Dogster: Sweet 'n Sour in Sikkim
 

It's a time for celebration, a time to relax - just for a moment. The world has turned, like it or not.

I like it.

In the spirit of the occasion, here's a story that nothing to do with any of that - but it made me laugh when Dogster dictated it to me. It's a weeny bit rude - but you guys have trawled thru filthier territory with me before, so I think you'll be fine.

I think his personal behavior is disgusting, but I must report what he tells me. We can all learn what not to do.

It's kinda break-upable but I think I'll bung it in here all in one go. That way you can settle back with a beverage of your choice and read it when you want. Same length as last week.

I'd love your comments.

Let's do it.

Three men sat on a huge pile of garbage, waiting for a lift to go home. One leant back on a large sign and hoiked up a great gob of phlegm.

WELCOME
TO THE LITTER AND
SPIT-FREE ZONE OF
GANGTOK

said the sign.

The mall was being ripped up. It looked as a gigantic earthworm had tunneled along the main street leaving a mountain of rubble either side in its wake. They had no hope in hell of ever sorting this place out – but they were trying. Civic harmony will eventually be restored - one day Gangtok would be perfect.

I think it’s perfect now. It’s a crazy, jagged city, perched on a ridge, sprawling down both sides of the mountain in zigs and zags, as if the great Gangtok God of Confusion had picked up the city and thrown it in the air. There were a lot of young men in the streets – but then, there always are. I met a few of them in the Beauty Salon.

Jakir Hair Cutting Salon
Ladies WELCOME Gents

Hair Cutting Rs- 20.00
Machine Cut Rs- 30.00
Body Massage Rs- 25.00
Head Massage Rs- 10.00

I just knew it was my kinda place.

Today was immediately designated a PDD - Pamper Dogster Day. I had the lot.

Indian men are tremendously vain – tell an Indian he’s handsome and he’ll believe you. Like for these lads was spent in a Bollywood movie. They were the star. Today, like everyday, the Jakir Beauty Salon was a hot-bed of testosterone and conceit. The young men of Gangtok were all being waxed, combed, creamed, poofed and tweaked in a very girly fashion, tarting themselves up for a big night on the town. I chatted away to a dozen or so of them while I was being shaved, scraped and sanded. We had a great time. Conversation flowed free and easy. We all laughed a lot. The most difficult task I faced was deciding which shaving cream to have. I was rather taken by ‘Gelitte Fome’.

They all had an opinion – but then, I’ve never known an Indian who didn’t.

‘Denim’

‘Park Avenue!’

‘Old Spice!’

Ahhh, Old Spice. Now there’s a name to conjure with. It’s been a while since I’ve had that on my face. Church youth group social, I think, circa 1892. In the end I just abandoned all hope and submitted to the general consensus.

‘You are a very handsome man, Uncle,’ they cried.

Uncle Dog was sitting there with a head-band on, white cream slapped liberally all over his face. A smear of red lipstick and he would have been the Joker from Batman. When he smiled the creases in his face stood out like the earthworks in the main street; train tracks carved across the slimy snowfield of an elderly foreigner’s face.

We all had a very jolly party until the Dog could be transformed no more. He was practically an Indian by now, shaved, plucked, trimmed and pounded, the object of all attention and lavish, though fatuous, praise.

‘You look so beautiful, Uncle!’

‘I love your face, Sir.’

‘Ha-a-a-andsome...’

Dogster left the shop through a flood of friendly hands, shaking his way along the line to freedom; crisp and smooth like a baby’s bottom, reeking of Old Spice and hair gel, looking not one jot better than when he’d first walked in the door.

It was a Beauty Salon, after all, not radical plastic surgery.

