When Life Bowls another Chinaman*

*for those not familiar with cricket, a chinaman is a ball bowled by a left-handed bowler to a right-handed batsman that spins from off to leg. Pretty confusing huh? First no tickets then no seats then a brief period of gentle breeze blew to give a false sense that the sailing was going be smooth now. And then it again began. Big giant waves hit. I lost my passport, then my good right ankle gives away, then misunderstanding drops me at the airport without an exit visa, a long walk. Then the visa guy says “Five days!” Next hotels won’t take me then the wheel of the suitcase goes out. And would you believe it? I get lonely and turn on the TV which has only Chinese for a sense of company.Then to top it all my backup hard drive crashes with 3.92 GBs of photo right after I format my camera card. Finally I get a computer and it’s all in Chinese.

Two guys from the shop try until near midnight but can’t and here I am eating Oriel cookies and water for breakfast, tapping away in the Chinese 60-day trial version of Microsoft Office Word 2007, changing the font to English every now and then from Chinese, on Sunday, November 11, 2007, and the final day of Tihar in Nepal (I think) at the room number 3 of the 13th floor of one of China Daily’s to 14-story ‘dormitories’ in what I hope will be the final leg of this chapter of my misadventures.Its 1130 hrs local time, 0930 hrs Nepal time. I just woke up. Ma Yi hasn’t called yet. So until now I know I am supposed to be leaving tomorrow. With nearly one whole day to go before that happens, a lot of twist and turns are still possible I believe, but hope against hope, won’t happen. I am sort of tired and lonely.I should have known. The going wasn’t turning out to be smooth right from the start. No no make that much before the start. In fact there never ever was any point this past week when things looked smooth, except that brief lull I was talking about before. So here¡¯s how it all began.

It actually began three or so months ago. DK (Mister Damakant Jaysi SIR, Newseditor of The Kathmandu Post) woke me up one early morning and said something about if I was free in November for a wasn¡¯t-sure-yet-trip to China. Just checking to make sure I was sure for something that wasn¡¯t so sure he said. I guess I said sure sure. As I said I was very very groggy. I wouldn¡¯t have woken up for a couple of more hours if it weren¡¯t for the phone. So don¡¯t recall much. In fact as I think of it now. It probably wasn¡¯t even early morning. Must have been near or past noon. But that¡¯s like the wee hours of morning to me. Dawn breaks some time after noon for me usually. For nearly three months I hear nothing. Then just before Dashain, that is two or three weeks ago, he says if I remember the call. Well it¡¯s a conference of some kind and a confirmation has come. It¡¯s very late so don¡¯t know if getting a visa and tickets is possible. Just check and oh yes, he is leaving for Syangja the next day. Through some contacts I find visa is possible but better to get it started in the next few days. I call Rubi to book the tickets. All rush rush rush. Oh I am quite used to final hour rush hour preparations and so is everyone who knows or is associated to me. So no problem.

So what am I doing up five hours before I am supposed be at the airport well past midnight ¨C wide awake - washing my clothes and bag and then writing out the description of Apache RTR 160.

No! Not no problem. Lots and lots of problems on the way and in between. Rewind to October 16 near noon. The guy at the Chinese embassy says to deposit passports ASAP. I remember mine had expired a month ago and the CDO office that makes it is going to be closed for Dashain the next day. Getting all the stuff ready and the CDO office closes for the day. Next day it will be made they say. Come before 1400 hrs. Some more papers to be made and I get there around 12:30. Passport guys says sorry they just ran out of passports, come after dashain. Well I don¡¯t think he actually said sorry. Sorry is just not something that we have in our Nepali vocabulary.

Well we do have Maph paun or maph garnu hola but it¡¯s limited, quite limited to grave wrongs only. Maybe judging by the frequency of its use in the English vocabulary it is good. Teachers I have had have always criticized the very existence of the word Sorry and how freely we all ¨C people of the whole word ¨C use the word for everything. In fact it is with some solid reason that we Nepalis have that saying ¡°Garne bela ma man pari ani tyaspachi SORRY?¡± Roughly translated meaning ¡°You wrong as you please first and then you say SORRY?¡± Use this with a bit of anger in your voice and you get the true meaning. Very true. So it is probably good that we don¡¯t use maph garnu hola that much unless we are in very deep shit and pleading for our lives and or truly mean it. Saying sorry in Nepali is like a slap on your self-respect. Well unless you are NTC¡¯s mobile service which says maph garnu hola even more than the English speakers do.

Now back to the story at hand. The guy then says I should have come an hour ago or so. I say a more senior guy told me the day before to come any time before two. It did not get done yesterday because I needed to bring a copy of my journalist identity card to complete the necessary papers. The mention of that got some of the screws moving. And it actually opens a lot of doors. Even here in China, as I will proceed to tell you later. A few thousand words later. So I make a call and meet a few people and dhantadah passport renewal process begins. He tells me to aramle sit in the senior guy¡¯s sofa in the other room and he will call me when it¡¯s done. I insisted on staying near but upon his insistence I go.

After some time he calls me to check my spelling and when I go to the passport room I see that there are in fact more than a few empty passports in the closet and more being made. I pretend not to see, sign my name and sit near the door just looking the other way. Maph garnu hola. No no. Sorry. When it¡¯s your work being done ethics and right and wrong go out of the window as they say. Just look the other way. Just enjoy the privilege you get as a journalist that the ¡®ordinary¡¯ don¡¯t get without some padarki (Russian for gift). Let¡¯s leave that debate for the office canteen and just limit it and guilt that burns inside you, to inside your own useless head. Well when and IF it does that is.

(end of part I of Part one of this edition)

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