Please welcome Kavitha Yaga Buggana author of Walking In Clouds
Kavitha Yaga Buggana will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Walking in Clouds, A Journey To Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar
by Kavitha Yaga Buggana
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GENRE: Travel Memoir, non-fiction
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INTERVIEW:
1. What or who inspired you to start writing?
I’ve dabbled in writing since I was a young girl. I started writing seriously a few years ago. I write to help me get closer to what is true, to understand the world better, to express myself.
2. What elements are necessary components for this genre?
Travel is all about place. A keen eye, the ability to tie in the things you see with the greater social, historical, and economic context of the place and most of all, finding the personal in the external (place, history, society etc.) – these are necessary to write a good travelogue.
For example, in ‘Walking in Clouds’, our group of seven treks through the culturally unique Humla in Nepal and the mountains of Tibet where polyandry is not uncommon, even to this day. Polyandry is when one woman marries several men, and fraternal polyandry is when one woman marries all the brothers in the family. It is useful in those arid areas where large populations cannot be supported. We discover that our cook is a polyandry husband.
Here is the excerpt:
The cook’s marriage scenario has given rise to some jokes. But to the Indians in the group, fraternal polyandry seems less strange.
‘It’s like Draupadi,’ Prarthana [a fellow traveller] points out.
In the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, Princess Draupadi marries all the brothers of the Pandava clan. But Draupadi’s marriage is not the only unusual marital arrangement in Hindu tradition. We have other marriage customs that would seem strange to foreigners. Arranged marriages are still the norm in most of India. In Telugu culture, avunculate marriages and cousin marriages were once common. Some, in the Nair community in Kerala, live in a matriarchal society, where after marriage the husband lives in his sister’s house and sees his wife only for occasional conjugal visits. In the old days, if a Nair woman wanted to spend the night with another man, she could engage in a temporary marriage, called a Sambandam marriage, during which her temporary husband would leave his shoes outside the front door. If the permanent husband happened to visit on that night, he would see the shoes and return to his home.
As my anthropologist great-uncle pointed out, people have invented an astounding range of marital structures.
Given the unique marital practices in India, I thought it best not to chuckle too hard at our cook’s unusual marriage situation. In any case, our reactions have not fazed the cook, who is still delighted about the birth of his son.
3. How did you come up with your idea for your novel?
I did not intend to turn my journey into a book. I did not take any notes and my camera was basic. Still, I could not forget the magnificent beauty of the mountains, the wonder of that unique journey, and the deep faith of the mountain people. So, a year after my trip, I started working on a brief account of the journey using the timetable, journals, and photos of my fellow travelers. The brief account grew into my book, ‘Walking in Clouds’.
4. What expertise did you bring to your writing?
I have taken some online writing courses with Stanford University’s continuing education program. I always been a reader, and that’s always important if you want to be a writer.
5. What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?
I love to travel. Some of my favorite trips have been to Japan, Cambodia, Turkey, Spain, England, and Burma. In addition to my Kailash and Manasarovar trek, I’ve trekked in the Canadian Rockies and in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania. I found the Rockies mountains to be most beautiful mountains in the world – they’re so lovely, they’re almost unreal.
6. As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?
I’m working on a collection of short stories set in India. I hope these will be out 2021 or earlier. After that, I am thinking of writing a murder mystery. I attended a writers’ retreat where everyone turned out to be mystery writers. I love that genre and writing a murder mystery seemed like a lot of fun after the pretty serious stuff I’m usually writing.
7. If you could be one of the characters from this book, who would it be and why?
Everyone on the trek has their own unique qualities – Pallu, her great generosity of spirit, Katy her warmth, Prarthana her humour and vivacity, Jeff his sense of fun and kindness, Sperello his wisdom and dignity. But if I had to choose, I would choose Ying.
Ying, a slight woman from China, now lives in New Jersey and has a bad leg that drags. Still with her formidable mental strength, she woke up every morning, picked up her backpack, and placed one foot in front of the other and on and on till she scaled the most difficult slopes of our trip.
On our snack breaks, Pallu and I saw Ying trudging up the path. Stop a while, we would tell her, take a break. But she would refuse. Her jaw set, her eyes focused on the path, she’d tell us she was afraid to stop even for moment because if she did, she didn’t know if she would have the strength to start again. And despite her exhaustion and the bad leg Ying often carried her heavy camera and photography equipment everywhere for the next great shot.