My latest Bongo was a sweet man from a sweet village full of sweet Sikkimese. It was a sweet little world – and, like all little worlds, full of world upon world of sweet fascination to all those living inside. I know. I walked the only street, sat in his mother’s front room listening to their radio while children played with my camera and the family gossiped outside. He’d never drunk a glass of beer or smoked a cigarette, never driven a car or flown in a plane, never ridden an escalator nor walked a flat piece of land; he’d never said a bad word in his life. It was my good fortune to have this sweet Bongo as my personal companion, conduit to the strange secret world of monks, monasteries and village life that surrounded us here in the hills. Each day we went out and never once ended up where we should have – which Dogster saw as the mark of a perfect guide.

But poor Bongo had a problem he felt compelled to share. He’d never slept with a woman in his life.

‘Well, I did once,’ he lied, ‘but I didn’t like it.’

He pulled a girlish face.

I didn’t believe him for an instant. In another world, in another time, of course he’d be gay – but that thought had never crossed his mind. I certainly wasn’t going to put it there. The wide world of his sexuality, if it in fact existed, was hidden under a welter of his culture, his community and family needs. He lived in no-man’s land, a sexless, passion-less place of devotion and love for his family. He was a fine, upstanding citizen, full of virtue, lacking vices – but, I must confess, Bongo did keep returning to the matter of his missing sex life.

He was aware that he’d misplaced it somewhere. He knew he should be looking for it but he couldn’t think where to begin. He’d lost his mojo but, never having had it in the first place, wasn’t quite sure what to look for.

As a canine with a fine, keen appreciation for the pleasures of the flesh I found this all very strange. Dogster had never had to go looking very far for his mongrel mojo – he woke up in the morning and there it was.

But he was a dog.

First stop to knowledge for Bongo was to quiz his client in forensic detail about Mr. Dogster’s long un-forgotten amorous pursuits; names, dates, places, positions, locations, combinations, double-back-flips, triple somersaults – he wanted the whole diving board and pool. Bongo was a most inquisitive chap.

‘So how old were you when you started err... doing things?’

‘How often?’

His little eyes grew wider.

‘And then you did what...?’

‘Where?’

‘No-o-o-o-hh!’

Dogster happily dished the dirt. This was a topic he knew all too well, having done copious research – he was pleased to have the chance to re-open his battered copy of Dogster’s Chronicles d’Amour; a weighty tome of brief encounters and disgraceful behavior that extended back altogether too many years. It was a catalogue of what not to do if you’re a Sikkimese virgin – chapter and lurid verse - after verse – after verse. What was worse, the old fart had no regrets whatsoever.

Luckily, now he’d been spayed.

So Bongo and Dogster passed their days together, hurling from monastery to monastery, talking dirty all the way. Luckily the driver didn’t understand English; he would have thrown them out of the car. This is a staunch and moral society. Western ideas about normal sexual behavior do not apply. Bongo was the exception to the rule. He was like a drowning man hurled a lifeline of smut.

‘Let me tell you about the time...’

And off I’d go. Dogster’s Chronicles d’Amour had no end.

I took care to restrain my more lurid fantasies at the beginning, anxious not to over-excite him. Leaky tour-guides are not my thing. Gradually though, the truth emerged. Dogster couldn’t help himself. He had such an attentive audience.

The car would bump to a halt, we’d take a break from the filth and go meet a monk in his room, sit at the feet of the master and watch as he mumbled sacred things, sit silent at puja, listening to the prayers, just me and the mountains, the monks and the moon.

Then back to the porn.

‘She hung there, on the trapeze – dressed only in a skirt of bananas...’

His eyes were like saucers. If they could have popped out on a spring they would have.

Bless my latest Bongo, Dogster thought, bless him. He blesses me by his presence. I am with a pure soul. The air is clear around him. He feels clean. Dog ignored the fact that every word he uttered was corrupting the very purity he so admired. Bongo was positively eager to be corrupted. He’d never had a client like this.

‘How many airline hostesses...?

‘They did what to you?’

‘All at once?’

‘In the plane...?’

‘No-o-o-o-hh!’

