&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y7qzckzfWw&feature=related
Thursday 16 June 2011
From the Himalayas to the Alps (Satis Shroff)
Impressions From Zermatt-Matterhorn I (Satis Shroff)
Sunrise at the Gornergrat 3089 m above sea level and a hearty Continental breakfast in the 3100m high Kulmhotel Gornergrat. What a delightful and unforgettable experience with the panorama of the Alps right in front of you. For people who´ve been to the Himalayas, it´s like breakfast at Lukla or Namche Bazaar. Albeit, with the exception that the Swiss do pamper you with the very best from their kitchen and cellar.
Zermatt-Matterhorn is a hamlet located in the Swiss Alps. The world famous Glacier Express brings you directly to this holiday resort. Zermatt is a charming mountain hamlet at the foot of the Gornergrat peak, which is flanked to the west by Hohtali (high valley), Rote Nase (red Nose), Steckhorn and the 4634m high Dafourspitze. Whereas the names of the major peaks in the Himalayas have been named after Gods and Goddesses, in the Alps they bear their names according to their looks. To the Swiss the peaks appear like horns (Matterhorn, Breithorn), pointed summits (Parrotspitze, Dafourspitze), a thumb (pollus) or a comb (Liskamm) with their respective glaciers (gletspuchhare peak,cher): upper and lower Theodul glacier, Breithorn glacier, Zwillinggletscher (the Twin glacier), Grenzgletscher, Gornergletscher and the famous Rhone glacier, where the Swiss have built an icy tunnel and sell souvenirs. It sure is uncanny to walk inside a glacier, but the Swiss have everything under control for the delights of the visitors. The Rhone glacier is just as delightful with waterdrops pattering on your hear from the icicles.
The Matterhorn glacier paradise, is also known as the Small Matterhorn and beyond the Theodul pass looms the 4478m Matterhorn, aloof from the other peaks, in all its majesty. A modern cable cabin brings you right to the top.
A pang of nostalgia always overcomes me when I see the Matterhorn, because it reminds me of the Machapuchhare peak, the fish-tailed one, in Pokhara (Central Nepal) where we used to go on geological and botanical excursions during my student days in Catmandu. I also think of the friendly and brave Gurung people who live in the upper reaches of the Annapurna mountains and the boat-rides on the placid waters of the Phewa lake.
I remember having painted the Matterhorn from a Swiss calendar during my school days in the foothills of the Himalayas. We even had a huge Swiss nun with a broad infectious smile who ran the school infirmary and who´s name was Sister Felix. It was a strict school run by the Christian Brothers of Ireland and Sister Felix had a heart for us small boys with our small injuries. She was a great solace to us in the English boarding school which the Irish Brothers ruled with typical school rules, arrogant prefects, tidiness inspections, benders for the offenders and all. I still see her sympathetic face, the strains of her blonde hair climbing out of her bonnet, speaking English with a soft Swiss accent. She was our Florence Nightingale amid the skirmishes between the school-kids and the teachers, for in those days punishment was severe, and not like today where the parents sue the teachers for their so-called brutality, and the kids threaten brazenly with their respective lawyers in case a teacher loses control over himself or herself.
From Zermatt you take Europe´s highest open-air cog train past the picturesque viaduct at Findelbach (1774m), Rifflealp along a serpentine route, reminiscent of the loop after Ghoom along the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, up to Rotenboden, which means ´red soil.´
Since the new Lötschberg-basis tunnel is open to traffic, you can drive from Zürich, Basle and Bern and gain an hour.
On the right side you see the Riffel lake and the breathtaking Gorner glacier. Below you are people trekking or walking with their nordic walking gear along the Heidi landscape. Some are panting on their mountain bikes, overwhelmed by the glacier landscape that unfolds in front of your eyes. What´s wonderful about the Zermatt-Matterhorn is that it´s open all the year round. You can get off the cog-train at any station along the route and jump in again when you´ve had enough of walking in the Alpine world. I walked all the way to Interlaken with Karin and enjoyed the Swiss countryside, especially the flora and fauna.
It was easy going from the Gornetgrat, past Rotenboden to the Riffelsee, a picturesque lake and to Riffelberg from where you could see the Furg glacier and above it the Theodul Pass with the Massif of the 4478m Matterhorn with its jagged peak. In the towns below you get souvenirs centred around the Matterhorn massif: chocolates, blue stones shaped like the mountain, T-shirts with the Matterhorn icon, letter-openers, cakes, mugs, cigarette lighters, aprons too. You descend to Riffelberg, past Riffelalp, and after you´ve reachered Findelback with its waters gushing under the picturesque viaduct, you arrive at the village of Zermatt, which has always functioned as a town where the experienced climbers of Zermatt have looked for and people who hire them to climb the peaks that are draped in misty curtains on rainy days. When you think of the Matterhorn you can´t help thinking about Edward Whymper, who scaled the peak with a climbing party on July 14, 1865.
Sunrise at the Gornergrat 3089 m above sea level and a hearty Continental breakfast in the 3100m high Kulmhotel Gornergrat. What a delightful and unforgettable experience with the panorama of the Alps right in front of you. For people who´ve been to the Himalayas, it´s like breakfast at Lukla or Namche Bazaar. Albeit, with the exception that the Swiss do pamper you with the very best from their kitchen and cellar.
Zermatt-Matterhorn is a hamlet located in the Swiss Alps. The world famous Glacier Express brings you directly to this holiday resort. Zermatt is a charming mountain hamlet at the foot of the Gornergrat peak, which is flanked to the west by Hohtali (high valley), Rote Nase (red Nose), Steckhorn and the 4634m high Dafourspitze. Whereas the names of the major peaks in the Himalayas have been named after Gods and Goddesses, in the Alps they bear their names according to their looks. To the Swiss the peaks appear like horns (Matterhorn, Breithorn), pointed summits (Parrotspitze, Dafourspitze), a thumb (pollus) or a comb (Liskamm) with their respective glaciers (gletspuchhare peak,cher): upper and lower Theodul glacier, Breithorn glacier, Zwillinggletscher (the Twin glacier), Grenzgletscher, Gornergletscher and the famous Rhone glacier, where the Swiss have built an icy tunnel and sell souvenirs. It sure is uncanny to walk inside a glacier, but the Swiss have everything under control for the delights of the visitors. The Rhone glacier is just as delightful with waterdrops pattering on your hear from the icicles.
The Matterhorn glacier paradise, is also known as the Small Matterhorn and beyond the Theodul pass looms the 4478m Matterhorn, aloof from the other peaks, in all its majesty. A modern cable cabin brings you right to the top.
A pang of nostalgia always overcomes me when I see the Matterhorn, because it reminds me of the Machapuchhare peak, the fish-tailed one, in Pokhara (Central Nepal) where we used to go on geological and botanical excursions during my student days in Catmandu. I also think of the friendly and brave Gurung people who live in the upper reaches of the Annapurna mountains and the boat-rides on the placid waters of the Phewa lake.
I remember having painted the Matterhorn from a Swiss calendar during my school days in the foothills of the Himalayas. We even had a huge Swiss nun with a broad infectious smile who ran the school infirmary and who´s name was Sister Felix. It was a strict school run by the Christian Brothers of Ireland and Sister Felix had a heart for us small boys with our small injuries. She was a great solace to us in the English boarding school which the Irish Brothers ruled with typical school rules, arrogant prefects, tidiness inspections, benders for the offenders and all. I still see her sympathetic face, the strains of her blonde hair climbing out of her bonnet, speaking English with a soft Swiss accent. She was our Florence Nightingale amid the skirmishes between the school-kids and the teachers, for in those days punishment was severe, and not like today where the parents sue the teachers for their so-called brutality, and the kids threaten brazenly with their respective lawyers in case a teacher loses control over himself or herself.
From Zermatt you take Europe´s highest open-air cog train past the picturesque viaduct at Findelbach (1774m), Rifflealp along a serpentine route, reminiscent of the loop after Ghoom along the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, up to Rotenboden, which means ´red soil.´
Since the new Lötschberg-basis tunnel is open to traffic, you can drive from Zürich, Basle and Bern and gain an hour.
