Book Box | Looking for the snow leopard in a hospital cafeteria
Reading for calm when the world feels overwhelming… What are your rituals - the walks and the tasks you turn to when the world feels heavy?
Dear Reader,
I wake with a sense of unease. The weather has turned, and outside my window I see blue skies and the sun.
But I feel overwhelmed. I must chase an errant electrician who has taken an advance from me and will not take my calls. I must inspect plumbing, choose wood polish, buy water tanks and wires. And I have done none of these things, freezing like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car. What’s worse is the cherry and apricot trees I planted last year have died. It was the weeks of water logging, the man at the nursery said.
But then I step out to walk to the Manali Mission Hospital. My way lies through a pine forest. It is quiet. There is a chill in the air. Sunbeams fall on the path ahead of me, filtering through deodar cedar trees that rise 100 feet into the sky.
There is no one around at this early hour, so I stop for my favourite ritual. I step off the path and up to a cedar tree, a deodar that has stood for centuries. I lean my face against its rough, ancient bark, and the thought flashes: this tree has survived monsoons that would have killed my fragile cherry and apricot trees. Maybe it is more hardy. Its roots are deep, connected to the roots of the trees in the forest around it, holding it together, keeping it secure, the trees together the sentinels of the hillside. I wrap my hands around my tree’s gigantic girth, letting my body fold into it. For an instant, I feel like a child in the forest of The Magic Faraway Tree.
{{/usCountry}}There is no one around at this early hour, so I stop for my favourite ritual. I step off the path and up to a cedar tree, a deodar that has stood for centuries. I lean my face against its rough, ancient bark, and the thought flashes: this tree has survived monsoons that would have killed my fragile cherry and apricot trees. Maybe it is more hardy. Its roots are deep, connected to the roots of the trees in the forest around it, holding it together, keeping it secure, the trees together the sentinels of the hillside. I wrap my hands around my tree’s gigantic girth, letting my body fold into it. For an instant, I feel like a child in the forest of The Magic Faraway Tree.
{{/usCountry}}When I open my eyes, it is almost 8 am - I have dallied too long. I quicken my steps, listening to Peter Mathiessen tell his story in a solemn gravelly baritone in The Snow Leopard.
Mathiessen, like me, is walking in late September, in the pine forests of the Himalayas. His is the classic voyage story. Having lost his wife to cancer, he decides to set out on a trek in the Himalayas towards the remote Crystal Monastery in search of the snow leopard. It’s a surreal almost magical trip and Mathiessen tells it beautifully with wonderful descriptions of the landscape and of the people he meets along the way. Suffused through the narrative is his spiritual search and the philosophy of Buddhism that appeals to him. Mathiessen’s snow leopard is elusive, perhaps even mythical, yet he keeps walking. My snow leopard is more modest: seeking calm amidst the chaos of building a house. But the act of walking, of paying attention, seems to bring both of us closer to what we seek.
The forest opens onto the quiet market square. Shops are still shuttered. Street dogs lie in sun patches. At the Mission Hospital, I enter the cafetaria kiosk and take my place behind the counter. I am helping a friend who has stepped away for a few days. I can smell milk boiling. And then the delicious aroma of aloo parathas frying.
A lady comes with a little boy. He has an IV drip on his arm, and he looks doleful.
“Which biscuit will you choose?” his mother asks. Now he is distracted from his discomfort, looking at the kaleidoscopic colours of the biscuits and savories.
A man comes for porridge, two doctors pause for coffee.
I think of the bookshop cafe books that we have been reading and how comforting they are. Titles like Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop and The Diary of a Bookseller where bookshop cafes offer shelves of comfort reads, with steaming cups of coffee.
My hospital cafeteria has neither books nor ambience, just nimkis, parathas, and packets of chips. And yet, it feels like its own kind of refuge, where strangers share food and fleeting companionship.
Sitting in this little kiosk, handing out cups of tea and porridge is strangely consoling. It feels like calm comes through these small acts of attention - like the protagonist of Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop recommending a book to a customer, or Matthiessen observing the blue sheep on a hillside or attending to a sick child choosing colourful biscuits. Different journeys, different settings, yet the same lesson: solace comes in small ceremonies.
It sounds cheesy to say this I know, but I no longer feel like a solitary sapling, waterlogged by demands. Like the deodars in the forest, I feel rooted in same ground of community and care, as we strangers offer each other moments of connection.
What about you, dear Reader? What are your rituals - the walks and the tasks you turn to when the world feels heavy?
(Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com. The views expressed are personal.)
The books referred to in this edition of Book Box:
The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
The Snow Leopard by Peter Mathiessen
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Blythell