It was dancing practice at the Lindum Monastery. The young monks stood in a huge circle around the quadrangle, both arms held in the air, holding their cloaks, swaying alarmingly. One monklet sat on the side with a large drum in front of him. He’d bash out a beat on that as the monks circled and swooped; solitary ballroom dancers who’d lost their partner, leisurely floating round and round - drunken bats circling slowly in the late morning sun.

In the centre was a monk of considerable height. He was a giant monk, a monk and a half. I bet he had big feet. I’d seen him before, sitting hunched over some papers with two associates. He was the chopen, the ritual master. He was quite an important fellow.

Unlike his woeful students, Big Foot was a monk of consequence. He was in it for the long run. After basic training, each monk embarks on intensive study in all aspects of the tantric rites conducted at the monastery. Several years are spent learning each ritual skill; shrine keeping, chanting, torma making, the playing of musical instruments, construction of sand mandalas – the full box and Buddhist dice. Then they go on to specialize in one of them - a further period of study that spans the several more thousand years necessary to master the intricacies of their future positions. Big Foot had done his Monk Master’s Degree in sacred dance. He was obviously very, very old.

At the end of the year, the monks perform a week-long Mahakala puja, along with ritual dances in the courtyard for two days before the eve of Losar, the Tibetan New Year. In our calendar this falls in February or March. It was late November. The chopen had the unenviable task of trying to corral sixty unwilling monklets into a dance routine in preparation for this big event.

They were hopeless, hot and bored out of their brain. Big Foot was having a terrible time.

A great many of these monks are not trainee priests at all; not drawn by the religious life, not overly devotional in nature. They are sent here as a normal part of growing up, for a few terms at monk boarding school - to be educated, socialized, institutionalized in a Buddhist Hogwarts in the hills – some spend a year here, some stay much longer; young lads in monk’s clothes conscripted into Lord Buddha’s army.

Life revolves around prayers and tantric rituals whose ultimate goal is ‘the complete liberation of all sentient beings’, which, if you’re a fifteen year old lad from Gangtok, may not be the destination of choice. The poor sods start their day at 5.00 a.m., devoting early morning to memorization of the ritual texts of the Karma Kagyu. There are thirty-six sets of texts that must be memorized, some quite long and difficult. Each student is tested on the previous day's material by the scripture teacher, who confers a seal for each text that has been successfully memorized. Just like the Boy Scouts.

The only badge I ever earned in the Boy Scouts was one for masturbation. I’m not sure how they deal with that particular issue in Lindum Monastery. But I digress.

After breakfast at 7.30, and again after lunch, younger students study Tibetan, English, writing, and spelling; late afternoon is devoted to memorizing more texts and after dinner, the students return to their rooms and study. It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me. Add to that the endless rituals, celebrations, pujas and prayers – you have a life of excruciating dullness for a boy.

So when an old foreigner wanders vaguely by, when the tourist smiles his crinkled mongrel smile, all eyes are upon him. He’s the best thing that’s happened to them all day. As a matter of fact, he’s the only thing that has happened all day not governed by ritual, tradition and a timetable. He’s met by sixty impish smiles and a wave from the monks out of their tutor’s eyeshot. Doggy wiggles his head. Sixty shaven heads wiggle back.

And when this apparition takes out his camera and they see that little red light winking and blinking as they waltz by those impish monks can’t help but show off.

It is the way of young lads – monk’s habit or no.

This ritual dance was, at its core, a trance. The ceremony involved them turning in their own individual circles while moving slowly round the quadrangle as part of one big circle. That was difficult enough. Some of the lads had decided to increase their degree of difficulty; they were attempting a little trance dance of their own. These naughty boys had their eyes shut and were trying to see how dizzy they could get. This was the closest thing to fun available.

They didn’t really understand what rehearsals were for. Arms had to be held up, cloaks billowing out to approximate the heavy, ornate costumes they would be wearing on the day. They had to imagine they were wearing heavy masks. Some lads found this simulation unnecessary and idiotic. They were being a little creative in their task.