On the right side you see the Riffel lake and the breathtaking Gorner glacier. Below you are people trekking or walking with their nordic walking gear along the Heidi landscape. Some are panting on their mountain bikes, overwhelmed by the glacier landscape that unfolds in front of your eyes. What´s wonderful about the Zermatt-Matterhorn is that it´s open all the year round. You can get off the cog-train at any station along the route and jump in again when you´ve had enough of walking in the Alpine world. I walked all the way to Interlaken with Karin and enjoyed the Swiss countryside, especially the flora and fauna.
It was easy going from the Gornetgrat, past Rotenboden to the Riffelsee, a picturesque lake and to Riffelberg from where you could see the Furg glacier and above it the Theodul Pass with the Massif of the 4478m Matterhorn with its jagged peak. In the towns below you get souvenirs centred around the Matterhorn massif: chocolates, blue stones shaped like the mountain, T-shirts with the Matterhorn icon, letter-openers, cakes, mugs, cigarette lighters, aprons too. You descend to Riffelberg, past Riffelalp, and after you´ve reachered Findelback with its waters gushing under the picturesque viaduct, you arrive at the village of Zermatt, which has always functioned as a town where the experienced climbers of Zermatt have looked for and people who hire them to climb the peaks that are draped in misty curtains on rainy days. When you think of the Matterhorn you can´t help thinking about Edward Whymper, who scaled the peak with a climbing party on July 14, 1865.
On the day of the Matterhorn disaster, the British climbers began their descent after having climbed the mountain. Above the shoulder of Matterhorn, the most dangerous part of the mountain a slip occurred and the rope broke. The climbers Hudson, Hadow, Lord Francis Douglas and Croz fell down the north face of Matterhorn. The following day, the exhausted and sad survivors reached Zermatt. The Swiss Hotel-owner Seiler asked Whymper what had happened up in the mountain.
Whymper´s laconic answer was: ´The Taugwalders and I have returned.´
Europe was shocked by the disaster and even Queen Victoria asked whether such a perilous pastime could not be stopped by law. But ever since man has started climbing mountains, the mountaineers have been paying a heavy toll for their ´deadly pursuits´ in the higher regions for their egoistic endeavours, be it alone or in teams, sans oxygen and sans amphetamines. The graveyard adjacent to Zermatt´s English church and the Swiss graveyards are replete with people who died while climbing. A couplet from Romeo and Julia reminds us of Edward Broome, a prominent member of the Alpine Club:
Night´s candles are burnt out
And jocund day stands tiptoe
On the misty mountain tops.´
The highest elevation of the Gornergrat is 3089m. It´s like being on the top of the world with a panorama that comprises 29 four-thousand metre peaks as far as your eyes can see. It is when you have reached such a great height where the mountains meet the sky, and when you realise how small and insignificant you are in the presence of the gigantic massifs before you that you have thoughts about your very existence and ask yourself about your ´sein oder nicht sein´ (to be or not to be). It is in these dizzy, rarefied heights that you ask yourself questions about yourself and philosophise about your own life like other thinkers have done in the past. When you have gone through this process of self-examination, you have the choice to carry on the way you´ve chosen or to change within and start leading a new, conscious life. Aware of yourself and others, modern life without its automatic behavioural patterns.
The observation platform for visitors is at a height of 3130m and for those who feel a wave of sanctity suddenly sweep across their hearts in this splendid place, there´s the Berhhard von Aosta chapel. Further below the Gornergrat lies Rotenboden at an elevation of 2815m, which is the starting point of the trail to Riffelsee, a lake where you can observe a gorgeous reflection of the Matterhorn. You take the Monte Rosa Hut trail and when you go past the Gorner glacier, you are rewarded with an excellent view of the 4634m Dufourspitze.
The Gornergrat Bahn is Switzerland´s first electric cog railway and is celebrating its 111 birthday. All eight trains of the Glacier Express to Zermatt have panorama wagons. Since it´s summer, and the Swiss are perfectly organised, there´s even a folklore group with Swiss brass and alp-horns to greet you. In Europe they say we Germans do things with German thoroughness. I´d even go even further to say that the Helvetians do it even better.
Generations have seen the film ´The Sound of Music´ with Julie Andrews and have been moved by the song ´Edelweiss.´ There´s even a 110 year old, Edelweiss hut built at a height of 1961m and which was in the past frequented by the likes of writer Emile Zola, Albert Schweitzer of Lamberene fame and the climber Edward Whymper.
You don´t expect haute cuisine up in the Swiss Alps, do you? Gault-Millau classified the hospitality up here as ´comfortable, hearty and inviting.´ I can only second it. On July 4, 2009 there was a Zermatt Marathon, a race in which you climb 1853m. Quite a feat but not to be recommended for complacent couch potatoes. If you like the Alpine folklore, there´s even a Folklore Festival on August 9, 2009 with big parades comprising 1200 participants from the entire Alpine region. If you feel that climbing up to the Matterhorn is not enough for your ego, then you can take part in the Matterhorn race. You´ll be traversing 12,49km and have to overcome an elevation of 980 metres. The Zermatt festival takes place between September 4-20,2009 and the Chamber Music with ensembles and solists of the Berliner Philharmonic orchestra will bring you western classics. If you like Swiss and other Alpine costumes then you can visit the Trachtenfest on September 5-6, 2009. For ladies it might be fun to be a part of the crowd by donning dirndel costumes with Alpine flower-hats to go with them. You can buy excellent traditional dirndels and trachten costumes in Zürich, Basle, München and Zermatt itself. With the exception of the Gornergrat, children under 9 can travel all mountain trains free of charge. Ain´t that grand?
More information for your Swiss holiday? Google, Yahoo or Bing: www.zermatt.ch. Grüezi miteinander.
Impressions From Zermatt-Matterhorn II (Satis Shroff)
As you go along the Riffelberg trail to Riffelalp in Switzerland, you´re following Mark Twain´s footsteps. He describes the trail in his book ´Climbing the Riffelberg.´ Riffelalp has the highest ram in Europe, and when you reach the top you can see a breathtaking panorama of 29 four-thousand-metre peaks, including the Matterhorn. There are a few places in this world which leaves you breathless for you are overwhelmed and awed by the sheer beauty of what you behold. I had the same feeling when I gazed at the Khumbu Himalayas, and beyond the Roof of the World.
A feeling of humbleness and joy overcomes you. The thrill of having been there, seen, smelt and felt the greatness and magnificence of the lofty peaks rising sovereign above the thin milky mists ascending languidly from the vales and spurs below. You have eyes only for the glaciers and peaks.
When you descend to the Riffelsee, a picturesque lake, you cherish the sight of the Matterhorn with its jagged, majestic peak and you see the reflection in the Riffelsee´s turquoise water. Flanking it are 29 other peaks: all four thousand metres above sea level.
The Riffel lake is a nature reserve, a wonderful place with huge stones that have tumbled down from the slopes above, right down to the small lake. You can meditate on the many big rocks around the placid, blue lake and when you turn your eyes to the sky you are blessed by the great Matterhorn massif. Around the lake you find botanical specimens like: the floating bur-reed (Sparganium augustifolium), marsch horse-tails (Equisetum palustre), hair-leafed buttercup (Rananculus trichophyllus), small pond weed (Potamogenton berchtoldii), three bearded rush (Juncus triglumis), the surrounding fields and meadows are full of Scheucher´s cotton-grass (Euphorbium scheuchzeri) and the Sledge Darner (Aeshna juncea). You can´t help being fascinated by the pine and larch forests, moraine lakes, alpine vegetation, glacial moraines and the scree gather below. What I love to see are the tarns, glacial lakes that have been left behind when the glacier recedes.
Along the trail you come across people doing nordic walking, training their entire bodies. You can do intensive training of your upper extremities because you swing your arms in the process, and not only your legs. According to the American Medical Association, trekking along the countryside, be it in the high Himalayas or the Alps and Dolomites, is one of the best ways of improving your health. Yes, you can do something about your Musculus brachialis, deltoideus, triceps, latissimus dorsi, your gastrocnemius and other muscles.
Below the hotel Kulm Gornergrat I talked with a burly, friendly guy who spoke English softly and was selling his art, but when Japanese tourists came by he switched over to the tongue of Nippon. His name was Mathew Fletcher and was from York and had started painting local street scenes in his home town before coming to Switzerland in 1991. Mathew said: ´I´m trying to capture the beauty of the alpine landscape.´ He has exhibited his work in Zermatt and other parts of Switzerland.
