The Barefoot Surgeon Read online

  Darjeeling,’ Sanduk overheard Goba say to his parents. ‘This

  boy is not going to do anything good here other than cause

  mischief.’

  Too shy to ask, Sanduk desperately wanted to know where

  he was being sent, and for how long. ‘I had a vague under-

  standing that it was going to be a long trip. Part of me was

  curious about “going south”, as they called it, and another

  part was afraid of leaving home.’

  As the day drew closer, Kasang started slowly putting

  special things in a bag for him; a new hand- knitted sweater

  and green canvas shoes imported from China.

  She leant down to talk to him for a long time. With dark

  brown braids around her neck, she reassured him about the

  school he’d be going to, in a big city. She put on a brave front, telling her young son that it would exciting to see cars, planes, trucks, electric lights—all the things he’d always wanted to

  see—and make friends with other boys.

  But Sanduk had no conception of what she was talking

  about. Walung was his whole world. ‘My childish concern

  was really only of my precious collection of yak horns and

  special pebbles; I wanted to take my treasured keepsakes with 11

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  me,’ he recalls. ‘So together we put them on a special shelf

  and she promised me she would not let anyone touch them

  until I returned.’

  On the day Sanduk left, his mother gave him a small

  handmade bag she’d sewn out of the same red- and- white

  striped material her aprons were made out of. She’d sewn bells on the outside, and had filled it with flour biscuits, handmade chocolates and churpi, a type of sweet, hard cheese, and told him not to eat them all in one day.

  As she leant down and put it around his neck, the enormity

  of what was happening began to sink in.

  Butter lamps were lit in the windows of their home (a tradi-

  tional Tibetan Buddhist ritual in which yak butter is burnt), incense was burnt, and his father started chanting prayers.

  Outside he could hear the yak bells clanging as his father’s

  small caravan prepared to leave the village.

  Sanduk pressed himself into his mother’s woollen tunic,

  inhaling the familiar smell of yak wool, wood smoke and the

  spices she used to make tea. ‘This is just something you have to do, my dear,’ she told him, holding him close, and softly

  stroking his head. ‘Be a very good boy. Do everything your

  teachers ask you. You’re going to be looked after very well,

  and you’ll be coming back soon.’

  Sanduk shut his eyes, and wrapped his arms around his

  mother’s waist, burying his head into her apron. His father

  gently pulled Sanduk away and nudged him toward the

  stone path heading out of the gorge, away from the village

  and everything he knew to be safe and familiar. They joined

  the caravan and headed toward the thunderous torrent of the

  Tamor River.

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  He was seven years old.

  He looked back several times. As their party descended

  the path, Kasang was standing clutching her apron, her face

  streaked with tears. Neither of them knew it at the time, but he would not see her again for three years.

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  VERTIGO

  ‘Slow your pace down to that of the yaks,’ Sonam told his

  young son as they navigated the narrow mountain passes,

  their backs pressed against the cliff faces. ‘And look where you are going. Don’t put your foot down unless you’ve worked

  out what stone or rock you are going to land on. Don’t look

  down, don’t look around, and don’t get distracted.’ It was

  good advice for the journey of life.

  The Himalayas have long been romanticised as a place of

  rugged and luminous beauty. The explorer and writer Peter

  Matthiessen, one of the first Westerners to enter Tibet via

  Nepal, seems to have fallen under a kind of spell when he first saw Mount Everest, describing it in his 1978 book The Snow Leopard as ‘glistening like a spire of a higher kingdom’.

  As a boy, Sanduk was taught to regard the mountains,

  especially Kanchenjunga, their home mountain, as a place

  of sacred power. Rather than something to conquer, in the

  view of many Westerners, the mountains were a place that

  commanded great respect, calling upon great reserves of fortitude, faith and physical strength simply to survive.

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  Now Sanduk was about to find out himself just how

  dangerous crossing the roof of the world could be. In a trip

  that would be almost unimaginable to most boys of the same

  age, Sanduk walked with his father for two weeks in his

  simple Chinese sneakers across stone crags, ice crusts, and

  over torrential rivers on flimsy log bridges.

  Their destination was St Robert’s School, a Jesuit boarding

  school his father had enrolled him into at Darjeeling, West

  Bengal, in northern India. The trip was probably about

  150 kilometres as the crow flies, but the path was so rocky

  and winding that the real distance is impossible to measure.

  At that time, there was no other way to get there.

