Serendipity and Nepali Aama

            At the recent Association of Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS) conference at Yale University, I had a good fortune of meeting someone by great serendipity. After I gave my presentation, I received helpful comments from Carole McGranahan of University of Colorado, Boulder. Later, we began talking as we walked to the lunch hall and she introduced me to a gentleman. He had served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal in the 1970s. Whenever I hear that someone was in the Peace Corps or somebody mentions Peace Corps in any conversation, I have a story that I have been telling for many, many years.

            When I was growing up in Kathmandu, maybe when I was about 10 or 12 years old, my mom by chance brought home a copy of a publication made by the United States Embassy in Kathmandu. The magazine was printed on glossy paper, unlike most others published in Nepal, and it included a number of interesting articles written or translated in Nepali as well as many color photographs. I remember reading the magazine cover-to-cover and learning a little bit about American political system and whatever the news was at the time.

            One particular article specially stuck my imagination and it has been imprinted in my memory ever since. It was a story written by an American man who had come to Nepal with the Peace Corps and settled in the home of an old Nepali woman somewhere in a remote village. He called her his Aama, which means mother in Nepali. The article described how, after he was done with the Peace Corps, the man brought his Nepali Aama for a visit to America. I remember being fascinated by the experiences of a woman from another generation and a far-away country of Nepal as she faced the modern sights, sounds and interactions in the United States of America. Especially, interesting and memorable was the fact that the old lady found spiritual and religious messages and motifs in many of the day-to-day American experiences. While most of the details of the story had been forgotten, I remembered vividly the fact that the old lady believed that the water fountains that she saw somewhere in America must be imbued with godly powers and she prayed at the water fountains. Thus, the powerful memory of reading that memorable story in my childhood has been my stock narrative whenever a topic of conversation touches on the Peace Corps.

            And so it was when Carol introduced me to Broughton Coburn; I related them my story. I also wondered if either of them knew of that story. That magazine had been lost long time ago and I never learned what happened afterwards with either the writer or the charming Nepali Aamai. Mr. Coburn listened intently and corrected my last detail. He said they were not water-fountains in DC or New York, but it at the geysers of the Yellowstone Park. He also explained how Aama began praying at the natural wonder of the geysers. Even then, it took me a few additional minutes to realize that it was Broughton Colburn, the gentleman standing right in front of me, who was the author of that article and the man we who had brought his Nepali Aama for a visit to America in the 1990s. I finally realized the fact, which helped solve the unresolved mystery from my childhood and it felt like I was meeting an idol, a little like meeting the Beatles! I was lucky in the next two days to have some moments when I could talk again with Brot, as I later learned he was called, about his experiences in Nepal and the books on Nepali Aama he had written. I loved hearing his perfect Nepali accent!     

(Photo Courtesy: Broughton Coburn's Website ~
http://www.broughtoncoburn.com/aamas-message.html)

            
           Since the conference I've had a chance to visit Brot’s website to learn more about his work. I learned that he published two books about Nepali Aama, her visit to America and the meaning that experience provided him in his life. I learned that since then Brot has been working to bring Aama’s message of peace and spirituality in more than a 100 presentations in various universities andinstitutions around America. Along his interests on Nepal, he has also written best-selling books on Everest and the Himalaya. I watched the following video of a presentation that Brot had given, which formed the only surviving piece of a possible PBS documentary that never came to fruition.

            What a mesmerizing picture that we get from Nepali Aama’s images and expressions in this short, seven-minute clip. As Brot explains even at the age of eighty-four, Aama was eager for her pilgrimage to this land beyond the oceans, a world away from her little village in Nepal.  She opened her arms to all sorts of experiences and seems to have thoroughly enjoyed America. It is heartening to see her at a Las Vegas explaining how the conventionally garish arts and the sculptures at Caesars Palace must be part of some temple or a religious movement. The same honesty of her views is seen in her experiences of kissing the dolphin. Later, we see her explaining that the dolphin could not have been real. For a person from a landlocked nation mere imagination of such a creature as as trained fish is impossible and thus she resorts to a very probable explanation of a mechanical being used to amuse visitors. I appreciated Brot and Didi’s resourcefulness in using a booster seat to allow Aama the thrill of a proper American road trip, so she could better enjoy the views from the windows of their station wagon. The picture of her on the backseat of a Harley is priceless!

            And finally there was the image from my childhood, till imprinted on my mind: Aama watching the Yellowstone geysers along with a group of American tourists. As she begins joining her hands in prayer, along with her, the viewer participates in the notion of natural spirituality that so animates Nepali religious culture. Aama is praying at the wonders of nature just like I remember praying at a shapeless boulder near my ancestral home in Panchthar.

            I became sad to hear Brot inform us that Aama died two and a half years later after returning from her pilgrimage to America. But the manner of her death and the words of rememberance and prayer that she spelled out as she lay dying, in front of the Himalayan vista in her house in Syangja, gives us some manner of solace. Just like Brot’s luck in finding a Nepali mother in her, Aama was lucky to have had a son as resourceful and dedicated as Broughton Coburn.

            I am looking forward to reading Brot’s two books on his and his Nepali Aama’s mutual journey.  Yet, even in the last few days, since meeting Brot so serendipitously in New Haven, I have begun to understand and appreciate the universal humanity embodied by Aama, as well as her American son, in their mutual love as well as their appreciation of each other’s countries and peoples.