”I did the Everest trek on November 11, 1993,´ he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
He went on to say: ´I´ve been to Patagonia, painted in Tahiti, came back to Europe and fell in love with the Matterhorn (sic).´ He draws his works with a pencil first, then paints it with a fine squirrel-hair brush, using water colours.. You can´t miss Mathew Fletcher when you go to Zermatt-Gornergrat. I found his collection of drawings excellent and gave him a tip how he could digitalise his pics and upload them as an art book in one of the increasing number of publish-on-demand sites in the internet. We departed with a namaste, which means ´I greet the godliness in you´ in Nepalese.
Zermatt is a fascinating place. You see Europeans, Americans, Japanese and Indians (with and without turbans) either trekking to the observatory hill on the Gornergrat, taking the cog-train to the summit or the cabin-gondola to Little Matterhorn which is the best alternative that money can buy. The visitors are old, young and very young and you can see them whezing, puffing, snorting and sweating up and down the many Swiss trails, stopping to take shots of peaks like: Cima de Jazzi, Gorner glacier, Nordend, Dafourspitze, Ludwigshöhe, Liskamm, Grenzgletscher, Zwillingsgletscher, Castor, Pollux, Schwärzegletscher, Breithorn, Theodul glacier and the Matterhorn.
After a hearty breakfast comprising Himalaya tea, cooked beans, scrambled eggs, Bircher müsli and croissants with cheese and crisp speck, you say goodbye to Zermatt (1605m above sea level). A friendly, overweight blonde Dutch lady tells you: ´We didn´t see anything up at the Little Matterhorn. The rising mists and the thick, grey clouds veiled everything.´
It was bad luck. You hear this also in Darjeeling when visitors from the plains of India book jeeps to view the sunrise from Tiger Hill. Instead of the Kanchenjunga range they just see the heavy monsoon clouds that bring rain that is so good for the tea growing on the slopes of Gorkhaland. That´s hard luck for the tourists.
After a day´s trekking and a good Swiss dinner with rosti or raclette and a Swiss wine, you can go over to the wellness phase of a sauna or enter a hot bubbling whirlpool. I´m fond of the whirlpool for the tired and cramped legs, because the muscles of your lower extremities that have been slogging all day also need to be given a treat with an underwater massage followed by a cold shower.
Since there were a lot of Japanese visitors in the hotel it was a tranquil and serene atmosphere in the sauna and whirlpool, for the people of Nippon don´t frequent saunas and whirlpools when they´re abroad. I remember we had a young Japanese visitor from Kyoto named Takashi who used to play soccer at the local German club in Zähringen. After the match all players went under the shower but not our young man from Nippon. He had inhibitions about undressing in the cabin in front of all the German lads and walking around naked. The Japanese just don´t do such things in public. He´d come home and take a long shower. We in Germany would say: ´Der ist so verklemmt!´ He´s so shy and inhibited. On the other hand two Indians came to the sauna in their street clothes and shoes. An unpardonable thing to do. A young blonde lady from Dresden named Romy, with whom I had a long chat after the sauna, told me, ´The US Americans are even worse. They march into the sauna in their dirty trekking boots!´
Oh really?´ I said and couldn´t help emitting a chuckle.
Zermatt is like an old western town and you can walk from one end of the shopping street to the other. And that was it. Since it´s August 1, which is Switzerland´s National Celebration Day, all Swiss huts, houses and buildings have the scarlet flags with a white cross on their window-sills, balconies and terraces between the equally scarlet geraniums. Flags in all sizes flutter everywhere, even on peaks and cliffs. The Swiss love their Heimat and are extremely patriotic.
I remember a Swiss lady in Freiburg named Heidi who was married to a Swabian who lamented that she was surrounded by the dominant German culture. She was a rather garrulous person from the Romand speaking area of Vna but became awfully depressed as time went by. However, on the Swiss National Day she´d hang out all the flags of the Swiss cantons and invite us to a champagne and raclette evening. You never saw her elated throughout the year. Some have a longing for religious festivals like Christmas or Tihar (Diwali) and others have just a feeling of sadness and nostalgia. Heimweh or Fernweh, as we are wont to say in Germany.
In Zermatt I ran into a Hippie couple. He reminded me of John Lennon and she a Cheshire cat with all those wrinkles akin to whiskers on her pale face. A pair round spectacles nestled on the bridge of her nose, and she scurried around her make-shift tent with wares from overseas for they were globe-trotters who´d settled down in Zermatt and were catering to the delights of customers who needed woollies in the higher reaches of the Zermatt-Matterhorn treks. They had a lot of souvenirs from Nepal: Buddhist prayer flags and statues of meditating Boddhisatvas, Indian textiles that the Hippie generations have worn, accessories that even find buyers among the current generation. Bollywood has become an expression of chic from the Land of the Maharajas. I´m amazed and delighted to see my German and Swiss students in Freiburg and Basle draped in Benarasi brocades and golden sandals with gemstones imparting and air of royalty from the Orient. Blondes and brunettes with pierced noses and diamond studs, multiple gold ethno ear-rings like the ones worn by the ladies of Rajasthan and Kirtipur. Ethno jewellery and tattoos in strategic areas of the human anatomy are ´in,´ you know.
A feeling of humbleness and joy overcomes you. The thrill of having been there, seen, smelt and felt the greatness and magnificence of the lofty peaks rising sovereign above the thin milky mists ascending languidly from the vales and spurs below. You have eyes only for the glaciers and peaks.
When you descend to the Riffelsee, a picturesque lake, you cherish the sight of the Matterhorn with its jagged, majestic peak and you see the reflection in the Riffelsee´s turquoise water. Flanking it are 29 other peaks: all four thousand metres above sea level.
The Riffel lake is a nature reserve, a wonderful place with huge stones that have tumbled down from the slopes above, right down to the small lake. You can meditate on the many big rocks around the placid, blue lake and when you turn your eyes to the sky you are blessed by the great Matterhorn massif. Around the lake you find botanical specimens like: the floating bur-reed (Sparganium augustifolium), marsch horse-tails (Equisetum palustre), hair-leafed buttercup (Rananculus trichophyllus), small pond weed (Potamogenton berchtoldii), three bearded rush (Juncus triglumis), the surrounding fields and meadows are full of Scheucher´s cotton-grass (Euphorbium scheuchzeri) and the Sledge Darner (Aeshna juncea). You can´t help being fascinated by the pine and larch forests, moraine lakes, alpine vegetation, glacial moraines and the scree gather below. What I love to see are the tarns, glacial lakes that have been left behind when the glacier recedes.
Along the trail you come across people doing nordic walking, training their entire bodies. You can do intensive training of your upper extremities because you swing your arms in the process, and not only your legs. According to the American Medical Association, trekking along the countryside, be it in the high Himalayas or the Alps and Dolomites, is one of the best ways of improving your health. Yes, you can do something about your Musculus brachialis, deltoideus, triceps, latissimus dorsi, your gastrocnemius and other muscles.
Below the hotel Kulm Gornergrat I talked with a burly, friendly guy who spoke English softly and was selling his art, but when Japanese tourists came by he switched over to the tongue of Nippon. His name was Mathew Fletcher and was from York and had started painting local street scenes in his home town before coming to Switzerland in 1991. Mathew said: ´I´m trying to capture the beauty of the alpine landscape.´ He has exhibited his work in Zermatt and other parts of Switzerland.
”I did the Everest trek on November 11, 1993,´ he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
He went on to say: ´I´ve been to Patagonia, painted in Tahiti, came back to Europe and fell in love with the Matterhorn (sic).´ He draws his works with a pencil first, then paints it with a fine squirrel-hair brush, using water colours.. You can´t miss Mathew Fletcher when you go to Zermatt-Gornergrat. I found his collection of drawings excellent and gave him a tip how he could digitalise his pics and upload them as an art book in one of the increasing number of publish-on-demand sites in the internet. We departed with a namaste, which means ´I greet the godliness in you´ in Nepalese.
