By Sujatha Balasubramanian, published in The Sunday Observer, Aug 22, 1982

It was billed as a flight to enchantment but the prelude to the flight was dismal. The skies have opened up. Cascades of water obliterate the mountains, the undulating valleys, the almost converging lanes, everything. Below the window, there is a lake conjured up in minutes. It doesn’t need the oracle of Kathmandu to predict for any flights enchanted or otherwise. 

Gloomily we went through the ritual of breakfast. Holidays don’t last for ever and rain we have aplenty at home. We try calling the airline. It is Saturday and no one is answering the phone. We ring down for a schedule. Sorry, the airline doesn’t have a schedule. In desperation, the residential number of a top brass of the airline is wrinkled out of the memory of someone down there. Another call. “Our flight to Pokhra –?” “You see the weather out there. No flights today.” “When is the next flight?” “Who knows?” Some people can put across a shrug effortlessly over the wires. 

Nearing noon, the torrent lets up. We wade through the thigh deep water on our way out to lunch. The firemen are out with hoses, pumping out the newly formed lake. Almost like back home, what? We slosh along on what we hope is the pavement. Anything but the air-conditioned isolation that awaits us. We are almost into the airline office before we know where we are. Flight to Pokhra? Vacant stares, almost as if they have never heard of the place. Fighting our way through a horde of caps we reach an oasis. Rudely breaking into a lively conversation on the phone – fight to Pokhra? A suspicious look – you have tickets? We produce the treasured blue pieces of paper. A cursory look. How many of you? Three? A quick call to the airport. Three more for Pokhra. To us, the plane will take off in half an hour. Please ask them to hold on, we plead as we rush out. Taxi to hotel – night things in bag – back to taxi which jumps like a shot deer. The Nepalese taxi driver probably has an edge over his Japanese counterpart. This one gets us to the airport in twenty five minutes. The plane has started turning over. We clamber up the three steps, knock our heads on the doorway and fall into canvas seats. Before the belts are done, the steps are pulled in with us and the Twin Otter moves. 

We buzz in and out between the mountains like a fly. A vista out of this world, a landscape that stands for timelessness and grandeur. Where is the place for fear when the mind is filled with awe? The eyes feast while the mind goes blank and forty minutes pass in a trice. The sun is about to set as the plane touches down on a grassy clearing.

At a quarter to five we are up, muffled in woollens and out in the open for the most wondrous sight in the world. The darkness turns to a faint orange glow and soon the mountains are outlined in blushing pinks and salmons, all the pastel dawn colours that one could ever hope to see at one time. Soon the mountains are there, almost as if within hailing distance, Mache Puchre and the three Annapoornas and all the others bathed in a golden radiance. The sky improvises a fresh symphony of colours every minute. We stand and watch feeling the rightness of the place and time. 

Its time to leave and with the city-bred discipline, we go across to the airport to get our tickets confirmed for the return flight. The morning flight has already left and the man behind the counter assures us that we will be put on the next one at eleven. Visions of the scores of tourists we encounter at the hotel trying to fit into the dozen seats of the midget plane! We decide to stay put at the airport and stake our claim first. The clerk nonchalantly stamps our tickets and we pass through. The airport consists of an ancient Banyan tree with a generous stone platform built around it. This doubles up as a departure lounge, arrival hall and also of course as the visitors gallery. The little adjunct of a shed is disdained by all self-respecting Nepalese. There appears to be an assortment of travellers on this day. About twenty people in all kinds of attire, children of various sizes and shapes, a stray cow and a couple of dogs.    

A stranger who shares the platform with us assures us that the cow and the dogs are definitely not going on the plane and neither are most of the people sitting around. This also happens to be the village square. He also assures us that the plane will arrive eventually though it has been known not to come for three or four days at a stretch. Recollecting the weather at Kathmandu, we begin to pray. Lunch time has come and gone long ago. The man with the barrow of apples does himself proud. At a rupee a piece for the small green ones, this is la dolce vita. 

People and animals amble along the grassy clearing which is the airstrip. We strain our eyes gazing up at the horizon. At last the mote up there turns out to be an aircraft after all. A whistle sounds, the airstrip is cleared and the little one makes a gentle hop and skip and taxis up. We grab our bags and rush up as the steps are lowered. Kathmandu? Sorry this one is going to Bhairava. Back again to the banyan tree our refuge. The cow sniffs disdainfully at the apple core we offer. A breeze settles in the valley. We look at the mountains. What does an hour or a day matter? Time is of no essence.

A sudden keening sound, screams and abuses and everyone rushes to investigate. They are gathered around a form on the floor of the shed, at least five of them. The form writhes and moans, screams a string of choice American obscenities as they try to restrain the flailing limbs. We cannot see her face. “Leave me alone, get away all of you –––––” What business have we there, watching a soul in torment? Two of them quickly light a spirit stove which they take from a cloth bag and boil water. The needle is pushed in and the moans die into whimpers and then oblivion.

Perhaps, demons also sometimes lurk where the gods walk.