Dogster was a major disturbance. He tried to be invisible but, in his own funny way, he was a Big Foot too. His presence created just the diversion these recalcitrant ballerinas were looking for. Before long a rolling schoolboy hysteria swept through the dancing lads. Some became so preoccupied by their turn in front of the stranger’s camera that they hesitated, held their spot, did an extra twirl or two waiting for the red light of fame to flash and immortalize them on a computer far, far away.

The incoming monks, dancing in their monkish daze, ran into them.

Monks akimbo. The monks behind that ran into them.

The pile-up of giggling monks was so ridiculous, the hopelessness of it all so extravagant that only a curmudgeon could not rejoice in the glorious moment. Dogster laughed. Everybody laughed, even Big Foot. We all had no choice.

But maybe it was time for Dog to go.

With hand on heart and an extravagant bow to Big Foot, I thanked the masses and waved. Everybody waved back and I exited grandly, having unwittingly shattered the calm of their monastery day.

Dog was like a walking circus. He didn’t mean to be - but a smile, a wave and the best of intentions could cause a monkly stumble, an eremite tumble, a sweet Buddhist fall.

Just a click of his tiny Sony had made a monkey of us all.

‘Tell me about when you slept with the hockey team...?’

“You mean people put that - in there?’

‘The back seat – of a car?’

‘How many people in the same bed?

‘No-o-o-o-o-o!’

Bongo was indefatigable. I was running out of stories. I’d begun to make them up to keep him happy. By the end of my stay in Gangtok I was fully qualified to be a first-rate pornographer.

Bongo’s brother was a monk - another virgin. He lived at Rumtek Monastery. I was surrounded by monasteries full of virgin men. Obviously the Sikkimese reproduce by non-traditional means.

The ‘Shaydrup Kunkhyap Otong Khyilway Tsuklakhang’ or ‘Temple of Pervasive Teaching and Practice Blazing with a Thousand Lights’ isn’t very old. The complex was only completed in 1966. The remote, peaceful site was carefully chosen; it was a mother-lode of auspicious signs - seven streams flowed towards it, seven hills faced it, a mountain rose behind - and a river spiraled like a conch shell down below. Dogster rather liked all that.

We spent a monk’s afternoon at Rumtek Monastery, doing what monks do - which didn’t appear to be very much at all. Maybe it was a monk day off. There sure aren’t many of those.

In addition to daily study and classes, each month the monastic routine includes week-long practices, focused on specific buddhas, deities, protectors, or lineage masters, whose dates are established according to the Tsurphu astrological system, whatever that might be. Monks are pretty busy doing ‘virtuous actions’; one-day practices and prayer ceremonies on the eighth, tenth, fifteenth, twenty-fifth, and thirtieth days of the lunar month – as well as prayers that I simply don’t understand on another six. Then, during the month of miracles, the month of Saga; the fourth day of the sixth month and the twenty-second day of the ninth month they’re at it again. Some months, the practices span two weeks. That’s a lot of praying.

But not today. Rumtek Monastery had shut up shop - everything was closed. Obviously they hadn’t heard that an esteemed white man was about to wheeze his way slowly up that steep, picturesque hill with the seven streams flowing towards it and the seven hills facing, stopping only to breathe heavily and stare blankly at the auspicious mountain behind.

I’d come all this way, trudged up this bloody hill; they might have left at least one door unlocked, just so I could see something - but no, Lord Buddha required a different kind of penance from the luckless Dog.

Why do Buddhists stick their bloody monasteries at the top of great hills? Just to piss me off, that’s why.

Bongo and St. Bongo, his religious brother, were deep in conversation. They kept looking over at me.

‘What? What boys? What are you planning?’

‘He wants a lift to visit his mother,’ Bongo said.

