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| This piece, for
the sake of understanding each other better as human beings
in general and the different races within Himalayan community
specifically, is a compilation of a few personal incidents
that were experienced by the writer. The article is not
a reflection of the views of the general population of any
race or community for that matter. |
On a trip to Dharamsala, India, in the summer of 1991, the
wife of my cousin gave birth to a baby boy. On this happy occasion,
I went to see her at the Delek hospital. Barely a day old, the
bundle of joy, the baby lay beside the exhausted mother. Fruits
and cookies or biscuits as they called them in India, brought
in by visitors were scattered all around the private room. After
exchanging pleasantries, and commenting on how beautiful the
little boy she had just given birth to was she remarked, “Sherpa
babies look like monkeys!!!”.
Not only was I taken aback but, was quite furious to hear such
blatant mockery of my people. There were a few questions which
came to mind. Did she know that I was a Sherpa too? Just because
I spoke Tibetan, did she think I was not a Sherpa? Did she know
that many of her husband’s relatives were Sherpas? Was
it because of a few Sherpas that she had dealt with, she somehow
had a negative perception of them and that had made her comment
in that manner? Did it even matter to her what ethnic group
I preferred to be?
I was a Tibetan for her, and she must have figured, it was
ok to make such comments amongst Tibetans.
Her husband, my cousin, was born in Dharamsala. His father
is a first cousin of my father and both their grand parents
had immigrated from Gyarong, Tibet, to Nepal, gradually becoming
Sherpas. My father and most of his relatives still living in
Nepal are as pure Sherpas as they come. But my uncle, who had
moved to Dharamsala many years ago and settled there with his
family, had become ‘Tibetan’. Making everyone born
to his family and other relatives that moved to India, Tibetans
as well. Well, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if their
perception were contrary to mine.
From an early age, I joined Tibetan schools and spoke Tibetan
but I had never met any relatives of mine who could speak Tibetan.
I was in quite a shock when the irst time someone related to
me spoke in Tibetan but did not speak Nepali at all or spoke
very little of it. My cousins in India grew up as Tibetans,
without ties to their relatives in Nepal.
Around 1994, after a meeting for a fund raising party, some
of the board members of the Tibetan Youth Association (as RTYC
of NY and NJ were known then) went to a restaurant, the Tibetan
Kitchen in Manhattan, New York. As we sat down at a table, my
waiter-friend came over and began to tease me by making some
negative and stereotypical comments about Sherpas. To which,
as I always did, replied back and said something not so flattering
about Tibetans. This was a bantering that went back and forth
between us each time we met, and was always followed by pleasantries.
This was our own personal way of a friendly exchange –
a personal joke – that was shared between the two of us.
But a Tibetan friend who was sitting with me at that table
took offense and exploded at me. “How dare you say such
things about Tibetans to a Tibetan?”
I tried to explain to him that this was just in jest and we
were only playing around with each other. He didn’t want
to listen to any of my explanation even after my pointing out
to him that he (my Tibetan waiter friend) was the one who started
it and while it would sound negative, it was a personal joke
between two friends. But this disturbed friend didn’t
want to hear any of it and challenged me to a duel out side
the restaurant which I accepted . The fight did not take place
owing to the intervention of the others at the table.
This has always made me wonder that no matter how much I try
to blend as a Tibetan, to some Tibetans I’ll always be
a Nepali, which I am.
This aside, on another occasion, at a get together of Sherpa
friends and families, speaking in Tibetan to a Tibetan friend
(who’s married to a Sherpa lady), a Sherpa friend jumped
on me and made a crude remark, “Why are you guys speaking
in ‘Bhotey Bhasa’ (Tibetan language), speak Nepali”.
This was the same person who on many occasions had labeled me
a Tibetan in his attempt to exclude me from attending Sherpa
functions. “Sonam is a Bhotey (Tibetan)”, was what
I overheard him saying to people at a party.