At the end of the trip, Ying observed that ‘Journey is not about ego … I don’t think it is about competing. If you are not strong enough, so what? It does not matter. If you need help, hire a porter. If you can’t walk, ride a pony. If you can’t go fast, go slow. It is not about being first or being strong or taking it as a challenge. Do the journey however you can do it. Don’t let other people stop you.’
Our guide, Chhiring, told us Ninety percent of the journey is about mental strength. By that metric Ying had always been the most likely of all of us to finish the journey.
8. Can you give us a sneak peek into this book? Excerpt.
8. Can you give us a sneak peek into this book? Excerpt.
In this excerpt, it is the first day of trekking and I am already struggling. My cousin and travel companion, Pallu, as well as Ying, Prarthana and our guide, Chhiring are with me. The others, Jeff, Katy and Sperello, have reached the campsite. It’s already dark and we’re unsure what will happen – the campsite is a long way off.
I see Pallu and Prarthana, trudging slowly down the curved path. The two friends wave at me with their trekking poles. I wait for them to catch up. They don’t ask me what happened, and I don’t tell them. Soon the three of us are walking together, our poles grating as we dig them into the sandy path. Following closely behind are Ying and Chhiring. Ying’s face is grim and her bad leg drags heavily.
Villagers pass by, herding their goats. A few children overtake us and their mothers follow behind. The sun is getting rosy and fat. The waters of the Karnali rumble below us. These are the magical places I had seen from the airplane window. I know everything must look exquisite in the fading light, but I am aware only of how bone-tired I am. With each step, I think about where to put my foot and how to keep my balance. My muscles plead with me to stop. Every now and then, I have to pause, catch my breath, and swallow my panic.
Darkness descends on the mountain. Chhiring turns on his flashlight and I rummage through my backpack for mine. For this trip I had bought two flashlights from the outdoor store. The small square light attached to an elastic band is to be worn around the head so the hands can be kept free. The other is a slim light that also has an ear-piercing whistle for emergencies. But as my hand hunts for them in my backpack, I realise I have forgotten to pack them both. They are likely ensconced in my duffel, and carried safely to the campsite by the yaks.
‘Pallu, do you have your flashlight?’ I ask.
‘No! I guess I left mine in the duffel bag.’
Prarthana? Ying? But the other women have also forgotten theirs. We all have to depend on Chhiring’s flashlight. He walks back and forth illuminating the way for us. We descend the slope slowly, trying to stay close for safety and light.
‘When we reach, the first thing I’m going to do is pack the flashlight in my day bag!’ Pallu says.
When we reach or if we reach? I ask myself.
Minutes later, Chhiring’s flashlight blinks. He shakes it, muttering about the battery. He slaps his palm on the glass, but it’s no use; the light dies. We have no choice now – we begin descending in moonlight. In the distance, camp-lights glow dimly. What a long, long way down to the camp!
As our eyes begin to grow more accustomed to the dark, we become a little more sure-footed. We walk in silence.
If we just keep at it, we might make it, I think.
Just then, a drop of water falls on my cheek.
‘It can’t be!’ Prarthana says, as she looks up at the sky. Seconds later, rain patters down.
‘Oh, man!’ Pallu shakes her head. Ying and I groan.
Chhiring tells us to just keep walking.
No one stops to bring out raincoats. The ground grows slippery in the rain. I hear a small animal scurrying across our path. A mountain rat? A snake? I shiver and wish I could walk faster. With only the moon and the stars to light our way through the muddy path and rain, I am intensely aware of the darkness all around, the precipitous slopes, and the roar of the river raging through the mountains.
9. Do you belong to a critique group? If so how does this help or hinder your writing?
I don’t belong to a critique group, but I do send my work to some writer and reader friends. It does help – they point out important elements and flaws that I might have missed. They’re also encouraging and gentle with their feedback. I’m also working with a wonderful editor, May-Lan Tan, whose suggestions and support are invaluable.
10. When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step?
I started sending my manuscript to agents in 2016. The first one them rejected the manuscript but was open to reading a re-worked manuscript. I worked on the manuscript and sent it to a second agent. It was rejected again, but this time the agents gave some excellent, detailed feedback. I worked on the manuscript again and sent it to an editor at HarperCollins India who I knew. He came back with a yes.
I’m grateful for the ‘Yes’ from HarperCollins, but I’m also grateful for the ‘Nos’. The ‘Nos’ were well-deserved and it was because of them that I polished my work till it shone.
11. Do you outline your books or just start writing?
I just start writing. With the travel book you already know how the journey turns out. With fiction, the story has to be woven into existence. When I start, usually I will have a feeling for the tone of the story, a hunch about the main characters. These nebulous feelings direct my writing. Often, I might have an idea of how a story starts, but I never know how it will end.