By a strange coincidence, that was Bongo’s mother as well. So that’s how I got to sit in Bongo’s front room drinking sweet milky tea while the family sat in the back garden and gossiped.

Apparently what monks traditionally do on their day off is use the foreigner’s car to go visiting their family, use the foreigner’s car to run errands and pick up their friends, use the foreigner’s money to buy themselves chai - then the foreigner gets to hang around being a pretend monk, which was cool by me. I even got to use the monk’s rest room back at the monastery. After that I didn’t want to be a monk.

Several times that day my Dogmobile overflowed with monks, bags and laughter. We bumped through the hills, delivering monks to monkish places, picking up lost monks on the road, dropping them off, picking up more. They all chattered away in the back of the car, once with one monk sitting pertly on my lap. Life and the Dogster, Sikkim and the mountains, the monks and the moment all rolled into one. The Dog was a happy puppy that afternoon in Rumtek. He didn’t want much more.

When the last monk had disappeared, after the last blessing had been bestowed, my virgin guide turned to me with a broad Buddhist Bongo smile.

‘Have you had a good day?’

He knew I had. I nodded enthusiastically.

‘Are you happy?’

‘Yup.’

‘Then tell me about the time you had sex with the seven Russian dwarves...’

Perhaps I’d gone too far with my stories.

fin.

Very good.

Bongo won't be able keep this information classified forever you know! Your colorful stories of past escapades will be become folk legend up in those hills. They'll set aside a secret corner of the monestary to pray that one day they too may be blessed with the "many fortunate experiences" as described by Dogster.

Escapades and trysts aside, will you post any pictures???

Dogster,

This one made me laugh out loud. Oh you do tell wonderful tales, always engaging and very visual.

Oh good, NY - I was working for jokes on this one. There weren't too many in the last post; I thought 'balance, balance - everything in balance'. So I tried to put as many as I could in this one. I know my sense of humour is a bit err.. peculiar - so it's good to know it translates.

I think we've had quite enough of Saint Dog for now - it's time for him to reveal himself in his full rounded magnificence as the shameless mongrel he is.

Jaya - I don't think praying for 'fortunate experiences' is part of Buddhist teachings. Err.. quite the reverse. But you never know what these lads are up to behind closed monastery doors.

Nah, no pics - I'm trying to make them with words, it's more fun. And I don't want to identify these guys. When I get round to posting the 'Sour' of the title you'll see why.

i am confused .....who is the 3rd person relating this tale??

He doesn't want me to tell.

Somehow I didn't even picture you carrying a camera but your photos are sure not to bore!

Moremiles,
He made references to his camera in Maheshwar and Varanasi, hence the request for pictures.

Dogster,
I think they pray to, among other things, ward OFF the interest in fortunate experiences. Afterall, people are people and the mind does wander - even up in the monestary!

The mind is not the only thing that wanders in the monastery. (at least not at Hemis, in Leh.)

Thanks for the vivid--but not as vivid as they could be, thankfully--word pictures. I'm seeing this one in bright primary color enamels, whereas the last was a Daumier.

Oh I do love a Dogster story - what a great way to start my Sunday morning.

Thank you as usual.

Dogster, as I commented in your other thread, if you are not already getting paid to write, you should be!

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and smiled broadly all the way through. My husband grew up as a young monk in a Tibetan monastery and I, too, have had the pleasure of hanging out with the monks and driving them around to do errands. Your "Buddhist Hogwarts" description had me laughing so loud - it's perfect! :D

And from my experience, I'm almost certain that your Bongo has shared those naughty tales with his monk brother and the stories are spreading through the 'Buddhist Hogwarts' like an errant magic spell. ;) (You wouldn't believe the questions I have heard from those innocent monks...)

Thank you for the amusing and delightful story. I would love to see your photos - I'm guessing they are as good as your stories.

Tashi Delek!