  His father walked along the narrow ledges and stone paths

  as if it was second nature; he was as nimble and sure- footed as the yaks. Elegant even. But at seven, Sanduk was still finding his feet. There were many moments in those first hard days

  when he stumbled, or tripped, or was so terrified that his feet refused to budge. It was then that Sonam’s loyal assistant,

  Dharkey, who helped him with everything from arranging

  trips to his business affairs, would coax the boy onwards.

  Sanduk trusted Dharkey. ‘He had such a kind face. He

  would hold my hand crossing the roads and bridges that I was

  frightened by and would pat me to sleep at night. He’d help

  me put my coat on and make sure I’d eaten enough breakfast

  before I started out.’

  On the first night, Sonam and Dharkey were too exhausted

  to cook anything other than porridge with dried meat. Sanduk

  was on the verge of tears; he desperately wanted to go back

  home, back to his mother’s kitchen and his warm bed by the

  fire with all his family.

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  ‘I must have been anxious, sleeping in a cave in the moun-

  tains, because when I woke up in the morning, I realised I’d

  peed into the sheepskin rug I’d been sleeping on.’

  His father, normally so strict, must have understood how

  strange all this was for the seven- year- old. As they watched the sun light up the south face of Kanchenjunga, Sonam simply

  brewed tea, made porridge, and threw the sodden blanket on

  the back of a yak to dry in the sun. Nothing was ever said

  about the matter.<
br />
  Sanduk dreaded every one of the small, swaying suspen-

  sion bridges that punctuated their journey. One step in the

  wrong direction and he could fall into the crevasse. Mistakes could be fatal. At one point, they crossed the roaring Tamor

  River on a single plank of wood.

  ‘I remember that Dharkey held one of my hands, and

  another trader held the other. I didn’t look down. I knew if

  I’d fallen into the river, I would have just been swept away.’

  Sanduk’s strength grew quickly; within days he realised he

  was made of the same stuff as his father. Toward the end,

  he took pride in keeping up with everyone else in the party.

  Often, he would walk in his father’s or Dharkey’s footsteps

  for hours. He remembers listening to the fast thud of his own heart and using every muscle in his body to keep up with

  the men.

  He grew fond of the yaks with their fluffy tails; how nimble

  they were at high altitudes above the snowline, and how they

  slowed down and grew stubborn at the lower altitudes. He

  loved the brightly coloured ribbons and bells tied to their

  woolly manes.

  They had that barren, awe-

  inspiring landscape all to

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  themselves. They didn’t meet anyone else for the entire trip.

  It was just snow, rock and sky. The only sounds were the

  swoosh of eagles overhead, the roar of the river, and the occasional rockslide. Sometimes it was so quiet that the silence

  seemed to ping. At night, they would camp in shepherds’

  huts or caves that Sonam or Dharkey knew from their many

  previous trips. They would make a small fire and cook corn

  and potatoes, or dal bhat.

  At night, the stars were so bright and close that Sanduk

  felt as if he could reach out and touch them. He would fall

  asleep as soon as he lay his head on the blankets Dharkey had laid down for him.

  The most gruelling part was along the border of eastern

  Nepal and India. They were on an exposed ridge for days, in a blizzard, with the sub- zero wind and snow whipping around

  them from every direction. Sanduk had a cap, but no gloves,

  and his fingers were so cold they felt as if they were going to snap off. The wind seemed to pierce through his clothes and

  lash his body. It almost took his breath away.

  Sonam’s party only began to thaw out as they descended

  out of this stone and ice world and into the softer, gentler

  foothills around West Bengal, near Darjeeling. Suddenly,

  within an hour, it seemed, they emerged into a completely

  different landscape. They made their way through forests

  of juniper and oak trees and banks of rhododendrons, and

  his father pointed out the bamboo thickets that were home

  to the elusive red pandas. Sanduk was mesmerised by the

  rich colours; the yellow corn fields and the velvety green

  tea gardens, stretching out around them, as far as they

  could see.

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  On the last day of the trek, when Sanduk and Sonam

  emerged into the outskirts of Darjeeling, his senses were overwhelmed by the noise and mayhem.

  Swarms of bicycles buzzed by, their bells jangling like

  a chorus. Radios blared Hindu music from shops, their

  shelves loaded with glass jars filled with lollies and biscuits.

  The women looked like exotic creatures, wearing colourful

  saris and daubs of red paint on their foreheads. Even more

  astonishing were the tall Caucasians with their blue eyes and blond hair.

  It was the first time Sanduk had ever laid eyes on a bus.

  ‘I thought they were a very curious looking machine,’ he says.

  It helped that they were decorated that day, as they are so

  often in India and Nepal, with garlands of marigold flowers

  to celebrate one of the Hindu community’s many holy days.