Zermatt is a fascinating place. You see Europeans, Americans, Japanese and Indians (with and without turbans) either trekking to the observatory hill on the Gornergrat, taking the cog-train to the summit or the cabin-gondola to Little Matterhorn which is the best alternative that money can buy. The visitors are old, young and very young and you can see them whezing, puffing, snorting and sweating up and down the many Swiss trails, stopping to take shots of peaks like: Cima de Jazzi, Gorner glacier, Nordend, Dafourspitze, Ludwigshöhe, Liskamm, Grenzgletscher, Zwillingsgletscher, Castor, Pollux, Schwärzegletscher, Breithorn, Theodul glacier and the Matterhorn.
After a hearty breakfast comprising Himalaya tea, cooked beans, scrambled eggs, Bircher müsli and croissants with cheese and crisp speck, you say goodbye to Zermatt (1605m above sea level). A friendly, overweight blonde Dutch lady tells you: ´We didn´t see anything up at the Little Matterhorn. The rising mists and the thick, grey clouds veiled everything.´
It was bad luck. You hear this also in Darjeeling when visitors from the plains of India book jeeps to view the sunrise from Tiger Hill. Instead of the Kanchenjunga range they just see the heavy monsoon clouds that bring rain that is so good for the tea growing on the slopes of Gorkhaland. That´s hard luck for the tourists.
After a day´s trekking and a good Swiss dinner with rosti or raclette and a Swiss wine, you can go over to the wellness phase of a sauna or enter a hot bubbling whirlpool. I´m fond of the whirlpool for the tired and cramped legs, because the muscles of your lower extremities that have been slogging all day also need to be given a treat with an underwater massage followed by a cold shower.
Since there were a lot of Japanese visitors in the hotel it was a tranquil and serene atmosphere in the sauna and whirlpool, for the people of Nippon don´t frequent saunas and whirlpools when they´re abroad. I remember we had a young Japanese visitor from Kyoto named Takashi who used to play soccer at the local German club in Zähringen. After the match all players went under the shower but not our young man from Nippon. He had inhibitions about undressing in the cabin in front of all the German lads and walking around naked. The Japanese just don´t do such things in public. He´d come home and take a long shower. We in Germany would say: ´Der ist so verklemmt!´ He´s so shy and inhibited. On the other hand two Indians came to the sauna in their street clothes and shoes. An unpardonable thing to do. A young blonde lady from Dresden named Romy, with whom I had a long chat after the sauna, told me, ´The US Americans are even worse. They march into the sauna in their dirty trekking boots!´
Oh really?´ I said and couldn´t help emitting a chuckle.
Zermatt is like an old western town and you can walk from one end of the shopping street to the other. And that was it. Since it´s August 1, which is Switzerland´s National Celebration Day, all Swiss huts, houses and buildings have the scarlet flags with a white cross on their window-sills, balconies and terraces between the equally scarlet geraniums. Flags in all sizes flutter everywhere, even on peaks and cliffs. The Swiss love their Heimat and are extremely patriotic.
I remember a Swiss lady in Freiburg named Heidi who was married to a Swabian who lamented that she was surrounded by the dominant German culture. She was a rather garrulous person from the Romand speaking area of Vna but became awfully depressed as time went by. However, on the Swiss National Day she´d hang out all the flags of the Swiss cantons and invite us to a champagne and raclette evening. You never saw her elated throughout the year. Some have a longing for religious festivals like Christmas or Tihar (Diwali) and others have just a feeling of sadness and nostalgia. Heimweh or Fernweh, as we are wont to say in Germany.
In Zermatt I ran into a Hippie couple. He reminded me of John Lennon and she a Cheshire cat with all those wrinkles akin to whiskers on her pale face. A pair round spectacles nestled on the bridge of her nose, and she scurried around her make-shift tent with wares from overseas for they were globe-trotters who´d settled down in Zermatt and were catering to the delights of customers who needed woollies in the higher reaches of the Zermatt-Matterhorn treks. They had a lot of souvenirs from Nepal: Buddhist prayer flags and statues of meditating Boddhisatvas, Indian textiles that the Hippie generations have worn, accessories that even find buyers among the current generation. Bollywood has become an expression of chic from the Land of the Maharajas. I´m amazed and delighted to see my German and Swiss students in Freiburg and Basle draped in Benarasi brocades and golden sandals with gemstones imparting and air of royalty from the Orient. Blondes and brunettes with pierced noses and diamond studs, multiple gold ethno ear-rings like the ones worn by the ladies of Rajasthan and Kirtipur. Ethno jewellery and tattoos in strategic areas of the human anatomy are ´in,´ you know.
You can´t go to the hotels, shops and do a bit of sightseeing without missing overseeing the ads in Japanese in Zermatt. Even the TV in the hotels have programmes in Japanese. It´s amazing how flexible the Swiss are in Zermatt and have adapted to the demands of the tourism market: the Japanese bring a sizeable amount of income and even the shops have Swiss and Japanese saleswomen. If a Japanese buys an item in the shop the Swiss are quick to warp it as a present in special Nipponese paper. The visitors from Japan go around in groups with their own Japanese guides cum translators. It reminded me of the Junior Year Abroad students from the US colleges who bring their own text-books and teachers to Germany, and keep to themselves instead of getting to know the German students and people in general, and listening to native German speakers in the streets and the professors at the university, and earning their credits in German universities.
The train ride from Zermatt downwards to Visp via Täsch is wonderful, past a milky Matter-Visp river, with spurs guarded by pine trees, children playing golf, myriads of traditional dark wooden Swiss huts and piles of stones from the mountains. Alpine flowers sway in the wind along the way. Suddenly the mist clears to reveal a rugged peak.
From Herbreggen you can see the walking route painted on yellow boards with black letters indicating how long it takes for you to get to different destinations, and not in kilometres. The cliffs become visible when the misty veils disappear.: jagged silhouettes of the pines trees along the ridge.
The train goes along serpentine tracks, through tunnels and reaches St. Niklaus (1130m). The railway station was built in 1890. There are cute wooden houses bearing names like: Chalet Frieden (peace), Haus Elch. The chalets are small houses with diagonal laid flate stones, like the ones you find in the Gurung villages on your way to Jomsom.
After St. Niklaus you see mixed forests and tunnels galore. Since there´s only one track, your train has to wait and let another go by, which again is filled with Nipponese visitors clicking away frantically with their digital cameras for power point and slide projections in the winters months in Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku or Kuyushu.
Your red train proceeds and below you flows the turbulent, white Matter-Vispa river. The train tracks follow the right bank of the river, getting broader as you go over bridges. A great feat of engineering which was done with the help of guest-workers from Italy. You see evidence of landslides: huge and small rocks and waterfalls gushing down from the mountains. At Kalpetran, where there´s a Luftseilbahn (ropeway car) the train ´stops on request.´ If you forget to press the red ´Halt´ button, the red train with its big windows goes merrily to Stalden.
The wooden houses have pretty little windows decorated. with red geraniums. Since the houses are built on the slopes, the Swiss families have to battle against the torrential rains in summer, and snow and ice in the long winter months. Most people have additional stone and wooden walls along the slopes where they live, to control the wrath of the elements to some extent. You see small wooden huts being overshadowed by big houses with beton fundaments and wooden architecture above.
You arrive in Stalden-Saas, a tourist place with lots of chalets to rent. At the railway station you see young people relishing their warm soups, an ´Il Buffeto´ sign of a pizzaria, decorated with more geraniums. There are vineyards along the slope. The people in the Alps, especially the older generation, are very conscious about God and written on a wooden board are the words:
Gott beschütze dieses Haus
Und all die gehen ein und aus.
God protect this house,
And all those who go in and out.
The Matter-Vispa changes its bed for a moment and flows again to the right. It´s swollen now and the water has turned grey with stones becoming rare. More vineyards appear along the slopes to the right. A cement factory appears with rich green meadows.
You reach Visp, a much bigger Swiss town with intercity railway connections. The houses are built atop the surrounding hills and almost on every slope. You change trains and board a comfortable double-decker intercity. It´s 2pm and the train is speeding towards north Switzerland. One tunnel alone is 20 minutes long. The Swiss do keep you often in the dark. A train conductor comes along the aisle and admonishes a bearded guy with a Jewish cap.
We call it trick number 17,´ he says to the passenger, ´travelling without a ticket.´ But he´s kind and doesn´t throw him out. The passenger pays and that´s the end of the matter. Not so in Germany. The conductor ordered a school-kid who didn´t have a ticket to get off the train in the middle of nowhere. Poor fellow. In German trams Schwarzfahrer, as commuters sans tickets are called, are obliged not only to pay the fare but also a fine of 40 euros. An expensive ride.
