Castle of the Wild Bees 1

                                       “When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.”
                                                                                                  Ramakrishna



The road was held together with flocks of goats and serpentine curves. Thirty cents had bought us an hour and a half of coiled vertigo. The bus driver threw in the bananas for free, and finally dropped us at the bottom of a hill, just past the sign.
Population 507 Souls.
Surrounded by glaciers and razor-thin waterfalls on three sides, the town spread out like the leaf of a pipal tree, unfolded on the slope of Han peak. We hoisted our packs, and began the long climb to the imposing medieval citadel cantilevered off the cliff above us, effortlessly hanging in the morning Himalayan air. We passed a whitewashed barn, decorated with rows of circular cow patties stuck on its walls- fuel, furnishing, and function. The white uniformed brown servant who met us at the top was named Madhukar. He told us that he spoke only Hindi. In perfect English.
“Is this Naggar Castle?” Julie asked. Head bobble.
On the other side of Naggar River, in the 13th century, a powerful ruler with a reputation for cupidity and stupidity, had built and fortified his royal residence of Gardhak. On the advice of his wazir, Rana Bhosal had also buried his own queen along the watercourse, to ensure a continuous supply of irrigation for his rice fields. She had been alive at the time of her presumed reluctant interment, but clearly not a favorite of the wazir. In 1460 AD the Raja Sidh Singh, had the stones from Rana Bhosal’s palace passed hand to hand, through a chain of human laborers across the river to the current site of Naggar Castle. His view of the Valley of the Gods and snow-laden peaks was still staggering.
When the Chinese pilgrim monk Xuanzang came through the surrounding mountain passes in 635 AD, his route followed a series of meditation caves, into a fertile valley of gold and silver, and red copper and crystal lenses. He entered a green idyll of twenty Buddhist monasteries, fifteen Hindu temples, and mixed devotees who lived together in harmony.
Madhukar showed us to our rooms- gigantic rooms with adze-carved ceiling beams, sloping floors, priceless Victorian furniture, gingerbread beds, and a verandah with red scalloped Moghul-curve carved portals, projecting wooden brackets, and one of the most spectacular panoramas in the world.
In the attached dining room a large antique glass chandelier hung pendulously over a huge oaken table, surrounded, on the wallpaper, by a herd of gazelle head trophies. A fireplace sat in one corner of the room and in another, Alan and Adera, two Kiwi hikers who, although exuberantly friendly towards us, didn’t seem to have much to say to each other. We arranged to meet them later for dinner.
Julie wandered off to check out the new neighborhood, and Robyn and I stretched out over our gingerbread bed, and a quiet game of Scrabble. It was all so absurdly romantic.
He came in through the window on a triple word score. Robyn and I looked at each other. The intruder spoke.
“A very good afternoon, Sahib.” He said. “Perhaps you may be wishing to purchase some ganja?” We looked at each other again. The balcony was suspended in space, several thousand feet above the valley floor. In harmony, our interloper levitated imperceptibly above the sloping floor.
“It is only of the very highest quality.” He assured us. It seemed credible. I asked him how he got up here, to the side of the castle suspended in the air. He only giggled, and head bobbled, and giggled again. I looked back at Robyn, and reached into my Kashmiri pouch. A commodity like that, it just doesn’t float through the window every day. He left through the dining room, counting his rupees.
Madhukar, his white uniform a little worse for the day, was already serving Alan and Adera, when we finally entered the dining room around seven thirty. They had spent the afternoon summiting most of the peaks around the valley, but we had climbed higher. Both groups had healthy appetites for Madhukar’s dhal and rice and veg curry. Halfway through the trifle, the chandelier began to swing. Everyone looked up from the custard. I looked to Madhukar.
“Is that an earthquake?” Robyn asked. Head bobble.
“Are we safe?” Asked Julie. Head bobble.
“Does this happen very often?” Alan inquired. Head bobble.
“Jesus, man, say something. Are we in danger?” I asked. Everyone was keenly aware that we were hanging off a cliff, conspicuous in the extreme to the unforgiving gravitational forces of the planet. Madhukar’s lips finally moved, in English.
“No problem.” He bobbled. “Naggar Castle five hundred years old. Many earthquakes. Naggar town flattened.” He moved his hand across the scene, palm down. “But Naggar Castle, no problem.”
I learned much later how right he was. And why. There had been a mighty and disastrous earthquake in 1905. Naggar town was destroyed. Naggar Castle didn’t move. The reason lay in its local architectural construction style, an antiseismic technique known as kathkooni. Stone layers were punctuated with long pieces of cut wood, ensuring a lot of resilience in the structure. It rose, to be topped by a grey slate roof. But it never fell.
The wooden carvings in its walls were no less exquisite than the wooden carvings within its walls. Every evening, the temple bells around Naggar tolled the music of compassion, peace and brotherhood, unrestrained. Later, tucked in our gingerbread beds, we watched the shooting stars, through the Moghul holes in the verandah.