kalu shai

Those of you who know me will be familiar with my tales of teaching English overseas. My first experience was in Nepal.

Those of you may also remember me talking about my funny friend, Kalu. He is the source of most of the mischief and entertaining stories I have from my time in Nepal, and he remains one of the greatest friends of my life.

I still have my journal from my time in Nepal, so I can say with certainty that I first met Kalu on July 31, 2009. Kalu sold tourists over-priced trinkets on the side of a road called Tridevi Sedak in Thamel.

I know exactly what you're thinking, but no – Kalu was a most unusual street merchant. Tourism was down in Kathmandu at the time, and even so, my first impression of him was that of generosity (perhaps a bad trait for a merchant). A willingness to drop the hustle and just be friends.

His first appearance in my journal:

I ended up talking with (Kalu) a great deal. I told him why I was in Nepal and he cut the prices for me, although I certainly still overpaid (but, to be honest, I don't particularly care), and he was extremely nice with me. I asked him about Newari culture and food, and if there was a good Newari restaurant around; he promised to show me if I came back, as I wanted to go back to Gatthaghar. He walked me all the way to the bus, bought me a coke, and even tried to pay for a taxi – but I refused.

Kalu had a wife and two sons. They lived near Asan in Kathmandu, in a single room in an ancient building without electricity or running water. But they had food, a place to sleep, and their kids were always smiling. Kalu was Newari, an ethnic group of the Kathmandu valley. His wife was not – she was of another ethnicity, and they always amused me by emphasizing that their marriage was not arranged. They eloped, against their parents wishes, into what Nepali people would call a "love marriage."

I took the significance they gave this to mean that their marriage was a strong statement of love. In a culture where most relationships are arranged, Kalu was in a minority that defied cultural and social expectations. Not only that, but they had defied racial and caste boundaries.

Suffice it to say, I don't think normal expectations of culture matter much to Kalu. Maybe this is why he was so willing to be my friend.

I was an enthusiastic and curious 22 year old, and this was the first significant time I had spent outside of the United States. Between my teaching duties, I would regularly allow Kalu to drag me around Kathmandu. He showed me the side of Kathmandu that only a local can see.

In my journal, I spend a great deal of time describing the various kinds of Newari cuisines, alcoholic beverages, and girls – I was 22 years old, after all – and our jovial times at a local cafe, owned by a Newar man named Dinesh. I vividly remember Dinesh, who was a dwarf, standing on the table with a broom stick, trying to change the TV channel and yelling at us for being rowdy.

We became a trio with Kalu's nephew, Sanjay. Sanjay was closer to my age and a butcher. I have descriptions of festivals we attended, conversations we had (and are too inappropriate to repeat), and more. I treasure this journal and my time in Nepal.

And to alleviate your concerns – we were behaved. Even in retrospect, I can affirm that we simply had good fun. There was no belligerent intoxication, no blackouts – nothing like that. I summarized this time in my journal, after a night at Dinesh's cafe:

I have repeated this adventure a few more times with Kalu and Sanjay. They are great friends.

This time with Kalu and Sanjay that summer taught me many lessons in life that I have trouble committing to language.

Kalu never asked me for money. He lived in relative poverty with his wife and two children, but he has never asked for money. In fact, as a way to occupy him, I asked him to find authentic thangkas for me to purchase and bring back to the US, for which I gave him a commission. I trusted him to find genuine thangkas and not forgeries. However, in total, he could not have accumulated more than $200 from me. It was not a substantial amount of money considering the time we were together, and he frequently had to suspend our adventures for a day or two in order to work and make money. He wouldn't take my money. I think most people in Kalu's position would have taken advantage of me. He did not.

Kalu wanted dignity. He didn't want charity, he wanted to feel useful and that he had purpose. He knew we were equals, despite relative cultural and economic disparities. One day, we were deep in conversation and to make his point, he slapped my arm and told me, "Our skin is different color, but we have the same blood." We do.

We spent enough time together that Nepal started to feel normal. What people who spend a substantial time overseas, especially in a non-western culture, don't often convey enough: the culture shock is not leaving, it's coming back. Freshly back in the United States, I can remember standing in the cereal aisle in the grocery store and had a panic attack, overwhelmed by the gratuitous variety and wasteful abundance. It not only felt alien, but somewhat vulgar.

I quite hilariously summarized this feeling in my journal:

Being back in Bellingham felt weird. Empty, even. It's difficult to describe. I still feel out of place, and I'm not sure if this feeling will ever go away. In a sense, I hope it doesn't… Things hadn't really changed, except they had.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Kalu really became my best friend during this time, maybe the best friend I will ever have in my life. Following Kalu's defiance of cultural norms, cultural and economic boundaries really do not matter when making connections with other people. Kalu is really like my brother. I had been in Nepal quite a long time before I met him, and I have not many anyone like him, before or since.

I remember the sense of dread as my time in Nepal was coming to an end. It lingered for weeks before hand, the sad realization that this all must come to and end lurked just out of sight. We all knew it was there but didn't have the heart to point it out.

I spent my last day in Nepal with Kalu and Sanjay. Kalu begged me to come back the next year to see him again, and make it a regular occurance. I knew, though, as a student, this would be extremely difficult. Still, I made half-hearted promises, perhaps more to myself. Knowing that I likely wouldn't have money to return the next year, but after I began working – that shouldn't be too long, right?

I left Nepal on September 15, 2009. This is the entry describing the time I left Kalu for the final time:

Kalu found a small bus at Ratnapark for me to get on. It would be faster than a regular bus. And, I must say, that saying goodbye to Kalu and watching him walk away and disappear into the ocean of people in the crowded bus depot nearly brought tears to my eyes – this friend was going back to his life, and I back to mine; and the utter disparity between our lives washed over me. I was sad.

The drive back… was bitter.

I learned this week that this was the last time I will ever see Kalu.

Kalu passed away last month, Feburary 2024, over 14 years since I last saw him in person.

I always promised to return to Nepal, but I never made it. I'm devastated now.

The excuses were easy: I could not get time off work, or I could not find someone to watch my dogs. But now Kalu is gone. The plans we had to reunite – Kalu, Sanjay, and me – to relive that summer in 2009, when life felt so good – well, those will never happen now.

I will regret and hate myself for the rest of my life for allowing time to pass by.

It should not take the death of a friend to remind you of the most sobering, inescapable fact of life: that time is the most scarce resource of all. Kalu showed me that the brutality and inequity of the world could be endured with dignity and humor, that divisions of race, culture, economics, and religion are unimportant to making human connection. That, if you have a loving family, children will smile even when they have materially little, because relationships are a currency that transcends material comforts.

When my own life is spent, I will not be on my death bed wishing that I had spent those nights late at the office, my constant excuse for not going. I will have wished to have had another summer in Nepal with Kalu and Sanjay; or with my wife and kids; with my mother and father. I always knew that intellectually, but now I feel it.

Don't be like me. The people in your life are all that matter.

There is a more subtle lesson, too – for those looking closely, from my time meeting Kalu to the time I departed was only about a month and a half. That's it. That's all the time it takes to build a friendship that changes your life.

The last entry in my journal reads:

This trip has irrecoverably changed the way I look at the human condition, both as a whole and as it is expressed through my tiny existence; and for that I am grateful, wiser, and most of all, humbled.

18 September 2009

Thank you, Kalu. Until we meet again.