In the lovely town of Bern you take the fast Swiss train to Basle. It´s 3pm and the sky is still clouded and misty below. It has rained and the streets are wet, with the vapour rising. There are men in orange vests moving around the platforms busy as bees, transporting luggage from hotels. An elderly trio in their seventies push a Kofferkuli towards platform no. 8. There are a lot of blondes and brunettes dressed and looking like Shakira and Britney Spears commuting to their homes. The styling is top and they all have that cover-girl look. You see Swiss blokes in shorts, sneakers and T-shirts walking down the aisle with ears plugged to their respective MP 3s.
The river in Bern has a greenish-blue colour as it snakes out of the town. Cute little two-storied houses appear as you speed by. An attractive woman in her forties, wearing tight blue jeans, glittering slippers and elegant features watches your truly as I scribble my microstories on my pad. She must be wondering what I´m writing. She has a hand resting casually on her thigh and the other is on the seat as she gazes at fellow passengers. A young blonde mother with her small son take opposite her and pack out their chicken nuggets with dips. She closes her eyes after a sigh. The smell of ketchup and sweet spicy dip floats in the compartment.
Outside it´s green again and the hamlets in the outskirts of Bern fleet by as pine trees begin appearing. Ah, pine trees have been following me since my schooldays in the foothills of the Himalayas and in the Black Forest where I live. It´s such an exhilarating experience to walk along pine forests. The smell of the green in the forest is a spiritual experience because it bears the smell of incense or Weihrauch, which not only the shaman-healers of Nepal and other parts of the world use but also catholic priests in the church.
The blonde woman with a city bag has her eyes still closed, oblivious of the mother opposite her who´s talking over her mobile, amidst the monotonous noise of the speeding train. A wonderful holiday in coming to an end: with trekking during the day and sauna and whirlpool baths in the evenings till 9pm. How lovely it has been, candle-light dinners, promenading in Zermatt, enjoying life without a care. Zermatt is worth the four-star hotel tab. You bet I´ll go there again. It’s really awesome.
Wednesday 15 June 2011
Zeitgeistlyrik> A Metaphor in the Evening Sky By Satis Shroff
A METAPHOR IN THE EVENING SKY (Satis Shroff)
It was a glorious sunset,
The clouds blazing in scarlet and orange hues,
As the young man, riding on the back of a lorry,
Sacks full of rice and salt,
Stared at the Siwalik
And Mahabharat mountains
Dwindling behind him.
As the sun set in the Himalayas,
The shadows grew longer in the vales.
The young man saw the golden moon,
Shining from a cloudy sky.
The same moon he’d seen on a poster
In his uncle’s kitchen
As he ate cross-legged his dal-bhat-shikar
After the hand-washing ritual.
Was the moon a metaphor?
Was it his fate to travel to Kathmandu,
Leaving behind his childhood
Friends and relatives in the hills,
Who were struggling for their very existence,
In the foothills of the Kanchenjunga,
Where the peaks were not summits to be scaled,
With or without oxygen,
But the abodes of the Gods and Goddesses.
A realm where bhuts and prets, boksas and boksis,
Demons and dakinis prevailed.
Glossary:
Gurkhas: Nepali soldiers serving in Nepalese, Indian and British armies
Dal-bhat: Linsen und Reis
Shikar: Fleischgericht
Bhuts and prets: Demonen und Geister
Boksas und Boksis: männliche und weibliche Hexen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KATHMANDU IS NEPAL (Satis Shroff)
There were two young men, brothers
Who left their homes in the Eastern Himalayas.
The older one, for his father had barked at him,
“Go to Nepal and never come home again.”
The younger, for he couldn’t bear the beatings
At the hands of his old man
.
The older brother sobbed
And stifled his sorrow and anger,
For Nepal was in fact Kathmandu,
With its colleges, universities, Education Ministry,
Temples, Rana-palaces,
Durbars of the Shah kings
And golden pagodas,
Its share of hippies, hashish, tourists,
Rising prices and expensive rooms to rent.
The younger brother went to Dharan,
And enlisted in the British Army depot
To become a Gurkha,
A soldier in King Edwards Own Gurkha Rifles.
He came home the day became a recruit,
With a bald head, as though his father had died.
He looked forward to the parades and hardships
That went under the guise of physical exercises.
He thought of stern, merciless sergeants and corporals
Of soccer games and regimental drills
A young man’s thrill of war-films, Scotch
And Gurkha-rum evenings.
He’d heard it all from the Gurkhas
Who’d returned in the Dasain festivals.
There was Kunjo Lama his maternal cousin,
Who boasted of his judo-prowess
And showed photos of his British gal,
A pale blonde from Chichester
In an English living-room.
*****
SANTA FE (Satis Shroff)
A German professor wooed me
And said I could still do my creative writing
If, and when, I married him.
I said 'Ja' and gave birth to five children,
And had no time to write.
I was forever cooking, changing napkins,
Applying creams on the baby's bottom,
Cooking meals and washing,
For seven family members,
Feeding and nursing the small ones,
Praising and caressing the bigger ones.
I had snatches of thoughts for my writing.
But they evaporated into thin air.
Lost were my intellectual gems,
Between sunrise and sunset.
The family was too much with me.
One day I left for Santa Fe,
The one place where I felt free.
Free to think and sort out my thoughts,
And watch them grow in my laptop.
--------------------
THE BROKEN POET (Satis Shroff)
I was the president of the Nepali Literary Society
And my realm was a small kingdom,
Of readers and writers
In the foothills of the Himalayas.
I came a long way,
Having started as an accountant
Of His Majesty’s government.
I was a Brahmin and married a Chettri woman,
Pretty as a Bollywood starlet.
It flattered my masculinity,
For she was a decade younger than I.
I took up writing late
And managed to publish a few poems.
They said my verses were bad
And received many reject slips.
By chance I ran into a gifted young man,
Who became my ghost writer.
He’d write wonderful verses
And short-stories in my name.
I became prolific and prominent.
Till my ghost-writer ran away
With my young wife.
After a bout of liver cirrhosis.
The Gurkha rum and expensive Scotch
Got the better of me.
I kept a stiff upper-lip
Till the bitter end.
Glossary:
Bahun / Chettri: high caste Hindus in Nepal
Bollywood: India’s Hollywood, located in Bombay (Mumbai)
Gurkha: Soldier from Nepal
*****
HARMONY FOR THE HEART (Satis Shroff)
As the Breisgau-train dashes in the Black Forest,
Between Elztal and Freiburg,
I am with my thoughts in South Asia.
I saunter towards Swayambhu in Nepal,
The hill of the Self-Existent One.
‘Om mane peme hum’ stirs in the air,
As a lama passes by.
I’m greeted by cries of Rhesus monkeys,
Pigeons, mynahs, crows,
The whole world is full of music,
Making it, feasting on it,
Dancing and nodding to it.
Music has left its cultural confines.
The train stops at Zähringen-Freiburg.
I get off and look at the blue-green forest in the distance.
It’s Springtime.
As I approach my home at the Pochgasse,
I discern Schumann’s sonate number 3,
Played by Vladimir Horowitz.
That’s harmony for the heart.
Glossary:
Bahn: train
Mumbai: Bombay
Bueb: small male child
Chen: Verniedlichung, like Babu-cha in Newari
Schwarzwald: The Black Forest of south-west Germany
Miteinander: togetherness
*****
The Lure of the Himalayas (Satis Shroff)
A long time ago near the town of Kashgar,
I, a blue-eyed stranger in local clothes,
Was captured
By the sturdy riders of Vali Khan.
On August 26, 1857
I, Adolph Schlagintweit,
a German traveller, an adventurer,
Was beheaded as a spy without a trial.
I was a German who set out on the footsteps
Of the illustrious Alexander von Humboldt.
With my two brothers Hermann and Robert,
From Southhampton on September 20,1854
To see India, the Himalayas and Higher Asia.
Sans invitation, I must admit.
A Persian traveller, a Muslim with a heart
Found my headless body.
He brought my remains all the way to India,
And handed it to a British colonial officer.
