Nolunna - Part 2

I have reread my posts about Nolunna and I am not satisfied. It was a very intense experience which I am finding it hard to describe. Since the Hindi instruction was truncated just as I was beginning to get the hang of simple communication, it is going to take me some time to see what I have salvaged from the Hindi experience. Whatever that turns out to be, the human experience makes the time I spent there memorable and valuable.

As I have said before, the Ganges Valley at Nolunna is very narrow. The buildings are built close to the road and form a wall on one side as the ground is dropping down to the river. On the other side the mountain rises very steeply. Nolunna is in a curve of the river so from the property, I could not see either up or down the river. In one of the dictionaries that I was using I came across the word "inspissated" which means "concentrated" as in "concentrated mango juice." The experience at Nolunna was very inspissated. First of all there is Yogendra, my teacher. He lives in Australia most of the year, but usually comes to India in December/January and July/August and teaches here. He has owned the property on the Ganges for at least ten years, I think, and has become a figure in the life of the villages surrounding him. He also has much more responsibility for his employees than an employer has in the United States. It is a semi-familial relationship. Also, since Nolunna is shut up for much of the year, there is always maintenance work to do on the buildings and property. In addition to this, he has family responsibilities in his family village outside of Delhi which he takes care of when he is in India. Anna, the other student, and I, became interested in and concerned about many of these responsibilities so there was always something to talk about at mealtime.

Then there was the staff. Devindra, his brother Budri, and his niece and nephew Rajma and Hansmukh, all came from the same village a two hours walk on the other side of the river. Anil, who served as a teaching assistant and gave us conversation lessons, was also the main contact with Uttarkashi which was our contact with the outside world. Devindra was in charge of the staff and was the chief cook. He made amazing vegetables. Nothing was fancy. He fried them in a little oil, added a few simple spices and steamed them. They were amazing. While we were there, Budri built an outside clay stove in an open sided hut that faced the river. The first time it was used we had khari (from which the word "curry" comes). Khari is made of lentil flour and yogurt with a few spices and vegetables added. It takes a long time to cook and we all took turns stirring. With it, Devindra made thick chapattis by hand, without rolling them out. They were great. It was wonderful to sit at the table facing the Ganges and eat delicious food. While the food was being prepared, Devindra played the harmonium and sang Garwahli songs accompanied by Anil on a drum.

There were frequently Garwahli song fests either before or after supper, with Rajma sometimes singing, and everyone joining in on percussion.

One evening out by the clay stove we had jackfruit for which I have not yet acquired a taste. It is in season now and it is in all the markets, big, green and prickly.

Rajma was the only woman there. She is about 14 and she started high school while we were there so there was an expedition to Rishikesh to buy her a school uniform and books. Yogendra bought her brother shoes. Her brother, Hansmukh, can neither hear nor speak, but he has a very expressive face and has a repertory of idiosyncratic signs with which he communicates very well. He would often come and talk when Anna and I were sitting out on the veranda in front of her rooms. All of the staff would pass by from time to time, and the others would speak to us in Hindi which was very helpful.

Well, I'm still unsatisfied with this blog. The remoteness, the vitality, the strong sense of village life, the power of the Ganges, all of this is left out. One afternoon, Anil gave me my conversation lesson while we sat next to the Ganges. He said, in simple Hindi, that at the source, Gomukh, the Ganges is a baby, when it skips by us at Nolunna it is a child, at Rishikesh it enters puberty and reaches adulthood at Hardiwar, as it crosses the plains it matures until it reaches old age at Calcutta and finally dies into the ocean. It is a sense of powerful, childlike beginnings that I am left with when I think of Nolunna.