Thank you my seven loyal friends. lol. When I put these stories in here I get much more than praise [and occasional abuse] I get to learn lots about what you pick up up on, how far I can go, what voice I can speak in, how long I can go for... lots of good writerly stuff. I'm learning.

Vulgar tho' it might seem, the issue of just what these monklets are doing with their perfectly natural urges is one of some consequence - to them, certainly. lol. Was I a corrupting influence.. heh - I suspect not. Bongo, as I forgot to mention in the story, was thirty-five years old. He was a grown-up.

I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only one to have observed Close Encounters of a monkly Kind happening in the corners. Thanks Amy: your colour thing is perfect. Yup, think Tibetan Buddhist temples, primary red, gold and maroon, bright orange, yellow and green.

travel - It's a mysterious, cloistered world that your husband emerged from. I'd love to quiz him. I'm still finding out about it, layer by layer by layer. Yup, I'm sure they huddle and talk dirty - what group of yound men doesn't? That's the conundrum. Glad you liked 'Hogwarts' - I think it's accurate too.

So thanks, guys, again. You have no idea what a blessing your comments are. I read - get a blessing - then go write. Your words are recket fuel. I'm a lucky guy.

What you don't know, probably, is that, despite the fact that I don't know you, what you look like [mostly] whether you're male or female, old, young, green, fat or thin - I hear your voices in your responses - so, when I write, I feel like I'm writing to YOU.

This is a great help. So thank you.

Dogster, you're such a charmer and a tease, and I doubt this is your first foray into writing.

I really liked the Hoogli story when you told the woman on the boat how everyone was admiring her muu-muus. You can't beat a good prank.

It's true - I am a charmer and a tease. Hence my huge success in the cot. lol lol lol.

Remember, I was making those stories UP for Bongo. I am but an innocent child.

But go back Jaya, to Dogster: Bhutan? or The Great Stumble Forward and you'll see me learning how to write. Some of that prose is dreadful - lol - but I'm learning. I've rewritten a lot of that. Some I've left. The thing in here is that you get instant feedback. That propels you on.

An innocent child? Hmm...nice try, but that's probably pushing it.

IMO Dogster has lived his dog years well in order to accumulate such a wealth of knowledge from whence to draw such lurid and colorful tales of vigor and prowess!

I will look back for your earlier postings. It would be a nice surprise to find stories I haven't read yet.

Until later. :)

I just found your postings (Bhutan and the Great Stumble) that pre-date my joining on to Fodor's.

I'll be in dog reading heaven and will offer up some comments when I'm done.

Hey, dogster, this was a delightful little side trip - thanks. I had to refrain from reading your story until I'd finished my trip report otherwise I feared I'd never get it done.

I also laughed at the Buddhist Hogwarts - so apt.

We may all be in danger of becoming your next lot of “Bongos” hanging on your every word and calling for more, more, more! Just a slightly different content needed here.

Imagine the stories that are now going around that monk's community about the big foreign dog who came to their dance practice and redesigned it to something wholly better and more fun. It must be a great show now!

Also image how quickly the “tales of Dogster” are spreading across the world from Fodors.

My knowledge of hands-on experience is unfortunately of the personal variety. I was dressed like my Quaker grandmother. I hadn't been propositioned more than two or three times in the past few weeks, and that had included a lot of India. I'm 43. None of this was enough to keep a red robed nose ringed monk from putting his hands places where they didn't belong. I yelled and left fast, but it was unnerving to say the least.

I suppose that karma knows I'm far too fond of irony for my own good.

I just got through your Bhutan report. The writing style is definitely "early Dogster", but impressive none the less.

Your experience could be re-shaped into a creepy movie if you had stayed on course and gone deeper into the hills! One of you, two of them, far from HELP - getting goose bumps just thinking about it.