It was a fatal fascination,
But had I the chance,
I’d do it again.
******
In the Shadow of the Himalayas (Satis Shroff)
My Nepal, what has become of you?
Your features have changed with time.
The innocent face of the Kumari
Has changed to the blood-thirsty countenance
Of Kal Bhairab,
From development to destruction,
You’re no longer the same.
There’s insurrection and turmoil
Against the government and the police.
Your sons and daughters are at war,
With the Gurkhas again.
Ideologies that have been discredited elsewhere,
Flourish in the Himalayas.
With brazen, bloody attacks
Fighting for their communist rights,
And the rights of the bewildered common man.
The Nepalese child-soldier gets orders from grown-ups
And the hapless souls open fire.
The child-soldier cannot reason,
Shedding precious human blood.
Ach, this massacre in the shadow of the Himalayas.
We can only hope for peace.
Om shanti,
Om.
*****
The Sleeping Vishnu (Satis Shroff)
Nepalese men and women
Look out of their ornate windows,
In west, east, north and south Nepal
And think:
How long will this krieg go on?
How much do we have to suffer?
How many money-lenders, businessmen,
Civil servants, policemen,
Gurkhas
Do the Maobadis want to kill
Or be killed?
How many men, women, boys and girls
Have to be mortally injured
Till Kal Bhairab is pacified
By the Sleeping Vishnu?
Our fervent prayers have been heard.
May there be peace in the Kingdom.
---------------
FROM LICHHAVIS TO MAOISTS (Satis Shroff)
Lichhavis, Thakuris and Mallas have made you eternal
Man Deva inscribed his title on the pillar of Changu,
After great victories over neighbouring states.
Amshu Verma was a warrior and mastered the Lichavi Code.
He gave his daughter in marriage to Srong Bean Sgam Po,
The ruler of Tibet, who also married a Chinese princess.
Jayastathi Malla ruled long and introduced the system of the caste,
A system based on the family occupation,
That became rigid with the tide of time.
Yaksha Malla the ruler of Kathmandu Valley,
Divided it into Kathmandu, Patan and Bhadgaon for his three sons.
It was Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha,
Who brought you together,
As a melting pot of ethnic diversities.
With Gorkha conquests that cost the motherland
Thousands of ears, noses and Nepalese blood.
The intrigues and tragedies in the palace went on unabated.
The Ranas usurped the royal throne
And put a prime minister after the other for 104 years.
104 years of poverty, isolation and medieval existence.
Times have changed.
The Ranas and even the Shahs
Are ghosts of the past.
The Maoists won a military and political battle,
Nepal is a republic,
With Cantons instead of Anchals,
Is Mother Nepal going apart?
The madhisays want a separate Terai,
The parbatays want their share of the cake,
Denied to them since generations,
The Newars, Tamangs, Gurungs, Thakalis,
Sherpas all want their share of power,
The federal idea has served well
In Switzerland and Germany.
Are the Maoists ready for a republican federalism?
Or dthey insist on all men and women are equal
But some men and women are more equal
Than the others when it comes to power politics?
****
PANCHAYAT PROMISES (Satis Shroff)
Thirty years of Panchayat promises of an ancient Hindu rule
With a system based on the five village elders,
Like the proverbial five fingers in one’s hand,
That are not alike and yet function in harmony.
The Panchayat government was an old system,
Packed and sold as a new and traditional one.
A system is just as good as the people who run it.
And Nepal didn’t run.
It revived the age-old chakary,
Feudalism with its countless spies and yes-men,
Middle-men who held out their hands
For bribes, perks and amenities.
Poverty, caste-system with its divisions and conflicts,
Discrimination, injustice, bad governance
Became the nature of the day.
A big chasm appeared between the haves-and-have-nots.
The social inequality, frustrated expectations of the poor
Led to a search for an alternative pole.
The farmers were ignored, the forests and land confiscated,
Corruption and inefficiency became the rule of the day.
Even His Majesty’s servants went so far as to say:
Raja ko kam, kahiley jahla gham.
*****
VOLATILE HIMALAYAS (Satis Shroff)
The birthplace of Buddha
And the Land of Pashupati,
A land which King Birendra declared a Zone of Peace,
Through signatures of the world’s leaders
Was at war till recently.
Bush’s government paid 24 million dollars for development aid,
Another 14 million dollars for insurgency relevant spendings
5,000 M-16 rifles from the USA
5,500 maschine guns from Belgium.
Guns that were aimed at Nepali men, women and children,
In the mountains of Nepal.
Gott sei Dank, th under the shade of the Himalayas,
This corner of the world i volatile again.
*****
GUNS INSTEAD OF BOOKS (Satis Shroff)
My academic friends have changes sides,
From Mandalay to Congress
From Congress to the Maobadis.
The students from Dolpo and Silgadi,
Made unforgettable by Peter Mathiessen in his quest for his inner self
And his friend George Schaller’s search for the snow leopard,
Wrote Marxist verses and acquired volumes
From the embassies in Kathmandu:
Kim Il Sung’s writings, Mao’s red booklet,
Marx’s Das Kapital and Lenin’s works,
And defended socialist ideas
At His Majesty’s Central Hostel in Tahachal.
I see their earnest faces, with guns in their arms
Instead of books,
Boisterous and ready to fight to the end
For a cause they cherish in their frustrated and fiery hearts.
But aren’t these sons of Nepal misguided and blinded
By the seemingly victories of socialism?
Even Gorbachov pleaded for Peristroika,
And Putin admires Germany, its culture and commerce.
Look at the old Soviet Union, and other East Bloc nations.
They have all swapped sides and are EU and Nato members.
TIME STANDS STILL IN NEPAL (Satis Shroff)
Globalisation has changed the world fast,
But in Nepal time stands still.
The blind beggar at the New Road gate sings:
In a land where the tongue-tied live,
The deaf desire to rule.
Oh my Nepal, quo vadis?
The only way to peace and harmony is
To lay aside the arms.
Can Nepal afford to be the bastion of a movement and a government
That rides rough-shod over the lives and rights of fellow Nepalis?
Can’t we learn from the lessons of Afghanistan, Romania,
Poland, East Germany and Iraq?
The Maobadis are getting a chance at the polls,
Like all other democratic parties.
For the Maobadis are Bahuns and Chettris,
Be they Prachanda or Baburam Bhattrai,
Leaders who have no choice but to retain monarchy in Nepal.
Hush, an unholy alliance has made the rounds,
The political parties and the Maoists are united
And are rattling their sabres under Vishnu’s bed of serpents.
Will Narad bring us good news?
Shall we huddle and shiver together in angst,
And do what the British do?
Wait, watch and drink Ilam tea.
___________________________________
HIMALAYAN PAIN (Satis Shroff)
(Death of a Precious Jewel)
The gurkha with a khukri
But no personal enemy,
Works under the Union Jack,
In missions he doesn't comprehend.
Johnny Gurkha still dies
Under foreign skies.
Her grandpa died in Burma
For the glory of the British.
Her husband in Mesopotemia.
Her brother fell in France,
Against the Teutonic hordes.
She prays to Shiva of the Snows for peace
And her son's safety.
Her joy and her hope,
Till a British officer arrives,
With a letter and a poker-face.
‘Your son fell on duty, Madam’ he says dryly,
The death of a mother's precious jewel,
And the Himalayan pain in her heart.
.
Glossary:
gurkha: soldier from Nepal
khukri: curved knife used in hand-to-hand combat
shiva: a god in Hinduism
******
A SPARTAN LIFE THAT KILLS (Satis Shroff)
A frugal mother lives by the seasons
And peers down to the valleys
Year in and year out
In expectation of her Gurkha son.
A world crumbles down
The Nepalese mother cannot utter a word.
Gone is her son,
Her precious jewel.
Her only insurance and sunshine,
In the craggy hills of Nepal.
And with him her dreams,
A spartan life that kills.
Glossary:
gurkha: soldier from Nepal
******
Der Verlust des Sohnes einer Mutter (Satis Shroff)
Der Gurkha mit einem gefährlichen Khukuri
Aber kein Feind in Sicht,
Arbeitet für den UNO, und wird erschossen
für Einsätze, die er nicht begreift.
Befehl ist sein Leben
Johnny Gurkha stirbt noch
Unter fremdem Himmel.
