Arnon Grunberg
PEN Blog

The Nepalese Jungle

It’s hard to explain why exactly, but on December 31 I found myself at a lodge in Chitwan National Park in Nepal. This national park is in the lowlands of Nepal, and I’d expected it to be reasonably warm. But it was rather cold. Dinner was served around an open fire, and the guests—there weren’t too many—were sent to bed with a hot water bottle.

The last time I had gone to bed with a hot water bottle was when I was eight and I had the flu. My mother is a big believer in hot water bottles.

The other guests at the lodge were an elderly American couple and a Nepalese photographer with his wife and son.

None of them were very talkative. There was a guide, an Englishman who did most of the talking. He had worked for many years in Namibia and he could not feel at home in the UK anymore after having spent so many years in the wilderness. Nepal was a refuge for him.

In the late afternoon I had been reading near the open fire. That was really the only place where one could read; the rooms were too cold and dark for reading. And after sunset there wasn’t really much to do in the lodge besides drinking and reading, or having sex perhaps.

I was reading a book by an economist, Joseph Schumpeter, the man who coined the phrase “creative destruction” for capitalism. I thought of writing something about Schumpeter when the English guide approached me. “What are you reading?” he asked. “Ah, I see, nice light reading.”

He definitely had a sense of humor, but at the same time he gave you the feeling that small talk wasn’t his hobby—it was his profession.

He talked for a while about the differences between African and Asian elephants. Finally he ended the conversation with the words, “Ah, dinner is served.”

Since I write a daily column for a Dutch newspaper, I was traveling with a satellite phone (I didn’t expect flawless Wi-Fi in the jungles of Nepal).

For various reasons, I needed to check my e-mail after dinner. It had started drizzling, but in order for my satellite phone to work I had to be out in the open. I found a place on the veranda where I sat with my laptop on a bucket. It looked weird, and compared to even the sleaziest Internet café it wasn’t comfortable, but it worked.

The Nepalese barman came outside and stared at me.

What was he thinking? That I was a spy?

He looked at me the same way I had looked at the elephants and the rhinoceros earlier that day: amused and flabbergasted at the same time.


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