12. How do you maintain your creativity?
I write every day; at least I try to. Some days I’m more creative than others.
If I feel I can’t write even a single word, I do a free writing exercise for 10 mins and that often frees up the creative juices.
BLURB:
Will we make it?
That's the question Kavitha and her cousin, Pallu, ask themselves as they trek through Himalayan pine forests and unforgiving mountains in Nepal and Tibet. Their goal: to reach Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar.
The two women walk to ancient monasteries, meditate on freezing slopes, dance on the foothills of Kailash, and confront death in the thin mountain air. In Kailash and Manasarovar, the holiest of Hindu and Buddhist sites, they struggle to reconcile their rationalist views with faith and the beloved myths of their upbringing. Remarkably, it is this journey that helps them discover the meaning of friendship.
Walking in Clouds is a beautifully crafted memoir of a journey to far-away places and a journey to the places within.
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EXCERPT:
Reading 1: Culture of the Himalayan Region – Marriage Practices (about 2.5 minutes)
Pages 90 - 92:
OUR COOK’S WIFE DELIVERED a baby. When Jeff and Sperello congratulate him, he says it is not his baby but his brother’s. We all wonder at the cook’s wide smile as he conveys this news. Chhiring tells us the cook is a polyandry husband.
My mother’s uncle is an anthropologist who, decades ago, worked with Himalayan tribes, among whom polyandry is not uncommon. His research assistant once saw a tribal girl walking with a young child.
‘Lovely boy! Is he your son?’ asked the researcher.
‘No,’ replied the woman, ‘he is my husband.’
By marrying the eldest of several brothers, she had become the wife of all the brothers, including the youngest. This is a form of fraternal polyandry, where all brothers share one wife. Since these barren, rocky lands can support only the sparsest of populations, polyandry is an effective form of population control in a patriarchal system. It is also an economic necessity, as more hands are needed to feed one family.
On another occasion, the intrepid Himalayan researcher was with a group of tribal women when a woman from another village passed them by. After the initial chit-chat, the group of women asked the stranger how many husbands she had.
‘One,’ she replied, eyes downcast.
The villagers could not believe it. Just one husband?
‘Why?’ they asked the stranger. ‘You’re healthy. You are good-looking. How is it you have only one husband?’
The women in the group fell silent as they contemplated the sad fate of a perfectly healthy woman with just one husband.
The cook’s marriage scenario has given rise to some jokes. But to the Indians in the group, fraternal polyandry seems less strange.
‘It’s like Draupadi,’ Prarthana points out.
In the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, Princess Draupadi marries all the brothers of the Pandava clan. But Draupadi’s marriage is not the only unusual marital arrangement in Hindu tradition. We have other marriage customs that would seem strange to foreigners. Arranged marriages are still the norm in most of India. In Telugu culture, avunculate marriages and cousin marriages were once common. Some, in the Nair community in Kerala, live in a matriarchal society, where after marriage the husband lives in his sister’s house and sees his wife only for occasional conjugal visits. In the old days, if a Nair woman wanted to spend the night with another man, she could engage in a temporary marriage, called a Sambandam marriage, during which her temporary husband would leave his shoes outside the front door. If the permanent husband happened to visit on that night, he would see the shoes and return to his home.
As my anthropologist great-uncle pointed out, people have invented an astounding range of marital structures.
Given the unique marital practices in India, I thought it best not to chuckle too hard at our cook’s unusual marriage situation. In any case, our reactions have not fazed the cook, who is still delighted about the birth of his son.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Kavitha Yaga Buggana lives in Hyderabad, India with her husband. They have two children and a very excitable golden retriever.
Her essays and short fiction have been published in The Hindu, River Teeth Journal, Tehelka, Out of Print Magazine, JaggeryLit, and Muse India Magazine. Her travel memoir, Walking in Clouds was released in December 2018 by HarperCollins, India.
In previous avatars, she was a software engineer in Chicago and a developmental economist doing field work in Angallu village, South India.
https://twitter.com/BugganaYaga
https://www.facebook.com/KavithaYagaBugganaAuthor/
https://www.instagram.com/kybuggana/
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE
Kavitha Yaga Buggana will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f3014
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThanks much for hosting Walking in Clouds. I’m looking forward to interacting with your readers. Kavitha Buggana
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Angel's blog. I hope you have a great tour. Allana Angel
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed following the tour for Walking in Clouds and can't wait to check it out. Thanks for sharing all of the great posts along the way :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Victoria!
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