Loyal bis ans Ende,
Er trauert keinem Verlust nach.
Der Verlust des Sohnes einer Mutter,
Von den Bergen Nepals.
Ihr Großvater starb in Birmas Dschungel
Für die glorreichen Engländer.
Ihr Mann fiel in Mesopotamien,
Sie weiß nicht gegen wen,
Keiner hat es ihr gesagt.
Ihr Bruder ist in Frankreich gefallen,
Gegen die teutonische Reichsarmee.
Sie betet Shiva von den Schneegipfeln an
Für Frieden auf Erden, und ihres Sohnes Wohlbefinden.
Ihr einzige Freude, ihre letzte Hoffnung,
Während sie den Terrassenacker auf einem schroffen Hang bestellt.
Ein Sohn, der ihr half,
Ihre Tränen zu wischen
Und den Schmerz in ihrem mütterlichen Herz zu lindern.
Eine arme Mutter, die mit den Jahreszeiten lebt,
Jahr ein und Jahr aus, hinunter in die Täler schaut
Mit Sehnsucht auf ihren Soldatensohn.
*****
Eine Welt bricht zusammen (Satis Shroff)
Ein Gurkha ist endlich unterwegs
Man hört es über den Bergen mit einem Geschrei.
Es ist ein Offizier von seiner Brigade.
Ein Brief mit Siegel und ein Pokergesicht
„Ihren Sohn starb im Dienst“, sagt er lakonisch
„Er kämpfte für den Frieden des Landes
Und für die Königin von England.“
Eine Welt bricht zusammen
Und kommt zu einem Ende.
Ein Kloß im Hals der Nepali Mutter.
Nicht ein Wort kann sie herausbringen.
Weg ist ihr Sohn, ihr kostbares Juwel.
Ihr einzige Versicherung und ihr Sonnenschein.
In den unfruchtbaren, kargen Bergen,
Und mit ihm ihre Träume
Ein spartanisches Leben,
Das den Tod bringt.
___________________________________________________________________
MY TORMENTED SOUL (Satis Shroff)
I dream of a land far away.
A land where a king rules his realm,
Where the peasants plough the fields,
That don’t belong to them.
A land where a woman gathers
White, red, yellow and crimson
tablets and pills,
From the altruistic world tourists who come her way.
Most aren’t doctors or nurses,
But they distribute the pills,
With no second thoughts about the side-effects.
The woman possesses an arsenal,
Of potent pharmaceuticals.
She can’t read the finely printed alien instructions,
For she can neither read nor write.
The very thought of her
Giving the bright pills and tablets
To another ill Nepalese child or mother,
Torments my soul.
How ghastly this thoughtless world
Of educated trekkers who give medical alms,
Play the macabre role of physicians
In the amphitheatre of the Himalayas.
******
BOMBAY BROTHEL (Satis Shroff)
‘You’re not going to get away this time.
And you’ll never ever bring a Nepalese child
To a Bombay brothel,’ I said to myself.
I’d killed a man who’d betrayed me
And sold me to an old, cunning Indian woman,
Who ran a brothel in Bombay’s Upper Grant Road.
I still see the face of Lalita-bai,
Her greedy eyes gleaming at the sight of rich Indian customers.
I hear the eternal video-music of Bollywood.
The man I’d slain
Had promised to give me a job,
As a starlet in Bollywood.
I was young, naïve and full of dreams.
He took me to a shabby, cage-like room,
Where three thugs did the rest.
They robbed my virginity,
Thrashed me, put me on drugs.
I had no control over my limbs,
My torso, my mind.
It was Hell on earth.
******
A BAD BOLLYWOOD FILM (Satis Shroff)
I was starring in a bad Bollywood film,
A lamb that had been sacrificed,
Not to the Hindu Gods,
But to Indian customers and pimps
From all walks of life.
What followed were five years of captivity,
Rape and molestation.
I pleaded with tears in my eyes
To the customers to help me out of my misery.
They just shook their heads and beat me,
Ravished me and threw dirty rupees at my face.
I never felt so ashamed, demeaned,
Maltreated in my young life.
One day a local doctor with a lab-report
Told Lalita-bai that I had aids.
From that day on I became an outcast.
I was beaten and bruised,
For a disease I hadn’t asked for.
I felt broken and wretched.
I returned to Nepal, my homeland.
I lived like a recluse,
Didn’t talk to anyone.
I worked in the fields,
Cut grass and gathered firewood.
I lost my weight.
I was slipping.
Till the day the man who’d ruined
My life came in search of new flesh
For Bombay’s brothels.
I asked the man to spend the night in my house.
He agreed readily.
I cooked for him, gave him a lot of raksi,
Till he sang and slept.
It was late at night.
I knew he’d go out to the toilet
After all that drinking.
I got up, took my naked khukri
And followed him stealthily.
The air was fresh outside.
A mountain breeze made the leaves
Emit a soft whispering sound.
I crouched behind a bush and waited.
He murmured drunkenly ‘Resam piri-ri.’
As he made his way back,
I was behind him.
I took a big step forwards with my right foot,
Swung the khukri blade
And hit him behind his neck.
I winced as I heard a crack,
Flesh and bone giving in.
A spurt of blood in the moonlight.
He fell with a thud in two parts.
His distorted head rolled to one side,
And his body to the other.
My heart was racing.
I couldn’t almost breathe.
I sat hunched like all women do,
Waited to catch my breath.
The minutes seemed like hours.
I got up, went to the dhara to wash my khukri.
I never felt so relieved in my life.
I buried him that night.
But I had nightmares for the rest of my life.
Glossary:
khukri: curved multipurpose knife often used in Nepali households and by Gurkha regiments as a deadly weapon.
Dhara: water-sprout in the hills.
Resam piri-ri: a popular Nepali folksong heard often along the trekking-trails of Annapurna, Langtang and Everest.
Bollywood: India’s Hollywood
******
Bombay Burning (Satis Shroff)
Munjo Mumbai!
Bombay’s burning.
All Muslims are not terrorists,
Although some Muslims are.
Not all Hindus are honourable,
But some are.
Whether one is a terrorist,
Lies in the eyes of the observer.
Are the eyes
Those of Hindus or Muslims,
Jains or Sikhs,
Christians or Parsis,
Buddhists or Bahais,
Animists or atheists?
Are the 130 million Muslims of India
To be judged by the Hindus,
Because Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel blew up
At the hands of the ‘Deccan Mujahidin?’
The ghost of Osama’s al-Qaida
Makes the rounds again.
India’s liberal, secular status
Is at stake,
When anti-muslim resentiments
Are fired
By emotional Hindu nationalists.
The USA can bomb
Al-Qaida and Taliban
Hideouts in Pakistan.
But India cannot follow suit.
The wounds in the consciousness
Of Indians and Pakistanis,
Caused by the division of the subcontinent
Haven’t healed yet.
An attack would only
Open old clots
And trigger a nuclear war.
Have not the Muslims
Of this subcontinent
Shown solidarity and loyalty
When China waged a Himalayan krieg,
When India freed the people of East Pakistan,
When India fought against the Nizam of Hyderabad?
Hindus and Muslims
Can be friends,
Just as Buddhists and Christians.
Let not communal strife
Pollute our minds.
Let us live
And let live.
Togetherness,
Miteinander,
Should be the cry of the day,
Not bloodshed and mayhem
In the name of Allah, Shiva or Christus.
It is humans,
Fanatical humans,
Who create crimes,
Injustice and folly
On human souls.
Gewalt breeds only Gewalt.
Hush, read the holy Koran,
Bible, Vedas and Upanishads
Between the lines,
And struggle for more words of love,
Understanding, tolerance, dignity
Of humans and animals
In this precious world.
Shanti!
Shanti!
* * *
Bombay Burning (Satis Shroff)
Munjo Mumbai!
Bombay’s burning.
All Muslims are not terrorists,
Although some Muslims are.
Not all Hindus are honourable,
But some are.
Whether one is a terrorist,
Lies in the eyes of the observer.
Are the eyes
Those of Hindus or Muslims,
Jains or Sikhs,
Christians or Parsis,
Buddhists or Bahais,
Animists or atheists?
Are the 130 million Muslims of India
To be judged by the Hindus,
Because Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel blew up
At the hands of the ‘Deccan Mujahidin?’