Dogster thanks once again for your incredible writings.
Kathie maybe that is why I haven't started writing anything about Bhutan I read reports by the likes of Dog & yourself & think "I just can't do it!!!"
J

Hello Dogster,
just logged on to fodors in Franschhoek,South Africa, and there was another great posting from The Dog, you'd be in good company here they have an Anatolian ?? something or other. Now half way through the latest posting but will save the rest for later with a glass or two of some fine Sauvignon Blanc, off to taste a few more bottles just now,...I hope there isn't a gpanda lurking on the Africa board or I may be in trouble for not posting a report while I travel, I should have been in India for this trip, I was hoping...but never mind here is ok too.

More great comments. I'm grateful. I know this story isn't as gut-wrenching as Varanasi so I didn't expect much response. I was going to go much further in this piece - cos, like Amy, the adventure didn't quite end there... there's a missing ending. Heh. Amy's on track.

Well, two of them actually.

But I didn't want to offend, thinking that prurient chapters about randy monks were perhaps not quite Fodor's material. But Bongo's brother turned about to be quite a little root-rat - in his own monkly way. I really do think that the missing sequence would be inappropriate for here.

But I can offer you the second half of this story. Not the rude bit. I'm just not sure whether to put it in here or a separate post.

Mary W: if ONLY they'd let me stage their show. I coulda got those monklets working. I wonder just how much of my rambling gets out there. I think it's really just us ten or so.. you are so staunch and kind.

Jaya: so, you see, the writing gets better as you read thru, eh? Well, I hope. It kicks in around Goa and the cruise to nowhere. But all that Great Stumble Forward was absolutely first draft stuff. It gets refined now before I post. You'll find the other Varanasi post in there too. Bruno the dog.

Jules39: write it. I want to read everything 'cos you went with the very guys who ruined my trip if I remember correctly.

And remember jules - if you hadn't asked me that question: Dogster: Bhutan? NONE of this would have happened. It was thru that post I realised I could do this stuff. I owe you, jules.

Kathie: yup, I knew you were head down, pen up - so thanks for making the time. Great stuff in your report.

South Africa eh, twotravel? excellent. Doggie has done many trips to S.A. Love it. AND that fabulous wine! Ahhhh - raise a glass to the Dog eh?

I'm feeling that I should just bung the second part in here. What do you think? That'll give you the 'Sour' of the title.

And sour it certainly is. No jokes.

Mmm - I'm in the mood. This piece follows on. It's the same Bongo.

You've had 'Sweet' now here's 'Sour'.

The helicopter was always going to happen. I knew it, he knew it, everybody watching knew it – but first there was a little ceremony to go through.

‘Oh, no, sir,’ he said, shaking his serious face.

Here we go.

‘Oh, no – it’s not possible, sir. I can’t let you on the helicopter without a permit, sir.’

I feigned shock and horror.

I had the ticket; the reservation was secure; the Dogster seat, one of only five, already engraved with my name. I had it all – except for permission to enter Sikkim. My travel agent had brilliantly arranged for me to pick that up in Gangtok – the only minor problem being that, in order to get to Gangtok, I had to enter Sikkim.

What to do?

Wiggle your head and wait.

I remained placid throughout, took the ‘well, I’ll just sit here on my luggage and wait for this to sort itself out,’ attitude – as opposed to the ‘argh-h-h, what a crisis! I’m going to die, let me kill you,’ approach.

I’m learning.

Having danced that unnecessary quadrille, our attention immediately moved to blame. Well, it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t his. Blame lay with the idiot travel agent that had placed us both in this situation. We would have to torture her.

This we did by mobile phone.

‘You remember that Sikkimese permit you arranged...?

I looked at the helicopter man. He looked at me.

‘The one I had to pick up in Gangtok...?

After she’d calmed down I passed the phone over and let him do the torturing. I’d had my fun. They chattered then argued then shouted in Hindi while I sat down on my suitcase. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to sit here till I died. Of course, after a flurry of calls between my weeping agent and some official in Sikkim, the helicopter man relented as he and I always knew he would. Such little consternations happen hourly in India.

