Transition: Rocks to Water
Where does Tibet turn into Nepal?
Is it the lush forested slopes that follow the arid rock fields?
Is it the political horror factory that gives way to the loose fluidity of people's movements?
Is it the Buddhist mysts that flow forth into Hindu caste?
I do not know where Tibet turns into Nepal. I tried very hard, squinting and looking closely to see the change. I saw it but could not tell where it happened. My sequential mind looked very hard for the frame, moment where it turned, but I did not see a single time when it happened. Instead, I saw a flowing river develop into rushing plunge and the monsoon rush of clouds fill the steep, green, dripping valleys.
The lack of defined boundary led me to think that perhaps there was no such thing, perhaps, even, Tibet and Nepal were not the stable containers I thought them to be.
Could it be, even, that Tibet and Nepal do not exist? Maybe it is so. I think they are there, certainly and exist as a collection of characteristics but without some essential landscape being as it seems there might be within two such distinct worlds, places, spaces, landscapes, cultures, and nations.
What is the difference? Or, are there too many to innumerate. Lhasa is vastly different than Kathmandu, that is sure. But where do they change, one into the other?
Is it the lush forested slopes that follow the arid rock fields?
Is it the political horror factory that gives way to the loose fluidity of people's movements?
Is it the Buddhist mysts that flow forth into Hindu caste?
I do not know where Tibet turns into Nepal. I tried very hard, squinting and looking closely to see the change. I saw it but could not tell where it happened. My sequential mind looked very hard for the frame, moment where it turned, but I did not see a single time when it happened. Instead, I saw a flowing river develop into rushing plunge and the monsoon rush of clouds fill the steep, green, dripping valleys.
The lack of defined boundary led me to think that perhaps there was no such thing, perhaps, even, Tibet and Nepal were not the stable containers I thought them to be.
Could it be, even, that Tibet and Nepal do not exist? Maybe it is so. I think they are there, certainly and exist as a collection of characteristics but without some essential landscape being as it seems there might be within two such distinct worlds, places, spaces, landscapes, cultures, and nations.
What is the difference? Or, are there too many to innumerate. Lhasa is vastly different than Kathmandu, that is sure. But where do they change, one into the other?
posted by Breathing at 1:32 AM
2 Comments:
That question was probably answered at some meeting between various officials (British and Tibetan? Chinese and Nepalese? Not sure) at some meeting somewhere long ago. I'm guessing that the two parties looked at a map, used pencils to propose routes for the borders, and then finally agreed on its placing, and used a sharpie to make the final edition that we know today.
I'm also guessing that the parties negotiating and demarcating said line never even visited this area, much lessed discussed it with the local population.
But I may be wrong...
When we were driving off the plateau down into the soaking, lovely, flowing valleys of Nepal, I think I saw a Sharpie (tm) line in there somewhere.
As I recall, it was somewhere between the rocks and the trees. But, I think I was too enthralled with the sudden plunge into life-giving Monsoon to notice.
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