I don't have those famous naked-dreams, maybe because nakedness doesn't bother me overly much. Instead I get stabbed. It has happened twice in my memory, both times by Nepali men. The first time, when I was here last, I was dreaming that a one-eyed man caught me stowed away in the back of his truck. Earlier that day, I had seen a one-eyed man on the street corner, no patch or fake eye, just a strange fleshy pocket, mesmerising in its grotesqueness and simplicity. In the dream, whilst I was trying to explain, in a light-hearted way, why I was hiding amidst his tarped cargo, he rudely stabbed me mid-sentence, expressionlessly, like he wasn't even listening. This time, in one of last night's dreams, I was merely waiting for a meal at a restaurant, and a mullet-haired man came upstairs and stabbed me without warning or explanation. I woke up, not shaken, nor frightened, but irritated, because I'd seen it coming but hadn't been able to get out of the way, for all the people milling around. "People!" I thought, "Always milling about, completely oblivious to the fact that I'm in a rush to get somewhere!"
Maybe it's the Gurkha-mythology that is so abundant here, the famous Gurkha soldiers and their curved khukuri knives, there is not a day that does not contain some mention of them. The circus company I train has been asked to perform at the Gurkha ball, and so I was trying to find out the dates, and instead I found an article about Bishnu Shrestha.
It happened about 5 months ago. Bishnu was a Gurkha who was returning to India, on voluntary retirement, when his train was hijacked by 40 thieves (I kid you not). The whole thing played out in true action movie style, he sat quietly by while the robbers - armed with swords, knives and guns - took his wallet and belongings, along with the other passengers. But then they began to strip an 18-year-old girl nearby, in front of her parents, their intentions unmistakable. She called for help, and Bishnu the Gurkha stood up, and pulled out his khukuri. Apparently, "taking control of the leader", presumably using him as a shield, he killed 3 robbers and injured another 8 before the remainder fled. According to one article, he himself was surprised that so many of them fled, commenting that maybe they thought he had more Gurkha friends on the train. Maybe it was the force of mythology, and the curved knife so renowned for decapitation.
I asked an ex-Gurkha officer once, why it is that the Gurkhas have this reputation, that precedes them, mythologises them? He told me that it was something about Nepali people, that they are by and large the most lovely, patient, and friendly people you could hope to come across. But there is this thing, what I now call the bubbling pool of rage. I have seen it quite often, the snap, from the calm exterior, someone will just, without warning, completely lose their shit. I've never seen it directed at me, or at any sober foreigner for that matter, and I've never witnessed a stabbing. But it is scary. Is it insensitive to write this? I don't mean to portray Nepali people in a negative light, especially when I have had such a positive experience here, and of course generalisations are by nature massively flawed, but for the sake of the story, and the myth, let us imagine that beneath everyone's calm, collected surface, lies a seething pool of violent rage. Is it thinner for some, less structurally sound?
Maybe it's the Gurkha-mythology that is so abundant here, the famous Gurkha soldiers and their curved khukuri knives, there is not a day that does not contain some mention of them. The circus company I train has been asked to perform at the Gurkha ball, and so I was trying to find out the dates, and instead I found an article about Bishnu Shrestha.
It happened about 5 months ago. Bishnu was a Gurkha who was returning to India, on voluntary retirement, when his train was hijacked by 40 thieves (I kid you not). The whole thing played out in true action movie style, he sat quietly by while the robbers - armed with swords, knives and guns - took his wallet and belongings, along with the other passengers. But then they began to strip an 18-year-old girl nearby, in front of her parents, their intentions unmistakable. She called for help, and Bishnu the Gurkha stood up, and pulled out his khukuri. Apparently, "taking control of the leader", presumably using him as a shield, he killed 3 robbers and injured another 8 before the remainder fled. According to one article, he himself was surprised that so many of them fled, commenting that maybe they thought he had more Gurkha friends on the train. Maybe it was the force of mythology, and the curved knife so renowned for decapitation.
I asked an ex-Gurkha officer once, why it is that the Gurkhas have this reputation, that precedes them, mythologises them? He told me that it was something about Nepali people, that they are by and large the most lovely, patient, and friendly people you could hope to come across. But there is this thing, what I now call the bubbling pool of rage. I have seen it quite often, the snap, from the calm exterior, someone will just, without warning, completely lose their shit. I've never seen it directed at me, or at any sober foreigner for that matter, and I've never witnessed a stabbing. But it is scary. Is it insensitive to write this? I don't mean to portray Nepali people in a negative light, especially when I have had such a positive experience here, and of course generalisations are by nature massively flawed, but for the sake of the story, and the myth, let us imagine that beneath everyone's calm, collected surface, lies a seething pool of violent rage. Is it thinner for some, less structurally sound?
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