The ghost of Osama’s al-Qaida
Makes the rounds again.
India’s liberal, secular status
Is at stake,
When anti-muslim resentiments
Are fired
By emotional Hindu nationalists.
The USA can bomb
Al-Qaida and Taliban
Hideouts in Pakistan.
But India cannot follow suit.
The wounds in the consciousness
Of Indians and Pakistanis,
Caused by the division of the subcontinent
Haven’t healed yet.
An attack would only
Open old clots
And trigger a nuclear war.
Have not the Muslims
Of this subcontinent
Shown solidarity and loyalty
When China waged a Himalayan krieg,
When India freed the people of East Pakistan,
When India fought against the Nizam of Hyderabad?
Hindus and Muslims
Can be friends,
Just as Buddhists and Christians.
Let not communal strife
Pollute our minds.
Let us live
And let live.
Togetherness,
Miteinander,
Should be the cry of the day,
Not bloodshed and mayhem
In the name of Allah, Shiva or Christus.
It is humans,
Fanatical humans,
Who create crimes,
Injustice and folly
On human souls.
Gewalt breeds only Gewalt.
Hush, read the holy Koran,
Bible, Vedas and Upanishads
Between the lines,
And struggle for more words of love,
Understanding, tolerance, dignity
Of humans and animals
In this precious world.
Shanti!
Shanti!
* * *
When Mother Closes Her Eyes (Satis Shroff)
When mother closes her eyes,
She sees everything in its place
In the kingdom of Nepal.
She sees the highest building in Kathmandu,
The King’s Narayanhiti palace.
It looms higher than the dharara,
Swayambhu, Taleju and Pashupati,
For therein lives Vishnu,
Whom the Hindus call:
The unconquerable preserver.
The conqueror of Nepal?
No, that was his ancestor Prithvi Narayan Shah,
A king of Gorkha.
Vishnu is the preserver of the world,
With qualities of mercy and goodness.
Vishnu is all-pervading and self-existent,
Visits the Nepal’s remote districts
In a helicopter with his consort and militia.
He inaugurates buildings
Factories and events.
Vishnu dissolves the parliament too,
For the sake of his kingdom.
His subjects and worshippers are, of late, divided.
Have Ravana and his demons besieged his land?
When mother opens her eyes,
She sees Vishnu still slumbering
On his bed of Sesha, the serpent
In the pools of Budanilkantha and Balaju.
Where is the Creator?
When will he wake up from his eternal sleep?
Only Bhairab’s destruction
Of the Himalayan world is to be seen.
Much blood has been shed
Between the decades and the centuries.
The mound of noses and ears
Of the vanquished at Kirtipur,
The shot and mutilated
At the Kot massacre,
The revolution in front of the Narayanhiti Palace,
When Nepalese screamed
And died for democracy.
And now the corpses of the Maobadis,
Civilians and Nepalese security men.
Hush!
Sleeping Gods should not be awakened.
******
Life is a Cosmic Dance (Satis Shroff)
My soul is a passionate dancer.
I hear music where ever I am,
Whatever I do.
I hear the lively rhythm beckoning me to dance.
Sometimes it violins and Vienna waltz.
At other times a fiery salsa.
A Punjabi bhangra or a slow fox.
Life is a cosmic dance.
With its kampfmuster
And its own choreography.
We have people around us.
We look at each other,
Oblivious of the others.
Mesmerised,
Drawn together by an invisible force.
The Flamenco guitarist wails,
‘Life is an apple:
Pluck it,
Relish it,
And throw it away.’
Patchwork Kaleidoscope (Satis Shroff)
What’s happening around us?
Lovers getting united,
Only to be separated.
Champagne glasses are raised.
We look deep into our eyes,
Our very souls.
There are reunions
But with other partners and families.
Patchwork families,
With tormented and bewildered children.
Marriages between gays and lesbians,
Adopted children to give the new bond
A family touch.
A colourful kaleidoscope unfurls before our eyes.
Do we know enough about relationships?
You and me.
Me and you.
Till death do us part?
Or till someone enters your
Or my life,
And takes my breath away.
Or yours.
******
A DISRUPTED LIFE (Satis Shroff)
I bought some buns and bread at the local bakery
And met our elderly neighbour Frau Nelles
She looked well-dressed and walked with a careful gait,
Up the Pochgasse having done her errands.
She greeted in German with ‘Guten morgen.’
Sighed and said, ‘ Wissen Sie,
I feel a wave of sadness sweep over me.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Today is our wedding anniversary.’
‘Is it that bad?’ I whispered.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘My husband just stares at me and says nothing,
And has that blank expression on his face.
This isn’t the optimistic, respected philology professor
I married thirty years ago.
He forgets everything.
Our birthdays, the anniversaries of our children,
The seasonal festivals.
My husband has Alzheimer.
Es tut so weh!
Our double bed isn’t a bed of roses anymore,
It’s a bed of thorny roses.
I snatch a couple of hours of sleep,
When I can.
I don’t have a husband now,
I have a child,
That needs caring day and night.
I’ve become apprehensive.
I’m concerned when he coughs
Or when he stops to breathe.
He snores again,
And keeps me awake.
Has prostrate problems,
And is fragile.
Like Shakespeare aptly said:
‘Care keeps his watch in every old (wo)man’s eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.’
Neither can I live with myself,
Nor can I bring him to a home.
Glossary:
Guten morgen: good morning
Es tut so weh!: It pains such a lot
-----------------------------
A Walk Through the Graveyard (Satis Shroff)
On the way to the gym hall with my children,
We go through a cemetery.
Julian hides between the tombstones,
Only to show up in front of us with a grin.
Elena hums “Gottes Liebe ist so wunderbar.”
A song she picked up at her catholic Kindergarden.
She asks suddenly, ‘Papa, what happens when one dies?’
Glossary:
Gottes Liebe ist so wunderbar: God's love is so wonderful
*****
OH, ARCHANA (Satis Shroff)
Archana came from Kirtipur,
The hill of the noseless and earless.
She was a Vajracharya woman
Of the priest caste.
She spoke a language
Full of sweet monosyllables.
A young woman with fine features,
She could stare at one
And see through to the depths of one’s heart.
Raj was a Chettri from the Eastern hills,
With a sacred thread on his neck,
From the warrior and noble caste.
They loved each other in the Nepalese way,
Talking with their eyes and hearts.
Never in physical ecstasy,
Always platonic and united in dreams.
No rumbas, no slow fox.
Just the sweet odour of her hair and neck
In moments of stolen darkness
In a movie hall,
With two hundred curious eyes,
Focused on the Bollywood silver screen.
Or was it on their necks?
******
TWO LOVERS (Satis Shroff)
The two were through with their colleges.
She chose to study at Tribhuvan university.
He was awarded a scholarship to Germany.
She said, ‘But no one is forcing you
To study abroad. I fear that it’ll take years.
Perhaps you won’t come to Nepal.’
On the day of his departure
She appeared alone at the Tribhuvan airport,
With a ritual silver copper plate:
Scarlet yoghurt tika, beetle nuts, spices,
A garland of lotus flowers and sweet meat.
A traditional Nepalese farewell.
Years later came a letter from Nepal.
A physician friend wrote:
‘Dear Raj,
Archana of Kirtipur has married
A Brahmin businessman from Pokhara.
Sorry to bring you this sad news.
Sincerely,
Ashoke Sakya.’
‘I’m sad today,’ said Raj,
As he hid his face
In his blonde fiancee’s shoulder.
About the author
Satis Shroff is a writer, lecturer and poet living in Freiburg (Germany) and has written textbooks on Nepali: Sprachkunde for Germans (Horlemann Verlag, Bad Honnef) and has written for Nelles Verlag’s guidebook ‘Nepal’(Munich), articles in The Christian Science Monitor, The Fryburger, The Rising Nepal, Radio Nepal, Himal Asia, the Nepalese Perspective and Nepal Information (Cologne). He has studied Medicine and Sozialarbeit in Freiburg and Creative Writing (Writers Bureau, UK). He is the published author of three books on www.Lulu.com: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelgue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. Satis Shroff is a member of “Writers of Peace,” poets, essayists,novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS), Boloji and The Asian Writer. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. He is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Nepal’s literary heritage and culture in his writings and in preserving Nepal’s identity in Germany. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)