  As Sanduk stood there trying to take in the chaotic pageant,

  an overpowering sense of inferiority swept over him.

  ‘I remember looking down at my own clothes and feeling

  so embarrassed by my homespun yak wool trousers and shirt.

  I felt like such a country hick. It was as if I’d somehow turned up in a modern city from prehistoric times. I wanted to disappear, or hide.’

  He didn’t get a chance. The next thing Sanduk knew, his

  father was bidding farewell to Dharkey and the rest of the

  group, and wrangling his son up onto the roof of one of

  the buses. ‘I remember staring at its large rubber wheels in

  amazement. Was this thing going to fly? Was a horse going to

  drag it along? Was it going to float on water?’ He got some

  of the other passengers to help us find a seat on the roof. The noise coming out of it as the driver turned a handle at the

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  front and the engine started gave me such a fright. I remember Dad holding me close to him as we bumped our way over the

  road and around the bends.’

  When the bus finally shuddered to a halt at Darjeeling, with

  a blast of black soot, they clambered off and walked through

  the town, along the high ridge with views of the Himalayas,

  to St Robert’s School, a solid brick residence built by British missionaries in the 1930s. Sanduk was limping from blisters

  as they crossed the lawn. Neither he nor his father said a

  word as they looked up at the large wooden doors. They

  knocked and took a deep breath.

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  Hey, bhotey

  The boarding school Sonam had chosen for his son did not

  enjoy the picturesque grandeur of nearby St Joseph’s School

  which, with its handsome sandstone buildings, was framed by

  the snow- capped Himalayas. St Robert’s, by comparison, was

  a run- of- the- mill, government- funded school costing about $14 a year for boarding and tuition. ‘It was the equivalent

  of two yaks, or six months’ salary,’ Sanduk says. ‘St Robert’s was one of the most affordable schools in Darjeeling, but for my parents it was quite a lot of money at the time.’

  The 300 students who trooped into the three-

  storey

  building with a plain tin roof were mainly from India’s lower and middle class.

  The warden at the time, a Jesuit priest called Father

  William Mackey, peered down from under a thatch of snowy

  white hair at the seven- year- old standing before him in his homespun clothes. The curiosity was mutual. Sanduk looked

  up at the tall man with cobalt blue eyes, wearing what seemed to be a dress, a garment that turned out to be a clergyman’s

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  cloak. ‘I remember Father Mackey gave me a funny little

  smile . . . it was as if he’d known me for a long time.’ Little did Sanduk know what a comfort Father Mackey’s friendship

  would be to him during the next six years.

  Everything at the school, even the most common objects,

  were totally unfamiliar to Sanduk
. The tables, the chairs, the blackboards, the electric lights, the radio and the heaters—

  he’d never seen any such things before. He stood with his

  mouth open, taking it all in. After a tour of the school grounds, he was taken to the tailor, where he was measured up for his

  uniform of grey pants, grey sweater and white shirt, all of

  which made him feel even more ill- at- ease.

  Sanduk was just as taken aback when he was shown the

  boarding house, a separate residence not far from the school, where he was to live for the next six years.

  It was originally built in the 1930s when the British had

  turned Darjeeling into a genteel hill station for the colonial administration. Its wide wooden stairs ran elegantly between

  the two storeys, and the surrounding lawns and gardens were

  meant to be reminiscent of the English countryside.

  He was shown the room he was to sleep in, filled with about

  eight narrow wooden bunks. For someone used to sleeping

  around the embers of the fire on a mattress with his family

  close by, the arrangement must have seemed decidedly odd.

  ‘Were you supposed to sleep on the top bunk one night,

  and the bottom the second? I was scratching my head, trying

  to work out how these double- bunkers worked.’

  Sonam placed his son’s small metal trunk filled with

  special quilts his mother had sewn for him on top of his bunk.

  Sanduk was unpacking them, getting his bearings, when his

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  father said something he couldn’t understand at all at first.

  He squatted down on his haunches beside Sanduk, put his

  hands on his shoulders, and said, ‘Son, I have to leave you

  now. You need to be a good boy. Study hard, read everything

  you can, and I’ll come back soon.’

  Sanduk was incredulous. His father was going to leave him

  alone in this strange place, surrounded by strange people?

  ‘My father had always been a fairly distant, authoritarian

  figure, but suddenly I realised how important he was to me.

  I remember clinging to him and saying, “I don’t want to stay

  here! Not on my own!” I remember him stroking my head,

  and trying to comfort me. He kept saying, “You’re going to

  be okay, my boy. You’ll be okay. They’ll look after you well, and I’ll come back soon.” He promised to come back at the