I know I cannot run for long now. Last night I dreamt of the great Red Tamdrin and for a long time after I woke up I couldn’t find my tongue. It was as if my mind had been erased. Then in another dream I saw myself being chased by a great wolf and then after a while it was me who was chasing the wolf.
The king’s men have been after me for more than 3 months. I remember clearly it was on the 23rd day of the 4th moon that I came across that nomad family whom I robbed. It was not my intention to kill the man and I don’t know if he’s still alive. Anyway it doesn’t matter.
My late uncle Aga used to tell me about the sufferings of hell and even then it gave me the shivers. Some say hell is not a real place like this world but that’s nonsense. It must be real, it has to be. Otherwise it’s all a big lie. I could have easily followed Aga’s footsteps and become, if not anything better, the caretaker of Palgon Monastery. I have seen people take off their hats to that imposter Gonsam even though he knows nothing beyond the six syllables of Mani.
Ah, if I could, I would escape to Lhasa even if I had to ride for 20 days and nights without food and water but it’s too late. I will be either caught or I shall die in this waste like a poor wounded animal and the jackals shall eat me as I have eaten them so far. That’s also some hell. Uncle Aga asked me to come to Lhasa several times before he passed away and before I ran into trouble. I always used to reply that Lhasa was a place for pilgrims and that I had no business going there. What a fool I was! Now Lhasa looks like a heavenly abode I shall never reach either in this life or the next. The famous Barkhor, brimming with every kind of people, from the simple minded pilgrims to the murderous robbers in guise, how easily an insignificant wretch like me could have vanished in their midst.
A good horse and a gun, that’s all a man needs to prove his worth. But my own karma mocked me so that I had to exchange one for the other on the very day I set out to measure my courage. The shey-gu(2) hadn’t concluded on my father’s passing away when I ran away with his favourite horse. A fine horse indeed it was, and as Ama often joked in half contempt, Aba loved it more than he loved us. A fine horse indeed, otherwise those shameless Hor-pa wouldn’t have stopped me and invited me into their tents. The gun, they said, had previously belonged to a Russian soldier but what did I know of guns? I don’t know why but I started asking them about Russia instead. For a moment I even thought that maybe they’d confess their ignorance about that country at some point and in their embarrassment, would give me the gun as a gift. But is the grey-tailed fox ever embarrassed to pounce on a hare in spring time? They laughed and said, you know what lies beyond the great, endless A-chen thang(3)? Beyond that great plain is the end of the world but in between is the land of Urusu(4) where the women are so strong that they choose their own husbands and even sleep with several of them at a time. Then they started laughing and patting me on the back. I would have left right away but for the gun which I couldn’t let go of. I had never seen anything like it before. And even now, in this darkness and suffering I cannot let go of it.
The first time I shot the gun I thought I had gone deaf. I dropped it and kept twitiching and poking my ears because the ringing sound wouldn’t stop. It kept on ringing high and low as if Drichu(5) itself was rushing by my ear. They said something was wrong with my ears, or head. Since then I have stopped thinking about it. The sound is still there. Sometimes I think there must be a tiny insect inside my head, at the back that never sleeps and makes this sound. Or maybe it’s nothing but my own mind that’s fooling me..
Oh this smell, this disgusting smell won’t go away. There must be a carrion somewhere. Vultures were circling in the sky all day long today. I kept looking at them but I hardly noticed how they vanished sometime near evening. They will be back tomorrow. The night air has made the stench all the more stronger and I can hardly sleep. I can’t understand why the rotting smell of some dead animal should trouble a man like me so much now. Shinje Chogyal(6) should know i have rode upon life and ley-gyundey(7) like my saddle and treated them as such. It didn’t smell like this in our house on Aba’s funeral though it should have. People say dead bodies rot and smell but on that day, it was just the smell of incense and sang that was everywhere in our house. Ama was caught up in work from daybreak and it almost seemed like Losar. But the incense smell, which I so liked usually, made me nauseous. It was then that I thought maybe I should run away from home. I went to see Aba’s body but it was covered with white cloth. Only his toes were sticking out and they looked whiter than the cloth.
1. rascal 2. Forty-nine days of ritual after death 3. A vast grass-plain in Hor 4. Russia 5. Yangze River 6. Yama, the lord of death 7. Law of karma
