Rhythms of a Himalayan Village

Rating:
Summary: universal rhythms
Review: I read this book many years ago, about the time it was published and I was finally leaving Nepal after three years in the Peace Corps. My copy is long lost after too many moves but I have never forgotten the feeling I had for Hugh Downs book, and the spirit of the village of Thubten Choling in which he lived. In recent years, I've borrowed a copy on treks that I've led through Nepal, and read a chapter to the group every night after dinner. It was obvious to me that I was not the only one that Hugh Downs touched with this very personal work. High Downs spent several years in the village of Thubten Choling, in Northeastern Nepal. In distance it lies very near the Everest trekking route on which thousands of trekkers slowly wend their way every trekking season. For the years that Hugh lived and studied there, it was vastly removed in time from these lines of tourists their minds set on the glories of Everest, oblivious of this tiny village off the trail. Chapter by chapter, Hugh Downs recounts the passing of the seasons in Thubten Choling, the Bhuddist scholars and artists that were his teachers, farmers that planted and tilled their fields, births and deaths of neighbors, funerals and weddings, smiles and sadness. The black and white photos he has taken are not just an eye catching addition,and nor were they taken merely for visual drama. They are an integral element of Hugh's life and experience in that village, no less than his writing. they are all part of the rhythm of a Himalayan village that Hugh voices so warmly and genuinely, that any reader must feel it too. Rhythms of a Himalayan village is both a beautiful and accurate title for Mr. downs book. to mistake it for something meant for scholars of Bhuddism or students of anthropology would be a great mistake. It is imbued though every line and every photograph with such a personal warmth, it becomes, seemingly without ambition, a book for anyone who quests to touch the human spirit.