We helicoptered up and over plains then hills and valleys, the Dogster like an over-excited school-boy in a cabin with four terrified businessmen. I was the designated tourist and happy to be so – I’ve given up being cool when I’m happy. These moments don’t come around all that often. Dog was having fun.

Mrrrroo-o-o-owww - zooming down the valleys, mroooo-o-o-o, thwack, thwack, thwack!

Doggy loves a helicopter.

Da Da Da da dee, Da da da Duhhh!

‘Apocalypse Now’, he thought excitedly, ‘Apocalypse Now’.

Across the valley the fairyland lights of Gangtok twinkled into space. I ended up in a tiny village not far from Rumtek, about an hour out of town. From next door came bursts of loud, crazy laughter. There was something about this laughter that just didn’t sound right. I went to see. A man sat in front of the television in the lounge, roaring with way too much mirth.

Tipp was a handsome Sikkimese in his late thirties, full of life and energy. He’d lived many years in America. His English was excellent. That was a relief. Dog had grown tired of talking about big ideas in words of one syllable. He needed some decent conversation. So did my host.

‘Man energy’ he called it. ‘Gotta get myself some man energy. This female stuff is driving me wild.’

It was the laughter that alerted me that something was wrong, that horrible, desperate sound. Tipp sat there roaring but he wasn’t really laughing at the television - not at all. Tipp was howling to the moon, he was screaming for help. Laughter was the only loud sound he could make.

‘I’m fine! Look at me! I’m laughing – nothing gets to me! I’m fine! I’m fine, I’m laughing! I’m fine,’ he was screaming. It was terrible, awful to hear.

Here was a man who needed a pal. I was the only guest; looks like it was my turn. This was a moment to listen.

Dog had time; he had all the time in the world to listen these days - as long as he remembered not to judge. This was Dogster’s karmic burden, his little repayment for all those ugly years when he judged and never listened. So he listened. He listened into the cold Sikkim night, he listened over dinner, listened over bottles of warm Sikkim beer as Tipp told the story of Tipp’s life up till now, with pauses for pisses and words to the staff – all gathered silently in the kitchen listening to every syllable their boss had to say.

‘I’m fine,’ he said loudly, so the staff would hear, ‘I don’t care.’

I could see his eyes. They said something completely different.

Tipp was a man in the throes of divorce. He and his European wife had reached the end of their tether. He had retreated to his tower of power down in the cowshed, she to her cocoon of rage in town. They tortured each other; she cried a lot while he pretended not to care – which is the worst torture of all. There were just two little problems. One was the hotel in which I now slept. The other was their eight year old daughter.

That child was trapped in the midst of an ugly situation. Mummy was saying very nasty things about Daddy. When the little girl was with Daddy, she told him. So then Daddy said bad things about Mummy and the little girl went home to Mummy and told her everything that Daddy had said then Mummy said bad things about Daddy: so it went on – everybody was getting hurt.

Daddy was trapped in the resort, not daring to step outside for fear of his wife swooping in and changing all the locks. He wasn’t going anywhere, staying put for the duration, doubtless advised to do so by his lawyers. He lived in the cowshed with the law on his side – not because he was necessarily right, but just because he was Sikkimese.

Mummy was trapped on a mountainside in rural Sikkim, six hours drive from the nearest airport. She had a bewildered eight year old and a staff of twelve depending on her. She was the only white woman in a culture with very different ideas about the role of women. She was all alone, she was foreign. She didn’t have anybody to talk to - not a soul.

The staff looked on in horror while their bosses duked it out. They were mortified, aghast in every way; for the daughter, for the protagonists – but, more urgently, for themselves and their livelihoods, their families – trapped in the wars of the owners; waiting and watching while the echoes from this conflict rumbled right through the valley.

Into all this Mr. Dogster blithely flew, choppered direct to the battle zone. Had I known what I diving into, I would have had the pilot play ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and be done with it.