{"id":36742,"date":"2012-08-07T12:05:08","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T16:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=36742"},"modified":"2012-08-07T13:32:37","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T17:32:37","slug":"letter-from-india-when-the-cat%e2%80%99s-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/07\/letter-from-india-when-the-cat%e2%80%99s-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter from India: When the Cat\u2019s Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Pin Valley is near the Tibetan border. In fact it was a part of Tibet. It was given to India in the fifties, to protect it. In winter it is snowbound. In summer, at three miles elevation\u2014above the tree line\u2014it is a stone bowl of dust.<\/p>\n

\nTwo years ago, I was following a seventeen-year-old around the world, trying to get permission to write about him. I followed him from Kathmandu to India, and that was when I heard of the Pin Valley for the first time. Westerners living in India were going up for the last ten days of a month-long program for the monks in Pin Valley. There were no guest houses there. People who wanted to attend the program would stay in Kaza, the nearest town. They would ride in and out by car daily, an hour and a half each way.<\/p>\n

\nThis year, 2012, was different. An enterprising Westerner had partnered with a Tibetan tour operator\u2014a trekker by trade\u2014to build a camp a kilometer and a half from the monastery, on a piece of unused farmland with a well.<\/p>\n

\n
\nClancy and I made it five days, maybe six. The program started at five A.M.<\/small> on the last two days, and so we had to wake up at three forty-five. It went until five P.M.<\/small> On day six, heading back toward the encampment on the treacherous dusty mountain path, I said, \u201cStop,\u201d and lay on my back in the gravel and sand. Above me the sky receded infinitely, going nowhere, by which I mean I was delirious with a fever.<\/p>\n

\nWe skipped the program the next day, planning to go in the afternoon only, the day after. But I didn\u2019t get better. Although nauseated, I wasn\u2019t vomiting, and so my symptoms\u2014severe sore throat, fever, fatigue, congestion\u2014sounded a whole lot like a cold. We were in camp with a lot of hardcore Buddhists, many of them wanderers, real travelers, people who continued for a month to attend a program that took me out in six days\u2014and so I received a wealth of herbal remedies. One woman, an Australian acupuncturist\u2014\u201call her patients get better,\u201d I was informed\u2014took my pulse, asked if I had had my period, and gave me cinnamon. Another\u2014a girl who clearly and stridently felt she was owed sex with my companion\u2014gave me some oregano oil. (After she pointedly asked me my age, we nicknamed her Kitty.) I got a fistful of Tibetan herbs and a bottle of Chinese herbs. On day three of my illness, the Tibetan tour operator, Bishan, told Clancy about a secret place. A room. It had television, a fireplace, and a clean bed.<\/p>\n

\nThere had been a little tension between Clancy and me, because he said I had a way of being bossy. I had a feeling he wanted to go to the room. Having more experience of Indian rooms than he does, my expectations were moderated\u2014but of course you never know. And determined to be less didactic, I left the decision to him. <\/p>\n

\nThe room … was scary. It was a cinder-block bunker on the hillside just over camp, invisible till Bishan let us in and suggested I have a seat on the bed, which was made of wood covered with thin padding. It smelled like kerosene. Bishan lit a fire. He poured some kerosene from the lamp over it. \u201cDo the lights work?\u201d Clancy asked. Bishan said they would at night. Then he asked me if I wanted a massage.<\/p>\n

\nI said all right. It felt rude to refuse. He took a little bottle of scented oil from his pocket and\u2014to use Clancy\u2019s phrase\u2014made his move on us. Half an hour later, when it was over\u2014I told Clancy, \u201cI think I felt his erection!\u201d and he gave me a look and said, \u201cThe man had scented massage oil in his pocket, Amie. He didn\u2019t come up here to cure your fever\u201d \u2014we had a second visitor, one of the program attendees. Our only friend.<\/p>\n

\nClancy started to tell Bishan about the program, relating an anecdote from the life story of the author of the text (a famous Buddhist teacher) we were studying. Our second visitor interrupted Clancy: \u201cI don\u2019t think it is appropriate he hear this; he hasn\u2019t received the initiation. We can discuss it when he leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nBishan was understandably insulted. A Buddhist himself, and a Tibetan, he clearly resented the comment, but he merely gave our friend walking instructions back to camp and left. In the dark, Clancy, our friend, and I talked\u2014or really the two men talked and I listened in a fog\u2014until he left and it was just us two. The light never came on. Around two A.M.<\/small> I woke up. Clancy was shining the flashlight.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHave you slept?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI haven\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHe was shining the flashlight around nervously. Then I heard them: hundreds of wild mice, all scurrying and playing. One had a piece of tin foil. I fell asleep again. When I woke up an hour later Clancy was awake beside me in the dark.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe mice are having a party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nI fell asleep again.<\/p>\n

\nWe went back to the tent that morning, and Kitty came to get back her oil. By this time my cheeks and neck were covered in an uncharacteristic acne. She by contrast was glittering with astonishing health. I thought, \u201cThis must be how it feels to be old.\u201d I was in my coat, in the tent, Clancy rolled on its floor in five blankets.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI came for my oils,\u201d Kitty said. I could see she was delighted by my appearance.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019re not using them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHow are you feeling?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI\u2019m a little better,\u201d I said, \u201cbut now he is very ill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBummer!\u201d she said it brightly.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cYes,\u201d I agreed, \u201cit is a bummer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nA few days later, we surrendered. We went down to Kaza, to the hospital, and spent two nights unsupervised\u2014under the care of two adolescent boys\u2014at Bishan\u2019s otherwise empty, eight-room hotel. The boys robbed us here and there in small ways, to our growing outrage. It was only when one asked us for 750 rupees, for laundry done at the camp, that Clancy lost his patience. He and Bishan had a word. On our last day at the Parasol, before an expressionless Bishan, the boys were made to empty their wallets\u2014to return nearly every rupee (one rupee is about a penny and a half). We are still not well, Clancy and I. We have, it has been determined, an Indian virus. I am slightly better. Clancy has lost all hearing in his right ear. We spend our days in bed. He writes, I read. Then we watch a movie. <\/p>\n

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The Pin Valley is near the Tibetan border. In fact it was a part of Tibet. It was given to India in the fifties, to protect it. In winter it is snowbound. In summer, at three miles elevation\u2014above the tree line\u2014it is a stone bowl of dust. Two years ago, I was following a seventeen-year-old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4393],"tags":[1785,1048,8354,123],"class_list":["post-36742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person","tag-buddhism","tag-india","tag-pin-palley","tag-travel"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLetter from India: When the Cat\u2019s Away by Amie Barrodale<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"August 7, 2012 \u2013 The Pin Valley is near the Tibetan border. In fact it was a part of Tibet. 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