My answer to him at this gathering was that the Nepali language
wasn’t even our own language and that if he felt that
speaking in “our language” was so important why
did the fact that not everyone there spoke in our Sherpa language
as totally unnoticed by him. Others present quickly resolved
the hostilities and we continued to speak in a plethora of languages.
|
It is not easy for someone like me born as national in one
country and growing up in the midst of another to always
be defensive (although, I feel I am totally capable of distinguishing
my own identity, it is oftentimes, others that make judgements
about it). |
It is not easy for someone like me born as national in one
country and growing up in the midst of another to always be
defensive (although, I feel I am totally capable of distinguishing
my own identity, it is oftentimes, others that make judgements
about it).
Being born in Nepal to a Sherpa father and a Tibetan mother,
I grew up as a Nepali. As the majority of Nepal’s population
is of Hindu religion and of a different race, they occasionally
called us ‘Bhotey’ as in Tibetan, to which we would
defend ourselves as not being one. Sherpa culture and religion
is similar to that of the Tibetan’s but by birth and national
origin we are Nepalese.
I started life in a boarding school in Kathmandu early. With
my sister and I being the only Mongoloid students, we were often
teased for being different, as children usually are. The rest
of the school population was Nepalese of the Hindu faith, as
in the Dravidian race. We were called Bhotey, an innocuous term
for people from Tibet, but used derogatorily. My sister and
I certainly didn’t come from Tibet. That was also a time
when many Tibetans started moving to the Boudh Nath area, where
a huge stupa stands. It is a holy place for people of Buddhist
faith. This was also a neighborhood in the outskirts of Kathmandu,
where local alcohol was sold openly. Although prohibited by
the local law, officers looked the other way. One day a fight
broke out between two Tibetans, who were intoxicated, that resulted
in the death of one.
News spread like fire in the Kathmandu valley. Some of the
consequences were ugly as children started calling me a ‘murderer’,
which brought out the worst in me and having to fight those
who accused me of such.
Just because a Tibetan murdered another Tibetan, my sister
and I were teased as Tibetan murderers also. That brought out
some kind of negative feelings in me for Tibetans, so much so
that, I would play the part of ‘brave Chinese soldiers’
as depicted in the propaganda comic books and magazines sold
in Nepal very cheaply. These were the publications that were
heavily subsidized by the government of People’s Republic
of China and sold in Nepal for a few rupees. As children played
in the playgrounds, I would be one of the ruthless Chinese Red
Armies, capturing and torturing Japanese (as in the imperial
war) and Tibetans.
|
Playing a “brave Chinese army personnel” was
a phase that went through in my boyhood age. No matter how
hard I pretended to be a non-Tibetan, walking the streets
of Kathmandu always invited catcalls from other boys or
bullies in the street to call me, ‘Hey Bhotey’
which then was similar to calling the African Americans
the “N” word. |
Playing a “brave Chinese army personnel” was a
phase that went through in my boyhood age. No matter how hard
I pretended to be a non-Tibetan, walking the streets of Kathmandu
always invited catcalls from other boys or bullies in the street
to call me, ‘Hey Bhotey’ which then was similar
to calling the African Americans the “N” word.
When I was attending the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan
Studies in India, my nationality and being different was something
that worked to my advantage. On a Losar day, on being woken
up by a teacher to go to a monastery for early prayer ceremony
and receiving the traditional share of ‘Khapseys’,
I was able to fool him. Losar is a day to have fun. At that
period of my life, nothing was more fun than to sleep late.
So, being too lazy to get up early and justify my own crooked
way of celebrating Losar by sleeping, when my teacher tried
to wake me up, I told him that I was a Sherpa and that we didn’t
celebrate Losar. He gasped and whispered, “Oh”,
and left me alone to wake other students up.
From an early age, it seemed like others are always trying
to make decisions for me as to what I am. Nepalese call me Tibetan,
Tibetans call me Nepali and some call us “monkeys”.
Why can’t everyone just accept me for who I am? I am
just a human being with just one identity, as in the name I
was given in my birth?
